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Linux From Scratch ends SysVinit support

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Re: Linux From Scratch ends SysVinit support

#221

Post by pjmlp »

imiric wrote: post #200
pjmlp wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love how people worship UNIX design in Linux circles, especially when complaining about decisions where Linux is catching up with commercial UNIXes, as in the init systems replacements. UNIX design was so great that its authors did two other operating systems trying to make UNIX done right. One of the few times I agree with Rob Pike, > We really are using a 1970s era operating system well past its sell-by date. We…

This is not about mindless worship, but about the fact that the UNIX design has stood the test of time for this long, and is still a solid base compared to most other operating systems. Sure, there are more modern designs that improve on security and capability (seL4/Genode/Sculpt, Fuchsia), but none are as usable or accessible as UNIX. So when it comes to projects that teach the fundamentals of GNU/Linux, such as LF…

Except that it didn't, Linux has nothing to do with UNIX design, it isn't a UNIX System V in 2026.

Re: Linux From Scratch ends SysVinit support

#222

Post by bandrami »

idoubtit wrote: post #211
bandrami wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this really that hard to type? https://github.com/openbsd/src/blob/master/etc/rc.d/watchdog...

> Is this really that hard to type? Your link is irrelevant. It points to OpenBSD which uses rc, not sysv. The 3 lines of this rc startup script use a file of 400 lines of shell with commands that don't exist in SysVinit. With sysv, the difficulty depended on the local tools because the launching scripts could not be shared across Linux distributions. Debian used the compiled helper `start-stop-daemon` while Redhat d…

Init and run control aren't the same thing. Which is part of what's nice about sysv (which, yes, OpenBSD's init is based on). OpenBSD's run control system is particularly nice, and it's the sort of thing you can use with an init system that isn't constantly eating everything.

Re: Linux From Scratch ends SysVinit support

#223

Post by pjmlp »

fsflover wrote: post #208
pjmlp wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making it even more so of a religion. UNIX is only an OS with some good ideas, and also plenty of bad ones. No reason to stick with it ad eternum as some kind of holy scriptures.

You are so vague in your attack on Unix approach that it's borderline trolling. What are your problems with it? Modularity and minimalism have been working perfectly and that systemd does not follow them is a bad thing.

There is a book on that, gets posted every now and then on HN.

In case you never read it, https://web.mit.edu/~simsong/www/ugh.pdf

Hardly the piece of OS beauty that gets praised about FOSS circles.

Re: Linux From Scratch ends SysVinit support

#224

Post by wobfan »

pjmlp wrote: post #187
rusk wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We really are using a 1970s era 1970 Anno Domini no less

Making it even more so of a religion. UNIX is only an OS with some good ideas, and also plenty of bad ones. No reason to stick with it ad eternum as some kind of holy scriptures.

The article is not about UNIX, what's good and bad, but what's better for understanding Linux. And replacing SysVInit with systemd is, objectively, bad for understand the core of Linux. And this is the core of LFS.

Discussing whether UNIX is good or bad seems narrow-minded, as there is no solution to that. It's like discussing whether iOS is better than Android. We can always isolate some specific parts and discuss that, but just slashing the whole concept doesn't help anyone and rarely yields any meaningful results.

Re: Linux From Scratch ends SysVinit support

#225

Post by fragmede »

cf100clunk wrote: post #123
fragmede wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought systemd was fairly straightforwards, even if it does too many different things for my tastes. What's an example of it doing a too much magic behind the curtain thing?

Bear in mind that the entire purpose of systemd is to replace a huge amount of previous system administration solutions in a fashion that is centralized and automated, and not in need of as much human intervention as previous init systems. For copious examples, look through these comments and the huge number of previous HN threads on this huge topic. That is my answer.

If there are so many such instances, surely you must have one that comes readily to mind, then.

Re: Linux From Scratch ends SysVinit support

#226

Post by imiric »

pjmlp wrote: post #221
imiric wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not about mindless worship, but about the fact that the UNIX design has stood the test of time for this long, and is still a solid base compared to most other operating systems. Sure, there are more modern designs that improve on security and capability (seL4/Genode/Sculpt, Fuchsia), but none are as usable or accessible as UNIX. So when it comes to projects that teach the fundamentals of GNU/Linux, such as LF…

Except that it didn't, Linux has nothing to do with UNIX design, it isn't a UNIX System V in 2026.

