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Introducing stronger dependencies on systemd
- SpecialistK 1y agoThe fact that the next blog post (linked at the bottom of the article) is titled "a desktop for all" is deliciously ironic in context.
- sph 1y agoFor all in this context does not mean “all the infinite combinations of software for people that refuse to adopt the status quo” systemd is here to stay. It is ludicrous to imagine everybody to keep supporting that 1% that is ideologically opposed to it, no? As those people love to say, open-source is written by volunteers, you can always fork it.
- fotomar 1y ago[flagged]
- SpecialistK 1y agoWhat about the (admittedly small) % of operating systems that can't support systemd, like FreeBSD? systemd is pretty heavily dependent on Linux, and that's not an ideological thing.
- surajrmal 1y agoDoes gnome officially support non Linux kernels? It's possible to implement the systemd APIs gnome is taking dependencies on without strictly using systemd itself.
- petepete 1y agoThis is a good move. Without having endless resources keeping the codebase small and focused just makes sense. I know it's going to be painful for non-Linux users but volunteer devs can't be expected to cover all bases.
- yolkedgeek 1y agoThey do have endless resources. They are an IBM company. If people choose to work for IBM without getting payed, that's kind of their problem.
- xtoilette 1y agognome is an IBM company?
- petepete 1y agoSomeone should tell them.
- yolkedgeek 1y agoIBM bought Redhat, Redhat hires the devs for GNOME and hosts its infrastructure. IBM and Redhat where also the main founders of GNOME. They don't need to legally own GNOME. When most of the people working on systemD and GNOME are IBM employees, IBM makes the decisions. And GNOME is an IBM company. https://wiki.gnome.org/RedHat https://wiki.gnome.org/RedHat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME_Foundation
- msgodel 1y ago>Keeping the codebase small and focused makes sense LMFAO. You have not even glanced at insane dumpster fire that is the gnome codebase.
- petepete 1y agoRegardless of what it's currently like, supporting fewer things is going to make it easier to maintain.
- msgodel 1y agoIf Gnome cared about an easy to maintain codebase it would be radically different. Gnome's complexity is comparable to a large web browser (which is kind of insane considering how little it really does.)
- yolkedgeek 1y ago[flagged]
- bobowzki 1y agoWhat do you recommend instead?
- flohofwoe 1y agoNot the OP but I switched to KDE and I'm happy with the switch. It doesn't try to force a tablet UI on you, doesn't look like a toy and actually feels snappier.
- yolkedgeek 1y agoWith systemD, the alternatives have a curve because so much IBM money and monopolization has gone into it. But systems using OpenRC(alpine) or SysV(MX linux, Devuan) work great in my experience. there are other init systems like runit (void linux) also seem to work great too, I just haven't used them. As for desktop environments, the choice is very easy. Because there are simply better options. For normal users, I always suggest KDE Plasma or XFCE, Cosmic is still in development but looks very promising, cinnamon also looks great, but I don't use it (I know it's a gnome2 fork). But for power users, the choice of WMs are pretty trivial. i3, xmonad, qtile, niri, leftwm, etc. The experience of using a WM instead of a full DE is incomparable for professional and power users. That is why I LOVE XFCE because it is modular. you can use parts of the XFCE ecosystem in any WM (power manager, theme manager, file manager etc.) or just replace xfce wm with your WM of choice (although I don't recommend this).
- ttctciyf 1y agoI admit I'm an edge case, but last year I installed Slackware on my main desktop specifically to escape the clutches of systemd, and by god it feels great to have a working /etc/rc.d again! I do use containerised solutions for a few things (e.g. conty[0] for Steam, and a couple of rocm containers for messing with ML things). KDE is the default desktop and does everything I need. I haven't used gnome for a decade anyhow. 0: https://github.com/Kron4ek/Conty/ https://github.com/Kron4ek/Conty/
- hnlmorg 1y agoWhat is Gnomes market share like these days? It used to be the de facto FOSS desktop in the GNOME 2.x days but things changed with the release of Gnome 3 and I’ve not really noticed Gnome ever bounce back since.
- esseph 1y agoIt's the default DE for RedHat, Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, and many others.
- shmerl 1y agoKDE is commonly more popular among gamers it seems.
