7 ms·

Uselessd: A Stripped Down Version of Systemd

67 points by ahomescu1 12y ago

dang 12y ago
Url changed from [1], which points to this. It was on HN yesterday [2], but didn't quite exceed the "significant attention" threshold for dupes [3]. 1. http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTc5MzA http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTc5MzA 2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8344059 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8344059 3. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
Nursie 12y ago
Sounds good. Because systemd always sounded like it solved some init problems but then sprawled over so many other systems that it seems invasive and monolithic. KISS.
- erikb 12y ago
  Having one name to run tens of binaries under doesn't mean monolithic? Or is GNU monolithic? or "*nix"?
  - ycombine33212 12y ago
    Yo bro, a bunch of subroutines put together to form a program aint monolithic bro, you can use them seperate bro. They just happen to be used together bro!
    - erikb 12y ago
      My computer uses Linux kernel, init, Gnome3 and Gnome terminal together. What's your point, bro?
  - chronid 12y ago
    It's not necessary for something to be a single binary for someone to call it (and for it to be) "monolithic". Each utility in GNU coreutils is useful indipendently from the others. If each systemd binary is (almost) useless outside of systemd, systemd may not be a monolithic application, but it may still be a monolithic system. It's more a matter of coupling than a raw number of binaries included.
stal 12y ago
Sounds shit. Why not just use systemd? It's not as though the FreeBSD port will be useful, FreeBSD are all regressive and hate good things. Basically uselessd is right name, because it is USELESS! I hope the owner just stops using the internet forever. What a stupid bsd idiot
namecast 12y ago
Legendary. I'd love to see this installable as a .deb / apt repo / ansible and puppet modules one day. Let's make fixing this mess as easy as possible for the masses.
wpietri 12y ago
Does anybody understand what audience systemd was meant to address, and what problems it solves for those people? I'm a recovering sysadmin, so these days I only maintain a few personal boxes. Perhaps because of that, I'm having a hard time appreciating systemd. Having reluctantly dealt for the last couple of years with upstart, redoing init creates an awful lot of work and confusion, and I personally haven't experienced much benefit. Perhaps systemd is better, but everything I've heard about it makes me fear the second-system effect [1] is in full force. [1] http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/S/second-system-effect.html http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/S/second-system-effect.html
- chubot 12y ago
  I think pretty much everyone agrees that SysV init scripts are not the path forward. For example, Debian switched to systemd, and I'm pretty sure that the options were Upstart or systemd -- nobody really wanted to stay with init scripts. Main problems as I understand them: - Duplication. init scripts don't even restart daemons if they crash; or if they do you have to duplicate the restart logic in every init script. IMO distros generally do a poor job with their init scripts. They are heavily duplicated and thu inconsistent. - Dynamic configuration. The runlevel thing is not expressive enough for dynamic desktop and mobile systems where devices come and go. Service dependency metadata is more expressive and natural. This was a main design goal of Upstart. - Speed. Computers and devices do more now. systemd socket activation is actually a fantastic design IMO (even though I don't like other things about systemd). This lets you parallelize service startup to a much greater extent. Apple's launchd and Solaris SMF did similar things at around the same time. In the 2000's, all Unix vendors independently decided that init needs to be overhauled, so the problems being solved are real. More here: http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/why.html http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/why.html
- atombender 12y ago
  Upstart is much better than SysV initscripts, but introduces some other problems. Systemd has a better design. The main problem with SysV is that every script needs to do everything: It is, after all, just a hook for the OS to call on startup (as well as a useful, but not necessarily mandatory, way for users to interact with the service). So every script needs startup config (Debian: /etc/default), PID file management (start-stop-daemon), daemonizing (ditto), startup log management (ie., tracking what happens until the program can start logging on its own), limits (ulimit is per session, so every script has to do this to avoid inheriting root's limits). Plus, you don't get: Dependency management; automatic respawning on failure; CPU and memory resource alotment; ability to list and inspect declared services vs. everything else that's running; handling of orphaned forked child children; etc. Systemd has been accused of being monolithic, but it seems highly modular to me, and more so than Upstart.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
