Live data from Hacker News

Operating Systems Without Systemd

annihilatormodule.com

31–40 of 166 posts

Re: Operating Systems Without Systemd

#32
post #2

I think, that sums up what's wrong with the Linux world right now. NixOS and GuixSD being the next generation of distributions and people are calling it "neat project with some unique features, but it is more fun as an intellectual curiosity than as something practical" while arguing if a distribution should use Systemd or not...

The linux world is busy getting shit done. Ignore the children arguing over init systems.

The argument is not about the init system. systemd’s is probably fine.

It’s about an ever expanding take-over of userspace by a single module, which is not the Unix way.

And about a high-handed project leader who is paid by Redhat to do it full time.

Re: Operating Systems Without Systemd

#34

It's weird linux folk hold such strong opinions about something so old and well established that doesn't matter at all.

You must not appreciate that the systemd name is overloaded; there's systemd PID1 the init daemon, and systemd the Katamari Damacy of Linux project.

Most contention is over the latter, not so much the former by itself.

Re: Operating Systems Without Systemd

#35
post #11

Maybe I'm just out of the loop but what is the controversy regarding systemd?

systemd comes from a gnome developer. a gnome developer doesn't care what came from before and doesn't care what they produce. all a gnome developer cares about is the future.

the future is what is all that matters and getting there is what matters. have you heard the phrase "the end justifies the means"?

that's it.

Re: Operating Systems Without Systemd

#36
post #2

I think, that sums up what's wrong with the Linux world right now. NixOS and GuixSD being the next generation of distributions and people are calling it "neat project with some unique features, but it is more fun as an intellectual curiosity than as something practical" while arguing if a distribution should use Systemd or not...

I think that NixOS could definitely become a foundational next-gen distribution if they fix the Channel system. One fix I'm particularly fond of is flakes. [0] https://github.com/NixOS/rfcs/pull/49

I too hope that NixOs becomes mainstream because I like the basic approach, but the same time there are some issues with it still.

I'm not sure it will ever become mainstream. It might remain small forever, e.g. like the haskell/fp community.

Re: Operating Systems Without Systemd

#37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The linux world is busy getting shit done. Ignore the children arguing over init systems.

The argument is not about the init system. systemd’s is probably fine. It’s about an ever expanding take-over of userspace by a single module, which is not the Unix way. And about a high-handed project leader who is paid by Redhat to do it full time.

If the issue is a single module take over of userspace then I have good news for you. The systemd project is made up of multiple modules handling differing tasks not all of which you have to use.

Re: Operating Systems Without Systemd

#38
post #11

Maybe I'm just out of the loop but what is the controversy regarding systemd?

Mostly that it WAY more complicated than it needs to be, and it often replaces well written and tested tools with VERY poor implementations.

Things like NTP, syslog, DHCPd, cron, iptables, mount, automount, handling /tmp, /dev, DNS, su/sudo, etc.

Letting the init system talk to the network before userspace has the ability to setup firewalls gives me the heebie jeebies.

Often the implementations of systemd don't handle failures well, leave off critical features like encryption, DNSSEC, etc. They are often hard to debug, and generally worse than the features they replace.

Not that Linux didn't need a nice init system, but that systemd is trying to take over everything. The lastest volley on that front is taking over management of /home with homed, but in a way that's incompatible with ssh.

Do you really want to depend on systemd's homed for managing /home? I'd rather not.

Re: Operating Systems Without Systemd

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The linux world is busy getting shit done. Ignore the children arguing over init systems.

The argument is not about the init system. systemd’s is probably fine. It’s about an ever expanding take-over of userspace by a single module, which is not the Unix way. And about a high-handed project leader who is paid by Redhat to do it full time.

Well isn't the Unix way still plaguing us with legacy craziness? How many bin directories do we need?

Re: Operating Systems Without Systemd

#40
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It tries to do too much, badly, and with an air of entitlement around intentionally breaking things. Change is good, so let's change away from systemd.

If someone is able to create something that is half as good as systemd then distros will switch time it. The thing is that systemd solves a lot of problems for distros in a good enough way (frankly, currently in a way that is better than any existing alternative) that they are happy to have systemd deal with those issues while they focus on the stuff the distro makers are interested in.

> If someone is able to create something that is half as good as systemd then distros will switch time it.

Not a given, since one of the issues with systemd is its integrations. Replacing init now requires you to replace your system logging and session manager, at a minimum, as well as replace all your service files.

Post reply on HN