Which init system for Debian?
Which init system for Debian?
Posted Nov 11, 2013 15:45 UTC (Mon) by HelloWorld (guest, #56129)In reply to: Which init system for Debian? by dgm
Parent article: Which init system for Debian?
It doesn't matter at all. Just replace "need" with "demand" in my comment, that doesn't change the essence of the point I'm making. People want it, and if they don't get it from debian, they'll get it from somewhere else.
> My opinion is completely for me to judge.
It's none of your business what I should or shouldn't care about. Of course you're entitled to your opinion, but that doesn't mean you have to tell the world about it, and you're being a smart-arse if you do.
Posted Nov 11, 2013 22:14 UTC (Mon)
by dlang (guest, #313)
[Link] (7 responses)
>It's none of your business what I should or shouldn't care about. Of course you're entitled to your opinion, but that doesn't mean you have to tell the world about it, and you're being a smart-arse if you do.
similarly, you can't say that "everyone needs this" or "everyone wants this" when there are people who are saying that they are happy without this.
Nobody is saying that systemd shouldn't be an option for the people who want it. The only thing that people are objecting to is being forced to switch distros to avoid using systemd when they don't want it.
and the statement from Lennart that systemd is not an init system, it is a set of "components needed to build up an operating system on top of the Linux kernel" don't make people happy who want to run a Unix OS instead of a Lennart OS. Again, they don't object to people who want to run LennartOS having that ability, they object to distros being chnaged from Unix to LennartOS while keeping the same name (if you think about this a bit, it's exactly the same objection people have to Gnome3 being so completely different than Gnome2 but keeping the same name)
Posted Nov 11, 2013 23:29 UTC (Mon)
by anselm (subscriber, #2796)
[Link] (6 responses)
Other people object to being forced to switch distros to get systemd by default when they do want it, when essentially all other distributions of note are using it by default, too – rather than having to patch it into Debian after the fact just to keep a small percentage of users on the fringe happy.
The funny thing is how, by and large, the actual Unix OSes have quietly moved over to using other init systems. This should tell us something about the continuing viability (or lack of such) of System-V init, and the sense (or nonsense) of trying to hang on to it at all costs, just for old times' sake. We have made all sorts of other sweeping changes to Linux over the years without bothering to change the name, so claiming that changing the init system suddenly makes Linux into a different operating system seems a bit contrived.
Anyway, after 30 years or so of SysV init, it makes sense to look for a replacement that is up to handling the fact that today's Linux computers, on the whole, do not look like a DEC VAX with two dozen terminals. Various such replacements have been proposed. In my opinion it makes sense for Debian to put the question of which init system should be Debian's default before the TC; we can only hope that this question will be debated on the technical merits of the proposals rather than propaganda and FUD, and that whatever decision is eventually taken will be supported by all the camps in question.
Posted Nov 12, 2013 3:14 UTC (Tue)
by dlang (guest, #313)
[Link] (5 responses)
As for other distros that don't want to offer multiple options, I would say that people who want something not in their distro are the ones who should change to a different distro rather than the ones who want things to keep working.
your positioning of people who are happy with things as they are as the 'fringe' is not conclusive to calm discussion
Posted Nov 12, 2013 9:55 UTC (Tue)
by anselm (subscriber, #2796)
[Link] (4 responses)
Yes, and if the Debian TC decides to make systemd or Upstart the default on Linux, Debian will probably still allow you to use SysV init if you want.
I think that if Debian does decide to change its default init system there will be a huge emphasis on »keeping things working«. Systemd, for example, can deal with SysV init scripts; you just lose some of systemd's special features for those services.
The »people on the fringe« are those who believe that the mere existence of Debian on a FreeBSD or Hurd kernel entitles them to dictate policy to the project as a whole.
It's great if people are »happy with things as they are«. However, progress marches on, and Debian as a project must figure out how to deal with this. Possibly after a transition to a more modern init system, as many (or more) people will be as happy (or even happier) with things as they are then. That there are people who are happy with the current setup today should not act as an automatic barrier to well-reasoned change.
In other words, I'm sure that in the past there were lots of people who were blissfully happy with things like a.out binaries, libc5, or a static /dev directory, but even so the Debian project decided to go with ELF, glibc2, and udev, and by now there is fairly general consensus that these were reasonable decisions. It is very likely that if Debian does decide to go with systemd as the default init system on Linux even in the face of vociferous objections from those people who still like SysV init, a few years from now we will look back and consider that decision reasonable, too, in the grand scheme of things. Fondly remembering the old days when we managed to get by with simpler approaches to many things does not preclude embracing new and better solutions that are designed to deal with today's (or even tomorrow's) challenges.
Posted Nov 12, 2013 10:18 UTC (Tue)
by dlang (guest, #313)
[Link] (3 responses)
This is one of the things I trust Debian (and Gentoo) to do well, they provide options rather than picking the 'one true way'
I would not be thrilled if Debian were to pick systemd as the default, but as long as it remained a requirement that packages work without systemd, it would only be a mild annoyance (very similar to their use of Grub while I still prefer lilo in most cases)
It would only be if they started allowing systemd-only packages as something other than a very rare case that I would have a problem with it.
Posted Nov 12, 2013 10:42 UTC (Tue)
by anselm (subscriber, #2796)
[Link] (1 responses)
Personally I wouldn't want to bet the farm on this. Your best hope is that the non-Linux Debian platforms will stick with SysV init, and that some support for SysV init remains in Debian policy to cater to those.
