24 ms·

There some competing trends in the *nix world today. On the one hand, there are some huge, monolithic packages like Xorg that have split in to many smaller, mo

by gnosis 13y ago

There some competing trends in the *nix world today. On the one hand, there are some huge, monolithic packages like Xorg that have split in to many smaller, more independent packages. On the other hand, we have something like systemd absorbing ever more functionality, becoming more monolithic with feature bloat. I am personally more in favor of having many small, simple tools that each do one function well and can be easily integrated together, and understood independently of each other, rather than going the monolithic route. To me, systemd is one gigantic step backwards from this vision, even if it has some (or even many) good ideas.

FooBarWidget 13y ago
A quick look into systemd reveals that it's comprised of multiple components. For example the journal service is a separate daemon. What part of this does not align with your vision? EDIT: looks like the "monolithic" myth has already been busted: http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/the-biggest-myths.html http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/the-biggest-myths.html I would say the distinction between systemd and older systems is that systemd follows the "better is better" mantra of design, while older systems follow the "worse is better" mantra of design. Older systems often feel like quick hacks. For example SysV init is a collection of init scripts. Yeah it is "simple" in that the init service itself is simple, but writing the scripts themselves is anything but simple, and they are brittle as well. How often have you seen init scripts failing during startup or boot? And why must you write daemon management code over and over again your init scripts? All this does is pushing complexity out of the init service and into the scripts. Systemd is taking complexity upon itself so that the scripts can be simple.
- Tobu 13y ago
  It's monolithic because you can't pick and choose the components. You have to use all of systemd, or none of it. You can't replace bits of it, or use just parts of it.
  - FooBarWidget 13y ago
    And how exactly does Xorg allow you to use parts of it? More importantly, what parts of systemd do you not want to use or do you want to replace, and why? EDIT: what you're saying appears to be untrue. According to http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/the-biggest-myths.html http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/the-biggest-myths.html, they provide configure switches for enabling or disabling many things, not unlike how the Linux kernel allows you to enable or disable features. You know, there are so many people here bashing on Lennart, I'm wondering whether any of you have done your homework at all or because you just bash Lennart for the sake of it. I'm not even using systemd and I found these things in 5 minutes.
    - DASD 13y ago
      I'd like to not use udev. I have a custom Linux that runs both on standardized(internally defined) servers and also virtualized(known hardware) servers. As such, I'm well under 900ms boot times that systemd mentions by using SysV init. But the systemd project does not accept patches (http://freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/MinimalBuilds/ http://freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/MinimalBuilds/) to disable what is considered a core component.
      - FooBarWidget 13y ago
        Alright, point taken. Then systemd is not for you. However I want to argue that not all software should cater to everybody. While modularity (which in this discussion is apparently defined as "the ability to disable or swap components") is often seen as a good thing, there are quite a lot of downsides as well: - Certain guarantees and consistencies disappear. Instead of having a system that you know you can rely on, it suddenly becomes entirely dependent on the configuration options. While it sounds nice if any part can be enabled, disabled, moved or swapped, then the system's predictability goes down. Furthermore, some combinations may be incompatible because abstractions are inherently leaky. Good luck finding out whether you're suffering from a compatibility problem or not. You can compare this to the many complaints about Android fragmentation. Because everybody can customize Android, writing an app that works on all Android devices becomes extremely difficult. - Installation complexity goes way up. It's much easier to install a system if it states "I need this, this and this", instead of "I can use this, or this, or this, if it's configured in X, Y and Z way". - Certain features cannot be implemented in a simple manner because you have to cater to the lowest common denominator. XFree86 was like that. Because it had to be portable, it cannot assume any kernel capabilities. And as a result XFree86 came with its own mode setting code, its own ELF binary loader, had to run as root, etc etc.
- asb 13y ago
  I agre with your final paragraph and I rather like the consolidation that systemd offers. I'm certainly not going to miss fiddling with consolekit and I'm looking forwards to managing my user session via systemd. It reduces the number of things I need to learn to have a decent level of control over my system.
chipsy 13y ago
Sounds like Sutherland's Wheel of Reincarnation in action. All you have to do to predict the next generation of a technology is run further along the wheel.
wereHamster 13y ago
> On the one hand, there are some huge, monolithic packages like Xorg that have split in to many smaller, more independent packages. You should note that this is generally looked at as a bad move. Creating two separate packages for each protocol (one headers, one implementation), separate packages for each individual app etc. lead to a lot of unnecessary overhead for everybody (developers, release managers, package maintainers etc). Over the last couple years people have suggested to merge some of the packages back into the main xserver repository.

