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Why Did It Take Devuan Two Years to Replace Systemd?

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Re: Why Did It Take Devuan Two Years to Replace Systemd?

#61

Post by khedoros1 »

dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #44
KirinDave wrote: post #2

I keep waiting for the reasoned, technical arguments against systemd instead of veiled metaphors, complaints about its creator, or protestations that it's different. The initd-inspired community has resisted the push for declarative and component-based core system infrastructure for so long, and it's causing very strange distortions to the linux ecosystem as solutions get sought for the problems it introduces. System…

With Emacs vs Vi it was a way to amuse ourselves, because everyone is free to use their own favourite editor. With Systemd, we are not - we're all forced to use it. Yes, it did solved some SysV init problems, but introduced a few of its own. Most importantly though, it grew into a more complex subsystem with numerous dependencies, and this unfortunately causes problems unheard of in the old days of SysV Init. I don't…

That's my biggest issue with it: tendrils branching out into all the other aspects of the system. Systemd won't always be the state of the art, and we'll want to replace it someday.

Replacing SysV init? Relatively easy. Replacing Systemd, all the ancillary programs, desktop environments that it ties into, etc? It's a ton of work. One of the arguments I've heard repeated is that it's all very modular, but that doesn't seem to be true in practice.

Re: Why Did It Take Devuan Two Years to Replace Systemd?

#62

Post by khedoros1 »

antientropic wrote: post #30
dredmorbius wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might have missed this: https://lkml.org/lkml/2017/7/6/577 Ted Ts'o: https://plus.google.com/+TheodoreTso/posts/EJrEuxjR65J "For me a lot of "good taste" is about adding complexity when it's needed, and avoiding it when it's not needed. And if you do have complexity, making sure you have the tools so you can debug things when they break. And for me one of the things that I don't like about systemd is that it has…

I don't really get this. Linus and Lennart both are opinionated and tend to be pretty convinced that they're right. The difference is that Linus, if he feels you're wrong, will tell you that you should be retroactively aborted ( https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/7/6/495 ), and part of the HN readership will applaud this as a wonderful example of no-nonsense project leadership. From what I recall from the systemd-devel maili…

I don't think that the rudeness matters.

Linus's message there says "Yes, this is a problem and needs to be fixed, but here's a suggested work-around. Although, that's still a stupid way to use the interface, and you shouldn't be doing it that way."

Lennart's equivalent message would be "That's a problem with you, not with my software. It was changed to support [blah]. Use it correctly, and you won't have that problem. Now, go away."

In the first case, the problem gets fixed, and advice is dispensed on the better way to do things. In the second, the problem doesn't get fixed (or even acknowledged), and the universe is as it should be and always is, because The Dev Is Right.

Re: Why Did It Take Devuan Two Years to Replace Systemd?

#63

Post by sliken »

happypants23 wrote: post #40
pmoriarty wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the main problems was the speed with which systemd was rolled out on all the major Linux distros, despite it being relatively immature and very controversial at that. The second major issue is it growing way out of the bounds of being just an init replacement, thereby violating the so-called Unix Philosophy of doing one-thing well. For a user app to do that is one thing, but for a core OS component to do that…

The second major issue is it growing way out of the bounds of being just an init replacement, thereby violating the so-called Unix Philosophy of doing one-thing well. I keep on hearing this overly worn "Unix Philosophy" argument against systemd, which in the absence of any non-religious technical justification, basically boils down to "its different". All of this adds up to a storm of controversy that the systemd peo…

Why does an init system need a DNS implementation? Why not use named, unbound, or any of the other implementations?

Instead they implement it poorly, have had various problems with it, and of course there have been security problems with it.

Do you really want an init system that replaces a ton of functionality poorly like dns, ntp, syslog, xinetd, etc etc etc?

Re: Why Did It Take Devuan Two Years to Replace Systemd?

#64

Post by jcrites »

bitwize wrote: post #41
sseveran wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All that may be true. But I prefer today writing a little file that is a systemd service than fixing up someone else's init scripts. If it is as broken as you say why was it adopted?

Because Lennart has a lot of pull at Red Hat, and Red Hat has a lot of pull in the Linux community. The BSDs have really straightforward to maintain init scripts. Mainly because all the boilerplate junk is hidden in sourced-in files. Runit takes a more advanced approach, but its service files are still simple scripts a few lines long. We don't need a reinvent-the-world solution like systemd to address the most compla…

It was adopted because the maintainers of distributions like Debian examined the alternatives and decided that systemd was technically superior. For example, please see the analysis of systemd and upstart by Debian maintainer and then-Technical Committee member Russ Allbery: https://lists.debian.org/debian-ctte/2013/12/msg00234.html

Re: Why Did It Take Devuan Two Years to Replace Systemd?

#65

Post by dozzie »

horusthecat wrote: post #27
KirinDave wrote: post #2

I keep waiting for the reasoned, technical arguments against systemd instead of veiled metaphors, complaints about its creator, or protestations that it's different. The initd-inspired community has resisted the push for declarative and component-based core system infrastructure for so long, and it's causing very strange distortions to the linux ecosystem as solutions get sought for the problems it introduces. System…

It's not a holy war, but it does have a lot of politics, which engineers like to pretend don't exist. Here is the only solid criticism of systemd I've read that focuses on design (as opposed to bugs that surface from the sprawling throw-it-over-the-wall approach to development): http://blog.darknedgy.net/technology/2015/10/11/0/ Notably, darknedgy hosted/hosts uselessd, which was a lightweight version of systemd. On…

> On the whole i think the idea underlying systemd, of graph-based management of services and system state makes more sense that wonky initscripts garbage.

