5 ms·

> The systemd developers are responding to upstart and launchd and android init as things they must _defeat_, an establish a new standard by crushing all the co

• magpi3 12y ago
  > People who favour systemd generally use it to get shit done [1], not write blog posts about 'freedom of choice' [2]. I appreciate most of your post, but this line really bugs me because I hear it so often. Relevant xkcd: http://xkcd.com/743/ http://xkcd.com/743/ Valuing open systems/ecosystems is about more than valuing "shit getting done." You also have to value _how_ it gets done, and people who do value how it gets done should not be dismissed as bloggers writing about "freedom of choice."
• mackal 12y ago
  In most cases the opponents are mainly opposed because of Lennart, not technical reasons, not freedom of choice, but because of Lennart. Most of them will explain their reason with refences to technical or freedom of choice but once you get down to it, its just Lennart. You know what your average user wants? A faster booting system. In most cases that will be systemd.
  • rektide 12y ago
    God save us from software that bends over backwards to help average users. The only thing worth doing with software is pushing it forward.
  • felixgallo 12y ago
    You couldn't be any more wrong. The average user has no idea that she is using Linux. The number of people using a Linux system that reboots frequently enough to be noticed is zero.
    • akerl_ 12y ago
      I'm interested in seeing where those stats came from. Care to share?
      • felixgallo 12y ago
        do you disagree? Because essentially every phone, television, car, printer, appliance, sign, smart watch, web server, router, and modem uses Linux. If, charitably, you give 2% market share to desktop linux, and then multiply that by worldwide PC shipments (~80mm last quarter, so assuming ~320mm annualized), you end up with 6.4 million. Not bad. But there were 918mm smartphone shipments in 2013, of which android was around 75%-80% market share, so 688 million or so. That's over a hundred times as many users just in phones alone.
        • akerl_ 12y ago
          Counting embedded devices in this discussion as part of the Linux population is questionable at best. There isn't an init system debate for embedded devices. I've not seen any indication that Samsung will be changing the infra based on the init system war, any more than GE is going to change my microwave.
          • felixgallo 12y ago
            All of those devices are linux, and all have init systems. Currently, there are two core systems they use: bsd-like init.rc systems (and busybox variants), and sysv. Similarly with servers: essentially all the web servers and application servers in the world are linux, and they also don't need the sort of windows-style 'architecture' that systemd brings. In fact, I would venture to say that boot speed isn't even in the top 50 concerns of a desktop linux user. So it's not just the tail wagging the dog; it's a nonexistent, badly drawn picture of a tail wagging several billion dogs.
• JoshTriplett 12y ago
  > People who favour systemd generally use it to get shit done [1], not write blog posts about 'freedom of choice' [2]. Exactly. Half of the complaints I see about systemd don't even bother to make any arguments against it other than wanting to move away from it. For instance, see the most recent round of discussion on debian-devel, in which someone gripes that systemd has dared to take over the functionality of invoking fsck on disks at boot time before mounting them. The horror of this scenario clearly cannot be adequately conveyed in an email, or at least nobody in the discussion attempted to convey it.
  • pmoriarty 12y ago
    "someone gripes that systemd has dared to take over the functionality of invoking fsck on disks at boot time before mounting them" This is a good example of what the original article complained about: systemd is a step towards monolithic systems and a step away from the unix philosophy: "The Unix philosophy emphasizes building short, simple, clear, modular, and extendable code that can be easily maintained and repurposed by developers other than its creators..."[1] systemd is feature-creeping bloatware in the Windows mold and it's no wonder a lot of unix fans who value "short, simple, clear, modular, and extendable code" have a problem with that. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy
    • JoshTriplett 12y ago
      This is a good example of a standard argument against systemd: a vague complaint about "monolithic" versus "the UNIX philosophy", with no response to the actual issue, and in particular nothing that could be put in a bug report. What's actually broken here? What doesn't work, or what feature or behavior is missing? What would the bug report subject be, "is systemd"? Something needs to invoke fsck on disks at boot time before mounting them. With sysvinit, that was handled by init scripts. With systemd, that's handled by systemd units like systemd-fsck-root.service and systemd-fsck@.service. As far as I can tell, the complaint in this response is that systemd isn't sysvinit and doesn't use sysvinit's init scripts. Note that systemd could be configured to invoke sysvinit's init scripts, and that would work exactly as well (or as badly) as it did with sysvinit.
• bitwize 12y ago
  Actually, one of the goals of systemd is to standardize all Linux distros on a single set of tools. Which means that, yes, alternatives will go insupported. But in order for Linux to transition from just a kernel to a platform, you must have ONE userland stack and ONE set of APIs to cide to... for everything from system calls to UI layers and system management. This is an advantage that Windows had, and systemd finally brings it to Linux
  • angersock 12y ago
    And that's why Windows enjoys such dominance in the server market!
    • bitwize 12y ago
      In the enterprise server market, Windows handily beats Linux. Consistency, integration, and ease of administration are major reasons why.
      • jqm 12y ago
        And salespeople.