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How to Crash Systemd in One Command

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Re: How to Crash Systemd in One Command

#41

Post by fapjacks »

georgyo wrote: post #28
fapjacks wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Systemd is winning because they showed up and basically nobody else did" I can't see how you would qualify this statement, which is utterly false. Specifically, systemd adoption was the result of political pressure by LP (the author), who works at Red Hat. There are plenty of other choices out there. The idea that systemd won because of some kind of meritocracy is wrong. It was mostly political with some technical…

systemd is by far the best linux init system. The options are sysvinit, OpenRC, Upstart, and systemd. Of those, the only reasonable choice is systemd. Upstart was almost good, but its really frustrating to use. OpenRC is decent, but confusing. systemd solved problems, not only that it solved them well. The scope creep of systemd is something that is a bit alarming, however even with the creep it's doing a good job. T…

The one thing that is painfully obvious about the situation with init systems is that people have strong opinions about their preferences. And that makes the systemd situation even more terrible, since it's a choice unwillingly foisted upon a huge number of people. This situation really deserves some choices. For me, that is the number one reason I do not like systemd, even if it's solved some problems.

Re: How to Crash Systemd in One Command

#42

Post by justin_vanw »

brainspider wrote: post #32
justin_vanw wrote: post #3

It seems like it is quite fashionable to hate on systemd, and it seems like systemd is kindof a piece of crap - in some ways. However, linux is missing basic functionality other os's offer, and systemd is showing up and trying to fill in those blanks. This is open source, if you don't like systemd, if you think it's crap, if you think there are obviously better ways to do it, well, what are you waiting for then? Syst…

> However, linux is missing basic functionality other os's offer Could you please elaborate on what some of those are? > systemd is showing up and trying to fill in those blanks I haven't really kept on top of all systemd releases, but all I can see is them replacing things that already exist, just doing them in a different way. I agree the init system replacement was necessary, but I'm struggling to understand why a…

I basically agree with everything you're saying, I just think if the people who think systemd is misguided spend their time writing blog posts about it, nothing will change and the people actually writing the code will have the final say, right or wrong.

Re: How to Crash Systemd in One Command

#43

Post by belovedeagle »

andrewstuart2 wrote: post #13
belovedeagle wrote: post #5

This is an excellent writeup explaining without hysterics why systemd is terrible software. Unfortunately, I expect that this post will be brigaded by systemd-apologists anyways, denying newcomers to the debate the opportunity to hear the facts...

I'm not sure how this comment is helpful to the discussion. As far as I can tell, you'd rather only hear the facts that fit your opinion of systemd as terrible software. I think the obvious right answer is that both sides present only facts and let newcomers decide based on that.

As the other reply said, the problem is that newcomers aren't allowed to hear the anti-systemd facts, as the systemd gods have already decided that all Linux users (or at least all distros) must bow down and accept them, and no dissenting opinion is allowed to stay on the front page of HN for long (this post has already been brigaded off the front page, apparently).

Re: How to Crash Systemd in One Command

#45

Post by gaius »

justin_vanw wrote: post #3

It seems like it is quite fashionable to hate on systemd, and it seems like systemd is kindof a piece of crap - in some ways. However, linux is missing basic functionality other os's offer, and systemd is showing up and trying to fill in those blanks. This is open source, if you don't like systemd, if you think it's crap, if you think there are obviously better ways to do it, well, what are you waiting for then? Syst…

Systemd is winning because they showed up and basically nobody else did.

Systemd is "winning" because Red Hat are throwing money at it as a way to control the ecosystem.

Re: How to Crash Systemd in One Command

#46

Post by lasermike026 »

geofft wrote: post #18
lasermike026 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Unix philosophy: Write programs that do one thing and do it well. Systemd doesn't observe the Unix philosophy and that bothers many people.

