Dependency on systemd: why/where?

Posted Nov 6, 2013 12:37 UTC (Wed) by jfasch (guest, #64826)
Parent article: Which init system for Debian?

I did some research on why systemd has become a hard dependency for GNOME, but haven't come with anything but https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2012-N.... That issue has been resolved a year ago.
Can anyone point me to an answer please?

Dependency on systemd: why/where?

Posted Nov 6, 2013 13:58 UTC (Wed) by zuki (subscriber, #41808) [Link] (5 responses)

It uses systemd-logind's dbus interfaces to control suspend, hibernate, and session switching.

Dependency on systemd: why/where?

Posted Nov 6, 2013 18:00 UTC (Wed) by debacle (subscriber, #7114) [Link] (4 responses)

Speaking out of absolute ignorance, here, but how hard is it to define a DBus interface for such tasks, that can be implemented by any init system? So that Gnome would depend on a well-defined interface, not on a specific program? Both systemd and upstart are using DBus anyway and for others a simple bridge could be build. What am I missing?

Btw: I'm using upstart on a huge number of Debian Squeeze(!) systems and it works well for my task. I would not oppose to systemd, however - as long as we get rid of sysvinit, RSN.

Dependency on systemd: why/where?

Posted Nov 6, 2013 18:13 UTC (Wed) by ovitters (guest, #27950) [Link]

Actually, GNOME depends on the d-bus interface. What we don't want is several different APIs. E.g. different d-bus interfaces and so on.

Dependency on systemd: why/where?

Posted Nov 6, 2013 19:08 UTC (Wed) by alexl (subscriber, #19068) [Link]

Here is that dbus interface:
http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/logind/

Its on a page with "systemd" in the name, but the API is generic.

Dependency on systemd: why/where?

Posted Nov 8, 2013 18:54 UTC (Fri) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (1 responses)

> Speaking out of absolute ignorance, here, but how hard is it to define a DBus interface for such tasks, that can be implemented by any init system?

The problem isn't the interface.. it's dbus already.

The problem is that no other init system is going to provide the features needed.

Ubuntu forked logind, but they are going to have a VERY hard time keeping up with systemd.

Dependency on systemd: why/where?

Posted Nov 9, 2013 7:51 UTC (Sat) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link]

"Forked" also implies that their patches were not accepted.

Up until systemd 204, their patch was pretty simple: just keep logind separate. In systemd 205, systemd is now the sole cgroups controller. This means that a separate session logind no longer implements that functionality.

At the moment their direction seems to be to adapt Google's lmctfy (LM contain TFY - https://github.com/google/lmctfy/ - originally intended for containers) as the cgroups controller.

Dependency on systemd: why/where?

Posted Nov 6, 2013 15:08 UTC (Wed) by pbonzini (subscriber, #60935) [Link] (2 responses)

It has only become a hard dependency if you configure it for systemd support instead of ConsoleKit. But on Linux the default is to configure it for systemd.

Dependency on systemd: why/where?

Posted Nov 6, 2013 15:30 UTC (Wed) by avheimburg (guest, #75272) [Link]

Well, given that ConsoleKit is no longer maintained in favor of systemd-logind according to

http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/ConsoleKit/

it looks like systemd will be the way to go if you want a nice, integrated FOSS desktop. That or reimplement a lot of infrastructure.

Dependency on systemd: why/where?

Posted Nov 6, 2013 15:31 UTC (Wed) by jfasch (guest, #64826) [Link]

Thank you for the explanation. Makes sense for GNOME to take this functionality (suspend etc.) from where it belongs, rather than building it into the desktop.