3 ms·

I have yet to hear an argument against systemd which isn’t a variation of: - """bloat""" - I dislike Poettering. Remember pulseaudio? - a core user-space lay

by sph 1y ago

I 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 ago
  During 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 ago
    Do you have a link? That sounds like an interesting story on its own.
  - noname120 1y ago
    It'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 ago
  I 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.
  - fotomar 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - sph 1y ago
      > The majority of people are demonstrably idiotic True. But is any minority of people demonstrably smarter? I have been asking for good argument against systemd, and all I have gotten is name-calling and "we're few so we're better than you". I honestly don't care at this point, good day.
      - fotomar 1y ago
        the reason any libre alternative is better than systemd is they are not beholden to IBM or Microsoft
  - fotomar 1y ago
    [flagged]
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
msgodel 1y ago
There aren't decent Pro systemd arguments other than "the Linux API confused me" and sysv init (which no one argues is good) was bad. Personally the last system I had systemd on corrupted my package database after killing apt that I was running in tmux. "Oh you can fix that with xyz systemd configuration." Here's my response: Kindly shove it up your ass and quit moving things around all the time just because you're board. Also if "it's good enough for most people" is a decent argument then you should be on Windows.
- sph 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- bjourne 1y ago
  The pro argument is that writing shell scripts for starting/restarting/enabling/disabling/stopping is total garbage. Not to mention having to manage lock files. systemd units are not perfect, but they are a billion times better than the crap we used to deal with.
  - msgodel 1y ago
    Wow, neither of you actually read my comment.
- jeroenhd 1y ago
  The pro part is the massive simplification and security advantages systemd brings to plain and simple config files. Sure, I can reimplement the containerisation API in OpenRC if I stack enough helper binaries and shell script libraries in there, but I don't want to. Kindly shove it up your ass and quit moving things around all the time just because you're board. If it's good enough for most people, that means it's good enough to use as a basis for development. The same way no company develops mobile apps for Phosh or Plasma Mobile: the tiny fraction of people who have more esoteric preferences aren't worth rewriting the software stack for. Those who don't like the status quo can write their own wrappers and hacks if they want to use your software.
rbanffy 1y ago
> I always find it hilarious to see how the vocal minority is overrepresented on this forum. Those who oppose the norm are usually a lot more vocal than the people who support it, or just don't care. This is why you get bathtub curves in ratings - you can bet the low ratings are over-represented in comparison with the meh and the praise.
adrian_b 1y ago
I believe that the opposite applies. I have yet to hear any argument pro systemd that is valid. As long as the systemd supporters cannot explain its advantages, there is no reason for anybody else to replace their good systems that work fine without systemd, with systems using systemd. In practice, systemd has been imposed by force. The developers of a few packages, like GNOME, have introduced dependencies upon systemd. Then the maintainers of the major Linux distributions have considered that such packages cannot be removed from their distribution, therefore they must base it on systemd. Then the users have discovered when upgrading their computers that they must either migrate to systemd or stay with their ancient program versions. This is how systemd has propagated. In no place there was any analysis about technical advantages and any attempt to find an optimal solution by consensus.
- CoolCold 1y ago
  > As long as the systemd supporters cannot explain its advantages, there is no reason for anybody else to replace their good systems that work fine without systemd, with systems using systemd. Assuming you know what systemd as init system able to do, I'm not sure what extra information you need for getting list of advantages. If you going with examples is better for you, i'll mention couple of mine - note that I likely forget some other good samples as it's so natural so I'm may be not realizing it's systemd's feature, just "how things work" * hardening - syscall filtering, privilege limiting, read/write path filtering, per-unit tmp files. As nice example, I have great peace of mind when I put php-fpm into network isolated to localhost only for IP level * resource management and resource information at all - observing resource usage by multiple units when needed with a quick way saves my time, in addition to being able to collect such metrics into monitoring. Setting the lowest IO priority for backup scripts and even MB/sec per block device - godsend. Limits on CPU usage or RAM usage where needed ensures smooth operations of the fleet without nasty surprises * things like quick overview with systemctl --failed, user-level units instead of flacky @reboot in crontab (yeah, we still remember it from eggdrop/psybnc days) * clear and uniform way to work with services across the team, no hacky bash scripts with saving PIDs so on. Probably you do system administration for your servers in some other way that all that goodies are not noticeable for you and your team.

by sph 1y ago

fotomar 1y ago

[flagged]

msgodel 1y ago
During 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 ago
  Do you have a link? That sounds like an interesting story on its own.
- noname120 1y ago
  It'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 ago
I 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.
- fotomar 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - sph 1y ago
    > The majority of people are demonstrably idiotic True. But is any minority of people demonstrably smarter? I have been asking for good argument against systemd, and all I have gotten is name-calling and "we're few so we're better than you". I honestly don't care at this point, good day.
    - fotomar 1y ago
      the reason any libre alternative is better than systemd is they are not beholden to IBM or Microsoft
- fotomar 1y ago
  [flagged]

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

msgodel 1y ago

There aren't decent Pro systemd arguments other than "the Linux API confused me" and sysv init (which no one argues is good) was bad. Personally the last system I had systemd on corrupted my package database after killing apt that I was running in tmux. "Oh you can fix that with xyz systemd configuration." Here's my response: Kindly shove it up your ass and quit moving things around all the time just because you're board. Also if "it's good enough for most people" is a decent argument then you should be on Windows.

sph 1y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
bjourne 1y ago
The pro argument is that writing shell scripts for starting/restarting/enabling/disabling/stopping is total garbage. Not to mention having to manage lock files. systemd units are not perfect, but they are a billion times better than the crap we used to deal with.
- msgodel 1y ago
  Wow, neither of you actually read my comment.
jeroenhd 1y ago
The pro part is the massive simplification and security advantages systemd brings to plain and simple config files. Sure, I can reimplement the containerisation API in OpenRC if I stack enough helper binaries and shell script libraries in there, but I don't want to. Kindly shove it up your ass and quit moving things around all the time just because you're board. If it's good enough for most people, that means it's good enough to use as a basis for development. The same way no company develops mobile apps for Phosh or Plasma Mobile: the tiny fraction of people who have more esoteric preferences aren't worth rewriting the software stack for. Those who don't like the status quo can write their own wrappers and hacks if they want to use your software.

rbanffy 1y ago

> I always find it hilarious to see how the vocal minority is overrepresented on this forum. Those who oppose the norm are usually a lot more vocal than the people who support it, or just don't care. This is why you get bathtub curves in ratings - you can bet the low ratings are over-represented in comparison with the meh and the praise.

adrian_b 1y ago

I believe that the opposite applies. I have yet to hear any argument pro systemd that is valid. As long as the systemd supporters cannot explain its advantages, there is no reason for anybody else to replace their good systems that work fine without systemd, with systems using systemd. In practice, systemd has been imposed by force. The developers of a few packages, like GNOME, have introduced dependencies upon systemd. Then the maintainers of the major Linux distributions have considered that such packages cannot be removed from their distribution, therefore they must base it on systemd. Then the users have discovered when upgrading their computers that they must either migrate to systemd or stay with their ancient program versions. This is how systemd has propagated. In no place there was any analysis about technical advantages and any attempt to find an optimal solution by consensus.

CoolCold 1y ago
> As long as the systemd supporters cannot explain its advantages, there is no reason for anybody else to replace their good systems that work fine without systemd, with systems using systemd. Assuming you know what systemd as init system able to do, I'm not sure what extra information you need for getting list of advantages. If you going with examples is better for you, i'll mention couple of mine - note that I likely forget some other good samples as it's so natural so I'm may be not realizing it's systemd's feature, just "how things work" * hardening - syscall filtering, privilege limiting, read/write path filtering, per-unit tmp files. As nice example, I have great peace of mind when I put php-fpm into network isolated to localhost only for IP level * resource management and resource information at all - observing resource usage by multiple units when needed with a quick way saves my time, in addition to being able to collect such metrics into monitoring. Setting the lowest IO priority for backup scripts and even MB/sec per block device - godsend. Limits on CPU usage or RAM usage where needed ensures smooth operations of the fleet without nasty surprises * things like quick overview with systemctl --failed, user-level units instead of flacky @reboot in crontab (yeah, we still remember it from eggdrop/psybnc days) * clear and uniform way to work with services across the team, no hacky bash scripts with saving PIDs so on. Probably you do system administration for your servers in some other way that all that goodies are not noticeable for you and your team.