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Systemd redux: The end of Linux

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261–270 of 464 posts

Re: Systemd redux: The end of Linux

#261
post #9
post #3

Can someone put in Layman's terms what the change entails and why it would be the end of Linux?

It's not the end of Linux. It's the final death of the idea that Linux should just idly continue to act like a clone of some vague Unix of old because it was better when men were men and their computers had obscure RISC processors with billions of registers. Linux hasn't really been that way for an incredibly long time, but a large proportion of the userbase still cling to this notion, some for ideological reasons, a…

Why did systemd decide to ALSO take over logging and store them in a binary format, though?

Re: Systemd redux: The end of Linux

#262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux Torvalds said he would never have created Linux is FreeBSD was available at the time. And the only reason it wasn't available is because it was embroiled in a lawsuit over embedded ATT UNIX code back in the 1990s(?).

I'm not sure how this is relevant. Saying he wouldn't have created Linux at the time is not the same thing as saying he wouldn't work on it or use it today instead of FreeBSD.

I may be wrong, but I took GP to mean that FreeBSD is a good enough OS to use daily, hence Torvalds wouldn't have had a need to create Linux. Obviously, Torvalds hasn't abandoned Linux in favor of FreeBSD today, and no one said he has or is planning on it.

Re: Systemd redux: The end of Linux

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had no opinion on systemd until yesterday. In fact I had a glace or two at the code and it's pretty clean and I liked the rough objectives laid out. I installed CentOS 7 on a machine last night that we're replacing CentOS 6 on and was poked in the face with timedatectl and dbus problems for an entire hour, some of which were intermittent. Debugging these issues is a horrific pain. I lost 4 hours on it. I've never l…

You know this is funny, I remember reading comments EXACTLY like this about 3-4 years ago but with pulseaudio in place of systemd. Pulseaudio was Lennart's previous project. It broke everything in linux sound for a while, everybody moaned and hated it and said it was the worst thing since the crucifixion of Christ. Yet, name one problem you had with sound on linux in the past year? There are very few. Pulseaudio now…

Hey, pulseaudio still does not work for me and when it rarely manage to get out some sound, my CPU is over 10%.

Re: Systemd redux: The end of Linux

#264

I have mixed feelings about systemd: like many others, I've spent a lot of time with traditional Unix systems (25 years) and like the simplicity and stability commonly associated with them and familiar tools/conventions. On the other hand, OS X showed what a modern system built on Unix should feel and look like, while Linux never got anywhere near (not only on the GUI layer). If it takes unreasonable people to make p…

Progress is good. But is systemd progress?

Re: Systemd redux: The end of Linux

#265
post #264

I have mixed feelings about systemd: like many others, I've spent a lot of time with traditional Unix systems (25 years) and like the simplicity and stability commonly associated with them and familiar tools/conventions. On the other hand, OS X showed what a modern system built on Unix should feel and look like, while Linux never got anywhere near (not only on the GUI layer). If it takes unreasonable people to make p…

Progress is good. But is systemd progress?

> is systemd progress?

My knee-jerk reaction would be to say "no", but many people who are more involved with this part of Linux seem to think so, I don't feel qualified to challenge that.

I am confident that more radical changes are good in general, as long as the bazaar model allows the best solutions to survive and the worst to be undone if needed.

Re: Systemd redux: The end of Linux

#266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had no opinion on systemd until yesterday. In fact I had a glace or two at the code and it's pretty clean and I liked the rough objectives laid out. I installed CentOS 7 on a machine last night that we're replacing CentOS 6 on and was poked in the face with timedatectl and dbus problems for an entire hour, some of which were intermittent. Debugging these issues is a horrific pain. I lost 4 hours on it. I've never l…

You know this is funny, I remember reading comments EXACTLY like this about 3-4 years ago but with pulseaudio in place of systemd. Pulseaudio was Lennart's previous project. It broke everything in linux sound for a while, everybody moaned and hated it and said it was the worst thing since the crucifixion of Christ. Yet, name one problem you had with sound on linux in the past year? There are very few. Pulseaudio now…

Pulseaudio still has problems. Sound suddenly being muted, it using the wrong alsamixer settings, sound being garbled until you pass in arcance settings or change it back to Alsa. Granted, the error might be more in part of the rest of the ecosystem, though I doubt it. But it is sadly far from "just use pulseaudio and everything will work instantly". And if it works, there is no need to think that Alsa alone wouldn't have worked as well, the configuration was way less brittle and cumbersome than it is described now. Mostly it just worked.

It is only since 14.04 that you have a small chance that opting to use pulseaudio is the better choice.

Just trying to get Skype working (which uses pulseaudio) cost me 2 hours last week, which is not at all nice when you have a call starting in 5 minutes.

Re: Systemd redux: The end of Linux

#267
I think the article got one thing wrong: That sooner or later every GNU/Linux distro will switch to systemd. I can think of three that most likely will not: Slackware, Crux, and Gentoo. Granted, the more that systemd binds itself to formerly modular userspace utilities and apps, the more pressure on those distros to make the switch, or else either fork every systemd userspace app at the risk of being left behind. But I have a feeling there will be a schism in Debian, resulting in a fork or (less likely) dropping systemd altogether, before too much longer. That might just be the catalyst to move away from it in other major distros.

Then again, I could be completely wrong, and systemd will end up in every single surviving distro by default, turning GNU/Linux into systemd/Linux. That's when we'll see a true exodus of those opposed to it to other OSes.

Re: Systemd redux: The end of Linux

#268

for me it seems that most people complaining/crying out loud come from a system admin perspective. For example the author of this blog article does not seem to have contribute a lot of code to any project and is more "just" an admin and not a dev. for me it looks like they don't like new stuff love the linux world how they knew it and don't want things to get easier or even change.

I don't think they would complain if things became easier. All I hear about is problems with systemd, and having to solve problems (and learn how systemd and all its components interact so you can debug it) is not easier.

Re: Systemd redux: The end of Linux

#269
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the end of Linux. It's the final death of the idea that Linux should just idly continue to act like a clone of some vague Unix of old because it was better when men were men and their computers had obscure RISC processors with billions of registers. Linux hasn't really been that way for an incredibly long time, but a large proportion of the userbase still cling to this notion, some for ideological reasons, a…

Systemd is most problematic because of its own-everything monolithic nature, and the changing of kernel interfaces to match. The vast majority of Linux systems are not desktops, and probably not servers either. The kernel and the core utilities around it (like init) should be designed with multiple implementations and all machine types in mind. This means phones, set top boxes, TVs, routers, automation hardware, supe…

Your comment is the very definition of FUD. You have nonfacts just baseless fear.

Re: Systemd redux: The end of Linux

#270
post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are already dumping Solaris/AIX/HP-UX as much as they can so environments are a bit more homogeneous (and easier to support). Whoever is pushing for this is an idiot then. Verisign, for example, has had 100% DNS uptime for the .net, .org, and .com root servers for ~15 years because of their mixed environments. In every one of their POPs they tend to have at least two racks of equipment with: * 2 different bran…

Yet Google and Facebook keep using Linux for all their servers.

Facebook also uses PHP, the most reviled language around here. Google has a developer team to rewrite components and adapt the Linux kernel, consider that.
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