It would make sense if systemd delivered on its promise of automatically detecting service dependencies (through socket activation mechanism). In practice, it's still distro maintainers and sysadmins who need to specify any and all dependencies manually, and as such, systemd is in no way better than what we had with upstart or Gentoo's old initscripts (those before OpenRC).

Re: Why Did It Take Devuan Two Years to Replace Systemd?

#66

Post by falcolas »

wirrbel wrote: post #35
aleksei wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, people are allowed to have opinions even if they dont' have the time, resources, or know-how to contribute to a solution, so yes, there may very well be "those who talk, and those who do". I don't see what your point is.

people are allowed to have their opinions, and after a while, I reserve my right to not listen to certain opinions anymore if they are not backed up.

That same paintbrush also applies to those who denigrate people who have problems with systemd without putting forth the effort to see their point of view.

The top comment on this post is a great example. People have been giving well reasoned arguments against systemd for years, yet the first and most upvoted salvo in this article is "I have yet to see a well reasoned argument against systemd".

The hate for systemd gained steam when people stopped listening to well reasoned arguments because it also provided parallel startup and unit files, and really hit its stride when the developers ignore legitimate bug reports as "working as intended" (the latest numeric user issue is but the latest in an established history of such issues).

Re: Why Did It Take Devuan Two Years to Replace Systemd?

#67

Post by KirinDave »

dijit wrote: post #21
KirinDave wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Either: Linus's behavior is fine and this is expected in the FSF community OR We burn all those MLs into the ground. Terrible culture in these projects is basically how everyone is conditioned to interact from the top down. We can't pick and choose which assholes are okay and which are not. We either push back on all of them to make a more professional environment or we accept this is what we want.

Let's get something distinct: Linus is like Gordon Ramsey.. If you should know better and you do junk work then you will be shit on. I've seen Linus handle people numerous times who are learning or do not claim to be experts and he is always respectful, civil and a lot less blunt. Not to mention the fact that when Linus is shitting on people it's often because they broke something for the "user"[0]. Lennart is not th…

Apologetics for Linus Torvalds are exactly what I was saying is unfair about this. "Lennart is not good when he is an ass but Linus, well HE is something different" is a pretty uncompelling argument.

Either the environment is civil and professional or it is not. You can't say, "It is UNLESS..." and then mention something that could conceivably happen in the course of a normal working week.

Re: Why Did It Take Devuan Two Years to Replace Systemd?

#68

Post by KirinDave »

khedoros1 wrote: post #61
dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With Emacs vs Vi it was a way to amuse ourselves, because everyone is free to use their own favourite editor. With Systemd, we are not - we're all forced to use it. Yes, it did solved some SysV init problems, but introduced a few of its own. Most importantly though, it grew into a more complex subsystem with numerous dependencies, and this unfortunately causes problems unheard of in the old days of SysV Init. I don't…

That's my biggest issue with it: tendrils branching out into all the other aspects of the system. Systemd won't always be the state of the art, and we'll want to replace it someday. Replacing SysV init? Relatively easy. Replacing Systemd, all the ancillary programs, desktop environments that it ties into, etc? It's a ton of work. One of the arguments I've heard repeated is that it's all very modular, but that doesn't…

Replacing SysV init is not easy, unless you want to copy the majority of its problems as well.

Re: Why Did It Take Devuan Two Years to Replace Systemd?

#69

Post by dozzie »

jcrites wrote: post #57
slau wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe we just gave up on Debian, and decided to spend our efforts somewhere else? I've been fairly vocal against systemd, and not because of Poettering. I'm no fan of the man, and I strongly agree with a lot of the points he made in his initial blog posts when introducing systemd. I think he's probably very talented---I'm not in a position to judge that. I wouldn't be against systemd if it were just an init system…

> I wouldn't be against systemd if it were just an init system. The problem is that it's not. That's the end of my argument. All of systemd's functionality, as far as I'm concerned, is rationally motivated by wanting to orchestrate and instrument system startup in a sensible way. What functionality do you think systemd should not have that it has today? What is a better way of achieving the result provided by that fu…

> All of systemd's functionality, as far as I'm concerned, is rationally motivated by wanting to orchestrate and instrument system startup in a sensible way. What functionality do you think systemd should not have that it has today?

QR code generator? Message broker (IPC)? Underdeveloped, brittle, and overcomplicated syslog replacement? Task scheduler?

Re: Why Did It Take Devuan Two Years to Replace Systemd?

#70

Post by [deleted] »

jcrites wrote: post #57
slau wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe we just gave up on Debian, and decided to spend our efforts somewhere else? I've been fairly vocal against systemd, and not because of Poettering. I'm no fan of the man, and I strongly agree with a lot of the points he made in his initial blog posts when introducing systemd. I think he's probably very talented---I'm not in a position to judge that. I wouldn't be against systemd if it were just an init system…

> I wouldn't be against systemd if it were just an init system. The problem is that it's not. That's the end of my argument. All of systemd's functionality, as far as I'm concerned, is rationally motivated by wanting to orchestrate and instrument system startup in a sensible way. What functionality do you think systemd should not have that it has today? What is a better way of achieving the result provided by that fu…

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