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Knoppix 8.6 abandons systemd

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Re: Knoppix 8.6 abandons systemd

#41

Post by robin_reala »

elygre wrote: post #30
qubex wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it isn’t. Firstly: they weren’t the originators of systemd, they simply hired the guy who first developed it to continue developing it. Secondly: it: being open source and GPL, anybody can use it or fork it and not be due anything to Red Hat. Thirdly, it isn’t extinguishing anything as a business strategy ; it’s just out-competing alternatives in the “mindshare” arena.

Without having much opinion on systemd, hiring the developer sounds very much like “embrace”. Continuing developing sounds like “extend”.

Embrace in the EEE metaphor specifically refers to an existing standard or pseudostandard.

Re: Knoppix 8.6 abandons systemd

#42

Post by labawi »

brianpgordon wrote: post #38
goatinaboat wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When upstream packages depend on systemd then other distros are forced to adopt systemd, which is a moving target. The goal is for everyone to just use RHEL to avoid the hassle. E.g. Debian went systemd because they don’t have the resources to fix everything they get from upstream that requires it.

If that's the case, the strategy isn't working. The big-name non-RHEL distributions (Fedora/SUSE, Debian, Ubuntu, Mint) all run systemd by default. Users would have no reason to think that Red Hat would help them avoid any systemd-related hassle.

As someone using debian, ubuntu and centos - my experience is the Red Hat system has better systemd integration with less issues.

Being the primary developer of important system software does have benefits.

Re: Knoppix 8.6 abandons systemd

#43

Post by labawi »

qubex wrote: post #6
znpy wrote: post #3

I see a lot of hate about systems and I used to loathe it too. Then I took a course on systemd specifically and it opened my eyes, and now I'm quite fond about it. Systemd actually does ONE thing and does it well: it manages the system. It's the missing layer between kernel space and user space. It has quirks and bugs like all software, but I think it works very well, all things considered. To those who say that it's…

I concur with your characterisation of systemd as “ doing one thing, and doing it well ”. Those who seem to malign it most are those who are, for historical reasons, profoundly conversant with the myriad daemons, configurations, and init systems (generally) of “old UNIX/Linux”. They have a point and a genuine axe to grind, I’ll concede, but systemd is an enormous simplifier for those who are recent to the scene: lear…

If by one thing you mean spreading and taking over linux systems, then yes, it does one thing and does it well. /s

Re: Knoppix 8.6 abandons systemd

#44

Post by turbinerneiter »

Tomte wrote: post #16
orf wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We know from the kernel command line debug debacle they rather see the world burn down than admit they did something wrong Can you expand? I've not heard of this.

IIRC, they printed more messages to the console when booting Linux with a debug parameter than Linux could handle. Systemd developers were like "nobody can tell us how much detail to print", until the kernel developers made clear that the boot console belongs to them and if systemd doesn't back down immediately they would take away all console access. Systemd then backed down.

So you are saying two teams maintaining two systems which are working together tightly had a conflict about how those systems are supposed to work together and resolved it after some heated discussion?

Sounds like Open Source to me.

Re: Knoppix 8.6 abandons systemd

#45

Post by jrugk »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #20
znpy wrote: post #3

I see a lot of hate about systems and I used to loathe it too. Then I took a course on systemd specifically and it opened my eyes, and now I'm quite fond about it. Systemd actually does ONE thing and does it well: it manages the system. It's the missing layer between kernel space and user space. It has quirks and bugs like all software, but I think it works very well, all things considered. To those who say that it's…

> It's complex because it does a complex work Hence it's pointless because it doesn't make things any simpler. All it does is making things monolithic and wrapping concepts that are perfectly fine by themselves, forcing third-party software to write to systemd's APIs. > Systemd actually does ONE thing and does it well: it manages the system. "Managing systems" is not what is meant by "doing one thing, and doing it we…

>The trend to get rid of systemd and its metastasis into most of Linux is excellent news.

I don't know where you're seeing this trend, really. For all major distros, it's been the opposite thus far.

Re: Knoppix 8.6 abandons systemd

#46

Post by einpoklum »

mobilio wrote: post #37

systemd is good for desktop and server systems. But i was seeing that in Embedding Linux or IoT distributions that doesn't make sense since they're run on limited resources.

No, it's bad for desktop and server systems. It has a lot of bugs and mis-features, and ties too much functionality together.

