5 ms·

The anti-systemd-brigade only seems to be a small minority of Debian devs (though they're very loud, and very persistent), so I'm not sure it would have much ef

The anti-systemd-brigade only seems to be a small minority of Debian devs (though they're very loud, and very persistent), so I'm not sure it would have much effect on the project as a whole. If a fork would reduce the time spent arguing about the init system (which 99% of users don't care about), it could even prove beneficial for Debian. [It seems unlikely the fork would attract the critical mass of devs/users to succeed on its own though.]

23david 12y ago
Decoupling systemd is a feature desired by system administrators, who are responsible for installing and managing most debian and debian-based distros.
- 0x006A 12y ago
  on the contrary, systemd is a feature desired by system administrators, who are responsible for installing and managing most debian and debian-based distros.
  - TheSwordsman 12y ago
    As someone who manages a large Debuntu fleet, please don't speak on my behalf. If I had the opportunity to vote for systemd it would have been 'no'.
    - pantalaimon 12y ago
      Have you ever used it?
      - mverwijs 12y ago
        I have. I ran Arch for 3 years, up until 3 months after they implemented systemd. It made a KISS situation incredible complex. I switched back to Debian on my desktop after that. If Debian switches to systemd, I'll switch to Slackware, until SystemD has proven iteself to be stable and simple to administer. Not before.
        buster 12y ago
        I've installed systemd on Debian testing months ago and have not had a single problem. https://wiki.debian.org/systemd https://wiki.debian.org/systemd has some hints. I think it's likely when Jessie is released you'll most likely find that stuff still works.
        LukaD 12y ago
        I other words, you have not used systemd.
        pessimizer 12y ago
        In the same words, mverwijs ran systemd for 3 months.
        zyx321 12y ago
        That was 2 years ago, have you given it another try since?
    - ownagefool 12y ago
      Is that because you think it's somehow technically inferior or because you you've learnt a whole bunch of skills and don't really want to have to replace them? I mean, would you like to see the init system change, period?
      - 23david 12y ago
        It's great to have new and alternative init systems (and process managers) to use. Nobody is complaining about having to learn new skills. Yes I want a better init system and process manager setup. But personally, I'm not sure that goal is worth losing Unix distro compatibility. I would love a system that works the same across OSX, BSD's, Illumos and other newer experimental OS's etc.
    - rdc12 12y ago
      And you don't speak on behalf of every other sysadmin on the planet either
      - therealidiot 12y ago
        Isn't this a pointless statement? Nobody does.
    - click170 12y ago
      May I ask why? There's a whole lot of "I don't/do like it" and "It did/didn't work for me" but not a lot of explanation of why they do or don't like it, or what didn't work, and I'm interested in those details.
  - therealidiot 12y ago
    I'd rather not be forced to use something because some people decided it's "what system administrators want."
    - shawnz 12y ago
      Isn't that why you used sysvinit?
csirac2 12y ago
I'm not even "anti-systemd". I'm actually in the process of implementing systemd for the firmware of an embedded target in $dayjob because socket activation is actually a good idea and happened to work well when I played with it. But a switch to a different init system shouldn't break your system so badly that it no longer boots. And yet that's what happens if you rely on keyscript to unlock your drives in /etc/crypttab. Apparently the answer is to write a different custom C program for every possible permutation of obtaining key material to feed to cryptsetup: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/systemd-devel/2014-August/022024.html http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/systemd-devel/2014-Aug... ... which is somehow more clean than a 4 line keyscript. ... and certainly lends credence to the idea that systemd just isn't unixy.
- cbsmith 12y ago
  Using shell scripts to do decryption seems dicey at best...
  - csirac2 12y ago
    It's dicey to obtain key material from external hardware because...?
    - cbsmith 12y ago
      Shell scrips have issues with race conditions (which is why they aren't setuid) and just generally create a lot of points of exposure.
      - simoncion 12y ago
        What? Racy code has issues with race conditions. Any error in setuid executables can be very dangerous, so they are strongly discouraged. However, once you've decided that you have to write a setuid program, there's no particular reason to not write it in a scripting language. As a datapoint, the KDE folks think that using scripting languages for setuid executables is okay: /usr/lib/kde4/libexec/fileshareset: setuid Perl script, ASCII text executable
philsnow 12y ago
> The anti-systemd-brigade only seems to be a small minority of Debian devs (though they're very loud, and very persistent) The pro-systemd brigade only seems to be a small minority of Debian devs (though they're extremely loud, and trollishly persistent). I've thought for a long time that they must have a place where they all hang out in secret and share links to discussions where they need a pro-systemd response / a handful of downvotes. In this way they give the impression that their numbers are much larger (the reasoning here is that for any given post or discussion, if the number of "ambient" / "organic" critical comments or downvotes that it receives is a proxy for how critical the community at large is, so by sharing links they make it seem like there's a broad base of support for systemd). This kind of thing seems to happen periodically, where a person / group of people railroads a decision using methods that are outside the "accepted" set of methods for OSS development, namely meritocratic discussions. Who knows what their motivations are. It probably varies per person. Having "I designed and implemented a new init system and got all the major distributions to adopt it" on a resume is a huge demonstration of "impact", which is something that really pays off in a lot of companies / organizations. "Impact" isn't always "progress", though.
- neurobro 12y ago
  > The pro-systemd brigade only seems to be a small minority of Debian devs (though they're extremely loud, and trollishly persistent). And generally more convincing, probably due to actually understanding both sides under debate.

