11 ms·

Avoiding systemd isn't hard

170 points by jorgecastillo 12y ago

namarkiv 12y ago
On gentoo, we have virtual/service-manager[0], that allows you to use openrc/systemd/runit/daemontools. [0] http://sources.gentoo.org/cgi-bin/viewvc.cgi/gentoo-x86/virtual/service-manager/service-manager-0.ebuild?revision=1.6&view=markup http://sources.gentoo.org/cgi-bin/viewvc.cgi/gentoo-x86/virt...
taeric 12y ago
I thought the big concern is that it isn't hard yet.
- Alupis 12y ago
  it will only get "hard" if software projects bake in hard-dependencies to systemd, like the gnome project has (because they thought/think it provides a lot of benefits, and imho it does). Even so, there are plenty of shims being built that provide the small amount of api compatibility necessary to make things like gnome work on non-systemd systems (FreeBSD for example).
  - taeric 12y ago
    So, it is going to get hard, is what you are saying? I mean, it could be that the shims are nice and easy, but it seems to be the expectation that this will not be the case, right? Especially since systemd seems to be on a very aggressive expansion of responsibilities campaign.
    - Alupis 12y ago
      systemd is 69 individual components (and binaries) last time I checked. You can opt to build some, or all when you compile it. Yes they work together, but they have an open and now-more-or-less standardized api. So nothing prevents another developer from writing against the api, be it a shim to reduce/remove systemd but provide compatible calls into another system (init, logging, etc), or a complete replacement for a specific component of systemd. I see it only getting easier actually. Folks in the BSD projects for example have their own init system but still want software like gnome, so shims are used to provide the api abstraction. This can be applied elsewhere in the Linux world as well. Again, this is only for software where the developers have explicitly decided to hard-code in dependencies to systemd, which is not likely going to be everyone.
      - deong 12y ago
        > Again, this is only for software where the developers have explicitly decided to hard-code in dependencies to systemd, which is not likely going to be everyone. I'd put good money on this getting harder and harder going forward though. At some point it will be everyone, or at least practically everyone, because every Linux distribution with any mindshare will have been using systemd for years, and hard-coding systemd will be not a lot different than hard-coding calls to the C standard library. Also, shims? How god-awfully inelegant can we be? "You don't like systemd? Cool. You can run something else (as long as it looks, feels, and behaves exactly like systemd)." Look, I'm not a religious zealot. Systemd is what they want me to run; systemd is what I'm running. I can live with ugly software. It's not the end of the world. But oh dear god is it ugly.
        Alupis 12y ago
        In what way is it "ugly"?
        deong 12y ago
        I'd give the same answers as you've probably heard a dozen times before. Binary logs, D-bus fundamentally baked in, the whole "shims are a perfectly good solution" viewpoint, basically the usual things people like me don't like.
  - makomk 12y ago
    I know the systemd developers are now planning on making udev depend on systemd in the near future, and that's pretty essential for desktop/server Linux.
    - Alupis 12y ago
      Maybe not such a large hurdle though. udev was written by Kay mostly and he is on the systemd team. Before udev there was devfsd and hotplug[1], so it's feasible udev could be forked and/or an alternative introduced if it really becomes a burden for distros. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Udev http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Udev
      - digi_owl 12y ago
        Udev is already forked, in the form of eudev. And Poettering is already having fun taunting them in systemd release notes, with lines like "This is your wakeup call". Frankly i am reminded of the stuff we would see Jobs pull on stage. Like "Redmond, ready your copying machines"...
- dingaling 12y ago
  > I thought the big concern is that it isn't hard yet. And once it is a hard dependency then Red Hat will be in control of strategy for the dominant init system. That's what concerns me, not the immediate technical challenges which can overcome. But those who are busy now patching the broken bits won't have influence over the direction of systemd in the future. We'll all go where one billion-dollar enterprise-oriented vendor leads us.
  - digi_owl 12y ago
    This came to mind: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/02/linus-torvalds-i-will-not-change-linux-to-deep-throat-microsoft/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/02/linus-... The reason is that RH right now is deep in two camps, cloud and military/government contracts. http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/blog/techflash/2014/09/u-s-department-of-defense-inks-contract-for-up-to.html http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/blog/techflash/2014/09/u... and systemd has two parts as best i can tell. One part is aimed at cloud via containers and sandboxes (soon to come to desktop as well via Gnome). The other is aimed at securing "seats" via logind. This because the earlier consolekit had a limited reach because it didn't have a partner sitting as pid 1. And the military is after all the origin of the concept "trusted computing". I am not saying that there is a willed conspiracy. But with Red Hat being a for profit organization, anything that bring in the cash in the short run will be given priority...
rogertux 12y ago
They have fear of systemd becoming the mainstream init system. It's more easy for a project to become obsolete if we start to forget about it. Although sysvinit still has an chance to evolve.
- gtaylor 12y ago
  > Although sysvinit still has an chance to evolve. You'd probably have some of the same people complaining if you tried to "evolve" SysV. I guess things are pretty good right now in the Linux world if this is the thing to argue over.
  - rogertux 12y ago
    Well... In fact it's alredy happening with the init wars
  - e7620 12y ago
    Not really, remember daemontools? There are almost a hundred init systems very superior technically compared to sysv and systemd, the truth is that sysv has NEVER been considered the best.
  - digi_owl 12y ago
    Depends on how it was to evolve. Parallel boot, sure. But you can always drop runit or openrc or something similar on top and get it already. socket based service start, (hardware) event based, pass. Frankly the core of sysv, the init binary, does very little. It sets up virtual terminals and fires up one or more processes (that it will keep an eye on and maybe restart). The latter processe(s), most commonly a shell script of some kind, are what do the actual starting of "services" and managing of runlevels etc. This is a very flexible system, as most of the logic involved is easy to get at. It is housed in interpreted scripts rather than compiled C code. you can even run the scripts directly in a root shell if you have the need to do so (or perform the scripted commands manually). Basically the scripts do little more than what someone would do manually if they were presented with a bare shell after kernel boot.
- Alupis 12y ago
toni 12y ago
apt-pinning (something that I have always thought is a bad practice) and using a shim. Honest question: isn't this just a giant hairy hack? Am I missing something?
- stonogo 12y ago
  apt pinning, like most systems administration software, is a bad thing if applied without forethought. while I withhold judgment on this particular application, apt pinning is a very useful feature when dealing with e.g. proprietary binary software with specific library version requirements, for instance.
- forgottenpass 12y ago
  Pinning? That's only a hack if you don't care to learn how apt works. And not actually necessary to avoid systemd unless you're running with `--assume-yes` or hammering 'y'. systemd-shim? Well, yeah, but that's the entire point of it's existence.
deleted 12y ago
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- pothibo 12y ago
  Did you read the article? It's only needed if you want Gnome to work, not Debian. That means sysadmin don't need that shim since they shouldn't need Gnome in the first place. Get your head out of the sand.
- pessimizer 12y ago
  I agree with them at this point, it's just going to take a little while to get a freebsd workflow that I'm comfortable with.
  - Alupis 12y ago
    did you not get the main point? if for some reason you feel you must avoid systemd, even though it provides enormous benefits (especially for servers), you can.
    - db48x 12y ago
      If he admits that, then he'll have to spend time learning new tools. Can't have that...
    - felixgallo 12y ago
      just out of curiosity, have you ever run servers in a professional capacity?
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
      - Alupis 12y ago
        care to comment on what exactly about systemd is bad for servers?
    - bryanlarsen 12y ago
doe88 12y ago
I think the author should refrain from using the word trolls so much it hampers his overall message. So what happens with the pinning example with GNOME (I didn't know this useful command)? Because of the dependance on systemd it is not upgraded then?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- db48x 12y ago
  There have been some real hate-filled messages on the mailing lists. If they had been directed at a women then they would have made HN all on their own. The article links to one of them, if you want to check it out.
  - lawl 12y ago
    For the record, the guy on the mailing list linked in the article probably has serious mental health issues. He also does those really creepy youtube videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2toVPMHRo8M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2toVPMHRo8M And I've heard he contacted other devs and I've heard a couple of stories that I'm not sure I can share publicly at this point. Generalizing that all systemd opponents are trolls because there is one guy with serious mental health issues is not a valid argument.
