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Debian developer prompted to revisit FreeBSD after 20 years

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Re: Debian developer prompted to revisit FreeBSD after 20 years

#31
That's a good overall article - I've been switching back and forth between FreeBSD and Debian for several years now, and I never spend more than a couple of month without using one of them.

The one thing that surprised me was his take on FreeBSD's package management system, pkg. PKG is relatively new, having been released in late summer 2012. Prior to that, FreeBSD relied on the ports collection, which was (is) a vast tree of Makefile's allowing you to create custom builds of virtually any software imaginable.

While pkg is still raw on the edges, I VASTLY prefer it to Debian's hodgepodge of package management tools that all do 90% of the other, though none of them do it cleanly and none of them have straightforward interfaces. Am I using dpkg here? What about aptitude? Or should I just roll w/ apt-get? All of these tools combine the ease of use of git with the flexibility of a Maven build. If you know how to use to descend deep into the depths of git or Maven, this isn't an issue ( and for the author, it certainly is not ). Yet there are numerous simple tasks ( like say, searching for a package remotely when you aren't sure the exact name ) which still require hitting up google and settling in for a Click-Your-Way-To-Adventure session.

PKG, in contrast, is both simplistic and flexible ( it reminds me of a industrial grade version of Brew in some sense ). It's a tool that I find myself integrating into my workflow beyond simple installs / updates, particularly it's seamless integration with jails. Configuration of remote repositories is vastly simplified as well.

PKG is not perfect by an means - it definitely has worts that need to be taken care of. I'm also sure that PKG probably feels a tad inadequte to some hard core sys admins - pkg has the look and feel of a tool designed by a programmer looking to handle normal cases than a tool designed to provide a sys admin with an atom bomb if necessary. Yet the system is still relatively new and as the bugs continue to get ironed out it's a reminder to me of why I love FreeBSD in a lot of ways - the abstraction point is flawless and it gets out of my way.

Re: Debian developer prompted to revisit FreeBSD after 20 years

#32
post #7

The article makes some good points, and I'm glad it didn't just rail on one single part/component since linux distrobutions have so much variety. ZFS is really a killer FS, and unfortunately Linux just doesn't have a native answer just yet (although BtrFS does have some promising parts). There's a lot of people either threatening to switch or are switching to one of the BSD's as a result of being dissatisfied with th…

I don't think there were too many people in that debate who were dissatisfied with the idea of a new init system. People were dissatisfied with systemd specifically , because of various architectural choices that it made. The fact that FreeBSD might adopt a new init doesn't in itself mean that those people will be scared off.

> I don't think there were too many people in that debate who were dissatisfied with the idea of a new init system

That's funny, because the loudest voices all seem to be insisting that an unholy shitpile of init scripts a la SysV was the One True Unix Way and had been forever (which shows how young they are, but I digress).

The number of people pushing for smf/launchd equivalents (let alone working on them) is tiny by comparaison.

Re: Debian developer prompted to revisit FreeBSD after 20 years

#34
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there were too many people in that debate who were dissatisfied with the idea of a new init system. People were dissatisfied with systemd specifically , because of various architectural choices that it made. The fact that FreeBSD might adopt a new init doesn't in itself mean that those people will be scared off.

> I don't think there were too many people in that debate who were dissatisfied with the idea of a new init system That's funny, because the loudest voices all seem to be insisting that an unholy shitpile of init scripts a la SysV was the One True Unix Way and had been forever (which shows how young they are, but I digress). The number of people pushing for smf/launchd equivalents (let alone working on them) is tiny…

Well, I don't believe that's true. All my understanding is that systemd does too much, not that we shouldn't have an init doing more than SysV.

Event-based and dependency-based init systems are not controversial. Having an init system with inseparable and breaking changes to logging, IPC, etc. with its own DHCP client seem to be what people think is absurd.

Re: Debian developer prompted to revisit FreeBSD after 20 years

#35
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there were too many people in that debate who were dissatisfied with the idea of a new init system. People were dissatisfied with systemd specifically , because of various architectural choices that it made. The fact that FreeBSD might adopt a new init doesn't in itself mean that those people will be scared off.

> I don't think there were too many people in that debate who were dissatisfied with the idea of a new init system That's funny, because the loudest voices all seem to be insisting that an unholy shitpile of init scripts a la SysV was the One True Unix Way and had been forever (which shows how young they are, but I digress). The number of people pushing for smf/launchd equivalents (let alone working on them) is tiny…

I'd rather have OpenRC (edit: and I wouldn't mind upstart, either... it's pretty slick).

