from the I-know-I'm-going-to-regret-posting-this dept.
VLC, the popular cross-platform media player, has recently gained support for logging to the journal of the widely used systemd init system.
This work was committed to VLC's git repo by Rémi Denis-Courmont. Thanks to his efforts and the widespread adoption of systemd by the major Linux distributions, VLC users on such systems will have yet another convenient logging option available for use.
Lennart Poettering's New "systemd-import" Tool: Pull and Update Container Images from the Internet
Lennart Poettering, the creator of the widely used systemd init system, has announced the new "systemd-import" tool that he has developed.
He describes its capabilities:
"systemd-import" can pull and update container images from the Internet, in the format and via the APIs of today's best known Linux container solution. This lightweight tool downloads the images, converts them into btrfs subvolumes/snapshots and makes them available as simple directory trees in /var/lib/container/, like any other container tree, which you then can boot with "systemd-nspawn".
This is done without any heavyweight dependencies. As Lennart explains,
All this with only a bit of C code, as part of the systemd suite. No new dependencies. No Go, no Python, no other runtime.
As systemd is already the preferred init system of most major Linux distributions today, this functionality should soon be available for Linux system administrators to use instead of existing containerization technologies like Docker.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Marneus68 on Monday March 02 2015, @06:09PM
inb4 250 replies of people shaking their fists in the air.
I'm thinking about creating a systemd thread bingo so we can all have fun in these reply thread, because no matter what side you're on, you know it's always the same replies over and over again.
Seriously, there's always the guy who "just migrated" to FreeBSD and feels the need to share this new on an unrelated new article, you have the usual lies, misconceptions and FUD shout out by both sides of the argument, you have that other guy who compares Poettering to hitler or systemd to big brother. Don't forget the guys who actually know about systemd and reply seriously with a wall of test to every troll... and the timid users who find systemd to be "not that bad". You've got the slowpoke who is just now realizing that systemd is used by everyone and requests infos on distros not using it yet...
You know it, I know it, these reply threads are always the same and this will be no exception. Enjoy your stay on Soylentnews and remember that the systemd ride never ends.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @06:24PM
You forgot Devuan.
Somebody always mentions Devuan.
I'm still not convinced that Devuan isn't some sort of a large-scale troll, or even a flase flag op by the systemd community.
I spend a few minutes in their IRC channel now and then, and the level of immaturity never ceases to amaze me.
The arrogance is pretty bad, too.
I'll take my chances with Debian and systemd!
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @06:34PM
I'm new to this. What's so bad about systemd?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @06:41PM
Everything, apparently.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Monday March 02 2015, @09:01PM
Simple. Concise.
Systemd is a rapidly-growing binary platform alternative on most standard Linux distributions, that is gradually absorbing all use cases once the domain of POSIX deamon and userspace functions.
A reasonable analogy is Google's Android - which runs on the Linux kernel, but cannot be properly understood as a Linux system.
Android uses Linux for primitive device bootstrapping and operation of low-level memory, device primitives, I/O and servicing of a JVM - with the functional use cases entirely delivered in the java machine.
Systemd will similarly become the "real" platform and API target for proposed development on Linux - abandoning Unix/POSIX design principles and and portability.
Those of us with long memories see this as a Trojan horse - subverting the best of comprehensible, open systems and re-injecting the failed monolith of VMS/Vax style computing for those more interested in markets than values.
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @07:31PM
I do not consider myself a GNU/Linux expert however I have been using and maintaining my own desktop machines on one version of Debian or Ubuntu or another since '97 and have worked in IT and IT related roles since '94. I personally do not like the mission creep, bloat, or monolithic nature of systemd which is why my desktop machines all now run Slackware and i have just wiped one ready for a little BSD experimentation. I may also get a machine ready for Devuan when it's available.
I realise that this is only my personal opinion but i would prefer that an init system like systemd should be an option rather than a default, perhaps allowing users to choose which init system they would prefer during installation.
My personal experience of numerous installs over the years has shown me how easily this could be achieved. I would suggest a selector section to be added to GUI style installers similar to that used for hard disk partitioning whereby the installer asks whether the person performing the install wishes for a guided install, (easy method,) or a manual install, (custom/expert method,) where someone who does not want systemd can have the GNU/Linux distro of their choice, the way they want it.
I understand that there are many people coming to GNU/Linux who don't have experience with the way thing were before all the additional bells and whistles were added. The best example I can offer as to the affect that making distros easier for non-expert computer users is that I have migrated both of my parents, who are in their late sixties, away from Wind'ohs in favour of GNU/Linux, (they really don't need to be spending money on new laptops,) after a couple of days with their machines they were just as happy using them as they had been with Win XP.
So, no angry hair pulling, no ad hominem attacks, no straw men, simply an appeal for common sense from an admitted idiot.
