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"Pretty much all the distros out there" except for: (from TFA) "The PCLinuxOS distribution has not adopted systemd and, so far as I know, has no plans to migra

"Pretty much all the distros out there" except for: (from TFA) "The PCLinuxOS distribution has not adopted systemd and, so far as I know, has no plans to migrate to the new init software. Slackware Linux, CRUX and Gentoo Linux are all Linux distributions which are unlikely to adopt systemd as their default init system for philosophical reasons." The philosophical reasons being the centralisation of control over a key aspect of Linux to a group of developers that aren't universally trusted?

nailer 12y ago
Red Hat/Fedora, Suse, and Debian are massively popular. Gentoo is fairly large, but the others are niche.
- bigbugbag 12y ago
  I've used debian for 15 years and I'm looking for a replacement because systemd. The turning point was systemd breaking a fully functional system and forcing it into recovery mode which was simply broken and going in an infinite loop of displaying it was about to offer a recovery terminal which never came. Not having log as text and useless info from systemctl and journalctl instead of the useful info I had in traditional logs played a significant part and the attitude and position of the systemd guys too. This debian forums post sums it all: From my (relatively short) experience with systemd as init I find that systemd (at least as packed in debian) is really far from being ready. Even the slightest unexpected (to systemd) configuration will make it break from all sides, and even the so-called emergency shell is painfully broken. Together with both the upstream and downstream (debian maintainer) attitude ("this is not a bug, fix your configuration so that it matches our expectations, which by the way change every day and we don't tell you about it" -- i.e. the exact opposite of Linus/kernel's attitude "we don't break userspace").
  - baldfat 12y ago
    Arch users made the switch a long time back. When switching to systemd it isn't just install and go. Systemd is mature and reliable and is running on so many servers it isn't even funny. I personally like it and it is much better for me to admin my services on servers.
    - josteink 12y ago
      > When switching to systemd it isn't just install and go. This I can definitely agree with. Has debian said anything about replacing sysvinit on existing installs or will they just be using systemd as the default on new ones? The latter would from my point of view be a reasonable compromise and shouldn't alienate anyone.
      - chaosesqueteam 12y ago
        Yes. The systemd people are in control of the decision making process in debian now. They have decided that an upgrade to jessie will silently replace sysV with systemd. They have rejected all other arguments. Honestly, these truly are authoritarian scumbags. Linux is finished. And it happened quickly too.
    - bigbugbag 12y ago
      I replaced sidux by arch on my personal laptop 5 years ago and I'm looking for a replacement distro for this usage too. my experience with systemd on my arch laptop isn't one I would say is mature and reliable. When a service that used to work now fails to start and the only information systemd gives is that it failed to start, I find the only reliable things is that it fails to provide relevant information to allow me to get out of the situation the way I could with logs before systemd.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
cyphax 12y ago
In the case of Slackware, I'm going to guess that it's more to do with Patrick's idea of "if it ain't broke, don't replace it". This is why Slackware still comes with Lilo by default: it works, so they never switched to Grub (though Grub can be used and is actually also an available package on the installation DVD: the choice is always yours).
Slackwise 12y ago
> The philosophical reasons being the centralisation of control over a key aspect of Linux to a group of developers that aren't universally trusted? In the case of Gentoo, they already support systemd[1] as an alternative. What I don't entirely understand is, systemd is an umbrella project with many sub-components[2] that are depended upon in many non-init packages now. As far as I can tell, none of the systemd devs care for anything other than Linux support [3], so any packages depending strictly on systemd components are unable to run/build on other systems, or have to now support two+ subsystems. Gentoo provides support for alternative platforms such as OSX and BSD via the Prefix[4] project, so for them to switch to systemd (and its sub-components) as a default would be to make the Prefix project harder to accomplish. Again, I don't know enough about the various components that comprise 'systemd', or how modular they are outside of Linux. If someone can clarify any misconceptions I have, I'd be grateful. [1]: http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Systemd http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Systemd [2]: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/35/Systemd_components.svg/720px-Systemd_components.svg.png http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/35/Sys... [3]: http://bsd.slashdot.org/story/11/07/16/0020243/Lennart-Poettering-BSD-Isnt-Relevant-Anymore http://bsd.slashdot.org/story/11/07/16/0020243/Lennart-Poett... [4]: https://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/gentoo-alt/prefix/ https://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/gentoo-alt/prefix/

nailer 12y ago

Red Hat/Fedora, Suse, and Debian are massively popular. Gentoo is fairly large, but the others are niche.