qwerta 12y ago
And that's how its done! Provide alternatives. Do not complain that hairball of bash script works (if nobody modifies it).
uselessdguy 12y ago
Figured I'd make a throwaway to answer questions. I'm the person who goes by The Initfinder General. Feel free to ask and be elucidated about uselessd and my general outlook on systemd/the state of Linux/Unix, if you so wish. EDIT: Proof it's me: https://forums.darknedgy.net/viewtopic.php?pid=78186#p78186 https://forums.darknedgy.net/viewtopic.php?pid=78186#p78186
- bkirwi 12y ago
  Was glad to see this; thanks! Systemd has made my Arch system overall much easier to administer, but the monolithism makes me nervous. It'll be interesting to see how things look once they've been broken up a bit. I'm curious: are you trying to rescue a kernel of value from the systemd project where it improves on existing systems, or is this mostly a proof that it didn't need to be built so monolithically in the first place?
  - uselessdguy 12y ago
    It's a little bit of both, coupled with the fact that I simply wanted a challenge, being a bored sap and all. This is probably the first remotely noteworthy thing I've done. The end goal is to drive systemd into a direction that focuses succinctly on process management, having a portable base that can be transposed to other operating systems. Still quite some way to go, but hopefully it'll be done some day. But yeah, supplying systemd's core features for people who would like to have a conservatively developed and focused service manager that won't suddenly swallow the windowing system one day, is a key goal. Captures the gist of it. Eventually I might transfer control to someone else and focus on my own interests. The eudev project lead has expressed some interest in us.
    - ycombine33212 12y ago
      When the original programmers felt their program was mostly done and stepped away, others came in, a new breed, and diverted the trajectory of the projects. Well engineered software projects eventually are completed. And then people shouting that anything not actively "maintained" is "depreciated" come in and attempt and succede in using software for political gain or control. Most of the "Debian Developers" are not the same sort of people that started debian. They are often not programmers. We who actually write software are looked down by them. The people who use software are looked down upon by them. They are now a middle man, using their position for control, rather than for helping. Like a bad government. The Debian social contract even says the distro is for the sake of the users.
exabrial 12y ago
> Is uselessd actually an elaborate false flag operation by Red Hat to discredit their opponents and install a New World Order? > ...Fuck. I loled
jdeisenberg 12y ago
I must be especially dense today, but when I follow the link, I see only the title "usysd", links for Edit, Recent Changes, Preferences, and Discussion, but no other content. What am I doing wrong?
- lobster_johnson 12y ago
  No issues here, but I did a PDF print of the page, may be useful if anyone else has problems: http://bit.ly/1wX6Bx8 http://bit.ly/1wX6Bx8.
- uselessdguy 12y ago
  Sorry about that. We've been under attack since shortly after we got covered on Phoronix. Started off with IRC bot spam, but looks like they got the wiki, as well. We're working on undoing it. Good thing ikiwiki is versioned. It's a shame that software forks can summon such derision, but it looks like init systems are serious business. Oh well. The same person is also spamming the #systemd channel on freenode. Pathetic display altogether. EDIT: We're back. In the meantime, our BitBucket repo: https://bitbucket.org/bcsd/uselessd https://bitbucket.org/bcsd/uselessd
  - jdeisenberg 12y ago
    Thanks. I realize startup systems are a controversial, but they hardly warrant this. My only interest in them is "which one is best to teach students in a beginning Linux admin course"?
    - Qantourisc 12y ago
      Both, unless you suspect your students will never see an old init system.
    - techdragon 12y ago
      Old first so when you teach the new, they understand what has been abstracted away.
spb 12y ago
This is the kind of thing I want to see when people criticize systemd: an example of what they'd do differently (other than just "there's nothing wrong with having a million lines of copypasted bash in init.d, I'll stick to unsupervised several-minute boot times tyvm"). Bravo.
ycombine33212 12y ago
Coup. The tech committee is made up of current or former redhat and canonical employees. This is a social problem and needs a social solution. They took our distribution from us. They came from the same place as the various womens groups who invaded a few years ago and kicked out male programmers who opposed them.
ycombine33212 12y ago
EXXXCCCUUUSSEEE ME. Your opinion is DEPRECIATED You need to be banned from the mailing lists, you're using TRIGGERING WORDS. Harraser.
InfiniteRand 12y ago
I find the systemd debate vaguely interesting but not especially relevant to me, however I must applaud the effort of these guys. They were dissatisfied with ongoing trends and decided to work on an alternative. Kudos, good sirs, kudos.

