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Operating Systems Without Systemd

annihilatormodule.com

131–140 of 166 posts

Re: Operating Systems Without Systemd

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much. There are components of systemd I really like. systemd-logind is really neat, it makes dealing with drm (direct rendering) devices nice by having a service where you can request access to GPUs without bumping into the problem of one process opened the endpoint and has exclusive control. It also makes dealing with machine events like closing your laptop's screen simple if you use a minimalistic window man…

> udev really shouldn't hard depend on systemd. I perfectly understand having some systemd specific integration, but why make it mandatory? udev is part of systemd now, because the systemd developers were the only ones willing to maintain it.

Doesn't the existence of eudev disprove that?

(This is a serious question; I'm not trying to start a fight)

Re: Operating Systems Without Systemd

#132
To the commenters: this article explicitly wasn't meant to be exhaustive or even introductory. The two links he embeds near the beginning were:

- Linux distributions without systemd (https://web.archive.org/web/20190208034948/http://without-sy...)

- Operating systems without systemd (https://web.archive.org/web/20190208034948/http://without-sy...)

Then he adds, "Here I’m just going to mention a few operating systems that I personally have found interesting." So these few are just ones where he thought he had something fresh to say. He did not aim to compete with the more objective lists he just mentioned.

Re: Operating Systems Without Systemd

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then it should be on by default. Having to use journalctl instead of reading a plaintext file in /var/log should have resulted in a swift slap upside the noggin the moment it was first considered. I otherwise don't care about systemd, except for the more-than-one locations I might find an init script hiding on my system. It's fine. But don't make me use journalctl just to tail a god damned file like a normal person.…

> Having to use journalctl instead of reading a plaintext file in /var/log should have resulted in a swift slap upside the noggin the moment it was first considered. I absolutely love the idea of journalctl (without commenting on the execution). As an admin, there was always the chance that $DAEMON_OF_THE_DAY put their logfile in a particularly creative place, thus sending me on some wild goose hunt. Now it's just `j…

It also allows you to read the logs in JSON, which is fantastic for automation. Parsing the syslog as a text file means a single newline in a syslog message screws your effort up. With journalctl, you can sift through error messages from specific services, confident that the results you are getting are exactly what the logs contain.

Unless, of course, some of the binaries are corrupt.

Re: Operating Systems Without Systemd

#134
post #102
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Next, have all the settings in some sort of central database. And in 20 years, Red Hat will have finally finished re-inventing Windows NT on top of the Linux kernel.

Have you ever worked with IBMs AIX? It has ODM and it’s amazing. Systemd is going to the right direction.

I'm not saying it's the wrong direction, it's just funny to observe.

Re: Operating Systems Without Systemd

#136
post #5

Sad Gentoo didn't get more mention. Been using that w/OpenRC since before systemd existed and it's still my solid daily driver.

Maybe shouldn't skim so fast? Calculate Linux (the "Russian Distro") was featured.

Is it somehow a faux pas to call them a Russian distribution? Their home page is literally a .ru tld.

[0] https://www.calculate-linux.ru/

Re: Operating Systems Without Systemd

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe shouldn't skim so fast? Calculate Linux (the "Russian Distro") was featured.

Is it somehow a faux pas to call them a Russian distribution? Their home page is literally a .ru tld. [0] https://www.calculate-linux.ru/

Yes? So what? Should i have written Gentoo derivative? Maybe shouldn't have typed so fast...

Re: Operating Systems Without Systemd

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then it should be on by default. Having to use journalctl instead of reading a plaintext file in /var/log should have resulted in a swift slap upside the noggin the moment it was first considered. I otherwise don't care about systemd, except for the more-than-one locations I might find an init script hiding on my system. It's fine. But don't make me use journalctl just to tail a god damned file like a normal person.…

What I hate is not that it logs to a journal log, it is that the binary db used by journald is non-standard and undocumented. This means that a dead system can potentially not be read by a live system, as the journal can have undocumented breaking changes.

It is documented, but the documentation is unfortunately not authoritative: https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/journal-fi...

Also, they couldn't make breaking changes to the format or it would prevent people from reading their own old log files after upgrades

Re: Operating Systems Without Systemd

#140
post #71
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's cargo culting -- a computer at bell labs once ran out of disk space on the system disk (/), people put binaries in a directory on the user disk (/usr), and everyone started to copy it for all eternity.

Right, and systemd is pretty much the only successful attempt to de-cargo-cult Unix.

You are conflating Unix with Linux-based operating systems.
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