Re: Knoppix 8.6 abandons systemd

#47

Post by nickik »

hyperman1 wrote: post #10
znpy wrote: post #3

I see a lot of hate about systems and I used to loathe it too. Then I took a course on systemd specifically and it opened my eyes, and now I'm quite fond about it. Systemd actually does ONE thing and does it well: it manages the system. It's the missing layer between kernel space and user space. It has quirks and bugs like all software, but I think it works very well, all things considered. To those who say that it's…

I think you are missing the point: Something like systemd has a good reason to exist. But the devil is in the creating team. We've seen pulseaudio, a good system in theory, but an untrustworthy unstable system in practice. And if it wont work, it is so complicated and non-transparent that you need a specialist. Taking a step backward from Alsa is hard, and they managed to do it. Now that same team is messing with sys…

The amount of features and stuff they add to systemd is seriously impressive. They have bugs sometimes, but I have been running it in production for years and years and never had a real issue. Its an incredibly stable system. Sometimes a new version has a bug because systemd has to work in so many context, those get fixed very quickly generally.

I would challange anybody, to introduce a totally new system layer on linux with less issues.

And Pulse Audio was started by Pottering but he quickly moved on and since then it literally has nothing to do with the people who work on systemd. Blaiming him for the persistence of issues with Pulse is simply unfair and would be done if he was not called Lennart Poettering.

Re: Knoppix 8.6 abandons systemd

#48

Post by nickik »

goatinaboat wrote: post #9
qubex wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I concur with your characterisation of systemd as “ doing one thing, and doing it well ”. Those who seem to malign it most are those who are, for historical reasons, profoundly conversant with the myriad daemons, configurations, and init systems (generally) of “old UNIX/Linux”. They have a point and a genuine axe to grind, I’ll concede, but systemd is an enormous simplifier for those who are recent to the scene: lear…

Systemd is Red Hat’s version of the old “embrace, extend, extinguish” playbook.

Nonsense conspiracy crap. Red Hat didn't even want systemd initially. The developers wanted it and basically just did it without cooperate actually backing the idea for a while.

But keep your lame conspiracy theory, it will surly get you much open-source street cred.

Re: Knoppix 8.6 abandons systemd

#49

Post by nickik »

pdkl95 wrote: post #19
nickserv wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're separate binaries, and can be easily unbundled. That they're part of the same project is actually a win for me, it helps to make the various components work well together. Also there is a common thread or philosophy in how things are built, making learning easier. In fact "the system is a single project" approach reminds me of the BSDs, which is arguably better than Linux as far as usability and security is c…

> They're separate binaries https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19024256

When you design a library you have to design a way to interact with it. Complaining about systemd because of that is basically saying 'I don't like the api you provide'.

People who hate systemd want traditional C API, systemd wants message passing.

If you don't like some of binaries, you can remove them and make your own package. If you don't like a particular implementation you can write your own subsystem that uses the same API (as many projects have done).

Basically its just people complaining that it does work exactly as they want, when in reality message passing is the exact right way to make system like that.

Re: Knoppix 8.6 abandons systemd

#50

Post by geofft »

hyperman1 wrote: post #10
znpy wrote: post #3

I see a lot of hate about systems and I used to loathe it too. Then I took a course on systemd specifically and it opened my eyes, and now I'm quite fond about it. Systemd actually does ONE thing and does it well: it manages the system. It's the missing layer between kernel space and user space. It has quirks and bugs like all software, but I think it works very well, all things considered. To those who say that it's…

I think you are missing the point: Something like systemd has a good reason to exist. But the devil is in the creating team. We've seen pulseaudio, a good system in theory, but an untrustworthy unstable system in practice. And if it wont work, it is so complicated and non-transparent that you need a specialist. Taking a step backward from Alsa is hard, and they managed to do it. Now that same team is messing with sys…

> We've seen pulseaudio, a good system in theory, but an untrustworthy unstable system in practice.

systemd has been out for so long that I'm pretty sure we can judge it by its own merits now. As someone who maintains a few thousand servers but only uses desktop Linux on one non-primary machine, I have a lot more well-informed opinions on the trustworthiness and stability of systemd than of PulseAudio.

(And besides, my recent experience of PulseAudio has been that it's fine, and IIRC in the late '00s the primary problem with PulseAudio was that Ubuntu ran it in a non-recommended mode. I haven't actually had any problems with it recently, it just works.)

It seems like the discussion would be more informative and less flamey if we talked about systemd itself. If the team is untrustworthy, there should be numerous examples of that about systemd itself by now.

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