4 ms·

Are there reasons why Linux couldn't just adopt it?

by aerique 12y ago

Andys 12y ago
There's nothing stopping a Linux distro doing this.... but It would be a step backwards: it is simpler, and does less stuff, so booting would be slower and some features are missing.
- rjsw 12y ago
  Why would booting be slower ? My BSD systems boot quickly enough for me.
  - chousuke 12y ago
    My FreeBSD system has a 30-second timeout during which the entire boot process is halted because it waits for a default route to the internet... which it won't get, because I haven't configured one. It's pretty dumb, and not enough of a problem for me that I'd figure out how to work around it, but it's a pretty good example.
    - ash 12y ago
      I don't think this 30-second timeout is a bug in FreeBSD or in rc. You may want your server to wait for the network to become available. Ubuntu Server has the same "waiting for network" timeout: http://askubuntu.com/questions/63456/waiting-for-network-configuration-adding-3-to-5-minutes-to-boot-time http://askubuntu.com/questions/63456/waiting-for-network-con...
      - vidarh 12y ago
        But the only reason this is necessary is when the boot system isn't smart enough to start whatever can safely be started through proper dependencies. My experience is that a substantial amount of time is wasted weeding out undesired timeouts in startup scripts, because they lead to increasing downtime.
    - allegory 12y ago
      Just set in rc.conf: defaultrouter="NO" It shouldn't hang.
- allegory 12y ago
  How often do you reboot your kit? Boot time is such a stupid metric even on laptops and stuff where you just suspend/hibernate. My BSD systems (not front-facing and therefore on a lesser patch cycle) rarely get rebooted and neither do the processes so this is indeed moot for me. Proof: http://i.imgur.com/tZsM82Q.png http://i.imgur.com/tZsM82Q.png Yes that's a memcached uptime on a host that has had 10,185,367,932 cache hits...
  - _delirium 12y ago
    Suspend/hibernate on free unixes is a nightmare of incomplete support and buggy drivers, so not much of a solution. I'm don't know a single person who has a working laptop suspend/resume setup on FreeBSD (though it's theoretically possible), and it's not usually recommended to rely on it even if you could get it working. Linux has somewhat more complete support, but it's still very hit or miss, and it's common for stuff to be wonky after a resume, even when it does work.
    - allegory 12y ago
      I'll give you that to a degree. It does suck on FreeBSD with my X201. Nothing works but I'm being cheeky now and running it in VirtualBox on top of windows (which I need for other work). OpenBSD however works wonderfully.
- edwintorok 12y ago
  The main question is would it work? For me systemd or applications starting to support systemd only break things (something wrong with policykit/consolekit for example with sysvinit+systemd-shim) that used to work. Also there are some peculiarities in the way the LSB init script compatibility is implemented in systemd: it tries to be 'smart' and remember their state. So you start an init script, and it failed for some reason / perhaps even exited with an error code, perhaps you are still developing that init script. Now fixing the problem and running the init script / systemctl start doesn't even try to run the script because it thinks it has run it yet. You first have to tell it to stop it (which fails), and only then you can run it again.
vidarh 12y ago
Feel free. Most people won't, as systemd solves very real problems that people care a great deal about, whether or not you like the way it has solved them.
- bigbugbag 12y ago
  15 years linux user here, systemd is pushing me hard towards leaving linux. Please tell me what very real problems people care a great dead bout systemd solved by turning log files from text to binary. Also I care about being able to use my computer and for the first in 15 years a systemd update caused my computer to needlessly dropping into systemd emergency mode at boot and this emergency mode being broken I was effectively locked out of my computer because an optional external usb drive that was defined in fstab with no issue for a couple years now required a nofail option. Now consider that this computer is located in a remote location 1000 km away from where I live. To me systemd already caused way more very real problems I do care a great deal about than it has solved reducing boot time by a few seconds is not something I care that much about.
  - allegory 12y ago
    For me Linux is pretty dead already because I can't entirely trust the direct it's going in having survived the Unix wars of the 1990s. There are so many parallels to that at the moment, it's not funny. There are large vendors pulling it in separate directions (Canonical, Redhat, Google). At the end of the day, much like back then, customers will suffer from terrible support, fragmentation and political battles. I just want to get shit done and solve problems and anything that risks that gets outed now. FreeBSD hits the sweet spot, probably followed by NetBSD.
    - cwyers 12y ago
      "There are large vendors pulling it in separate directions (Canonical, Redhat, Google)." It's pretty clear how that's going to shake out, isn't it? Google is pretty much a non-issue here; yes, Android and ChromeOS use a Linux kernel base, but they have no impact on any mainline distros, and there's no indication Google wants them to. So it reduces down to two parties fighting for control: Canonical and Red Hat. And Red Hat is going to win. Canonical doesn't have the resources to go its own way on more than a handful of fronts (this is why when Debian switched to systemd Upstart was killed off; Canonical is far too reliant on Debian as an upstream to fight every issue), and their requirement for a CLA to accept anyone else's code means they are entirely reliant on their own coders, as nobody wants to sign Canonical's CLAs. We'll see how long they can stick it out on Mir, but they don't have the resources to fight a war with Red Hat on two fronts, so that's the only issue I expect to see them fighting over.
jamesog 12y ago
Slackware uses exactly this system.

