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Agreed, I have generally avoided systemd as I don't feel it's fully baked yet (not trying to start a flame war, that is just my experience and I'm sure it's fin

Agreed, I have generally avoided systemd as I don't feel it's fully baked yet (not trying to start a flame war, that is just my experience and I'm sure it's fine for others). Still, I need to really learn it both for when I am ready to use it daily and just to have it in my wheelhouse for supporting others. A guide like this seems like a great way to go "hands on" without spinning up an instance and fumbling through it blindly. Hopefully this guide will stay up to date given the "move fast, break things, wontfix" approach the systemd authors currently have with the project.

Foxboron 5y ago
>Hopefully this guide will stay up to date given the "move fast, break things, wontfix" approach the systemd authors currently have with the project. The core dependency principles around targets, services and startup does not see a lot of change, so this concern is not really realistic. You'll see more of this around the supporting utilities (networkd, resolved, and so on).
Klasiaster 5y ago
It's on version 250. How many stable releases do you need to feel that it is "fully baked"? The software is of course evolving and new features are added but breaking changes are rare.
- guywhocodes 5y ago
  The number doesn't mean anything really, give me the access control and we can have a thousands times more in a week.
  - Klasiaster 5y ago
    The number has a meaning because it is the result of the release process at the end of a development cycle
    - guywhocodes 5y ago
      That will still be true when I take it to 250,000. The development cycle will just be shorter
peterangular 5y ago
When you admit to needing to learn something in the same breath as throwing shade it completely undermines the shade you were trying to throw.
- saurik 5y ago
  That doesn't follow. If anything, I would expect knowing, for practical reasons, you have to learn something you think is dumb would make you even more angry about it, not less... or, maybe, you just believe something being either popular or common means it must be good? :(
  - throwawaysysd 5y ago
    That doesn't seem very practical. Viewing something as dumb before learning anything about it is holding a prejudice towards it.
    - dane-pgp 5y ago
      It's reasonable to have the opinion that juggling chainsaws is a dumb idea, even before you've learnt the techniques for making it slightly less dangerous.
      - throwawaysysd 5y ago
        Is that really any dumber than doing any similarly dangerous industrial jobs that require a lot of training? Or something else dangerous in entertainment like being a Hollywood stuntman, or being Siegfried & Roy? I'm sure you could get a lot of money for having that skill if you did it in the right place.
- dane-pgp 5y ago
  If you found yourself locked in a prison, you might suddenly be motivated to learn how to survive there, even if you're not a big fan of imprisonment.
rodgerd 5y ago
> break things, wontfix In fairness, quite often I've found this is often a case of exposing existing brokenness rather than creating new problems, but it doesn't make it any more comfortable when it happens.
throwawaysysd 5y ago
>given the "move fast, break things, wontfix" approach the systemd authors currently have with the project. I don't understand where anyone is getting this impression from, that describes the opposite of my experience with systemd. The authors publish stability guarantees, and they have done so for several years: https://systemd.io/PORTABILITY_AND_STABILITY/ https://systemd.io/PORTABILITY_AND_STABILITY/
- eternityforest 5y ago
  I love systemd both for it's actually functionality and the fact that it's almost like the flagship of a whole movement to make Linux more consistent and integrated and less of a pile o scripts. But for some reason, the authors occasionally say something that feels completely out of place for the project. They fix important stuff eventually, but sometimes it gets confusing to watch them discuss it. The "Invalid username runs a service as root" bug is a good example of something that they didn't seem to take seriously. But it's fixed now. Also, PulseAudio. Pulse is good. It's not that great and was deployed before it's ready on some distros. The whole Pulse/Jack split that is only just now being fixed was annoying. Some people might still judge Poettering based on 10yo bugs in Pulse rollout?
  - throwawaysysd 5y ago
    After a lot of recent events, I don't feel comfortable judging any open source project on the speed at which they fix bugs or the way they communicate about it. In open source there is no obligation for anyone to fix anything or communicate anything. To me it's a miracle when anything gets fixed at all. It feels like the community is still largely held together with duct tape and string.
    - eternityforest 5y ago
      Yeah, I just expect all software to be buggy. To be honest my main way of evaluating software is by Googling stuff like "X ate my data" or "X stopped working" and seeing how many major complaints people have, relatively to how many users there are. I think the duct tape and string feeling comes from the obsession with smallness and modularity and people trying to make "Linux not be like windows". Half the FOSS scene WANTS things to be taped together because their main thing is random tinkering.

