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It didn't win on being superior [1] but because it was either systemd or you don't get to to use GNOME 3.8. On more than one distro it was the reason for switch

by p_l 1y ago

It didn't win on being superior [1] but because it was either systemd or you don't get to to use GNOME 3.8. On more than one distro it was the reason for switching towards systemd. I will fully admit though that upstart was worse (which is an achievement), but the solution space was not at all settled. [1] systemd project tackles a lot of important problems, but the quality of implementation, experience of using it, working with it, etc are not really good, especially the further you get from simplest cookie cutter services - especially because both systemd handling of defaults is borked, documentation when you hit that maybe makes sense to author, and whoever is the bright soul behind systemctl kindly never make CLIs again (with worst example being probably systemctl show this-service-does-not-exist)

Sammi 1y ago
Why did GNOME and basically all the large distros all jump with both feet in on using systemd? Because it was better. It was simply significantly better than all the alternatives. For the vast majority it was a no-brainer upgrade. The holdouts were the one's who had simple needs and were already happy with what they had. The rest of the world jumped on systemd. Because it was better.
- p_l 1y ago
  GNOME and systemd teams were in many ways joined at the hip, and GNOME unilaterally decided that from 3.6 to 3.8 they would switch certain APIs from one already deployed widely (polkit and related) to one that was documented like north korea is democratic (logind) which also didn't work in isolation from systemd. Trying to run GNOME 3.8 without logind caused significant problems and instabilities, trying to implement the same APIs turned out a futile endeavour though one OpenBSD guy got sufficiently motivated and kept patching GNOME for OpenBSD for years - though too late for the forced switch. The large distros jumping "both feet" on systemd were essentially Fedora/Redhat (where it originated and who was employing major maintainers), and IIRC SuSE. Arch was still seen as something of niche and - crucially - was very neophyte about adopting systemd related ideas for significant amount of time with little regard for stability. The holdouts were not just those who were happy with debian/redhat simplistic run-parts script. They were also those interested in solving the problems in different way. Hell, systemd was pretty late to the party, the major difference was that it had funding behind it
gwd 1y ago
> systemd project tackles a lot of important problems Fundamentally, this was it. SysV startup scripts had reached a local maximum decades earlier, and there was serious "overhang". When I said "superior", I really meant that it was superior to SysV, not that it was the best system that could have been imagined. And I think the frustration was that, because it did solve so many problems, so many groups (like GNOME) were willing to switch over to it in spite of its warts; and this made it impossible for anyone who was seriously affected by its warts to avoid it. "If you don't like it, don't use it" not being an option was what drove so much of the vitriol, it seems to me. As I said in that comment from 2019, if the maintainers had had Linus Torvald's commitment to backwards compatibility, I don't think there would have been any significant backlash.

by p_l 1y ago

Sammi 1y ago

Why did GNOME and basically all the large distros all jump with both feet in on using systemd? Because it was better. It was simply significantly better than all the alternatives. For the vast majority it was a no-brainer upgrade. The holdouts were the one's who had simple needs and were already happy with what they had. The rest of the world jumped on systemd. Because it was better.

p_l 1y ago
GNOME and systemd teams were in many ways joined at the hip, and GNOME unilaterally decided that from 3.6 to 3.8 they would switch certain APIs from one already deployed widely (polkit and related) to one that was documented like north korea is democratic (logind) which also didn't work in isolation from systemd. Trying to run GNOME 3.8 without logind caused significant problems and instabilities, trying to implement the same APIs turned out a futile endeavour though one OpenBSD guy got sufficiently motivated and kept patching GNOME for OpenBSD for years - though too late for the forced switch. The large distros jumping "both feet" on systemd were essentially Fedora/Redhat (where it originated and who was employing major maintainers), and IIRC SuSE. Arch was still seen as something of niche and - crucially - was very neophyte about adopting systemd related ideas for significant amount of time with little regard for stability. The holdouts were not just those who were happy with debian/redhat simplistic run-parts script. They were also those interested in solving the problems in different way. Hell, systemd was pretty late to the party, the major difference was that it had funding behind it

gwd 1y ago

> systemd project tackles a lot of important problems Fundamentally, this was it. SysV startup scripts had reached a local maximum decades earlier, and there was serious "overhang". When I said "superior", I really meant that it was superior to SysV, not that it was the best system that could have been imagined. And I think the frustration was that, because it did solve so many problems, so many groups (like GNOME) were willing to switch over to it in spite of its warts; and this made it impossible for anyone who was seriously affected by its warts to avoid it. "If you don't like it, don't use it" not being an option was what drove so much of the vitriol, it seems to me. As I said in that comment from 2019, if the maintainers had had Linus Torvald's commitment to backwards compatibility, I don't think there would have been any significant backlash.