The Grumpy Editor's guide to surviving the systemd debate
The Grumpy Editor's guide to surviving the systemd debate
Posted Nov 22, 2014 2:25 UTC (Sat) by thedevil (guest, #32913)Parent article: The Grumpy Editor's guide to surviving the systemd debate
filesystem"
This analogy has a problem. devfs was never a required part of a
Linux system. I lived through the devfs years happily upgrading
Debian to each new stable, without ever turning on devfs. When
udev came around and I satisfied myself that it was the lean,
mean anti-devfs, I took the jump. But what is going on with
systemd has quite a different feel. TBH, I don't completely
understand why - technically, it is no more a hard requirement
than devfs. I _suspect_ that the difference is the tone of the
proponents. Perhaps the fact that English isn't the native
language of either primary developer plays a subtle role.
"Systemd will either be established and successful, or it will
have been replaced by something better."
It is the lack of a third option -- keep waiting for something
more clearly better -- that is the main objection. Surely this
is obvious from the Debian GR, if nothing else. Pretending that
this POV doesn't exist serves nobody.
Posted Nov 22, 2014 10:16 UTC (Sat)
by anselm (subscriber, #2796)
[Link] (3 responses)
The problem with this POV is that ”waiting for something more clearly better” is no guarantee that something more clearly better will in fact come along eventually. Someone would have to do active work to make that happen.
In particular, the main problem with this POV is that, especially given that most of the rest of the Linux world seems to be reasonably happy with systemd, the pool of people who are (a) sufficiently unhappy with systemd to actually roll up their sleeves to come up with something “more clearly better”, (b) sufficently qualified to do so, and (c) sufficiently committed to the long-term viability of such a project appears to be small indeed. (It is also fairly clear that very few if any of the current crop of vocal “systemd haters” seem to belong to that pool – we hear a lot of complaints of how systemd is badly designed etc., but nobody so far has condescended to propose a better design, let alone an implementation.)
Posted Nov 22, 2014 18:16 UTC (Sat)
by thedevil (guest, #32913)
[Link] (2 responses)
"nobody so far has condescended to propose a better design"
You assume this is just due to laziness or pure troll malice, but
Posted Nov 23, 2014 2:43 UTC (Sun)
by seyman (subscriber, #1172)
[Link] (1 responses)
Given how modular systemd is, I'm not convinced splitting it up would be a huge gain. Perhaps what's needed is a document explaining how to disable all non-core features and how to re-enable them once you're comfortable with your running system.
Posted Nov 23, 2014 7:13 UTC (Sun)
by brodo (subscriber, #4049)
[Link]
... or even something like "make config".
The Grumpy Editor's guide to surviving the systemd debate
It is the lack of a third option -- keep waiting for something
more clearly better -- that is the main objection. Surely this
is obvious from the Debian GR, if nothing else. Pretending that
this POV doesn't exist serves nobody.
The Grumpy Editor's guide to surviving the systemd debate
sleeves to come up with something"
I think there is more to it. By all signs systemd's design _as
an init replacement_ is excellent, and that's why we don't see
any alternative proposals from qualified people. The problem
with systemd is its ever increasing scope, devouring (and
changing beyond recognition) more and more parts of the base
system. The solution isn't a complete redesign but splitting it
up, but that can only be done either 1. with the help of
upstream, which has not been forthcoming, or 2. by forking it.
The Grumpy Editor's guide to surviving the systemd debate
The Grumpy Editor's guide to surviving the systemd debate