5 ms·

My machine with systemd (FC20) doesn't boot up at all unless systemd loglevel is set to debug on the command line. Even with it it takes about 5 minutes to boot

by jsnell 12y ago

My machine with systemd (FC20) doesn't boot up at all unless systemd loglevel is set to debug on the command line. Even with it it takes about 5 minutes to boot. Luckily I don't need to reboot often, but every single time there's a small fear that some upgrade has made systemd crap up even worse, and the system won't boot at all. How do you debug a complete black box, where turning on debugging partly fixes the problem. You really don't. This is literally the worst debugging experience I've had in 20 years of using and maintaining Linux systems -- and that includes trying to do these things with much less knowledge and only limited internet access back in the early days. I love the ideas behind systemd. It's too bad, even if not surprising, that the implementation is a flaming pile of garbage.

e12e 12y ago
Reminds me of the joyful early days of moving from grub to lilo. Grub was (is) more fragile due to being more complex -- but at least the grub shell gives more information than lilo failing at "LI"... Grub always seemed like the improved features made up for the added complexity; I'm not convinced about systemd.
- clarry 12y ago
  Even Grub isn't all flowery. I have a background of using what I think is now called grub-legacy. Then I ended up running Debian, with newfangled Grub. I needed to change some kernel parameter (IIRC) but all I could find was a mess of undocumented scripts which say "don't touch this". I don't know where the documentation went, and it seemed needlessly complicated to configure. Why couldn't I say man grub and learn all I need about it? I had other issues with Debian, but the last straw was when during a routine package update it decided to install a new version of Grub.. and the next time, it wouldn't boot anymore. Why was it so complicated in the first place? Why did Debian have to fix it if it's not broken? Why did it fail to do it right? I don't know, I don't really care... all I know is that needless complexity and churn caused trouble, again. So I'm no longer using Grub or Debian. And my bootloader is simple. I've installed it once, and never touched it afterwards. It's possible to configure it a little, but there's no need for it. So what if it has fewer features. It only needs to load the damn kernel... and it works. I'm happy.
  - makomk 12y ago
    The config files you want are /etc/default/grub and possibly also /etc/grub.d/ - though you're right, this doesn't seem to be documented anywhere obvious like in the man page. Gentoo installs its own version of /etc/default/grub with comments and examples but Debian may not be so helpful.
    - clarry 12y ago
      I'm pretty sure I poked in those very files, and some of them gave me the impression that they are generated by a script (hence "don't touch this"). Some of them gave me an impression they are read by some undocumented script. I still don't know what script. But it's been a while.
      - e12e 12y ago
        It was messy (to a certain extent it still is). Reasons for GRUB(2) are mostly UEFI, multiboot support (eg: bsds, windows nt derivatives like modern windows). Grub fails the test of making simple things (as) simple (as possible). But it does support booting to space invaders. So there's a trade-off there, and I agree, it's not entirely clear much was gained from moving off of Lilo...
  - oftenwrong 12y ago
    info grub
- e12e 12y ago
  Might be obvious, but that should be "moving from lilo to grub", not the other way around...

by jsnell 12y ago

e12e 12y ago

Reminds me of the joyful early days of moving from grub to lilo. Grub was (is) more fragile due to being more complex -- but at least the grub shell gives more information than lilo failing at "LI"... Grub always seemed like the improved features made up for the added complexity; I'm not convinced about systemd.

clarry 12y ago
Even Grub isn't all flowery. I have a background of using what I think is now called grub-legacy. Then I ended up running Debian, with newfangled Grub. I needed to change some kernel parameter (IIRC) but all I could find was a mess of undocumented scripts which say "don't touch this". I don't know where the documentation went, and it seemed needlessly complicated to configure. Why couldn't I say man grub and learn all I need about it? I had other issues with Debian, but the last straw was when during a routine package update it decided to install a new version of Grub.. and the next time, it wouldn't boot anymore. Why was it so complicated in the first place? Why did Debian have to fix it if it's not broken? Why did it fail to do it right? I don't know, I don't really care... all I know is that needless complexity and churn caused trouble, again. So I'm no longer using Grub or Debian. And my bootloader is simple. I've installed it once, and never touched it afterwards. It's possible to configure it a little, but there's no need for it. So what if it has fewer features. It only needs to load the damn kernel... and it works. I'm happy.
- makomk 12y ago
  The config files you want are /etc/default/grub and possibly also /etc/grub.d/ - though you're right, this doesn't seem to be documented anywhere obvious like in the man page. Gentoo installs its own version of /etc/default/grub with comments and examples but Debian may not be so helpful.
  - clarry 12y ago
    I'm pretty sure I poked in those very files, and some of them gave me the impression that they are generated by a script (hence "don't touch this"). Some of them gave me an impression they are read by some undocumented script. I still don't know what script. But it's been a while.
    - e12e 12y ago
      It was messy (to a certain extent it still is). Reasons for GRUB(2) are mostly UEFI, multiboot support (eg: bsds, windows nt derivatives like modern windows). Grub fails the test of making simple things (as) simple (as possible). But it does support booting to space invaders. So there's a trade-off there, and I agree, it's not entirely clear much was gained from moving off of Lilo...
- oftenwrong 12y ago
  info grub
e12e 12y ago
Might be obvious, but that should be "moving from lilo to grub", not the other way around...