5 ms·

Systemd has been trying to drag desktop linux into a world that is as seamless as OSX and it is so sad that most people blast it as "not the linux way". And eve

Systemd has been trying to drag desktop linux into a world that is as seamless as OSX and it is so sad that most people blast it as "not the linux way". And even sadder that people type this on Macbooks. The truth is that the West has moved on from Linux - Apple has won. Linux is most relevant in Asia, where we want to run it on cheap, locally assembled desktops. SystemD is bringing so much to improve the state of desktop linux - it is enabling fundamental security like XWindows-without-root[1], service dependency management ,etc. there is a lot of fud around binary logs (which incidentally are append only and have a grep like interface built around it) and hard dependencies on systemd for any cgroup access. The second is actually kernel mandated - all cgroups have to have a single arbitrator for external applications. Direct access to cgroups will be dropped in the future. AFAIK, as on today systemd is the ONLY arbitrator that complies with the kernel-dev requirements. I'm keen to see where desktop Linux can go to - I believe that it is going to be transformative for India. I strongly believe desktop Linux initiatives like SystemD and Mir/Wayland is going to take us there That said, if you have worked with Docker - I find myself wishing very frequently for SystemD as pid 1. Right now I use supervisord as PID 1 (for a multiprocess container) and it is definitely more difficult to use than SystemD. Plus the ease of imposing resource limits (using systemd.resource-control) is simply unparalleled [1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/XorgWithoutRootRights http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/XorgWithoutRootRights

Zardoz84 12y ago
Have you any information about that with systemd, updates of some software that run as service on the machine, would need now to reset the machine ?? For my, it is the only big issue that I see for my personal usage.
- sandGorgon 12y ago
  Actually, that is another systemd FUD. SystemD enables stateless systems - now that I think of it, very similar to Docker - by clearing out the /var and /etc directories. Which means that when you reboot the system, it acts as a system reset. This is actually, pretty hard to actually implement and systemd is trying really hard to do this. Imagine being able to build your own private DigitalOcean and able to have pristine machines for a new fleet deployment (possibly even avoiding the stale confidential data issues plaguing DigitalOcean). http://0pointer.net/blog/projects/stateless.html http://0pointer.net/blog/projects/stateless.html
  - thwarted 12y ago
    [stateless] is actually, pretty hard to actually implement and systemd is trying really hard to do this. Support for stateless has existed in RedHat based distributions since at least 2003-2004. I, in fact, used it to run a ~50 seat callcenter using read-only NFS root systems, with a dynamically populated /etc, a decade ago.
    - sandGorgon 12y ago
      And that pretty much encapsulates, what systemd is attempting vs what people think it is attempting. Systemd is not innovating on ideas, but on implementation. How do you make things like service dependencies, stateless systems, etc consistently possible. It is bringing something which was possible only for a person of your skill level, down to mine. I would say it is the same difference between Ubuntu and Arch - idiotproofing the Linux ecosystem.
randomguy54 12y ago
Yeah, but desktop Linux is not really relevant. systemd brings tons of improvements for servers and thats the main drivel for in. And it's written "systemd", not so camel-case monstrosity.

Zardoz84 12y ago

Have you any information about that with systemd, updates of some software that run as service on the machine, would need now to reset the machine ?? For my, it is the only big issue that I see for my personal usage.

sandGorgon 12y ago
Actually, that is another systemd FUD. SystemD enables stateless systems - now that I think of it, very similar to Docker - by clearing out the /var and /etc directories. Which means that when you reboot the system, it acts as a system reset. This is actually, pretty hard to actually implement and systemd is trying really hard to do this. Imagine being able to build your own private DigitalOcean and able to have pristine machines for a new fleet deployment (possibly even avoiding the stale confidential data issues plaguing DigitalOcean). http://0pointer.net/blog/projects/stateless.html http://0pointer.net/blog/projects/stateless.html
- thwarted 12y ago
  [stateless] is actually, pretty hard to actually implement and systemd is trying really hard to do this. Support for stateless has existed in RedHat based distributions since at least 2003-2004. I, in fact, used it to run a ~50 seat callcenter using read-only NFS root systems, with a dynamically populated /etc, a decade ago.
  - sandGorgon 12y ago
    And that pretty much encapsulates, what systemd is attempting vs what people think it is attempting. Systemd is not innovating on ideas, but on implementation. How do you make things like service dependencies, stateless systems, etc consistently possible. It is bringing something which was possible only for a person of your skill level, down to mine. I would say it is the same difference between Ubuntu and Arch - idiotproofing the Linux ecosystem.

randomguy54 12y ago

Yeah, but desktop Linux is not really relevant. systemd brings tons of improvements for servers and thats the main drivel for in. And it's written "systemd", not so camel-case monstrosity.