by gnosis 13y ago

FooBarWidget 13y ago

A quick look into systemd reveals that it's comprised of multiple components. For example the journal service is a separate daemon. What part of this does not align with your vision? EDIT: looks like the "monolithic" myth has already been busted: http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/the-biggest-myths.html http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/the-biggest-myths.html I would say the distinction between systemd and older systems is that systemd follows the "better is better" mantra of design, while older systems follow the "worse is better" mantra of design. Older systems often feel like quick hacks. For example SysV init is a collection of init scripts. Yeah it is "simple" in that the init service itself is simple, but writing the scripts themselves is anything but simple, and they are brittle as well. How often have you seen init scripts failing during startup or boot? And why must you write daemon management code over and over again your init scripts? All this does is pushing complexity out of the init service and into the scripts. Systemd is taking complexity upon itself so that the scripts can be simple.

Tobu 13y ago
It's monolithic because you can't pick and choose the components. You have to use all of systemd, or none of it. You can't replace bits of it, or use just parts of it.
- FooBarWidget 13y ago
  And how exactly does Xorg allow you to use parts of it? More importantly, what parts of systemd do you not want to use or do you want to replace, and why? EDIT: what you're saying appears to be untrue. According to http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/the-biggest-myths.html http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/the-biggest-myths.html, they provide configure switches for enabling or disabling many things, not unlike how the Linux kernel allows you to enable or disable features. You know, there are so many people here bashing on Lennart, I'm wondering whether any of you have done your homework at all or because you just bash Lennart for the sake of it. I'm not even using systemd and I found these things in 5 minutes.
  - DASD 13y ago
    I'd like to not use udev. I have a custom Linux that runs both on standardized(internally defined) servers and also virtualized(known hardware) servers. As such, I'm well under 900ms boot times that systemd mentions by using SysV init. But the systemd project does not accept patches (http://freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/MinimalBuilds/ http://freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/MinimalBuilds/) to disable what is considered a core component.
    - FooBarWidget 13y ago
      Alright, point taken. Then systemd is not for you. However I want to argue that not all software should cater to everybody. While modularity (which in this discussion is apparently defined as "the ability to disable or swap components") is often seen as a good thing, there are quite a lot of downsides as well: - Certain guarantees and consistencies disappear. Instead of having a system that you know you can rely on, it suddenly becomes entirely dependent on the configuration options. While it sounds nice if any part can be enabled, disabled, moved or swapped, then the system's predictability goes down. Furthermore, some combinations may be incompatible because abstractions are inherently leaky. Good luck finding out whether you're suffering from a compatibility problem or not. You can compare this to the many complaints about Android fragmentation. Because everybody can customize Android, writing an app that works on all Android devices becomes extremely difficult. - Installation complexity goes way up. It's much easier to install a system if it states "I need this, this and this", instead of "I can use this, or this, or this, if it's configured in X, Y and Z way". - Certain features cannot be implemented in a simple manner because you have to cater to the lowest common denominator. XFree86 was like that. Because it had to be portable, it cannot assume any kernel capabilities. And as a result XFree86 came with its own mode setting code, its own ELF binary loader, had to run as root, etc etc.
asb 13y ago
I agre with your final paragraph and I rather like the consolidation that systemd offers. I'm certainly not going to miss fiddling with consolekit and I'm looking forwards to managing my user session via systemd. It reduces the number of things I need to learn to have a decent level of control over my system.

chipsy 13y ago

Sounds like Sutherland's Wheel of Reincarnation in action. All you have to do to predict the next generation of a technology is run further along the wheel.

wereHamster 13y ago

> On the one hand, there are some huge, monolithic packages like Xorg that have split in to many smaller, more independent packages. You should note that this is generally looked at as a bad move. Creating two separate packages for each protocol (one headers, one implementation), separate packages for each individual app etc. lead to a lot of unnecessary overhead for everybody (developers, release managers, package maintainers etc). Over the last couple years people have suggested to merge some of the packages back into the main xserver repository.