You're creating a false dichotomy. Just because SysV-style initscripts are a mess doesn't mean systemd is the only viable option.

Re: Debian developer prompted to revisit FreeBSD after 20 years

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FreeBSD has been in the early stages of working on a launchd port for 10 years now. It seems like progress with openlaunchd is going well, but there are certain things related to Mach IPC that need to be ported to the upstream FreeBSD kernel to get it working. I do recall some old version of launchd entitled launchd_xml was ported to pfSense, but it's one that puts the XML parser into PID1, so it's not desirable. IMH…

> FreeBSD has been in the early stages of working on a launchd port for 10 years now. There were several half-serious individual efforts, but I don't think the community / foundation were pursuing it seriously until quite recently. Kip Macy has been working hard to get it in as an init replacement recently. > It seems like progress with openlaunchd is going well, but there are certain things related to Mach IPC that…

>> FreeBSD has been in the early stages of working on a launchd port for 10 years now.

> There were several half-serious individual efforts, but I don't think the community / foundation were pursuing it seriously until quite recently. Kip Macy has been working hard to get it in as an init replacement recently.

This is because iXsystems (Jordan Hubbard) hired Kip to implement it for FreeNAS (and, presumably PC-BSD), not because the FreeBSD community thinks it needs a new init system.

Jordan also has plans to bring other large pieces from Apple to FreeBSD.

Re: Debian developer prompted to revisit FreeBSD after 20 years

#37
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think there were too many people in that debate who were dissatisfied with the idea of a new init system That's funny, because the loudest voices all seem to be insisting that an unholy shitpile of init scripts a la SysV was the One True Unix Way and had been forever (which shows how young they are, but I digress). The number of people pushing for smf/launchd equivalents (let alone working on them) is tiny…

Well, I don't believe that's true. All my understanding is that systemd does too much, not that we shouldn't have an init doing more than SysV. Event-based and dependency-based init systems are not controversial. Having an init system with inseparable and breaking changes to logging, IPC, etc. with its own DHCP client seem to be what people think is absurd.

Literally everything you wrote here is objectively wrong about systemd though.

systemd is a package of separable utilities, plus an init system. Much like the GNU core utilities.

The complaints about "doing too much" can never decide what too much means and usually start suggesting obvious, raw sore spots of SysV init are actually features.

Re: Debian developer prompted to revisit FreeBSD after 20 years

#38
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I don't believe that's true. All my understanding is that systemd does too much, not that we shouldn't have an init doing more than SysV. Event-based and dependency-based init systems are not controversial. Having an init system with inseparable and breaking changes to logging, IPC, etc. with its own DHCP client seem to be what people think is absurd.

Literally everything you wrote here is objectively wrong about systemd though. systemd is a package of separable utilities, plus an init system. Much like the GNU core utilities. The complaints about "doing too much" can never decide what too much means and usually start suggesting obvious, raw sore spots of SysV init are actually features.

So, how does one completely excise journald from a box running systemd. I'm not talking about passing messages through, I'm talking about complete, utter, wiping out?

Re: Debian developer prompted to revisit FreeBSD after 20 years

#39
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there were too many people in that debate who were dissatisfied with the idea of a new init system. People were dissatisfied with systemd specifically , because of various architectural choices that it made. The fact that FreeBSD might adopt a new init doesn't in itself mean that those people will be scared off.

> I don't think there were too many people in that debate who were dissatisfied with the idea of a new init system That's funny, because the loudest voices all seem to be insisting that an unholy shitpile of init scripts a la SysV was the One True Unix Way and had been forever (which shows how young they are, but I digress). The number of people pushing for smf/launchd equivalents (let alone working on them) is tiny…

I really like upstart, and am quite disappointed that Canonical caved on it. It seems to be an honest improvement on SYSV with standardized configs, while still doing One Thing, Well.

Re: Debian developer prompted to revisit FreeBSD after 20 years

#40
post #31

That's a good overall article - I've been switching back and forth between FreeBSD and Debian for several years now, and I never spend more than a couple of month without using one of them. The one thing that surprised me was his take on FreeBSD's package management system, pkg. PKG is relatively new, having been released in late summer 2012. Prior to that, FreeBSD relied on the ports collection, which was (is) a vas…

For at least as long as I've been using it (7+), FreeBSD has always had binary and source packages. Ports are still very much existent and supported (and needed if you want anything custom).

All pkg replaces is the old way of getting/managing binary packages (pkg_add, pkg_delete, pkg_info, etc).

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