The change is really tighter integration [LWN.net]

The change is really tighter integration

Posted Feb 23, 2012 6:38 UTC (Thu) by grahame (subscriber, #5823)
Parent article: Changes and complaints

The change is towards tighter integration between components of the operating system. In many ways this apes proprietary systems, and reduces the flexibility we have to roll our own solutions to strange problems. I think the value of that flexibility is being missed as the core, paid developers fix on the "desktop with a web browser" use case.

It's becoming more and more difficult to reject components of the stack that aren't fit for a particular purpose; systemd, pulse, dbus, PackageKit, abrt, etc. These tools all expose a complex interface that can't be easily emulated by another package, or just shimmed out.

It makes it easier for the people writing the desktop, but harder for people doing unusual things where they might want to reject one or more of those components.

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The change is really tighter integration

Posted Feb 23, 2012 19:19 UTC (Thu) by lacos (subscriber, #70616) [Link]

Thank you. You got a grip on the problem at its core. Especially apt are the components you singled out; those are the ones that drive me crazy the most. Add in avahi as well.

Recent changes are turning the desktop into a single-purpose device. I don't mind a single-purpose device as long as it is my car or my toothbrush. But my desktop is my dang toolbox! I'm trying to work here!

The change is really tighter integration

Posted Feb 27, 2012 23:12 UTC (Mon) by HelloWorld (guest, #56129) [Link]

I don't see your point. systemd, dbus, pulseaudio, PackageKit and abrt are all entirely optional, and lots of people choose not to use them. Of course, you do lose functionality if you reject them, but that's normal, right? And it's not like everything breaks.

Also, it's all open source software, so anybody is free to make any modifications necessary for their use case. If people would hack as much as they bitch about other people's programs, we'd probably have had the year of the linux desktop 10 years ago.