bigbugbag 12y ago
I've used debian for 15 years and I'm looking for a replacement because systemd. The turning point was systemd breaking a fully functional system and forcing it into recovery mode which was simply broken and going in an infinite loop of displaying it was about to offer a recovery terminal which never came. Not having log as text and useless info from systemctl and journalctl instead of the useful info I had in traditional logs played a significant part and the attitude and position of the systemd guys too. This debian forums post sums it all: From my (relatively short) experience with systemd as init I find that systemd (at least as packed in debian) is really far from being ready. Even the slightest unexpected (to systemd) configuration will make it break from all sides, and even the so-called emergency shell is painfully broken. Together with both the upstream and downstream (debian maintainer) attitude ("this is not a bug, fix your configuration so that it matches our expectations, which by the way change every day and we don't tell you about it" -- i.e. the exact opposite of Linus/kernel's attitude "we don't break userspace").
- baldfat 12y ago
  Arch users made the switch a long time back. When switching to systemd it isn't just install and go. Systemd is mature and reliable and is running on so many servers it isn't even funny. I personally like it and it is much better for me to admin my services on servers.
  - josteink 12y ago
    > When switching to systemd it isn't just install and go. This I can definitely agree with. Has debian said anything about replacing sysvinit on existing installs or will they just be using systemd as the default on new ones? The latter would from my point of view be a reasonable compromise and shouldn't alienate anyone.
    - chaosesqueteam 12y ago
      Yes. The systemd people are in control of the decision making process in debian now. They have decided that an upgrade to jessie will silently replace sysV with systemd. They have rejected all other arguments. Honestly, these truly are authoritarian scumbags. Linux is finished. And it happened quickly too.
  - bigbugbag 12y ago
    I replaced sidux by arch on my personal laptop 5 years ago and I'm looking for a replacement distro for this usage too. my experience with systemd on my arch laptop isn't one I would say is mature and reliable. When a service that used to work now fails to start and the only information systemd gives is that it failed to start, I find the only reliable things is that it fails to provide relevant information to allow me to get out of the situation the way I could with logs before systemd.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

cyphax 12y ago

In the case of Slackware, I'm going to guess that it's more to do with Patrick's idea of "if it ain't broke, don't replace it". This is why Slackware still comes with Lilo by default: it works, so they never switched to Grub (though Grub can be used and is actually also an available package on the installation DVD: the choice is always yours).

Slackwise 12y ago

> The philosophical reasons being the centralisation of control over a key aspect of Linux to a group of developers that aren't universally trusted? In the case of Gentoo, they already support systemd[1] as an alternative. What I don't entirely understand is, systemd is an umbrella project with many sub-components[2] that are depended upon in many non-init packages now. As far as I can tell, none of the systemd devs care for anything other than Linux support [3], so any packages depending strictly on systemd components are unable to run/build on other systems, or have to now support two+ subsystems. Gentoo provides support for alternative platforms such as OSX and BSD via the Prefix[4] project, so for them to switch to systemd (and its sub-components) as a default would be to make the Prefix project harder to accomplish. Again, I don't know enough about the various components that comprise 'systemd', or how modular they are outside of Linux. If someone can clarify any misconceptions I have, I'd be grateful. [1]: http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Systemd http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Systemd [2]: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/35/Systemd_components.svg/720px-Systemd_components.svg.png http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/35/Sys... [3]: http://bsd.slashdot.org/story/11/07/16/0020243/Lennart-Poettering-BSD-Isnt-Relevant-Anymore http://bsd.slashdot.org/story/11/07/16/0020243/Lennart-Poett... [4]: https://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/gentoo-alt/prefix/ https://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/gentoo-alt/prefix/