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Systemd redux: The end of Linux

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Re: Systemd redux: The end of Linux

#31

Post by zanny »

thasmin wrote: post #6
api wrote: post #2

One thing I've realized about the Linux community through all this systemd flame warring is how unbelievably conservative a large subsection of it is. There's this huge so-called "neckbeard" continent that views anything architecturally beyond the 1980s as a huge affront to Unix. IMHO I kind of shrug at this, since Unix was never really all that great to begin with. Unix won because the only commercially viable and w…

People who aren't extremely familiar with how the Linux init system works and whose job doesn't include keeping the servers stable don't see why the neckbeards are up in arms about systemd, but there's good reason. Many peoples' jobs depends on making sure the servers are working, and knowing how the servers work is a big part of their job (and sanity). In its current incarnation, systemd changes the fundamentals of…

I've had huge productivity gains with unit files for systemd over trying to write spaghetti shell code for old sysv. The syntax and features are well documented and writing them is extremely simple. I also don't believe any sysv implementation had crash recovery or socket activation of daemons, both of which are huge feature wins.

Re: Systemd redux: The end of Linux

#32

Post by zobzu »

baldfat wrote: post #15
andyl wrote: post #7

Everything I read about SystemD is negative. Negative on the technology, negative on the people who created it. Nothing positive. How is it that SystemD is about to dominate the market? Who is driving SystemD adoption, and why?

Linux and SystemD work and work good. Because the people who use it like it and we don't have many complaints besides logs are no longer text files we have to use journalctl. The strong critics usually go the route of "It remains to be seen if this is a good or bad thing." Systemd has been a replacement for the worst part of Linux, init. It was confusing and was just barely workable. It has been needing replacement f…

you dont have to use journald. you can send back from journald to syslog (eg rsyslog) and that works well/its easy to do. You can even disable the journald logging itself and just have rsyslog (or the logger of your choice).

at my place we kept both journald and have rsyslog to redirect logs to the network. ie our /var/log is relatively empty (rsyslog isnt setup to log to disk) so we look at log on the machine via journald if needed (rarely - since we look at the central log aggregator instead)

Re: Systemd redux: The end of Linux

#33

Post by zanny »

baldfat wrote: post #18
califield wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We're getting more monolithic and coarse-grained. At the same time we are pushing more heterogenous software stacks to production and configuring more specific dependencies for our applications. It almost seems like you're using cross-platform as a pejorative. ;)

Yeah we need to go back to when distro A and B had totally different versions of everything since it was so much work to get things working. Now we are close to having a OS where you can seriously just expect anything "Linux" to just run. Bad I guess to some :P

Seriously, once the systemd convergence is over, I can finally start advocating Ubuntu on workstations everywhere because it will finally have commonality with server infrastructure. The last frontier after that is package format convergence, and Lennart has said repeatedly he intends to use the systemd monoculture to push a common package format, which is a really good thing for me.

Right now I have most clients running OpenSUSE, just because I cannot be bothered to fuck with Upstart anymore. Once systemd is in place, the fact zypper is much nicer than apt doesn't make up for the incredible market size difference between Suse and Debian and its children.

Re: Systemd redux: The end of Linux

#34

Post by zobzu »

johnny22 wrote: post #16
thasmin wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who aren't extremely familiar with how the Linux init system works and whose job doesn't include keeping the servers stable don't see why the neckbeards are up in arms about systemd, but there's good reason. Many peoples' jobs depends on making sure the servers are working, and knowing how the servers work is a big part of their job (and sanity). In its current incarnation, systemd changes the fundamentals of…

I deal with sysadmin stuff for quite some time(since 2001), and I just won't use distributions without systemd. The benefits far outweigh the risks (imo obviously)

Meh I don't mind either way. There's nice stuff in systemd but nothing thats so critical i wouldnt use a sysv based system (there's pretty good ones).

What generally annoy me are things like supervisor and other things people use to "auto restart" services but these aren't exactly integrating nicely and put stuff all over the filesystem/etc.. I like that systemd includes that and does it mostly properly.

Re: Systemd redux: The end of Linux

#35

Post by sandGorgon »

>single parent hierarchy for namespaces

Predictably, all the blame is laid at systemd's feet.

The current churn is happening, because all of Linux's core developers (kernel and user space) are wanting that change...to push the envelope.

For example, the current change in CGroup's namespaces are because kernel is mandating that the current cgroup access mechanism be deprecated. They want a single writer to Cgroups. Systemd is in the unfortunate position of complying with that request. Guess what? Soon enough, so will Upstart.