Yours
Pr. L Muishkin
(Score: 3, Informative) by cafebabe on Monday March 02 2015, @10:02PM
Night Linux [soylentnews.org] won't be switching to systemd because it has its own init system.
1702845791×2
(Score: 3, Interesting) by arashi no garou on Tuesday March 03 2015, @02:04AM
You forgot Devuan.
Somebody always mentions Devuan.
And you forgot Slackware. Someone (sometimes me) always mentions Slackware.
Of course, with KDE's KDM about to depend on systemd's logind, one of two things may soon happen: Either Pat will drop KDE (doubtful), or he (or maybe Eric H) will shim around it for as long as possible. Personally, I say chuck KDE to the curb and focus on Xfce and Razor-QT, or maybe Openbox; I've had a deep seated loathing for KDE since the 3.x days, though I'll admit it's gotten much better lately. Still, to me KDE and systemd seem like peas in a pod: Bloated, full of politics and controversy, and completely unnecessary to a properly working GNU/Linux or BSD OS.
Bring on the torches, KDE fans! You're not wrong for liking and using KDE, KDE is just wrong for me. :-D
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @01:30PM
Razor-QT is now LXQT.
Also there is Trinity Desktop, the continuation of KDE 3.x.
http://trinitydesktop.org/index.php [trinitydesktop.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @05:29PM
I offered to help Devuan. I have 14 years of programming on linux.
They banned me because I said I thought young girls were cute.
Honestly, I hope the Devuan people are killed.
I also hope they succeed.
(Score: 3, Funny) by hemocyanin on Monday March 02 2015, @07:15PM
Hey thanks -- you reminded me to go to NewEgg and pick up an extra 3tb drive so I can migrate PC-BSD.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @07:39PM
Nice job summarizing the entire discussion in the first reply. If you don't want to hear opinions other than your own then why not ban the topic entirely. Systemd won and clearly our concerns are insignificant. The community now exists solely to provide free QA for Poettering and pals.
Wake up... The thing your calling Linux, is not Linux anymore... Your definition of 'community' is also very different than Red Hat's...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Nerdfest on Monday March 02 2015, @10:56PM
An ongoing concern is if his pals include the NSA, Microsoft, or others. As far as I'm concerned, systemd should be the most carefully vetted piece of code out there based on its ability to be abused to used as a trojan.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @11:01PM
Even if it isn't a trojan, I think systemd should still be considered a form of malware/crapware. I don't want it on my Linux systems. Yet if I install pretty much any practical (sorry, that excludes you, Slackware and Gentoo) Linux distro, systemd will be installed without me wanting it to be there. In some cases it's virtually impossible to get rid of without ruining the installation. That meets all of the criteria of malware/crapware, as far as I'm concerned: it doesn't do anything useful, it's unwanted, and it's damn hard to remove without damaging the OS installation.
(Score: 2) by novak on Tuesday March 03 2015, @01:18AM
More trolling against slackware and co. by the uninformed....
I think this might be the only thing which belongs on a bingo card that the first post forgot to mention.
For those wondering, slackware is about as modern as any other distro these days, and better put together than most.
novak
(Score: 3, Informative) by arashi no garou on Tuesday March 03 2015, @02:15AM
For those wondering, slackware is about as modern as any other distro these days, and better put together than most.
Not to mention stable as hell. The only crashes I've ever had on Slackware were either faulty hardware or faulty third-party software (Chromium browser, I'm looking at you). In fact, it's pretty damn boring from an OS hobbyist point of view. When I want to watch things break and figure out why they broke, I'll spin up Haiku, or Ubuntu, or Arch Linux. When I want to get shit done and not worry about my OS, I switch to my main workstation with Slackware.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @04:58AM
How can you call Slackware modern if it doesn't run GNOME 3 and systemd? By definition, a modern Linux distro needs to support both of those.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday March 03 2015, @02:25AM
Maybe somebody just needs to figure out a way to say that it infringes someone's copyrights? You know, like the AT&T code in BSD that they eventually managed to rip out, regardless of how painful it was.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Hairyfeet on Tuesday March 03 2015, @05:22AM
Nice to see I'm not the only one waving a red flag here...I mean doesn't it strike ANYBODY else as odd that right after Snowden showed how bad the spying really was and all these "protect yourself using Linux LiveCDs focused on privacy" articles hit suddenly Red Hat, a company that gets something like 85% of its income from TLAs, says "Hey this system that nobody was really bitching about MUST BE REPLACED by this big sprawling monster that is connecting to more and more critical systems by the day!" and hands it off to a dev that literally posts shit on his blog like "Couldn't get systemd working on ARM, shipping anyway" and not only does the major distros NOT do as they have always done and rip them a new asshole for having such a flippant attitude WRT support and stability but instead they CHEER, try to answer all questions with insults and appeals to emotion, banning posts and shutting down threads, and if that wasn't enough to make the spider sense go off even those that are supposed to be "hardcore stability focused" jump on board even though the thing is buggy as fuck and nowhere close to being finished or even feature complete?