67 points by ahomescu1 12y ago

dang 12y ago

Url changed from [1], which points to this. It was on HN yesterday [2], but didn't quite exceed the "significant attention" threshold for dupes [3]. 1. http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTc5MzA http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTc5MzA 2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8344059 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8344059 3. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

Nursie 12y ago

Sounds good. Because systemd always sounded like it solved some init problems but then sprawled over so many other systems that it seems invasive and monolithic. KISS.

erikb 12y ago
Having one name to run tens of binaries under doesn't mean monolithic? Or is GNU monolithic? or "*nix"?
- ycombine33212 12y ago
  Yo bro, a bunch of subroutines put together to form a program aint monolithic bro, you can use them seperate bro. They just happen to be used together bro!
  - erikb 12y ago
    My computer uses Linux kernel, init, Gnome3 and Gnome terminal together. What's your point, bro?
- chronid 12y ago
  It's not necessary for something to be a single binary for someone to call it (and for it to be) "monolithic". Each utility in GNU coreutils is useful indipendently from the others. If each systemd binary is (almost) useless outside of systemd, systemd may not be a monolithic application, but it may still be a monolithic system. It's more a matter of coupling than a raw number of binaries included.

stal 12y ago

Sounds shit. Why not just use systemd? It's not as though the FreeBSD port will be useful, FreeBSD are all regressive and hate good things. Basically uselessd is right name, because it is USELESS! I hope the owner just stops using the internet forever. What a stupid bsd idiot

namecast 12y ago

Legendary. I'd love to see this installable as a .deb / apt repo / ansible and puppet modules one day. Let's make fixing this mess as easy as possible for the masses.

wpietri 12y ago

Does anybody understand what audience systemd was meant to address, and what problems it solves for those people? I'm a recovering sysadmin, so these days I only maintain a few personal boxes. Perhaps because of that, I'm having a hard time appreciating systemd. Having reluctantly dealt for the last couple of years with upstart, redoing init creates an awful lot of work and confusion, and I personally haven't experienced much benefit. Perhaps systemd is better, but everything I've heard about it makes me fear the second-system effect [1] is in full force. [1] http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/S/second-system-effect.html http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/S/second-system-effect.html

chubot 12y ago
I think pretty much everyone agrees that SysV init scripts are not the path forward. For example, Debian switched to systemd, and I'm pretty sure that the options were Upstart or systemd -- nobody really wanted to stay with init scripts. Main problems as I understand them: - Duplication. init scripts don't even restart daemons if they crash; or if they do you have to duplicate the restart logic in every init script. IMO distros generally do a poor job with their init scripts. They are heavily duplicated and thu inconsistent. - Dynamic configuration. The runlevel thing is not expressive enough for dynamic desktop and mobile systems where devices come and go. Service dependency metadata is more expressive and natural. This was a main design goal of Upstart. - Speed. Computers and devices do more now. systemd socket activation is actually a fantastic design IMO (even though I don't like other things about systemd). This lets you parallelize service startup to a much greater extent. Apple's launchd and Solaris SMF did similar things at around the same time. In the 2000's, all Unix vendors independently decided that init needs to be overhauled, so the problems being solved are real. More here: http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/why.html http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/why.html
atombender 12y ago
Upstart is much better than SysV initscripts, but introduces some other problems. Systemd has a better design. The main problem with SysV is that every script needs to do everything: It is, after all, just a hook for the OS to call on startup (as well as a useful, but not necessarily mandatory, way for users to interact with the service). So every script needs startup config (Debian: /etc/default), PID file management (start-stop-daemon), daemonizing (ditto), startup log management (ie., tracking what happens until the program can start logging on its own), limits (ulimit is per session, so every script has to do this to avoid inheriting root's limits). Plus, you don't get: Dependency management; automatic respawning on failure; CPU and memory resource alotment; ability to list and inspect declared services vs. everything else that's running; handling of orphaned forked child children; etc. Systemd has been accused of being monolithic, but it seems highly modular to me, and more so than Upstart.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

qwerta 12y ago

And that's how its done! Provide alternatives. Do not complain that hairball of bash script works (if nobody modifies it).