- forvelin 1y agowho does even compete with Gnome ? it is the de facto default desktop in almost all notable distros. it just works, though it is far less customizable compared to KDE, it is far more stable -still only compared to KDE..
- flohofwoe 1y ago> it is far more stable -still only compared to KDE Citation needed ;) I haven't seen any 'instability' in KDE since I switched from GNOME, and performance/snappiness of KDE is actually better.
- DoctorOW 1y agoPerformance/stability on KDE used to be a lot worse IMO. Your opinion on KDE depends on when you last checked.
- LargoLasskhyfv 1y agoDoes this matter as of now?
- wizee 1y ago
- cristodcgomez 1y agoI just registered for comment here: they always refused to admit it (by "they" I mean Fedora/IBM) but we will end up having a Gnome OS for the general public... And I'm afraid the 3E rule is starting to be applied (Extended already, Embraced in all the "other OS" and now...)
- pcpuser 1y ago[flagged]
- msgodel 1y agoInterestingly enough Poettering works for Microsoft now.
- pcpuser 1y agoTimes change too. Microsoft does a ton of open source. They maintain an excellent immutable Linux distro. As always the true enemy is dogma and a cult-like adherence to it.
- pona-a 1y agoLook at how well forking worked for elogind. It's been a constant burden for Gentoo and they've been looking to replace it ever since. APIs are sticky, and they are chosen because they're common, not because they're good.
- jeroenhd 1y agoGnome maintains an OS for developers and such: https://os.gnome.org/ https://os.gnome.org/ Red Hat Enterprise Linux is basically a Gnome OS already. So is Ubuntu. Though both come in KDE flavour and a bunch of others too. I don't see what's wrong with Red Hat spending development time for "only" one single desktop environment.
- bjourne 1y agoThis is the back-end plague which is everywhere in free software. The idea is that whatever "it" is, adding support for "it" is "just another back-end" . Take cairo for example, it has or had back-ends for gdk, win32, png, svg, html canvas, pdf, postscript, opengl, xlib, quartz, etc. Only a few of them are actually usable and support has been removed for several others over the years. The number of sound back-ends on Linux is uncountable: ALSA, OSS, OpenAl, PulseAudio, Jack, Esound, PipeWire... It's never "just another back-end" because every back-end needs continuous testing and maintenance. Poettering when designing systemd wisely, WISELY decided to not go the back-end route. Other free software hackers learn the hard way that multiple back-ends are expensive and rarely worth the cost.
- imtringued 1y agoThe problem is that everyone is doing their own thing instead of coming up with a common standard. That's kinda why Wayland is so hated. What people seem to be misunderstanding about systemd is that it is not encroaching and forcing itself upon distros. It's the opposite. It's solving problems faster than anyone else and thereby wins by default. If there was a competing project that did the same things systemd did (the problem is that you need a whole collection of projects that are poorly integrated with each other), then you could start talking about standardizing things, but as of right now, systemd is spiritually the new Xorg of Linux.
- sph 1y ago> The problem is that everyone is doing their own thing instead of coming up with a common standard I mean, there is a reason XKCD 927 is the most quoted to the point of attracting downvotes. It's pure cliché, so I wonder why you believe a common standard to rule them all is possible. There is only one sane approach in software: opinionated configuration. Yet the free-software world somehow still clings to the utopia of multiple, freely interchangeable choices, and all you get is half a dozen unmaintained backends and just one that actually works for a number of years when someone forgets 927 and decides to reinvent the wheel, badly.
- n3storm 1y agoFor all worried check out xfce. It works, is light, is customizable, has gtk responsiveness (I find Qt click and drag and drop downs odd) Only downside maybe is no Wayland support yet.
- n2h4 1y agowith 4.20, there is experimental wayland support for almost all xfce4 applications. I've used it and didn't even face a single crash. So, it's not far away.
- n3storm 1y agogreat! Do you feel is a "good" change? does using a DE with wayland feels better or different? not talking about technical advantages...
- n2h4 1y agoi don't see any change other than display colours and font looking more crispy. i use computer mostly for watching and programming. some very light FOSS gaming(Luanti, STK).