I'm sorry but everything I've read frankly comes off more like MSFT pushing Metro or Apple pushing the latest iStuff, it doesn't read anything at all like the tech heavy merit focused way I've always seen Linux development done in the past. Surely I'm not the only one who is reading the posts from devs and feeling like I stepped into bizarro-land?
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 1) by NickFortune on Tuesday March 03 2015, @12:27PM
It's not just you. Somewhere around 50% half of the Linux userbase would appear to agree with some or all of that analysis.
Although admittedly, the number is probably still dropping as some of them migrate to BSD.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @05:32PM
Bingo
(Score: 1) by Stuntbutt on Tuesday March 03 2015, @05:53PM
I'm curious - anxious, even - if Poettering is on the record for NOT being employed/coerced by the Powers That Be. You know, the ones the tinfoil-hat-wearers warned us about, and turned out be FUCKING REAL?? SystemD is *exactly* how I would expect a grass-roots approach to hardcore, wide-spread system penetration to be executed.
And even if Mr. SystemD isn't the man corrupting the chain... who is to say someone else won't infiltrate that point of failure? Ugh. :(
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Wednesday March 04 2015, @03:25AM
Well lets put ourselves in the shoes of a guy at a TLA. Lets see...we have red Hat by the balls, because 85% of their living comes from OUR checks so they will do what they are told...and what's that? They have a sloppy as fuck cowboy coder that wants to stick his paws on every critical subsystem? AND he is the guy that came up with Pulse, which is probably the least stable thing on any Linux desktop?
You see why they wouldn't need to stand over him saying "You WILL put backdoor 23j in this point in the chain" because they have enough blackhats on the payroll that all they really need is to have a really sloppy coder (and considering Poettering has gone on record blogging such wit as "Can't get systemd working on ARM, shipping it anyway" I'd say he is more than qualified for that task) who keeps sticking more and more critical systems under his control. Remember in the Windows world its NOT the OS that is usually the first point of attack, you go after a weak component like Flash, Java, IE, and use THAT as the door to the good stuff...and what do we see on today's TFA? Tying fricking MEDIA PLAYERS into the fricking replacement for init?!?!
If I were working for a TLA I'd just find a guy like Poettering and let his massive ego and bad coding do the rest. By the time he's done Linux will be nothing more than what DOS was to Win98, a bootstrap that hands over to systemd that then spreads all over the damned place and thanks to it all being tied together in a big fucking mess all it'll take is a weak spot in one to make all vulnerable, weakest link in the chain and all. Lets face it if it isn't a TLA they really should send RH some fruitcake and flowers, because they couldn't have asked for a better break than the sprawling ever expanding oilslick that is systemd.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 06 2015, @12:25AM
There is a oddity in the systemd changelog (or should i say systemd-udev?).
A patch was offered that would make systemd trigger a system lock whenever a keyboard or mouse was plugged in, requiring a password to be entered to unlock. This arguably to protect against mouse wiggling dongles found in police data seizure kits.
Poettering accepted the patch, but only after modifying it so that it only triggered on the USB id of a known dongle.
This in effect neutered the patch, as changing the USB id to be anything (a Microsoft mouse perhaps) is relatively straight forward.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @07:44PM
Some of what systemd wants to accomplish is good. Some of it less so. But, it is a fact that it is breaking things. I only had systemd on my boxes for a couple weeks (stealth upgrade on Debian Jessie), and found that manual fsck if rootfs has errors was not possible without exploiting a bug in systemd (below), shutdown -rF to run fsck on next reboot was broken, consoled/logind ran commands typed at the root pwd prompt (for the emergency shell) as root!! My unpriv lxc containers stopped working,
Even with systemd purged from my systems, there are still bits of the brokenness left since systemd took over udev etc. (this is from yesterday):
root@nim:/etc/udev/rules.d# dmesg | grep rename
[142163.271060] systemd-udevd[27418]: renamed network interface wlan1 to rename21
yup, add vif to a wireless card post systemd mess, and now systemd-udev renames the interface to "rename[random small integer]". Unhelpful.
I think the issue is that people who only do simple stuff are less likely to run into issues with systemd (both like the above, and also not finding that binary logs are an issue since the current text logs were unusable for them since they don't understand REs). These simple users love systemd. Folks who do more advanced things find systemd is getting in the way / breaking things, and have less love. A few bits of systemd show promise (if they ever focus on bugfixes instead of adding more crap), but the whole is a pretty scary mess.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @01:40PM
There seems to be a shism going through IT these days.
Where before there was a continuum between "user" and "developer" (power-user, admin, etc), now there is only user or developer. And the developer has to be opted into with careful thought, as doing so will mean not bringing over anything from the user side unless you have it stashed away somewhere.
