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What “technical” concerns do I have with systemd?

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Re: What “technical” concerns do I have with systemd?

#51

Post by knd775 »

hyperpape wrote: post #16
RadioactiveMan wrote: post #6

As a user of linux on the desktop, I've never felt a moment of concern over the fact that it takes longer to boot than did Windows. I'm not sure who is panicked by this and I'm distressed that we would solve all of our problems with init by embracing systemd. If Gnome requires systemd, lets drop Gnome.

As a user of computers, I have never once felt that boot time was adequate for any device I have owned.

My rMBP is the first device that I have used yet that I feel boots quickly enough. I mean, it's a few seconds. And that's on top of the fact that I rarely actually turn it off. SSDs are really necessary to have tolerable boot times.

Re: What “technical” concerns do I have with systemd?

#52

Post by justincormack »

marcosdumay wrote: post #24
IshKebab wrote: post #12

So... none? Unintegrated desktop linux is painful, and the fixes for it so far have mostly been hacks. Systemd actually attempts to create some kind of modern cohesive system which is a good thing. Maybe you don't see the downsides to the lack of integration because you're just used to putting up with them.

Tightly integrated operational systems are painful. The article really says it all: > Linux is becoming the thing that we adopted Linux to get away from. It's just true in many more aspects than the one where this sentence is placed.

Most people now didn't adopt Linux to get away from something, its just the default server OS. (And not desktop).

Re: What “technical” concerns do I have with systemd?

#53

Post by cwyers »

justincormack wrote: post #52
marcosdumay wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tightly integrated operational systems are painful. The article really says it all: > Linux is becoming the thing that we adopted Linux to get away from. It's just true in many more aspects than the one where this sentence is placed.

Most people now didn't adopt Linux to get away from something, its just the default server OS. (And not desktop).

I think mostly people adopted Linux to get away from paying a lot of per-seat license fees for everything, and to get away from having to buy some vendor's medium iron hardware rather than just using commodity x86 chips.

Re: What “technical” concerns do I have with systemd?

#54

Post by angersock »

lmm wrote: post #31
jessaustin wrote: post #26

Why weren't any of these objections heard back before Canonical knuckled under? Was upstart even worse? I really enjoyed the "impotent rage" piece linked in TFA's comments.

Systemd didn't used to be this invasive. There have been "better init" options for many years, none of which gained much traction. So most of us figured the community as a whole wasn't very bothered. IMO systemd has only achieved "popularity" by using some very underhanded tactics.

Is this a classic Poettering thing?

How'd PulseAudio get stuck in so much stuff? Is this a pattern?

Re: What “technical” concerns do I have with systemd?

#55

Post by e7620 »

zarvox wrote: post #42
e7620 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What feature of systemd did you always wanted on a server?

I'm in the same boat - I wind up in a situation where I find myself missing the features, stability, coherance, and integration of systemd at least once a week in my day job, where we currently use Ubuntu with upstart. For me, it's a combination of things: 1. Proper dependency management, where I specify dependencies as they are, rather than flattening the dependency graph. 2. Proper service supervision. I've had ups…

systemd is less stable than upstart (and sysvinit, obviusly), "it lacks maturity" says the author. You've had several problems with upstart, but count yourself lucky, certain problems with systemd will take down the whole system, and make it unbootable too!

systemd is not reliable, unlike eg daemontools, the developers are busy adding new features and don't care at all about old bugs. They say if you're not using one of the latest kernels, tough luck. So you're continuously debugging systemd "modern innovations" instead of focusing on your product.

If you're using Ubuntu, let's hope that by the time it gets adopted, systemd has evolved into a functional, dependable component. I wouldn't bet my product on that, though..

Re: What “technical” concerns do I have with systemd?

#56

Post by lovelearning »

agwa wrote: post #45
lovelearning wrote: post #22

Assuming that everything the author says turns out true - such as the "big one" exploit - in say an year from now, does anybody know any active popular open source distro that aims to keep systemd away from servers?

