Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Installing Debian bookworm without systemd

diziet.dreamwidth.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 89 posts

Re: Installing Debian bookworm without systemd

#11

Post by rhn_mk1 »

tetris11 wrote: post #3
ttfkam wrote: post #2

It's been fashionable to hate on systemd, but I definitely prefer it to the hodgepodge of inconsistent init scripts, logging hacks, and bespoke process monitors that preceded it. init.d was familiar to graybeards (like myself), but I'm loathe to consider them a superior solution.

I started on initrc but came to maturity on systemd, and though systemd does simplify the process of inspecting running tasks, its sheer lack-of-fun of getting those processes running in the first place always puts me off hacking my system to better suit my whims. It forces you to think of stability instead of creativity, and that might be great for people who value predictable things in their lives, but it stands ri…

As someone who had to mess with init scripts for a couple of distros for someone who requested it, this was not far from my idea of pure anti-fun.

Every distro did init scripts in different, exciting ways, so I had to start over from reading the not-inconsequential docs for each one. The init systems come with some high-level helpers, but only if you want to use the shell, which is very unfun in its own right.

Re: Installing Debian bookworm without systemd

#12

Post by Izkata »

tetris11 wrote: post #3
ttfkam wrote: post #2

It's been fashionable to hate on systemd, but I definitely prefer it to the hodgepodge of inconsistent init scripts, logging hacks, and bespoke process monitors that preceded it. init.d was familiar to graybeards (like myself), but I'm loathe to consider them a superior solution.

I started on initrc but came to maturity on systemd, and though systemd does simplify the process of inspecting running tasks, its sheer lack-of-fun of getting those processes running in the first place always puts me off hacking my system to better suit my whims. It forces you to think of stability instead of creativity, and that might be great for people who value predictable things in their lives, but it stands ri…

For me it was all about ease of access when investigating why something isn't working.

Re: Installing Debian bookworm without systemd

#13

Post by 5e92cb50239222b »

TekMol wrote: post #4

I hate systemd with a passion, but I won't fiddle with Debian to get rid of it. I would love if a major distro emerges which works with human-readable scripts and logs and stays away from any "binary" formats for system configuration and logging.

It will always be a fringe effort since the vast majority of the people doing the actual work are fine with it. It's been what, ten years by now? If instead of complaining all that time systemd haters cooperated and put in the work, they could have produced something (supposedly) much better by now.

Alpine is probably your best bet, it's pretty widely used. All of the others are a minority of a minority of a minority.

Re: Installing Debian bookworm without systemd

#14

Post by striking »

tetris11 wrote: post #3
ttfkam wrote: post #2

It's been fashionable to hate on systemd, but I definitely prefer it to the hodgepodge of inconsistent init scripts, logging hacks, and bespoke process monitors that preceded it. init.d was familiar to graybeards (like myself), but I'm loathe to consider them a superior solution.

I started on initrc but came to maturity on systemd, and though systemd does simplify the process of inspecting running tasks, its sheer lack-of-fun of getting those processes running in the first place always puts me off hacking my system to better suit my whims. It forces you to think of stability instead of creativity, and that might be great for people who value predictable things in their lives, but it stands ri…

Personally, I tend to have more fun when all of the other parts of my system don't need to be fixed while I work on adding new stuff.

Re: Installing Debian bookworm without systemd

#15

Post by blakesterz »

This finishes with:

  "Operating Debian without systemd is a pleasure and every time one of my friends has some systemd-induced lossage I get to feel smug."
How common is a systemd-induced loss? I've never had one, and I've never seen or heard of any. Is this a larger problem that I've somehow missed? (This is an honest question, I was just surprised to read this)

Re: Installing Debian bookworm without systemd

#16

Post by stryan »

enriquto wrote: post #8
TekMol wrote: post #4

I hate systemd with a passion, but I won't fiddle with Debian to get rid of it. I would love if a major distro emerges which works with human-readable scripts and logs and stays away from any "binary" formats for system configuration and logging.

> I would love if a major distro emerges Good news for you! You have slackware [0], void [1] and alpine [3], which are widely-used non-systemd distributions with sane scripts. They are well-maintained rolling releases which allow you to use much newer versions of the kernel and packages than your typical ubuntu/debian installs. I don't particularly care about systemd, but these distros are great by themselves! [0] ht…

Note that only Slackware testing is rolling-release. Normal Slackware is about as far from rolling release as you can get.

I do highly recommend it though! Slackware's init scripts were always a pleasure to use, part of why I was anti-systemd for a long time.

Re: Installing Debian bookworm without systemd

#17

Post by sgerenser »

blakesterz wrote: post #15

This finishes with: "Operating Debian without systemd is a pleasure and every time one of my friends has some systemd-induced lossage I get to feel smug." How common is a systemd-induced loss? I've never had one, and I've never seen or heard of any. Is this a larger problem that I've somehow missed? (This is an honest question, I was just surprised to read this)

I’ve never heard of one either. While systemd is certainly more complex than old school init scripts, and arguably deviates quite a bit from the “Unix philosophy,” it seems some people just have an irrational hatred towards it. To the point of making up problems with it that I’ve never heard anyone actually having.

Re: Installing Debian bookworm without systemd

#18

Post by andrewaylett »

daneel_w wrote: post #6

Devuan ( https://www.devuan.org/ ) is a fork of Debian with the specific aim of removing systemd, as an alternative.

It is unfortunately trivial to argue that Devuan is without point, as Debian have proven themselves (per the article) entirely amenable to retaining the ability to run without systemd. As, indeed, they said they allow for would when they decided to adopt it.

If anything, the presence of Devuan cements systemd even more tightly into position -- those who care about not running systemd are distracted by forking an entire distribution, rather than putting their effort into the much smaller problem space that is retaining functionality that Debian is quite happy to retain if its proponents are willing to put in the effort.

So Debian is going to integrate more with systemd than it would if Devuan didn't exist, and I suppose for that I should thank the folk behind Devuan. But it's always disappointing when people expend their effort against something, rather than for something.

Very happy Debian and systemd user here, in case you couldn't tell.

Re: Installing Debian bookworm without systemd

#19

Post by UI_at_80x24 »

oarmstrong wrote: post #9
TekMol wrote: post #4

I hate systemd with a passion, but I won't fiddle with Debian to get rid of it. I would love if a major distro emerges which works with human-readable scripts and logs and stays away from any "binary" formats for system configuration and logging.

Obviously it’s a different OS and possibly isn’t relevant to you but I’ve found solace in OpenBSD (and other BSDs) in the search of “simplicity” of “the old days”.

This is a vastly under-rated opinion. I found FreeBSD to be surprisingly superior in my use-cases to Linux as a server OS. From stability, sensible defaults, config files where-I-can-find-them, and more.

My only real headache with FreeBSD has been SAMBA. It seems that every major upgrade bjorked the SAMBA user/account DB, and would cause much wailing and gnashing of teeth. So I learned to deal with that.

I now work for a K8s shop, and find myself migrating back into the linux/systemd fold. There's frustration with systemd'isms, and I truly despise the binary logs; but I'm learning.

Re: Installing Debian bookworm without systemd

#20

Post by [deleted] »

ttfkam wrote: post #2

It's been fashionable to hate on systemd, but I definitely prefer it to the hodgepodge of inconsistent init scripts, logging hacks, and bespoke process monitors that preceded it. init.d was familiar to graybeards (like myself), but I'm loathe to consider them a superior solution.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN