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Flatpak Will Depend on Systemd

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Re: Flatpak Will Depend on Systemd

#81

Post by ChocolateGod »

shevy-java wrote: post #73
ChocolateGod wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe systemd should have been an API + a spec instead of an unportable implementation. There's nothing really stopping other init systems from implementing it's unit spec, some hobby ones have done so. In the case of GNOME, KDE etc depending on it, the reason mainly boils down to "we could implement our own manager for handling desktop daemons etc or just get systemd to do it for us"

But why would they do so? That makes no objective sense. Systemd never was "merely" only an init system. And it makes no sense for init systems to grow to systemd-size either, in order to solve non-init related issues. > In the case of GNOME, KDE etc depending on it, the reason mainly boils down to "we could implement our own manager for handling desktop daemons etc or just get systemd to do it for us" That's not qui…

> Systemd never was "merely" only an init system

There is systemd the service manager/init system and systemd the project. An alternative service manager could add support for the formers unit files.

Re: Flatpak Will Depend on Systemd

#82

Post by nechuchelo »

danlitt wrote: post #19
nechuchelo wrote: post #12

While I think systemd is a great init system (as well as some other components under the systemd umbrella), I really dislike when components up in the stack hard-depend on it. We can't use GNOME, plasma-login-manager, and soon Flatpak without systemd. Maybe systemd should have been an API + a spec instead of an unportable implementation.

FWIW GNOME can be used without systemd, and this is how Guix System does it. I think over time more and more components are depending on systemd, but at the current moment it is still feasible to swap them out for replacements that don't.

Can it still? IIRC Guix still has GNOME 48 while GNOME said they'll be increasing they dependence on systemd after version 49 or 50[1]. I'd be happy if Guix can support future version as this seems like an end game distro for me, and I'm (slowly) looking into moving there but my understanding is I'd need to stay with KDE Plasma in the long-term.

[1] https://lwn.net/Articles/1025560/

Re: Flatpak Will Depend on Systemd

#83

Post by Meneth »

debugnik wrote: post #64
boje wrote: post #31

Linux Desktop is starting to smell a lot like Android now judging by how vertically integrated it is becoming. With the push for a permissively-licensed (MIT, BSD etc.) userland and concentration of developers within a small group of companies and orgs sponsored by them, they might eventually do what Google is doing and start delaying releases for sourcecode, or stop altogether. (MIT, BSD and other licenses do not ma…

> they might eventually do what Google is doing and start delaying releases for sourcecode Who is "they" here? There's no value to gain from closing the freedesktop ecosystem: no company has a distribution chokepoint like Google does with Play Store, the overall PC market is in decline and everyone would switch to existing anti-systemd alternatives.

I would imagine Red Hat are pretty close to "they", since they created Systemd and then there was the RHEL redistribution controversy [ https://old.reddit.com/r/Fedora/comments/14k8jmw/can_someone... ].

Re: Flatpak Will Depend on Systemd

#84

Post by ChocolateGod »

sam_lowry_ wrote: post #80
Jnr wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like wayland? Where none of the desktop environments offer the same feature set. And the more compositors there are the harder it is for apps to use those new protocols, and guaranteeing a ton of bug reports from users using an unsupported compositor. That just hinders Linux desktop app development.

Wayland is different, they pretended nothing except compositing and window positioning matters.

I don't believe Wayland makes any decisions about compositing, it's up to compositors to decide how (and if) they want to do that.

Wayland at it's core is an IPC for sharing memory buffers containing surfaces around and details about those surfaces.

Re: Flatpak Will Depend on Systemd

#85

Post by account42 »

DCKing wrote: post #55

There will be more of this going forward, I think. Systemd is really not just an init system, it's a full cohesive management system for Linux distros and they've never pretended otherwise. A modular one but still a comprehensive one. Because of that its mere existence is an affront to many people with traditional opinions on Linux and Unix. systemd-appd sounds like it could make some inroads in the threat model that…

> systemd-appd sounds like it could make some inroads in the threat model that Windows and Linux still have in 2026 (and macOS is still reeling from): anything that runs as my user, can access anything running as _my_ user. I don't think this threat model was tenable in 2016, much less in 2026.

Are we talking about open source operating systems hero or app delivery mechanisms?

Re: Flatpak Will Depend on Systemd

#86

Post by account42 »

Jnr wrote: post #48
Avshalom wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay so back in ~2000 the audio system in Linux was ALSA and it kinda sucked so along come a guy named Lennart Poettering who wrote pulseaudio which improved things in a lot of ways but also kinda constantly didn't work. Poettering in those years constantly blamed everything on other software in the stack and became kinda wildly disliked. We all had to use pulseaudio though because everything important decided to int…

Yes, but people learned from issues that pulseaudio had and then came pipewire. Everyone is happy now. I don't know about the philosophical aspects, but from pure technical point of view systemd brought some order into the mess. Before systemd it seemed like most distros were barely holding together with duct tape. Systemd standardized a lot of things. I am fine with a little bit of controversy if the result is a muc…

> Yes, but people learned from issues that pulseaudio had and then came pipewire. Everyone is happy now.

Yes, I'm very happy that it mutes my audio when I accidentally unplug my headphones (something which I never asked for) and then often fails to unmute them when plugging them back in, something which requires digging up alsamixer to fix because pulse/pipeware-based GUI tools are being lied to about the output not being muted.

I'm also especially fond of having to open the audio settings app to change audio from one display output to another because some very smart person decided to group all display audio (which are separate ALSA sinks) into one output with different profiles.

But lets not forget that it at least simplified configuration. So much that GUI tools basically don't let you configure shit at all and you need to use one of two (yes, one was not enough) turing-complete configuration languages to accomplish anything slightly non-standard like giving outputs are better name than what your display manufactures cat produced while walking over his keyboard or hiding some of the bazillion useless audio devices that you might end up with somewhere in your PC.

And then of course it still has the PA-innovations like audio randomly stopping for no reason at all until you restart the daemon.

Meanwhile ALSA with an up to date default dmix configuration worked just fine.

Re: Flatpak Will Depend on Systemd

#87

Post by TiredOfLife »

theandrewbailey wrote: post #20
pezgrande wrote: post #6

As a Linux normie, I've never understood why systemd is/was so much opinioned about.

It violates the Unix philosophy of 'do only one thing and do it well', but personally, it has never been a problem for me. I had a nightmare last week wherein I read a headline that systemd was writing its own kernel. When I woke up I realized it was a possibility, after all it has replaced GRUB. https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Systemd-boot

Is there any piece of modern linux that follows that Unix philosophy?

Re: Flatpak Will Depend on Systemd

#88

Post by pezgrande »

Avshalom wrote: post #32
pezgrande wrote: post #6

As a Linux normie, I've never understood why systemd is/was so much opinioned about.

Okay so back in ~2000 the audio system in Linux was ALSA and it kinda sucked so along come a guy named Lennart Poettering who wrote pulseaudio which improved things in a lot of ways but also kinda constantly didn't work. Poettering in those years constantly blamed everything on other software in the stack and became kinda wildly disliked. We all had to use pulseaudio though because everything important decided to int…

Interesting... didn't know this part of Linux history. I remember complaining about pulseaudio crashing a lot though ha. Thanks for sharing it.

Re: Flatpak Will Depend on Systemd

#90

Post by account42 »

aniviacat wrote: post #16
pezgrande wrote: post #6

As a Linux normie, I've never understood why systemd is/was so much opinioned about.

The way it's structured (combining many previously separate utilities into one) hinders competition. That's tolerable while it's still one of the best solutions for the things it does, but will become an issue in the future.

It's already an issue now because "best" is subjective but SystemD developers only care about their own views.
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