The Debian init system general resolution returns

Posted Oct 22, 2014 5:37 UTC (Wed) by dlang (guest, #313)
In reply to: The Debian init system general resolution returns by jspaleta
Parent article: The Debian init system general resolution returns

My point is that saying that there is no software that only works with systemd is false. That's what triggered this discussion in Debian in the first place.

Therefor fearing that such software may be created in the future is not someone being a fearmonger or being deceitful, instead it's someone expecting that what was done before will be done again.

If Gnome no longer requires systemd, that's a good thing. It's also what the response should have been in the first place rather than taking the attitude that doing anything other than forcing everyone to switch to systemd was putting an unreasonable burden on Gnome.

The Debian init system general resolution returns

Posted Oct 22, 2014 5:59 UTC (Wed) by mchapman (subscriber, #66589) [Link]

> If Gnome no longer requires systemd, that's a good thing

To be fair, it never really *required* systemd. It can make use of a particular D-Bus interface that systemd provides, but it doesn't care one iota whether that interface happens to be provided by some other project instead. So it's probably wrong to think of Gnome as having undergone change -- what has happened is that the environment "around" GNOME has changed: there is now more than one implementation of this interface. And that most certainly is a good thing!

The Debian init system general resolution returns

Posted Oct 22, 2014 6:27 UTC (Wed) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]

well.. -shim didn't actually support what systemd-logind need as a service provider when GNOME made the decision to rely on the logind API. And the GNOME maintainers didn't do the work to make -shim better either.

GNOME is still technically depending on exactly the same thing it did 6 months ago. systemd-logind is still the only implementation of logind's API. -shim just now implements the systemd APIs that systemd-logind is using.

So again its more nuanced. If GNOME upstream or GNOME debian maintainers had waited for a second implementation to exist before depending on an API, would a second implementation ever been made? Or is it because GNOME upstream pushed ahead and the distro maintainers integrated the new upstream code, that created the need for the alternative implementation that caused it to be created? The need being the mother of invention and all that.

I think the historic Debian transition to use hal is instructive: https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2009/09/msg00915.html

then the application incompatibilities transitioning from hal to udev in wheezy:
https://wiki.debian.org/Suspend

Call me a greybeard..but it sure seems like kids these days seem to have a poor grasp on how Debian has handled major userspace plumbing historicly.

The transition to hal and then to udev both introduced incompatibilities and there was never a requirement that multiple implementations be expected to work seamlessly as alternatives of each other. What mattered was a plan to get from old default to new default.

And so it should be with the transition for new default init. Regardless of changes in the API.

-shim is an important piece to aid the transition to the new default init. But to hold the idea of init diversity as something sacrosanct after years and years of previous Debian project experience transitioning plumbing in a more focused linear manner is.. smirkable.

No matter how this all shakes out sysinit is going to join HAL and devfs in the software retirement home. It's just a matter of time.

-jef