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Why I dislike systemd

steven-mcdonald.id.au

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Re: Why I dislike systemd

#2

Post by ChuckMcM »

Steven, if you're reading, you got your history slightly wrong. System V got its init handling from Sun's SunOS 4.x. It was negotiated as part of the integration between SunOS and System V which would become the "one UNIX for everyone". Unfortunately for all of us, AT&T really really loved "run levels" and Sun really really liked BSD's way of configuring the system. Which got you the unholy love child you saw in Solaris 2.0 and System V release 2.0.

For the other Sun folks from the systems group who quit rather than submit to the demands, you were right, I was wrong. We couldn't convince them of the error of their ways.

Re: Why I dislike systemd

#4

Post by [deleted] »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #2

Steven, if you're reading, you got your history slightly wrong. System V got its init handling from Sun's SunOS 4.x. It was negotiated as part of the integration between SunOS and System V which would become the "one UNIX for everyone". Unfortunately for all of us, AT&T really really loved "run levels" and Sun really really liked BSD's way of configuring the system. Which got you the unholy love child you saw in Sola…

[deleted]

Re: Why I dislike systemd

#5

Post by empressplay »

I don't "hate" systemd either, I just think it's a bad approach. It flies in the face of the "open architecture" concept and stifles innovation. It discourages users from learning about how their operating system works, and it unnecessarily puts too much control of a fundamental component of the OS in the hands of a too-small number of people.

None of these reflect the Linux I grew up with. Thus, I am not a fan of systemd. #notmylinux

Re: Why I dislike systemd

#6

Post by keypusher »

I agree with most of this, especially the fact that complexity has simply been shifted to other places. It's much easier for me to read a systemd unit file than it was for me to read a complex set of init scripts. The problem is that when I have 10 or 20 units with interlocking dependencies, it's an absolute nightmare to try and untangle because I have to jump between so many different files. Having to specify After=X and Requires=X seems like a prime example of optimizing for the 1% usecase. 99% of the time, when A must start after B, it's because A requires B. Having to specify both is something that is easily and often missed, and a hard problem to track down if you didn't read the documentation carefully. There's also the problem that it seems to be metastasizing and taking other parts of the OS. The longstanding /var/log/messages is now replaced by journalctl tool, and the logs are actually in binary. The venerable "hostname" command is now "hostnamectl" because it must go through systemd. They have also replaced chroot with systemd-nspawn, and made it so you cannot even use systemd while in a normal chroot!

Re: Why I dislike systemd

#7

Post by ghshephard »

There is something epically beautiful about OpenBSD's consistency over the last 10 years. I swear that a 2004 OpenBSD sysadmin would be close to 100% efficient with a circa 2015 OpenBSD system, despite the absolutely massive number of improvements and changes that have been made with the operating system.

Once systemd starts to get traction, it's cognitive overhead is going to become a real problem for sysadmins who want to be able to model the entire boot process and run-state in their head.

For better or worse (I honestly don't know which, btw), you are going to have to start to trust the operating system to manage its boot process/run-state correctly rather than having it be a direct implementation of your mental model. (I would argue other *nix Operating systems, like OS X, have, to some degree, been doing that successfully for a while, so it's certainly possible - just not clear whether you want that type of behavior on your server systems. I guess time will tell.)

Re: Why I dislike systemd

#8

Post by yuhong »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #2

Steven, if you're reading, you got your history slightly wrong. System V got its init handling from Sun's SunOS 4.x. It was negotiated as part of the integration between SunOS and System V which would become the "one UNIX for everyone". Unfortunately for all of us, AT&T really really loved "run levels" and Sun really really liked BSD's way of configuring the system. Which got you the unholy love child you saw in Sola…

This history looks wrong. Eg it was SVR4 that merged SunOS

Re: Why I dislike systemd

#9

Post by stephen_g »

ghshephard wrote: post #7

There is something epically beautiful about OpenBSD's consistency over the last 10 years. I swear that a 2004 OpenBSD sysadmin would be close to 100% efficient with a circa 2015 OpenBSD system, despite the absolutely massive number of improvements and changes that have been made with the operating system. Once systemd starts to get traction, it's cognitive overhead is going to become a real problem for sysadmins who…

I'm not a professional sysadmin, but as a developer with a bunch of virtual servers systemd has only made things far easier.

Writing init scripts used to be a real pain, now I can set up a unit file in two minutes and it works...

Maybe there's something to be said for "sysadmins who want to be able to model the entire boot process and run-state in their head" but with correct information about dependencies and so on, I personally think that's something computers are a lot better at solving.

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