- oneshtein 1y agoMate supports Wayland since Mate 1.28. See https://wiki.mate-desktop.org/developers-corner/wayland-meson/ https://wiki.mate-desktop.org/developers-corner/wayland-meso... Quote: > One of the most notable improvements is the enhanced support for Wayland, bringing us closer to a fully native MATE-Wayland experience. Several components have been updated to work seamlessly with Wayland, ensuring a more integrated and responsive desktop environment.
- airhangerf15 1y ago> no Wayland support yet That's not a downside.
- ihatepoop1234 1y ago
- noisy_boy 1y agoJust rename Gnome to systemd-desktop and be done with it.
- haileys 1y agoThis is a sensible move. systemd is a good piece of software, and foundational Linux infrastructure which by now is very widely deployed. I’ve been doing Linux a long time and my experience is that systemd is much more pleasant to work with than the brittle duct tape and shell script stuff which came before.
- pcpuser 1y agoAgreed. I wonder how many people in this thread hating on systemd have actually tried to work with upstream. They are an extremely pleasant and welcoming community who are willing to work with you on the most trivial stuff.
- pseudalopex 1y agosystemd maintainers were extremely unpleasant, unwelcoming, and unwilling to work with others in my experience.
- guilhas 1y agoXorg was also a "good piece of software, foundational Linux infrastructure and very wildly deployed"
- jononor 1y agoStill is?
- guilhas 1y ago100%, I won't replace x11 it until I feel all my automation tools work correctly or the "way.." alternative is better Was just making the parallel with Wayland, how frustrating it has been for a lot of people, how everyone preaching correct software design, should be simple/protocols/standards/modular with correct responsibilities between projects... and how fast everyone forgot it
- greatgib 1y ago
- sph 1y agoI have yet to hear an argument against systemd which isn’t a variation of: - """bloat""" - I dislike Poettering. Remember pulseaudio? - a core user-space layer for modern applications that can’t only rely on the spartan kernel syscall API? Literally 1984. Given that systemd is good enough and is running on 99% of desktops and servers, I always find it hilarious to see how the vocal minority is overrepresented on this forum.
- fotomar 1y ago[flagged]
- msgodel 1y agoDuring Microsoft's most recent shareholder meeting the CEO actually bragged about spamming HN and successfully getting people to use Azure that way. I wouldn't be surprised if they were at least partly behind the big systemd/gnome pushes.
- pona-a 1y agoDo you have a link? That sounds like an interesting story on its own.
- noname120 1y agoIt's a lie. Here is a verbatim transcript and you'll find that there was no mention of Hacker News whatsoever or anything close to that: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/investor/events/fy-2025/2024-annual-shareholder-meeting https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/investor/events/fy-2025/2024...
- sph 1y agoI take offense at being called an IBM/MSFT shillbot just because I have a different opinion than yours. Learn how to voice disagreement without resorting to passive aggressive 4chan snark. And feel free to produce evidence that non-systemd Linux users are not a minority.
- jabiko 1y agoI think this is a good move: it focuses on maintaining a single, well-tested code path while still offering guidance for those who want alternatives (see the section "So what should distros without systemd do?" in the article). It's not making it impossible to run GNOME on non-systemd systems, but it shifts the responsibility of maintaining that support to the projects that are actually interested in it. I think ultimately this might lead to a better user experience since the people developing non-systemd support are also the ones using it.
- pona-a 1y agoReplying to some sibling comments asking why anyone wouldn't want to use systemd. People want to understand their software as well as it's practically possible. It's not an uncommon preference; worse-is-better was quite successful for a reason. As systemd stands, it's an unauditable mess of tightly-coupled components built to handle any conceivable need. These features create new attack vectors: for instance, systemd-machined credential passing system, which can inject arbitrary files such as keys and configs into the guest, also runs on bare metal. And some are just running a musl system that can't even use systemd. Some might look at the old SysV init scripts through rose-tinted glasses, but I don't think it represents the current state of the community. We have the modern OpenRC with parallel startup, dependency-based initialization, supervision, network management, and cgroups; dinit, which tries to imitate the 80% of systemd features that people use with 20% of its footprint; s6 with its supervision trees; runit that just works; and GNU Shepherd, which gives you an entire Scheme interpreter to configure your system. Monocultures are bad because they eliminate competitive pressure for good design and create single points of failure that affect everyone. systemd was an excellent addition to the ecosystem in its day, but has become uncomfortably sticky: you can't just choose to replace systemd; you'll need to reimplement udevd, logind, D-Bus activation interfaces, and now userdb, all of which have their own subtle quirks you'll need to replicate. Look to the state of mdev or elogind and you'll see why it's not a sustainable compromise.
- probably_wrong 1y ago> Monocultures are bad because they eliminate competitive pressure for good design and create single points of failure that affect everyone. For a practical example of this, the XZ backdoor [1] affected liblzma which is (was?) a dependency for libsystemd, and some distributions patched OpenSSH to include libsystemd. As a result, the decision of putting journal file compression functionality directly into your init system means that a significant portion of all Linux systems out there came this close to being backdoored. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39911311 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39911311
- esseph 1y agoIf you think that's wild you should hear about kernel vulnerabilities!
- guilhas 1y agoI think this is a good announcement. Just making things clear Because let's be frank GDM/Gnome has not been playing well with other software for a while
- sunshine-o 1y agoFunny how it doesn't matter anymore. Gnome has been quite good for more than 10 years but nobody really care because the web browser has become the Desktop Environment. I haven't notices any change in the last 10-15 years. and power users will use i3, sway or hyprland anyway. The Gnome people create drama about irrelevant things to get attention like "the danger in theming apps", some minor UI changes or the stronger dependency on systemd but few people care. What I would worry more about in term of adoption across Unixes is Wayland, it seems the OpenBSD and FreeBSD people are not warm to it.
- panick21_ 1y agoGnome without extensions is pretty terrible. Missing some just basic stuff that you really can't just not have. Most distros add that stuff back in. But then the extensions aren't stable at all, its honestly a bit of a mess. And in terms of performance its ok, but not exactly great. I still use Gnome but mostly just because I'm used to it and hoping Cosmic will mature. Gnome isn't bad, but they made a lot of dumb decisions that are just unnecessary. And they have been a disaster for Wayland development.
- subjectsigma 1y ago> Gnome has been quite good for more than 10 years I know there’s no accounting for taste, but GNOME Shell has to be the worst desktop environment I’ve ever used, and man I’ve used a lot of different ones
- sunshine-o 1y agoYeah let me put it in context. I was exited and used Gnome 1.2 back in 2000 (?) It was fun but not serious compared to let's say the MS Windows 2000 desktop. Progressing in the Gnome 2 serie it became a more serious project and something that could compete with the MS Windows desktop. Both are full of annoyances...
- nektro 1y agoyay about time
- surajrmal 1y agoWhat's interesting here isn't a strict dependency on systemd, but dependencies on some APIs it provides. Given the ability and existence of things which implement those APIs outside of systemd, it's worth considering that the APIs themselves should be the focus. Perhaps they should be spun out of systemd itself. It seems sensible to that gnome would want to move to a better API which is almost defacto a standard these days anyways. Versioning the API and allowing more folks outside of the systemd organization to participate in its continued evolution should be the focus imo.
- adrian_b 1y agoThe problem is that those APIs are not well documented, so reading the convolute source code may be the only documentation in some cases. Perhaps there is some documentation, but it is well hidden. Just these days, after being hit by the fact that the Xorg server has become dependent on systemd, I have begun to search for what elogind is really doing to simulate the login services of systemd. I have not found any easy way to discover that, except by reading the source code, which is not simple at all. I would not care if GNOME or any other package would add systemd dependencies, but these were accompanied by a document describing precisely the protocols or APIs they use for accessing systemd services, so that it would be easy to write alternative implementations. The reality is that no such documentation is provided, so the only way to avoid systemd is to become an expert in its internals. This is why I hate when such new dependencies are added.
- blucaz 1y ago> The reality is that no such documentation is provided, so the only way to avoid systemd is to become an expert in its internals. The blog post subject of the thread literally links to the documentation. If you can't even be bothered clicking on the provided links, what are you even doing commenting on such a thread. But by all means, don't let facts get in the way of a good baseless rant.
- accelbred 1y agoThis seems like it might impact systemd musl systems too, due to the NSS and getpwent requirement, right?
- peregrinus_13 1y agoI wonder if the changes to GDM will mean that other DE's like Cinnamon, MATE, Budgie, Deepen (XFCE?) won't be able to start anymore via GDM?