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Shall we fork Debian?

debianfork.org

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Re: Shall we fork Debian?

#51

Post by csirac2 »

buster wrote: post #28

Or just shut up and put your efforts into maintaining https://packages.debian.org/jessie/systemd-shim Also, critique starts with "We like controlling the startup of the system with shell scripts that are readable".. How on earth is a systemd service file less readable then a hundreds of lines bash script? Also relevant: http://www.itwire.com/business-it-news/open-source/65684-deb...

I dare you to tell my why lxc-docker silently fails to start at boot in jessie. Without a single shred of clue in any log, no matter what logging options are turned up - at least with a shell script I can add some echo/exit/touch etc. statements to convince myself it's at least being noticed at startup: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/docker-user/bg5-hlmR...

Re: Shall we fork Debian?

#52

Post by Xylemon »

captainmuon wrote: post #21
qznc wrote: post #5

How does forking Debian solve anything? The issue is that Gnome, KDE, and other software requires systemd. You need to fix/maintain their compatibility with other init systems. Then it is easy for Debian user to switch init systems.

> The issue is that Gnome, KDE, and other software requires systemd. This I can't wrap my head around, why does Gnome for example need systemd? There are standard ways on GNU/Linux to do everything it needs in a unix fashion (by deferring to small specialized tools): shutdown reboot whoami uname mount ... These and similar tools (or libc functions) give you all information you need (username, etc.) and system functio…

I feel that the only reason Gnome needs SystemD is because RedHat said so. I honestly think making a DE require a specific init system is silly.

Re: Shall we fork Debian?

#53

Post by ownagefool »

There's a whole bunch of debian derivatives out there and veteran unix sysadmins don't necessarily have the skills to deliver this so not sure this is really all that news worthy until they create something.

Re: Shall we fork Debian?

#54

Post by the_mitsuhiko »

mappu wrote: post #34

>SystemD betrays the UNIX Philosophy Not so convinced by this. "Those days are dead and gone and the eulogy was delivered by Perl." -- Rob Pike Systemd in debian would have an easier time making friends if it didn't usurp PID1 for roles that are currently outside PID1, and if it didn't encourage software which is currently init-system agnostic to grow a dependency on a specific init-system implementation.

> Systemd in debian would have an easier time making friends if it didn't usurp PID1 for roles that are currently outside PID1

Like what exactly? This is a non issue. systemd has very little actually running in PID1.

Re: Shall we fork Debian?

#56

Post by pantalaimon »

TheSwordsman wrote: post #45
0x006A wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

on the contrary, systemd is a feature desired by system administrators, who are responsible for installing and managing most debian and debian-based distros.

As someone who manages a large Debuntu fleet, please don't speak on my behalf. If I had the opportunity to vote for systemd it would have been 'no'.

Have you ever used it?

Re: Shall we fork Debian?

#57

Post by csirac2 »

snogglethorpe wrote: post #13
martin_ wrote: post #4

From the article: We are excluded from voting on the issue: only few of us have the time and patience to interact with Debian on a voluntary basis. Using the same argument, forking would seem like a horrible idea if there isn't active maintainers.

The anti-systemd-brigade only seems to be a small minority of Debian devs (though they're very loud, and very persistent), so I'm not sure it would have much effect on the project as a whole. If a fork would reduce the time spent arguing about the init system (which 99% of users don't care about), it could even prove beneficial for Debian. [It seems unlikely the fork would attract the critical mass of devs/users to s…

I'm not even "anti-systemd". I'm actually in the process of implementing systemd for the firmware of an embedded target in $dayjob because socket activation is actually a good idea and happened to work well when I played with it.

But a switch to a different init system shouldn't break your system so badly that it no longer boots. And yet that's what happens if you rely on keyscript to unlock your drives in /etc/crypttab.

Apparently the answer is to write a different custom C program for every possible permutation of obtaining key material to feed to cryptsetup: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/systemd-devel/2014-Aug...

... which is somehow more clean than a 4 line keyscript.

... and certainly lends credence to the idea that systemd just isn't unixy.

Re: Shall we fork Debian?

#58

Post by ownagefool »

TheSwordsman wrote: post #45
0x006A wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

on the contrary, systemd is a feature desired by system administrators, who are responsible for installing and managing most debian and debian-based distros.

As someone who manages a large Debuntu fleet, please don't speak on my behalf. If I had the opportunity to vote for systemd it would have been 'no'.

Is that because you think it's somehow technically inferior or because you you've learnt a whole bunch of skills and don't really want to have to replace them? I mean, would you like to see the init system change, period?

Re: Shall we fork Debian?

#59

Post by nslqqq »

Apparently 'Veteran Unix Admins' can't even spell systemd right. It not necessarily correlates with their overall knowledge of systemd, but it's still very strange

Re: Shall we fork Debian?

#60

Post by the_why_of_y »

_ak wrote: post #47
jermo wrote: post #2

The main reason for forking seems to be opposition to SystemD. Initially I was unconvinced but then I remembered the recent story of Lennart Poettering (one of the authors of SystemD) on The State Of Open Source Communities where he describes the hostility towards him personally https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8414859 In light of that, forking is a more civilised approach than bullying and threatening the author…

Lennart Poettering is a bully himself, with a well-documented instance where he continuously interruped a talk at the 27th Chaos Communication Congress, even going as far as taking over the stage while insulting the presenter. Lennart Poettering is a toxic person, toxic to the OSS community, and he's the last person that can complain about bullying.

You mean that famous talk when the very poorly prepared presenter ("Datenwolf") took the stage to trash-talk and spread misinformation about large parts of the Linux Desktop, evidently oblivious to important requirements like accessibility that modern desktops such as Gnome and KDE are designed to meet, which LP had to correct by comments?
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