  - e7620 12y ago
    Here is the message: There has been no General Resolution amongst debian package maintainers. Red Hat has instituted a regulatory capture of the "bug squashing" committee within debian (the "Technical Committee") by having current or former (but stock holding) employees moonlight in debian and gradually gain membership in that comittie. Once their numbers were sufficient they proceeded to file a bug report on the fact that systemd was not standard in debian. This is illicit abuse of process and they need to be prosecuted. Debian is an unincorporated association. It has bylaws, trade practices, and dealings by which it was governed. The RedHat associated members of the Technical Committee have illegally and in bad faith abused their positions in-order to realize financial and strategic gain for their employer. Do you really believe this is hate speech? Hate speech attacks a person or group on the basis of attributes such as gender, ethnic origin, religion, race, disability, or sexual orientation.
byuu 12y ago
Thanks for the guide. Serious question, say I were to do a clean install of Jessie. I would use Xfce with either LightDM or no DM, or I might choose to set up a VPS that obviously won't even need Xorg. Is there a way during installation that I can skip installing systemd at all in that case, perhaps through a minimal install and then following up with adding the software I want? I don't like the idea of trying to purge systemd and its dependencies after a fresh install.
- tkinom 12y ago
  Love to see a simple Linux dist that is base on xfce or some supper lightweight GUI as default but base on debian also. Any good suggestion?
  - VLM 12y ago
    Debian, then at the "task selection" stage choose nothing (definitely not desktop environment), later install xmonad and trayer and all that. Or you want xfce, OK install that. Oh and probably lightdm or xdm or some login manager, assuming you don't want to log in text and then startx or whatever other strategy. Its not like Debian "requires" gnome or kde or whatever as part of the install. Just install what you want.
- gh02t 12y ago
  I am not sure about Jessie, but whenever Debian switches to Systemd as the default, I would guess even the minimal install would have it. Systemd is the init process, so you can't really just do without it (or some other init system at least). I think it will probably require somebody remixing the installer image to use a different init system. Not sure though, I'm not super informed about what Debian is planning for the switch. I think (no experience, but it makes sense) that Gentoo lets you pick the init system easily at install, you might want to look at that. You might want to try it though. In my experience, the minimal config for systemd is quite lightweight and clean. I don't use KDE or Gnome, but I quite like systemd on my Arch workstation. Arch (and Fedora) have had it for quite a while now, even back when it was probably a bad idea to switch...
lotsofcows 12y ago
Oh great, now people whose opinions differ are "trolls". I think we all know who the troll is...
- general_failure 12y ago
  Yeah, this appears like a gross misuse of the world trolls
- chimeracoder 12y ago
  He's not casting all opponents of systemd as trolls; he's saying that trolls have spread a lot of misinformation about systemd, which is true. Opponents of systemd have spread a LOT of FUD and misinformation about systemd. I know, because I was initially very skeptical of (or even opposed to) systemd based on what they had said. Fortunately, I discovered that much of it was misleading or inaccurate after my main distro switched to systemd. Even if we give them the benefit of the doubt and say that it wasn't an intentional attempt to spread misinformation, and that they were simply speaking very vocally about a topic that they themselves had not taken the time to read up on, it is not much of a stretch to call that behavior "trolling".
  - e7620 12y ago
    > Opponents of systemd have spread a LOT of FUD and misinformation about systemd Well, obviously there's another, more charitable interpretation. > I discovered that much of it was misleading or inaccurate after my main distro switched to systemd. Systemd is a continuously-varying project, and just because your distro smoothly switched, doesn't mean there were no problems for early adopters. Or that just because your configuration works, no difficulty with the multiple systemd components have, do or will arise.
    - chimeracoder 12y ago