23david 12y ago

Decoupling systemd is a feature desired by system administrators, who are responsible for installing and managing most debian and debian-based distros.

0x006A 12y ago
on the contrary, systemd is a feature desired by system administrators, who are responsible for installing and managing most debian and debian-based distros.
- TheSwordsman 12y ago
  As someone who manages a large Debuntu fleet, please don't speak on my behalf. If I had the opportunity to vote for systemd it would have been 'no'.
  - pantalaimon 12y ago
    Have you ever used it?
    - mverwijs 12y ago
      I have. I ran Arch for 3 years, up until 3 months after they implemented systemd. It made a KISS situation incredible complex. I switched back to Debian on my desktop after that. If Debian switches to systemd, I'll switch to Slackware, until SystemD has proven iteself to be stable and simple to administer. Not before.
      - buster 12y ago
        I've installed systemd on Debian testing months ago and have not had a single problem. https://wiki.debian.org/systemd https://wiki.debian.org/systemd has some hints. I think it's likely when Jessie is released you'll most likely find that stuff still works.
      - LukaD 12y ago
        I other words, you have not used systemd.
        pessimizer 12y ago
        In the same words, mverwijs ran systemd for 3 months.
      - zyx321 12y ago
        That was 2 years ago, have you given it another try since?
  - ownagefool 12y ago
    Is that because you think it's somehow technically inferior or because you you've learnt a whole bunch of skills and don't really want to have to replace them? I mean, would you like to see the init system change, period?
    - 23david 12y ago
      It's great to have new and alternative init systems (and process managers) to use. Nobody is complaining about having to learn new skills. Yes I want a better init system and process manager setup. But personally, I'm not sure that goal is worth losing Unix distro compatibility. I would love a system that works the same across OSX, BSD's, Illumos and other newer experimental OS's etc.
  - rdc12 12y ago
    And you don't speak on behalf of every other sysadmin on the planet either
    - therealidiot 12y ago
      Isn't this a pointless statement? Nobody does.
  - click170 12y ago
    May I ask why? There's a whole lot of "I don't/do like it" and "It did/didn't work for me" but not a lot of explanation of why they do or don't like it, or what didn't work, and I'm interested in those details.
- therealidiot 12y ago
  I'd rather not be forced to use something because some people decided it's "what system administrators want."
  - shawnz 12y ago
    Isn't that why you used sysvinit?

csirac2 12y ago

I'm not even "anti-systemd". I'm actually in the process of implementing systemd for the firmware of an embedded target in $dayjob because socket activation is actually a good idea and happened to work well when I played with it. But a switch to a different init system shouldn't break your system so badly that it no longer boots. And yet that's what happens if you rely on keyscript to unlock your drives in /etc/crypttab. Apparently the answer is to write a different custom C program for every possible permutation of obtaining key material to feed to cryptsetup: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/systemd-devel/2014-August/022024.html http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/systemd-devel/2014-Aug... ... which is somehow more clean than a 4 line keyscript. ... and certainly lends credence to the idea that systemd just isn't unixy.

cbsmith 12y ago
Using shell scripts to do decryption seems dicey at best...
- csirac2 12y ago
  It's dicey to obtain key material from external hardware because...?
  - cbsmith 12y ago
    Shell scrips have issues with race conditions (which is why they aren't setuid) and just generally create a lot of points of exposure.
    - simoncion 12y ago
      What? Racy code has issues with race conditions. Any error in setuid executables can be very dangerous, so they are strongly discouraged. However, once you've decided that you have to write a setuid program, there's no particular reason to not write it in a scripting language. As a datapoint, the KDE folks think that using scripting languages for setuid executables is okay: /usr/lib/kde4/libexec/fileshareset: setuid Perl script, ASCII text executable

philsnow 12y ago

> The anti-systemd-brigade only seems to be a small minority of Debian devs (though they're very loud, and very persistent) The pro-systemd brigade only seems to be a small minority of Debian devs (though they're extremely loud, and trollishly persistent). I've thought for a long time that they must have a place where they all hang out in secret and share links to discussions where they need a pro-systemd response / a handful of downvotes. In this way they give the impression that their numbers are much larger (the reasoning here is that for any given post or discussion, if the number of "ambient" / "organic" critical comments or downvotes that it receives is a proxy for how critical the community at large is, so by sharing links they make it seem like there's a broad base of support for systemd). This kind of thing seems to happen periodically, where a person / group of people railroads a decision using methods that are outside the "accepted" set of methods for OSS development, namely meritocratic discussions. Who knows what their motivations are. It probably varies per person. Having "I designed and implemented a new init system and got all the major distributions to adopt it" on a resume is a huge demonstration of "impact", which is something that really pays off in a lot of companies / organizations. "Impact" isn't always "progress", though.

neurobro 12y ago
> The pro-systemd brigade only seems to be a small minority of Debian devs (though they're extremely loud, and trollishly persistent). And generally more convincing, probably due to actually understanding both sides under debate.