Foxboron 5y ago

>Hopefully this guide will stay up to date given the "move fast, break things, wontfix" approach the systemd authors currently have with the project. The core dependency principles around targets, services and startup does not see a lot of change, so this concern is not really realistic. You'll see more of this around the supporting utilities (networkd, resolved, and so on).

Klasiaster 5y ago

It's on version 250. How many stable releases do you need to feel that it is "fully baked"? The software is of course evolving and new features are added but breaking changes are rare.

guywhocodes 5y ago
The number doesn't mean anything really, give me the access control and we can have a thousands times more in a week.
- Klasiaster 5y ago
  The number has a meaning because it is the result of the release process at the end of a development cycle
  - guywhocodes 5y ago
    That will still be true when I take it to 250,000. The development cycle will just be shorter

peterangular 5y ago

When you admit to needing to learn something in the same breath as throwing shade it completely undermines the shade you were trying to throw.

saurik 5y ago
That doesn't follow. If anything, I would expect knowing, for practical reasons, you have to learn something you think is dumb would make you even more angry about it, not less... or, maybe, you just believe something being either popular or common means it must be good? :(
- throwawaysysd 5y ago
  That doesn't seem very practical. Viewing something as dumb before learning anything about it is holding a prejudice towards it.
  - dane-pgp 5y ago
    It's reasonable to have the opinion that juggling chainsaws is a dumb idea, even before you've learnt the techniques for making it slightly less dangerous.
    - throwawaysysd 5y ago
      Is that really any dumber than doing any similarly dangerous industrial jobs that require a lot of training? Or something else dangerous in entertainment like being a Hollywood stuntman, or being Siegfried & Roy? I'm sure you could get a lot of money for having that skill if you did it in the right place.
dane-pgp 5y ago
If you found yourself locked in a prison, you might suddenly be motivated to learn how to survive there, even if you're not a big fan of imprisonment.

rodgerd 5y ago

> break things, wontfix In fairness, quite often I've found this is often a case of exposing existing brokenness rather than creating new problems, but it doesn't make it any more comfortable when it happens.

throwawaysysd 5y ago

>given the "move fast, break things, wontfix" approach the systemd authors currently have with the project. I don't understand where anyone is getting this impression from, that describes the opposite of my experience with systemd. The authors publish stability guarantees, and they have done so for several years: https://systemd.io/PORTABILITY_AND_STABILITY/ https://systemd.io/PORTABILITY_AND_STABILITY/

eternityforest 5y ago
I love systemd both for it's actually functionality and the fact that it's almost like the flagship of a whole movement to make Linux more consistent and integrated and less of a pile o scripts. But for some reason, the authors occasionally say something that feels completely out of place for the project. They fix important stuff eventually, but sometimes it gets confusing to watch them discuss it. The "Invalid username runs a service as root" bug is a good example of something that they didn't seem to take seriously. But it's fixed now. Also, PulseAudio. Pulse is good. It's not that great and was deployed before it's ready on some distros. The whole Pulse/Jack split that is only just now being fixed was annoying. Some people might still judge Poettering based on 10yo bugs in Pulse rollout?
- throwawaysysd 5y ago
  After a lot of recent events, I don't feel comfortable judging any open source project on the speed at which they fix bugs or the way they communicate about it. In open source there is no obligation for anyone to fix anything or communicate anything. To me it's a miracle when anything gets fixed at all. It feels like the community is still largely held together with duct tape and string.
  - eternityforest 5y ago
    Yeah, I just expect all software to be buggy. To be honest my main way of evaluating software is by Googling stuff like "X ate my data" or "X stopped working" and seeing how many major complaints people have, relatively to how many users there are. I think the duct tape and string feeling comes from the obsession with smallness and modularity and people trying to make "Linux not be like windows". Half the FOSS scene WANTS things to be taped together because their main thing is random tinkering.