      > systemd is a continuously-varying project, and just because your distro smoothly switched, doesn't mean there were no problems for early adopters, or that just because your configuration works, no difficulty with the multiple systemd components have, do or will arise. Actually, I never claimed that my distro switched smoothly. Ironically, I literally commented just yesterday complaining that my distro (Arch) did not switch smoothly (and IMHO switched too early)[0]. I had a lot of issues when I first switched - I couldn't even boot my system, as a lot of stuff did not migrate cleanly. Switching is always going to cause upheaval and breakage to at least some extent, and that's not what OP and I are referring to when talking about FUD. What I'm talking about are people making factually incorrect (and worse, trivially verifiably incorrect) statements about systemd and what it does. Some of them are just blatantly wrong ("systemd forces you to use binary log files"[1], "systemd means you can't use init scripts"[2]), "systemd means you can't use crontab"[3], or my favorite "systemd gives QR code output"[4]). Others are technically true, but highly misleading ("I don't want everything to run in PID 1"[5], "systemd is the only way to run cgroups"[6]) There's a difference between disliking systemd on technical merit and disliking it based on false information that one hasn't even bothered to verify, and then vocally spreading that misinformation. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8482950 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8482950 [1] systemd by default does not use any log files (IIRC), and provides text logs as an alternative to the recommended binary default. You can keep using syslog just as always. [2] systemd allows for init script compatibility. I won't claim that all init scripts will work without any modification, but it's not like you can't keep using init scripts instead of systemd configs if you don't want to [3] systemd.timer is something you can use instead of crontab, but it will also run regular CRON jobs as well. [4] systemd does have an option to display kernel dumps as QR codes. This feature is generally not compiled or available by default [5] systemd includes some functionality that runs in PID 1, but most of what people actually are talking about does not run in PID 1 [6] systemd is the only way to run cgroups, because the Linux kernel requires that a single arbiter handle all cgroups, and systemd is (was?) the only program that has actually implemented the entire necessary ABI to do so. Anyone is free to write another program to handle cgroups instead of systemd.
deleted 12y ago
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Karunamon 12y ago
Now? No, not really, just avoid GNOME. In the future? Yeah, probably. This wouldn't be an issue if the systemd people weren't notoriously hard to get along with. Really, I think all of the reasons why systemd attracts hate can be boiled down to this. Nobody wants a standard init system that's overtly hostile to bug reports and reasonable changes. Say what you want about upstart and sysvinit, but I don't recall a point where the maintainers of it were told off for hijacking kernel flags...
- morganvachon 12y ago
  > This wouldn't be an issue if the systemd people weren't notoriously hard to get along with. This. It doesn't help this guy's case that he's basically calling anyone who doesn't want systemd a "troll". That's not the way to win people to your side of a disagreement.
  - Aissen 12y ago
    > This. This. Backed by nothing, calling the systemd team "notoriously hard to get along with". I'd be interested in seeing proof of "this".
    - Karunamon 12y ago
      There are a couple of incidents mentioned on the LKML that go directly to their bug tracker - the ones I refer to is where Linus gives Kay Sievers an earful for hijacking the kernel flags (and subsequently writing off the perfectly reasonable complaint). I'd link you to them directly but I'm mobile now.
      - Aissen 12y ago
        Here's the LWN story of this "incident": http://lwn.net/Articles/593676/ http://lwn.net/Articles/593676/ ; it has all the proper sources in links.
    - morganvachon 12y ago
      A quote[1] by a systemd developer: "The only way to deal with journal corruptions, currently, is to ignore them: when a corruption is detected, journald will rename the file to <something>.journal~, and journalctl will try to do its best reading it. Actually fixing journal corruptions is a hard job, and it seems unlikely that it will be implemented in the near future." A major bug is reported, and their response is "it's too hard so we won't fix it" in a project that is soon to be at the core of every major GNU/Linux distro? No thanks. [1] https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=64116 https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=64116
anonbanker 12y ago
another pro-systemd post. there's been two of them today, the other being the uselessd blog post. What's with this community rushing to defend themselves? doesn't this smell like astroturfing to anyone else?
alex_duf 12y ago
On a purely technical perspective (I don't care about people not getting along), what is reproached to systemd ?
deleted 12y ago
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170 points by jorgecastillo 12y ago