Debian has only made systemd the default , and getting sysvinit back is as simple as running `apt-get install sysvinit-core`. Removing systemd might have consequences for GNOME, but that's not a concern on servers. There is a significant enough anti-systemd contingent in Debian (not to mention Debian also supports kfreebsd, where systemd doesn't run) that I'm confident sysvinit will remain a viable option for servers…

Really appreciate that overview. It does seem that even if the author's concerns are true, we still have good alternatives available.

Re: What “technical” concerns do I have with systemd?

#57

Post by Svenstaro »

e7620 wrote: post #37
the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He's hit the nail on the head - systemd's fundamental design is not appropriate for the server environment: [Citation needed] From where I stand, systemd is what I always wanted on a server.

What feature of systemd did you always wanted on a server?

Being able to see what started what, cgroups, which binary produced what output, automatic process restarting is what I like for using on a server. I also like the nice timers output and that I don't need an additional cron or network configuration utility.

Re: What “technical” concerns do I have with systemd?

#58

Post by ominous_prime »

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #43
zarvox wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the same boat - I wind up in a situation where I find myself missing the features, stability, coherance, and integration of systemd at least once a week in my day job, where we currently use Ubuntu with upstart. For me, it's a combination of things: 1. Proper dependency management, where I specify dependencies as they are, rather than flattening the dependency graph. 2. Proper service supervision. I've had ups…

Have you considered running something like monit, alongside Upstart?

I definitely don't want to hide problems with my init systems behind a supervisor that has its own host of problems. The union of those two products does not make a more stable, easy-to-reason-about system.

Granted I could choose something better than monit, but then why add another layer to hide brokenness, when we have the capability of doing it correctly in the first place.

Re: What “technical” concerns do I have with systemd?

#59

Post by e7620 »

drewcrawford wrote: post #50
teacup50 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mac OS's architecture is totally unlike systemd. Areas of responsibility are implemented by standalone mechanisms that compose to create the larger integrated system and can: 1) Run in isolation from their upstream dependents. 2) Be replaced individually.

osx guy here. Yes and no. It's true that OSX uses a variety of separate daemons, that run in different pids. However they are all "required", "packaged together", "part of one source tree" and "shipped by a single vendor". In this respect they are a lot like systemd. In fact it is arguably a lot more integrated. Both Python and Ruby are OSX dependencies. systemd isn't even close to that much of a power-grab.

GNU/Linux requires vi, perl, python... also as dependencies, but they're separate programs, the thing with systemd is that nothing can be separated, you use ALL components at the same time or change OS. Bear in mind that systemd is being integrated with the Linux kernel, so you have to update the kernel in sync with systemd.

Re: What “technical” concerns do I have with systemd?

#60

Post by antientropic »

andolanra wrote: post #18

Something that tends to get lost in these discussions: it's not a question of systemd-versus-sysvinit. Systemd is miles better than sysvinit. There's absolutely no question that the vast majority of Linux users would rather sysvinit disappear entirely. But that doesn't mean that there aren't better alternatives. My personal preference is runit[1], which is based on djb's daemontools[2] and gives you all the dependenc…

What mystifies me in these systemd discussions is that people constantly seem to attack a caricature of systemd that has little in common with its actual implementation. Take for instance the perpetual "monolithic architecture" argument. What monolithic architecture? Systemd is in fact highly modular. For instance, PID 1 concerns itself with starting and monitoring units, and not much more. Other functions are implemented in other programs, such as journald, udevd, logind and so on. Of course, some of the components sometimes need to talk to each other, but generally via well-defined (D-Bus) interfaces - e.g., pam_systemd registers user sessions with logind via a D-Bus call, and loginctl asks logind about current user sessions, also via a D-Bus call. What's wrong about that architecture?

Now, systemd the package is getting pretty bloated. For instance, there is no reason why stuff like networkd couldn't be in a separate package that depends on systemd. But that's not really an architectural issue, and not much of a problem for users. (For instance, you can disable networkd just fine.)

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