Systemd by Example (2021) • Hacker News Board

Re: Systemd by Example (2021)

#111

Post by 9dev » Fri, Feb 16, 2024, 11:31 PM UTC

fsflover wrote: post #106

okanat wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And do you know what systemd is? A project that produces multiple orthogonal executables that share a syntax paradigm and communicate over standardized IPC mechanisms. I think the only valid-ish argument these Unix philosophy discussions boil down to "why didn't they use purely text based interfaces". Well because they are inefficent and hard to debug and reason with. Making things text only doesn't make them more un…

You have a point concerning the text files. (Although I would be really interested to see an example where efficiency of text files is insufficient on modern hardware.) However "multiple orthogonal multiple orthogonal executables" is just a strawman: their interfaces are unstable and non-straightforward, aand communicate over standardized IPC mechanismsnd one can't reliably replace one of them with an alternative. It…

You’re commenting on a post by someone that managed to encapsulate a fully functional instance of an init manager, ripped out all of its default configuration, and replaced them with dummy files - just to find out the whole thing works exactly as documented.

And now you seriously argue this is brittle, non-straightforward, inflexible, and hard to verify? For real?

If I ever have seen a bloody well designed software system, it is this!

Re: Systemd by Example (2021)

#112

Post by SuperNinKenDo » Sat, Feb 17, 2024, 12:41 AM UTC

Took me a while to read through so I could come back and comment.

I've got to say, this is probably the best single explainer of the basics of systemd I've read.

I've only recently started fiddling with systemd extensively since I had my Linux-coming-of-age prior to its widespread adoption. I've got to be honest. I've found the experience very confusing and disorientating. The man pages feel really terse, even by manpage standards, and all the information is heavily split up so it's quite difficult to build a mental model of the full system IMO.

Somethint like this would have been magic before, but it was still really helpful to me now with the way it explained things, I feel like it took me most of the way from cargo culting, into more understanding.

Great write-up!

Re: Systemd by Example (2021)

#113

Post by mixmastamyk » Sat, Feb 17, 2024, 3:48 AM UTC

sph wrote: post #85

frankjr wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The UX of systemd tools (systemctl, journalctl) is a bit crap, to be honest Huh, what do you mean? I'm pretty happy with those.

I really dislike that systemctl subcommands do not respect the accepted standard of `command subcommand -h`. For example, try `git branch -h` or `systemctl start -h`. The latter won't give any useful information. The man page does not help either. `man git branch` opens the manual of the `git-branch` binary, so only the relevant options are shown. `man systemctl start` will show the man of the entire systemctl comman…

I just did `systemctl start -h` and got a ton of information. Is the problem it is too much?

Re: Systemd by Example (2021)

#114

Post by pdimitar » Wed, Feb 21, 2024, 1:39 AM UTC

michaelcampbell wrote: post #108

ecnahc515 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, there’s systemctl list-units.

Just like `ls`, or even `ls *.log`. As I've been trying to allude to, 90% of this is familiarity, not some objective "better".

No it's not just like it because not all log files live in /var/log so you have to remember to check several locations.

systemd is centralized.

Re: Systemd by Example (2021)

#115

Post by pdimitar » Wed, Feb 21, 2024, 1:40 AM UTC

michaelcampbell wrote: post #93

dingnuts wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how on earth is remembering the location of some log file, buried in /var/log somewhere, hopefully, or maybe next to the application in /etc/ or /opt/, easier than remembering journalctl -u unitfilename ? or journalctl -u unitfilename -f to follow the logs -- the very same flag tail uses? after a decade of systemd usage I've never once had to actually think about the format the logs are stored in, or where they're st…

> after a decade of systemd usage I've never once had to actually think about the format the logs are stored in, or where they're stored; journalctl is actually easier than using tail and cat That's wonderful for you. For me, it is not. Funny how people are different.

This is not a people problem, it's a technical problem.