On gentoo, we have virtual/service-manager[0], that allows you to use openrc/systemd/runit/daemontools. [0] http://sources.gentoo.org/cgi-bin/viewvc.cgi/gentoo-x86/virtual/service-manager/service-manager-0.ebuild?revision=1.6&view=markup http://sources.gentoo.org/cgi-bin/viewvc.cgi/gentoo-x86/virt...

taeric 12y ago

I thought the big concern is that it isn't hard yet.

Alupis 12y ago
it will only get "hard" if software projects bake in hard-dependencies to systemd, like the gnome project has (because they thought/think it provides a lot of benefits, and imho it does). Even so, there are plenty of shims being built that provide the small amount of api compatibility necessary to make things like gnome work on non-systemd systems (FreeBSD for example).
- taeric 12y ago
  So, it is going to get hard, is what you are saying? I mean, it could be that the shims are nice and easy, but it seems to be the expectation that this will not be the case, right? Especially since systemd seems to be on a very aggressive expansion of responsibilities campaign.
  - Alupis 12y ago
    systemd is 69 individual components (and binaries) last time I checked. You can opt to build some, or all when you compile it. Yes they work together, but they have an open and now-more-or-less standardized api. So nothing prevents another developer from writing against the api, be it a shim to reduce/remove systemd but provide compatible calls into another system (init, logging, etc), or a complete replacement for a specific component of systemd. I see it only getting easier actually. Folks in the BSD projects for example have their own init system but still want software like gnome, so shims are used to provide the api abstraction. This can be applied elsewhere in the Linux world as well. Again, this is only for software where the developers have explicitly decided to hard-code in dependencies to systemd, which is not likely going to be everyone.
    - deong 12y ago
      > Again, this is only for software where the developers have explicitly decided to hard-code in dependencies to systemd, which is not likely going to be everyone. I'd put good money on this getting harder and harder going forward though. At some point it will be everyone, or at least practically everyone, because every Linux distribution with any mindshare will have been using systemd for years, and hard-coding systemd will be not a lot different than hard-coding calls to the C standard library. Also, shims? How god-awfully inelegant can we be? "You don't like systemd? Cool. You can run something else (as long as it looks, feels, and behaves exactly like systemd)." Look, I'm not a religious zealot. Systemd is what they want me to run; systemd is what I'm running. I can live with ugly software. It's not the end of the world. But oh dear god is it ugly.
      - Alupis 12y ago
        In what way is it "ugly"?
        deong 12y ago
        I'd give the same answers as you've probably heard a dozen times before. Binary logs, D-bus fundamentally baked in, the whole "shims are a perfectly good solution" viewpoint, basically the usual things people like me don't like.
- makomk 12y ago
  I know the systemd developers are now planning on making udev depend on systemd in the near future, and that's pretty essential for desktop/server Linux.
  - Alupis 12y ago
    Maybe not such a large hurdle though. udev was written by Kay mostly and he is on the systemd team. Before udev there was devfsd and hotplug[1], so it's feasible udev could be forked and/or an alternative introduced if it really becomes a burden for distros. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Udev http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Udev
    - digi_owl 12y ago
      Udev is already forked, in the form of eudev. And Poettering is already having fun taunting them in systemd release notes, with lines like "This is your wakeup call". Frankly i am reminded of the stuff we would see Jobs pull on stage. Like "Redmond, ready your copying machines"...
dingaling 12y ago
> I thought the big concern is that it isn't hard yet. And once it is a hard dependency then Red Hat will be in control of strategy for the dominant init system. That's what concerns me, not the immediate technical challenges which can overcome. But those who are busy now patching the broken bits won't have influence over the direction of systemd in the future. We'll all go where one billion-dollar enterprise-oriented vendor leads us.
- digi_owl 12y ago
  This came to mind: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/02/linus-torvalds-i-will-not-change-linux-to-deep-throat-microsoft/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/02/linus-... The reason is that RH right now is deep in two camps, cloud and military/government contracts. http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/blog/techflash/2014/09/u-s-department-of-defense-inks-contract-for-up-to.html http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/blog/techflash/2014/09/u... and systemd has two parts as best i can tell. One part is aimed at cloud via containers and sandboxes (soon to come to desktop as well via Gnome). The other is aimed at securing "seats" via logind. This because the earlier consolekit had a limited reach because it didn't have a partner sitting as pid 1. And the military is after all the origin of the concept "trusted computing". I am not saying that there is a willed conspiracy. But with Red Hat being a for profit organization, anything that bring in the cash in the short run will be given priority...

rogertux 12y ago

They have fear of systemd becoming the mainstream init system. It's more easy for a project to become obsolete if we start to forget about it. Although sysvinit still has an chance to evolve.

gtaylor 12y ago
> Although sysvinit still has an chance to evolve. You'd probably have some of the same people complaining if you tried to "evolve" SysV. I guess things are pretty good right now in the Linux world if this is the thing to argue over.
- rogertux 12y ago
  Well... In fact it's alredy happening with the init wars
- e7620 12y ago
  Not really, remember daemontools? There are almost a hundred init systems very superior technically compared to sysv and systemd, the truth is that sysv has NEVER been considered the best.
- digi_owl 12y ago
  Depends on how it was to evolve. Parallel boot, sure. But you can always drop runit or openrc or something similar on top and get it already. socket based service start, (hardware) event based, pass. Frankly the core of sysv, the init binary, does very little. It sets up virtual terminals and fires up one or more processes (that it will keep an eye on and maybe restart). The latter processe(s), most commonly a shell script of some kind, are what do the actual starting of "services" and managing of runlevels etc. This is a very flexible system, as most of the logic involved is easy to get at. It is housed in interpreted scripts rather than compiled C code. you can even run the scripts directly in a root shell if you have the need to do so (or perform the scripted commands manually). Basically the scripts do little more than what someone would do manually if they were presented with a bare shell after kernel boot.
Alupis 12y ago

toni 12y ago

apt-pinning (something that I have always thought is a bad practice) and using a shim. Honest question: isn't this just a giant hairy hack? Am I missing something?

stonogo 12y ago
apt pinning, like most systems administration software, is a bad thing if applied without forethought. while I withhold judgment on this particular application, apt pinning is a very useful feature when dealing with e.g. proprietary binary software with specific library version requirements, for instance.
forgottenpass 12y ago
Pinning? That's only a hack if you don't care to learn how apt works. And not actually necessary to avoid systemd unless you're running with `--assume-yes` or hammering 'y'. systemd-shim? Well, yeah, but that's the entire point of it's existence.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

pothibo 12y ago
Did you read the article? It's only needed if you want Gnome to work, not Debian. That means sysadmin don't need that shim since they shouldn't need Gnome in the first place. Get your head out of the sand.
pessimizer 12y ago
I agree with them at this point, it's just going to take a little while to get a freebsd workflow that I'm comfortable with.
- Alupis 12y ago
  did you not get the main point? if for some reason you feel you must avoid systemd, even though it provides enormous benefits (especially for servers), you can.
  - db48x 12y ago
    If he admits that, then he'll have to spend time learning new tools. Can't have that...
  - felixgallo 12y ago
    just out of curiosity, have you ever run servers in a professional capacity?
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - Alupis 12y ago
      care to comment on what exactly about systemd is bad for servers?
  - bryanlarsen 12y ago

doe88 12y ago

I think the author should refrain from using the word trolls so much it hampers his overall message. So what happens with the pinning example with GNOME (I didn't know this useful command)? Because of the dependance on systemd it is not upgraded then?