> Linux has nothing to do with UNIX design

Respectfully, that's nonsense. Linux is directly inspired by Unix (note: lowercase) and Minix, shares many of their traits (process and user model, system calls, shells, filesystem, small tools that do "one thing well", etc.), and closely follows the POSIX standard. The fact that it's not a direct descendant of commercial Unices is irrelevant.

In fact, what you're saying here contradicts that Rob Pike quote you agree with, since Linux is from the 1990s.

But all of this is irrelevant to the main topic, which is whether systemd should be part of a project that teaches the fundamentals of GNU/Linux. I'll reiterate that it's only a distraction to this goal.

Re: Linux From Scratch ends SysVinit support

#227

Post by mfost »

nice_byte wrote: post #197

I had stopped using linux at the start of the systemd takeover (it was not because of systemd). What I don't understand is how this has happened. I didn't care either way but everybody who did seemed to really fucking hate systemd. Then how come it became the default in so many distributions, with so much opposition from the community?

Because most maintainers love it compared to Sys V scripts.

In the end, users might complain about purity of things or something but the mainteners are the ones doing the work maintaining all that and end up deciding what gets used.

Honestly, I'm rather outside of all that stuff and I had my share of problems with systemd issues but that's mostly because I've been using pretty old systems anyway with thus older and buggier versions of the code. And I also remember the pain it was before unit files to get those sys V scripts working correctly. From my perspective, both systems had weird bugs I had to track but systemd clearly wins on the "creating a new service" part.

Re: Linux From Scratch ends SysVinit support

#228

Post by palata »

razighter777 wrote: post #71
antonyh wrote: post #27

All I want is init scripts and X11, but the horizons are shrinking. I've already compromised with systemd, and I don't like it. I see BSD in my future, or at least a linux distro from the list here https://nosystemd.org/ - probably Gentoo. Nothing to stop me, absolutely nothing at all. I just need a few days free to backup/wipe/reinstall/reconfigure/restore_data and I'll be good. Better make that a few weeks. Maybe o…

What practical problems do you run into with systemd? All the compliants I see tend to be philisophical criticism of systemd being "not unixy" or "monolithic". But there's a reason it's being adopted: it does it's job well. It's a pleasure being able to manage timers, socket activations, sandboxing, and resource slices, all of which suck to configure on script based init systems. People complain in website comment se…

> But there's a reason it's being adopted: it does it's job well

My problem with systemd is that it's taking over more and more and locking in. It is encouraging developers to have a hard dependency on it, and making it harder to have an alternative.

My problem is not philosophical with "it's a monolith, it's not unixy". My problem is "it's on the way to lock me in".

We like to complain about lock-in across the board. I don't see why it would be different with systemd.

Re: Linux From Scratch ends SysVinit support

#229

Post by palata »

sxzygz wrote: post #156

Sadly is Linux is no longer what is used to be for my generation that cut their teeth having to patch kernels for basic hardware support. Linux is now effectively systemd/linux, and is attempting to become flatpak/systemd/linux through various corporate sponsored initiatives. The only thing worse, in my eyes, are people who distribute things as docker containers. The Linux distro as such is becoming an anachronism. T…

> Linux is now effectively systemd/linux

This is my issue with systemd. I wanted Linux because I wanted to have a choice. The philosophy was that users should have a choice. Systemd goes against that: it's taking over everything and more and more projects require systemd. Flatpak as well: if a project only supports flatpak, chances are that it won't be easy to package normally. So if I don't use Flatpak, I'm screwed.

People who don't see the problem with systemd "because it works" miss the point, IMO. It's like those devs who proudly ship their project in a docker container, because they are not capable of making it properly available to package maintainers. "It works", but I can't package it for my distro because it's a big mess. Developers don't have to package their project for all distros, they just have to properly provide the sources. But more often than not, they don't know how to do that, and instead see Flatpak/docker as "good alternatives that just work".

Re: Linux From Scratch ends SysVinit support

#230

Post by Someone »

wobfan wrote: post #224
pjmlp wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making it even more so of a religion. UNIX is only an OS with some good ideas, and also plenty of bad ones. No reason to stick with it ad eternum as some kind of holy scriptures.

The article is not about UNIX, what's good and bad, but what's better for understanding Linux. And replacing SysVInit with systemd is, objectively, bad for understand the core of Linux. And this is the core of LFS. Discussing whether UNIX is good or bad seems narrow-minded, as there is no solution to that. It's like discussing whether iOS is better than Android. We can always isolate some specific parts and discuss t…

> And replacing SysVInit with systemd is, objectively, bad for understand the core of Linux.

I know there are strong opinions on this, but isn’t systemd part of the core of most Linux desktops nowadays?

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