uselessdguy 12y ago

Figured I'd make a throwaway to answer questions. I'm the person who goes by The Initfinder General. Feel free to ask and be elucidated about uselessd and my general outlook on systemd/the state of Linux/Unix, if you so wish. EDIT: Proof it's me: https://forums.darknedgy.net/viewtopic.php?pid=78186#p78186 https://forums.darknedgy.net/viewtopic.php?pid=78186#p78186

bkirwi 12y ago
Was glad to see this; thanks! Systemd has made my Arch system overall much easier to administer, but the monolithism makes me nervous. It'll be interesting to see how things look once they've been broken up a bit. I'm curious: are you trying to rescue a kernel of value from the systemd project where it improves on existing systems, or is this mostly a proof that it didn't need to be built so monolithically in the first place?
- uselessdguy 12y ago
  It's a little bit of both, coupled with the fact that I simply wanted a challenge, being a bored sap and all. This is probably the first remotely noteworthy thing I've done. The end goal is to drive systemd into a direction that focuses succinctly on process management, having a portable base that can be transposed to other operating systems. Still quite some way to go, but hopefully it'll be done some day. But yeah, supplying systemd's core features for people who would like to have a conservatively developed and focused service manager that won't suddenly swallow the windowing system one day, is a key goal. Captures the gist of it. Eventually I might transfer control to someone else and focus on my own interests. The eudev project lead has expressed some interest in us.
  - ycombine33212 12y ago
    When the original programmers felt their program was mostly done and stepped away, others came in, a new breed, and diverted the trajectory of the projects. Well engineered software projects eventually are completed. And then people shouting that anything not actively "maintained" is "depreciated" come in and attempt and succede in using software for political gain or control. Most of the "Debian Developers" are not the same sort of people that started debian. They are often not programmers. We who actually write software are looked down by them. The people who use software are looked down upon by them. They are now a middle man, using their position for control, rather than for helping. Like a bad government. The Debian social contract even says the distro is for the sake of the users.

exabrial 12y ago

> Is uselessd actually an elaborate false flag operation by Red Hat to discredit their opponents and install a New World Order? > ...Fuck. I loled

jdeisenberg 12y ago

I must be especially dense today, but when I follow the link, I see only the title "usysd", links for Edit, Recent Changes, Preferences, and Discussion, but no other content. What am I doing wrong?

lobster_johnson 12y ago
No issues here, but I did a PDF print of the page, may be useful if anyone else has problems: http://bit.ly/1wX6Bx8 http://bit.ly/1wX6Bx8.
uselessdguy 12y ago
Sorry about that. We've been under attack since shortly after we got covered on Phoronix. Started off with IRC bot spam, but looks like they got the wiki, as well. We're working on undoing it. Good thing ikiwiki is versioned. It's a shame that software forks can summon such derision, but it looks like init systems are serious business. Oh well. The same person is also spamming the #systemd channel on freenode. Pathetic display altogether. EDIT: We're back. In the meantime, our BitBucket repo: https://bitbucket.org/bcsd/uselessd https://bitbucket.org/bcsd/uselessd
- jdeisenberg 12y ago
  Thanks. I realize startup systems are a controversial, but they hardly warrant this. My only interest in them is "which one is best to teach students in a beginning Linux admin course"?
  - Qantourisc 12y ago
    Both, unless you suspect your students will never see an old init system.
  - techdragon 12y ago
    Old first so when you teach the new, they understand what has been abstracted away.

spb 12y ago

This is the kind of thing I want to see when people criticize systemd: an example of what they'd do differently (other than just "there's nothing wrong with having a million lines of copypasted bash in init.d, I'll stick to unsupervised several-minute boot times tyvm"). Bravo.

ycombine33212 12y ago

Coup. The tech committee is made up of current or former redhat and canonical employees. This is a social problem and needs a social solution. They took our distribution from us. They came from the same place as the various womens groups who invaded a few years ago and kicked out male programmers who opposed them.

ycombine33212 12y ago

EXXXCCCUUUSSEEE ME. Your opinion is DEPRECIATED You need to be banned from the mailing lists, you're using TRIGGERING WORDS. Harraser.

InfiniteRand 12y ago

I find the systemd debate vaguely interesting but not especially relevant to me, however I must applaud the effort of these guys. They were dissatisfied with ongoing trends and decided to work on an alternative. Kudos, good sirs, kudos.