deleted 12y ago
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db48x 12y ago
There have been some real hate-filled messages on the mailing lists. If they had been directed at a women then they would have made HN all on their own. The article links to one of them, if you want to check it out.
- lawl 12y ago
  For the record, the guy on the mailing list linked in the article probably has serious mental health issues. He also does those really creepy youtube videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2toVPMHRo8M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2toVPMHRo8M And I've heard he contacted other devs and I've heard a couple of stories that I'm not sure I can share publicly at this point. Generalizing that all systemd opponents are trolls because there is one guy with serious mental health issues is not a valid argument.
- e7620 12y ago
  Here is the message: There has been no General Resolution amongst debian package maintainers. Red Hat has instituted a regulatory capture of the "bug squashing" committee within debian (the "Technical Committee") by having current or former (but stock holding) employees moonlight in debian and gradually gain membership in that comittie. Once their numbers were sufficient they proceeded to file a bug report on the fact that systemd was not standard in debian. This is illicit abuse of process and they need to be prosecuted. Debian is an unincorporated association. It has bylaws, trade practices, and dealings by which it was governed. The RedHat associated members of the Technical Committee have illegally and in bad faith abused their positions in-order to realize financial and strategic gain for their employer. Do you really believe this is hate speech? Hate speech attacks a person or group on the basis of attributes such as gender, ethnic origin, religion, race, disability, or sexual orientation.

byuu 12y ago

Thanks for the guide. Serious question, say I were to do a clean install of Jessie. I would use Xfce with either LightDM or no DM, or I might choose to set up a VPS that obviously won't even need Xorg. Is there a way during installation that I can skip installing systemd at all in that case, perhaps through a minimal install and then following up with adding the software I want? I don't like the idea of trying to purge systemd and its dependencies after a fresh install.

tkinom 12y ago
Love to see a simple Linux dist that is base on xfce or some supper lightweight GUI as default but base on debian also. Any good suggestion?
- VLM 12y ago
  Debian, then at the "task selection" stage choose nothing (definitely not desktop environment), later install xmonad and trayer and all that. Or you want xfce, OK install that. Oh and probably lightdm or xdm or some login manager, assuming you don't want to log in text and then startx or whatever other strategy. Its not like Debian "requires" gnome or kde or whatever as part of the install. Just install what you want.
gh02t 12y ago
I am not sure about Jessie, but whenever Debian switches to Systemd as the default, I would guess even the minimal install would have it. Systemd is the init process, so you can't really just do without it (or some other init system at least). I think it will probably require somebody remixing the installer image to use a different init system. Not sure though, I'm not super informed about what Debian is planning for the switch. I think (no experience, but it makes sense) that Gentoo lets you pick the init system easily at install, you might want to look at that. You might want to try it though. In my experience, the minimal config for systemd is quite lightweight and clean. I don't use KDE or Gnome, but I quite like systemd on my Arch workstation. Arch (and Fedora) have had it for quite a while now, even back when it was probably a bad idea to switch...

lotsofcows 12y ago

Oh great, now people whose opinions differ are "trolls". I think we all know who the troll is...