It's baffling to see people insist that that's the UNIX philosophy when the UNIX philosophy has always been about monolithic kernels over microkernels, so "do one thing" is out the window, and about worse-is-better over do-the-right-thing ( https://www.dreamsongs.com/RiseOfWorseIsBetter.html ), so "do it well" is out the window. And the userspace tools don't follow this either. Quoting http://prog21.dadgum.com/139.ht…

The Unix philosophy is most applicable in user space. It's a philosophy not a law. I didn't say Systemd was bad just that it doesn't observe the Unix philosophy.

Crashing an init process is a very bad thing, is it not? Wouldn't less surface area be a better approach?

Re: How to Crash Systemd in One Command

#47

Post by xemdetia »

At this point in time my biggest frustration is that even compared to upstart writing concise and clear config files for network services is just really hard, and there isn't great documentation or a short book around that covers all the edge cases other than TIAS. I feel like I've wasted more time trying to get a tidy systemd configuration than I ever had even with upstart or some of the other ones.

Re: How to Crash Systemd in One Command

#48

Post by ultramancool »

justin_vanw wrote: post #42
brainspider wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, linux is missing basic functionality other os's offer Could you please elaborate on what some of those are? > systemd is showing up and trying to fill in those blanks I haven't really kept on top of all systemd releases, but all I can see is them replacing things that already exist, just doing them in a different way. I agree the init system replacement was necessary, but I'm struggling to understand why a…

I basically agree with everything you're saying, I just think if the people who think systemd is misguided spend their time writing blog posts about it, nothing will change and the people actually writing the code will have the final say, right or wrong.

The thing is though - their code is already written. Systemd is entirely unnecessary for 99% of people, probably everything except some of it's LXC features has clear and popular alternatives. LXC is the only thing making me eye systemd with interest, but I'll come back to it in a few years once all the weird stuff is worked out.

Re: How to Crash Systemd in One Command

#49

Post by korethr »

namecast wrote: post #22
justin_vanw wrote: post #3

It seems like it is quite fashionable to hate on systemd, and it seems like systemd is kindof a piece of crap - in some ways. However, linux is missing basic functionality other os's offer, and systemd is showing up and trying to fill in those blanks. This is open source, if you don't like systemd, if you think it's crap, if you think there are obviously better ways to do it, well, what are you waiting for then? Syst…

I strongly disagree. I didn't need anyone to "show up" to replace my init system in production across several thousand servers, and the way systemd "won" that battle wrt Debian was, to be polite, controversial, political and extremely divisive. They sure as heck didn't win because "they showed up and no one else did". They showed up and RedHat's money showed up with them. I hold no animus towards the systemd project'…

> I hold no animus towards the systemd project's goals or aspirations, but I have yet to hear a compelling reason for systemd to be shipping in it's current state.

I am, in a way, reminded reminded of PulseAudio. I kept PA of my desktop and laptop for years, having heard about PA being a complex nightmare to configure and make work that caused audio to break. Eventually, there was an application I needed to use that had a hard dependency on PA, so I bit the bullet and installed it. And everything magically Just Worked. My only complaint at the moment is that the pactl command seems more fiddly and verbose than it might need to be.

A closer look at the complaints about PA showed that many of them were older. This gives me the impression that PA was in fact a steaming pile that broke audio at one point, but eventually matured into something functional and useful.

And I think this is where systemd is at present: perhaps a good idea, but its implementation is not yet production ready, and should not be the default on production systems. And the project's continued scope creep is working against it in that regard.

Re: How to Crash Systemd in One Command

#50

Post by jude- »

justin_vanw wrote: post #42
brainspider wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, linux is missing basic functionality other os's offer Could you please elaborate on what some of those are? > systemd is showing up and trying to fill in those blanks I haven't really kept on top of all systemd releases, but all I can see is them replacing things that already exist, just doing them in a different way. I agree the init system replacement was necessary, but I'm struggling to understand why a…

I basically agree with everything you're saying, I just think if the people who think systemd is misguided spend their time writing blog posts about it, nothing will change and the people actually writing the code will have the final say, right or wrong.

It's probably because all the features they need are already met by existing tools. In that case, there's no need to write more code.
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