Are there reasons why Linux couldn't just adopt it?

by aerique 12y ago

Are there reasons why Linux couldn't just adopt it?

Andys 12y ago

There's nothing stopping a Linux distro doing this.... but It would be a step backwards: it is simpler, and does less stuff, so booting would be slower and some features are missing.

rjsw 12y ago
Why would booting be slower ? My BSD systems boot quickly enough for me.
- chousuke 12y ago
  My FreeBSD system has a 30-second timeout during which the entire boot process is halted because it waits for a default route to the internet... which it won't get, because I haven't configured one. It's pretty dumb, and not enough of a problem for me that I'd figure out how to work around it, but it's a pretty good example.
  - ash 12y ago
    I don't think this 30-second timeout is a bug in FreeBSD or in rc. You may want your server to wait for the network to become available. Ubuntu Server has the same "waiting for network" timeout: http://askubuntu.com/questions/63456/waiting-for-network-configuration-adding-3-to-5-minutes-to-boot-time http://askubuntu.com/questions/63456/waiting-for-network-con...
    - vidarh 12y ago
      But the only reason this is necessary is when the boot system isn't smart enough to start whatever can safely be started through proper dependencies. My experience is that a substantial amount of time is wasted weeding out undesired timeouts in startup scripts, because they lead to increasing downtime.
  - allegory 12y ago
    Just set in rc.conf: defaultrouter="NO" It shouldn't hang.
allegory 12y ago
How often do you reboot your kit? Boot time is such a stupid metric even on laptops and stuff where you just suspend/hibernate. My BSD systems (not front-facing and therefore on a lesser patch cycle) rarely get rebooted and neither do the processes so this is indeed moot for me. Proof: http://i.imgur.com/tZsM82Q.png http://i.imgur.com/tZsM82Q.png Yes that's a memcached uptime on a host that has had 10,185,367,932 cache hits...
- _delirium 12y ago
  Suspend/hibernate on free unixes is a nightmare of incomplete support and buggy drivers, so not much of a solution. I'm don't know a single person who has a working laptop suspend/resume setup on FreeBSD (though it's theoretically possible), and it's not usually recommended to rely on it even if you could get it working. Linux has somewhat more complete support, but it's still very hit or miss, and it's common for stuff to be wonky after a resume, even when it does work.
  - allegory 12y ago
    I'll give you that to a degree. It does suck on FreeBSD with my X201. Nothing works but I'm being cheeky now and running it in VirtualBox on top of windows (which I need for other work). OpenBSD however works wonderfully.
edwintorok 12y ago
The main question is would it work? For me systemd or applications starting to support systemd only break things (something wrong with policykit/consolekit for example with sysvinit+systemd-shim) that used to work. Also there are some peculiarities in the way the LSB init script compatibility is implemented in systemd: it tries to be 'smart' and remember their state. So you start an init script, and it failed for some reason / perhaps even exited with an error code, perhaps you are still developing that init script. Now fixing the problem and running the init script / systemctl start doesn't even try to run the script because it thinks it has run it yet. You first have to tell it to stop it (which fails), and only then you can run it again.

vidarh 12y ago

Feel free. Most people won't, as systemd solves very real problems that people care a great deal about, whether or not you like the way it has solved them.

bigbugbag 12y ago
15 years linux user here, systemd is pushing me hard towards leaving linux. Please tell me what very real problems people care a great dead bout systemd solved by turning log files from text to binary. Also I care about being able to use my computer and for the first in 15 years a systemd update caused my computer to needlessly dropping into systemd emergency mode at boot and this emergency mode being broken I was effectively locked out of my computer because an optional external usb drive that was defined in fstab with no issue for a couple years now required a nofail option. Now consider that this computer is located in a remote location 1000 km away from where I live. To me systemd already caused way more very real problems I do care a great deal about than it has solved reducing boot time by a few seconds is not something I care that much about.
- allegory 12y ago
  For me Linux is pretty dead already because I can't entirely trust the direct it's going in having survived the Unix wars of the 1990s. There are so many parallels to that at the moment, it's not funny. There are large vendors pulling it in separate directions (Canonical, Redhat, Google). At the end of the day, much like back then, customers will suffer from terrible support, fragmentation and political battles. I just want to get shit done and solve problems and anything that risks that gets outed now. FreeBSD hits the sweet spot, probably followed by NetBSD.
  - cwyers 12y ago
    "There are large vendors pulling it in separate directions (Canonical, Redhat, Google)." It's pretty clear how that's going to shake out, isn't it? Google is pretty much a non-issue here; yes, Android and ChromeOS use a Linux kernel base, but they have no impact on any mainline distros, and there's no indication Google wants them to. So it reduces down to two parties fighting for control: Canonical and Red Hat. And Red Hat is going to win. Canonical doesn't have the resources to go its own way on more than a handful of fronts (this is why when Debian switched to systemd Upstart was killed off; Canonical is far too reliant on Debian as an upstream to fight every issue), and their requirement for a CLA to accept anyone else's code means they are entirely reliant on their own coders, as nobody wants to sign Canonical's CLAs. We'll see how long they can stick it out on Mir, but they don't have the resources to fight a war with Red Hat on two fronts, so that's the only issue I expect to see them fighting over.

jamesog 12y ago

Slackware uses exactly this system.