general_failure 12y ago
Yeah, this appears like a gross misuse of the world trolls
chimeracoder 12y ago
He's not casting all opponents of systemd as trolls; he's saying that trolls have spread a lot of misinformation about systemd, which is true. Opponents of systemd have spread a LOT of FUD and misinformation about systemd. I know, because I was initially very skeptical of (or even opposed to) systemd based on what they had said. Fortunately, I discovered that much of it was misleading or inaccurate after my main distro switched to systemd. Even if we give them the benefit of the doubt and say that it wasn't an intentional attempt to spread misinformation, and that they were simply speaking very vocally about a topic that they themselves had not taken the time to read up on, it is not much of a stretch to call that behavior "trolling".
- e7620 12y ago
  > Opponents of systemd have spread a LOT of FUD and misinformation about systemd Well, obviously there's another, more charitable interpretation. > I discovered that much of it was misleading or inaccurate after my main distro switched to systemd. Systemd is a continuously-varying project, and just because your distro smoothly switched, doesn't mean there were no problems for early adopters. Or that just because your configuration works, no difficulty with the multiple systemd components have, do or will arise.
  - chimeracoder 12y ago
    > systemd is a continuously-varying project, and just because your distro smoothly switched, doesn't mean there were no problems for early adopters, or that just because your configuration works, no difficulty with the multiple systemd components have, do or will arise. Actually, I never claimed that my distro switched smoothly. Ironically, I literally commented just yesterday complaining that my distro (Arch) did not switch smoothly (and IMHO switched too early)[0]. I had a lot of issues when I first switched - I couldn't even boot my system, as a lot of stuff did not migrate cleanly. Switching is always going to cause upheaval and breakage to at least some extent, and that's not what OP and I are referring to when talking about FUD. What I'm talking about are people making factually incorrect (and worse, trivially verifiably incorrect) statements about systemd and what it does. Some of them are just blatantly wrong ("systemd forces you to use binary log files"[1], "systemd means you can't use init scripts"[2]), "systemd means you can't use crontab"[3], or my favorite "systemd gives QR code output"[4]). Others are technically true, but highly misleading ("I don't want everything to run in PID 1"[5], "systemd is the only way to run cgroups"[6]) There's a difference between disliking systemd on technical merit and disliking it based on false information that one hasn't even bothered to verify, and then vocally spreading that misinformation. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8482950 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8482950 [1] systemd by default does not use any log files (IIRC), and provides text logs as an alternative to the recommended binary default. You can keep using syslog just as always. [2] systemd allows for init script compatibility. I won't claim that all init scripts will work without any modification, but it's not like you can't keep using init scripts instead of systemd configs if you don't want to [3] systemd.timer is something you can use instead of crontab, but it will also run regular CRON jobs as well. [4] systemd does have an option to display kernel dumps as QR codes. This feature is generally not compiled or available by default [5] systemd includes some functionality that runs in PID 1, but most of what people actually are talking about does not run in PID 1 [6] systemd is the only way to run cgroups, because the Linux kernel requires that a single arbiter handle all cgroups, and systemd is (was?) the only program that has actually implemented the entire necessary ABI to do so. Anyone is free to write another program to handle cgroups instead of systemd.

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Karunamon 12y ago

Now? No, not really, just avoid GNOME. In the future? Yeah, probably. This wouldn't be an issue if the systemd people weren't notoriously hard to get along with. Really, I think all of the reasons why systemd attracts hate can be boiled down to this. Nobody wants a standard init system that's overtly hostile to bug reports and reasonable changes. Say what you want about upstart and sysvinit, but I don't recall a point where the maintainers of it were told off for hijacking kernel flags...

morganvachon 12y ago
> This wouldn't be an issue if the systemd people weren't notoriously hard to get along with. This. It doesn't help this guy's case that he's basically calling anyone who doesn't want systemd a "troll". That's not the way to win people to your side of a disagreement.
- Aissen 12y ago
  > This. This. Backed by nothing, calling the systemd team "notoriously hard to get along with". I'd be interested in seeing proof of "this".
  - Karunamon 12y ago
    There are a couple of incidents mentioned on the LKML that go directly to their bug tracker - the ones I refer to is where Linus gives Kay Sievers an earful for hijacking the kernel flags (and subsequently writing off the perfectly reasonable complaint). I'd link you to them directly but I'm mobile now.
    - Aissen 12y ago
      Here's the LWN story of this "incident": http://lwn.net/Articles/593676/ http://lwn.net/Articles/593676/ ; it has all the proper sources in links.
  - morganvachon 12y ago
    A quote[1] by a systemd developer: "The only way to deal with journal corruptions, currently, is to ignore them: when a corruption is detected, journald will rename the file to <something>.journal~, and journalctl will try to do its best reading it. Actually fixing journal corruptions is a hard job, and it seems unlikely that it will be implemented in the near future." A major bug is reported, and their response is "it's too hard so we won't fix it" in a project that is soon to be at the core of every major GNU/Linux distro? No thanks. [1] https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=64116 https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=64116

anonbanker 12y ago

another pro-systemd post. there's been two of them today, the other being the uselessd blog post. What's with this community rushing to defend themselves? doesn't this smell like astroturfing to anyone else?

alex_duf 12y ago

On a purely technical perspective (I don't care about people not getting along), what is reproached to systemd ?

deleted 12y ago

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