Speaking as a Debian developer, one enticing advantage of systemd is no longer having to write SysV init scripts, so I would hope that the Debian policy requirement to do so will eventually go away, or that at the very least we will come up with a way of automatically creating SysV init scripts from systemd unit files. I seem to remember that this is being looked at, and if Debian does decide to go with systemd, I would certainly expect the vocal SysV init aficionados to contribute heavily to that effort.
Posted Nov 12, 2013 13:02 UTC (Tue)
by HelloWorld (guest, #56129)
[Link]
Posted Nov 20, 2013 22:53 UTC (Wed)
by josh (subscriber, #17465)
[Link]
There's an option under consideration to keep multiple options; that'd be better than sticking with sysvinit for all eternity, but ideally I'd like to see a switch to systemd with sysvinit script compatibility as the default option, thus allowing software to depend on it.
It'll then be up to people who want to keep other init systems going to submit patches supporting them; it shouldn't be the job of every maintainer of software whose upstream relies on systemd to fork it and remove that dependency. If someone wants that, they should "fix" it upstream or fork the project themselves, rather than making Debian do it.
Posted Nov 13, 2013 17:38 UTC (Wed)
by ThinkRob (guest, #64513)
[Link] (4 responses)
Some developers and power users do.
Users wants systems that boot quickly (for varying definitions of quickly), and work reliably.
Personally I believe that the users' requirements can be (and in the past have been) met without systemd. The power users/developers, on the other hand? Tthey want systemd in part because it's new and cool, and playing with new and cool tech is... well... cool.
Posted Nov 13, 2013 19:28 UTC (Wed)
by smurf (subscriber, #17840)
[Link] (3 responses)
I don't want systemd because it's new and cool. I want it because with systemd I can forget about complex nonsense in the stuff I do care about.
For instance, my daemon process doesn't have to go through the rigmarole of double-forking, detaching from the terminal, cleaning up its environment, etc., any more. This is easy to get wrong. Esp. when a library writes its error messages to STDERR … which daemonizing redirets to /dev/null. Ouch.
I can use journalctl. That gives me the output I care about in exactly one place. This makes my job of debugging programs easier. This makes for more reliable programs. This benefits "normal" users.
I can restart a socket-activated process seamlessly. This benefits normal users because their system is no longer in a semi-reliable in-between state when they upgrade it.
I can give daemons their own /tmp, restrict them from looking at users' /home, and whatnot. Granted that this can be done with some sort of helper program, but with systemd's config files this sort of thing is so simple that it's actually going to be used. (And it's faster.)
And so on.
Posted Nov 13, 2013 20:27 UTC (Wed)
by raven667 (subscriber, #5198)
[Link]
I run into this all the time because most of our locally generated software is perl written by people who's primary job isn't systems programming so I have to try and fix it in shell using nohup and shell job control and whatnot, getting scripts to set their $0 so that I can use pidof to identify and restart them (instead of having everything be /usr/bin/perl). All of this hoop-jumpery doesn't feel like well thought through design, it feels hacky and hokey whereas systemd seems well thought through, well documented and thorough. You can read through the design philosophy and process in the blog posts at 0pointer.de and judge whether they make sense to you, they certainly made sense to me and seem an improvement on daemontools or runit in every way.
Posted Nov 19, 2013 5:57 UTC (Tue)
by ThinkRob (guest, #64513)
[Link] (1 responses)
That's kinda my point. You're a power user. You write your own init scripts.
Most users don't. Most probably never will.
For them, it doesn't really matter if their distros' maintainers had to jump through a bunch of hoops to make sysvinit work.
I'm glad you like systemd. It's got a lot of cool tech in it, and while I'm not sold on it being made a key part of peoples' security strategies, I do think it's good at handling a lot of, well, system tasks. But I'm also not a normal user, so I'm with you in that segment of the community that likes things that offer neat features to developers and sysadmins. I just don't think that my views are majority opinions, that's all.
Posted Nov 19, 2013 9:17 UTC (Tue)
by smurf (subscriber, #17840)
[Link]
I don't. Not any more. And that's a good thing.
I just fail to see any advantage of staying with sysV, for any use case. Other than "hey diversity" or "hey kFreeBSD/Hurd", both of which I frankly do not care about at all, because (a) I propose to be diverse in the areas that actually matter to users and their use cases instead of infrastructure that makes programs more difficult to install and maintain, and (b) the number of kFreeBSD or Debian/Hurd users is, frankly, so small that forcing a suboptimal init system on the rest of Debian ultimately wastes more man-hours than the productive uptime of all these systems combined. :-P
Seriously, also shipping rudimentary sysV init scripts for these systems is not going to be a problem. Or take much effort. If any.
Which init system for Debian?
Which init system for Debian?
The only thing that people are objecting to is being forced to switch distros to avoid using systemd when they don't want it.
they object to distros being chnaged from Unix to LennartOS while keeping the same name
Which init system for Debian?
Which init system for Debian?
Debian already allows you to use systemd if you want.
I would say that people who want something not in their distro are the ones who should change to a different distro rather than the ones who want things to keep working.
your positioning of people who are happy with things as they are as the 'fringe' is not conclusive to calm discussion
Which init system for Debian?
Which init system for Debian?
I would not be thrilled if Debian were to pick systemd as the default, but as long as it remained a requirement that packages work without systemd, it would only be a mild annoyance
Which init system for Debian?
https://github.com/akhilvij/systemd-to-sysvinit-converter
That project seems to have gone dormant about a year ago.
Which init system for Debian?
Which init system for Debian?
Which init system for Debian?
Which init system for Debian?
Which init system for Debian?
> That's kinda my point. You're a power user. You write your own init scripts.
Which init system for Debian?