Again with kdbus, the person who made the push is not "evil" Lennart, but Kay Sievers - a long time maintainer of udev.

Systemd is nice. Don't be afraid.

Http://www.lambdacurry.com/systemd-nice-dont-afraid/

Re: Systemd redux: The end of Linux

#36

Post by jqm »

zanny wrote: post #29
jqm wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"removal of the nasty nest of shell scripts" What one person finds nasty another may find sexy.

Then feel free to use shell based init. Meanwhile, there is a strong concensus in Linux distros that the maintainers thought shell scripts were not sexy, and systemd unit files were, and thus everyone has / is switching.

"Everyone" has not switched nor is "everyone" switching.

Most distros are yes. Some are not. Personally I like shell scripts and plan to continue using them as long as feasible. They work, and when/if they don't, I can usually find out why.

"Strong consensus" might be good argument for some people. I personally find it a fallacious appeal to popularity.

Re: Systemd redux: The end of Linux

#37

Post by gnufied »

keyle wrote: post #3

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

If you read over Wikipedia page of systemd, you will find out - it just does not replace `init` system, but whole lot more. Systemd is a collection of 64 binaries which manage login daemon, networking (DHCP) etc.

In other words to some it seems like lot of not-so-tested software replacing software that was well tested. from an outsider perspective two things seem problematic:

1. A lot of Linux software worked on principle of, don't break userland. Systemd appears to break userland here and there.

2. From any such large software replacing a well tested infrastructure, bugs are expected. The problem appears to be, in many cases systemd developers push the blame of breakage to other subsystem devs (sometimes it could be Kernel dev, sometimes it could be end user apps written on top of KDE/GNOME). This is the part which makes lot of people angry apparently.

Re: Systemd redux: The end of Linux

#38

Post by jude- »

zobzu wrote: post #32
baldfat wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux and SystemD work and work good. Because the people who use it like it and we don't have many complaints besides logs are no longer text files we have to use journalctl. The strong critics usually go the route of "It remains to be seen if this is a good or bad thing." Systemd has been a replacement for the worst part of Linux, init. It was confusing and was just barely workable. It has been needing replacement f…

you dont have to use journald. you can send back from journald to syslog (eg rsyslog) and that works well/its easy to do. You can even disable the journald logging itself and just have rsyslog (or the logger of your choice). at my place we kept both journald and have rsyslog to redirect logs to the network. ie our /var/log is relatively empty (rsyslog isnt setup to log to disk) so we look at log on the machine via jo…

> you dont have to use journald. you can send back from journald to syslog

That's a contradiction. You're running journald even if it's dead weight.

Re: Systemd redux: The end of Linux

#39

Post by Mikeb85 »

andyl wrote: post #7

Everything I read about SystemD is negative. Negative on the technology, negative on the people who created it. Nothing positive. How is it that SystemD is about to dominate the market? Who is driving SystemD adoption, and why?

It's so terrible (literally the devil incarnate, sacrifice your offspring now) that it's already been adopted by:

- Arch Linux

- Fedora/RHEL

- openSUSE/SLES

- Mageia

- NixOS

- CoreOS

- Sabayon

- Debian and Ubuntu in the near future

> Everything I read about SystemD is negative. Negative on the technology, negative on the people who created it. Nothing positive.

There's a vocal group that seem to think it's some Red Hat conspiracy to destroy Linux and take over the world. You don't hear the positives because people either don't care about init systems (as long as their distro continues to work) and happy programmers are generally silent on the issue.

The fact that the article says that Solaris is the 'best of breed stack right now' and also suggests CoreOS (apparently not knowing they use Systemd) should speak volumes...

Re: Systemd redux: The end of Linux

#40

Post by kbenson »

zanny wrote: post #33
baldfat wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah we need to go back to when distro A and B had totally different versions of everything since it was so much work to get things working. Now we are close to having a OS where you can seriously just expect anything "Linux" to just run. Bad I guess to some :P

Seriously, once the systemd convergence is over, I can finally start advocating Ubuntu on workstations everywhere because it will finally have commonality with server infrastructure. The last frontier after that is package format convergence, and Lennart has said repeatedly he intends to use the systemd monoculture to push a common package format, which is a really good thing for me. Right now I have most clients run…

And why not RHEL/CentOS and/or Fedora? I'm sure you have your reasons, but I find it odd you didn't even bother to mention it, when it's a rather large part of the market.
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