Best this AC can tell, it comes down to commercial interests. The continuum allowed such things as power-users to copy random files around, and Big Media can't have that. And so the user side is locked down "for your own protection". And to go developer you either have to forgo anything commercial, or you have to sign a contract with your own blood so they know where to send the lawyers...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @09:21PM
I see the NSA nabbed the first post. What's the codename for Soylent shilling? /sarcasm
(Score: 3, Funny) by DECbot on Tuesday March 03 2015, @12:08AM
Pretty sure I saw it somewhere in Wikileaks, systemd is NSA project code named "FROSTYPISS." Or was it "FISTPROST?"
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 1) by NickFortune on Tuesday March 03 2015, @12:11PM
You forgot to mention the entirely rational and impartial commentator who nevertheless comes out 100% in favour of systemd while nevertheless subtly mocking anyone holding a dissenting opinion.
There's always one of those, too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @05:34PM
You mean S-J-W fggots?
The only antidote is a bting.
(Score: 3, Funny) by joshuajon on Monday March 02 2015, @06:13PM
This is the first purely positive systemd article I've seen. No mention of the controversy, no caveats. And to be honest the new features described sound awesome!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @06:26PM
> And to be honest the new features described sound awesome!
To me they sound so trivial that they belong in a changelog not an article.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @06:52PM
I agree. Can't we already do this with wget?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @06:54PM
How can you use wget while booting if using shell scripts to initialize a Linux system is prett much forbidden these days?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @06:33PM
Does this Linux-container-downloaded-from-the-Internet-by-systemd functionality mean that baddies don't have to really crack your system any longer? All they now need to do is replace the downloaded image with one of their own, causing your computer or server to host their customized Linux environment for them? Then they can do their bad stuff from there?
(Score: 2) by pe1rxq on Tuesday March 03 2015, @12:01PM
No, that is next release. Systemd will absorb all rootkit projects and obsolete them all with the introduction of systemd-botd.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @01:43PM
Not to be confused with systemd-bsod...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @06:37PM
The few remaining Debian users of value have completed their moves to FreeBSD. As they no longer use Debian, they no longer care about Debian, so they have no reason to complain about Debian or systemd. Linux and systemd are, for all intents and purposes, nonexistent for these FreeBSD users.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @07:48PM
If your "valued users" are the ones who quit when things get hard then you better hope that FreeBSD doesn't have bad weather in the future.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @07:56PM
> If your "valued users" are the ones who quit when things get hard
They didn't quit, they got pushed out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @05:37PM
They should xecute the people that pushed them out.
Like Hns Rsr did.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @07:59PM
They didn't quit. They just threw out some tools thst were broken, and replaced them with ones that work. These people are still creating value, they're just doing it more effectively using FreeBSD.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday March 03 2015, @02:07AM
(cue music) "Everything is awesome, when you're part of systemd!" Crackle. (music dies) Beware the crackle.
(Score: 2) by gringer on Monday March 02 2015, @06:44PM
"systemd-import" can pull and update container images from the Internet... converts them into btrfs subvolumes/snapshots and makes them available as simple directory trees in /var/lib/container/
How long before a silent option of this is created (i.e. downloading without any logging or indication that it's happening), and that directory location becomes a bit fluid, able to be set to something like /usr/bin?
Ask me about Sequencing DNA in front of Linus Torvalds [youtube.com]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @07:02PM
Has there been any serious independent audit of the systemd code?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @07:31PM
Not yet, but I'm glad you suggest yourself as a reviewer. I thank you for your effort and will await your appraisal with great anticipation
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @07:39PM
Well, since I don't know C, I'll just have to play it safe and assume the code is flawed. That means it will fail the audit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @04:40AM
I don't know C but I am concerned about the subroutine called secretGovernmentBackDoor.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by GlennC on Monday March 02 2015, @07:35PM
I'm glad I'm not the only one who saw "download from the Internet" as a vague threat.
Of course, it appears that most of systemd seems to assume that Linux is used on personal laptops and desktops and not on corporate-owned devices.
Does this mean that systemd can download and install updates from anywhere, or is there a well-defined repository? None of the referenced articles seems to have the answer to that question.
If I can't see where my updates are coming from, why would I allow this on my (or my company's) servers?
Sorry folks...the world is bigger and more varied than you want it to be. Deal with it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Monday March 02 2015, @08:02PM
You'd allow it on you company servers because your boss insists on it. And he was sold on the idea by experts. (Expert at selling that kind of idea.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @08:29PM
Your boss is about to suggest you enclose your head in a plastic bag, seal it around your neck, and restrain your arms.
Still think yours is a winning argument?
(Score: 3, Funny) by Arik on Monday March 02 2015, @09:32PM
Still think yours is a winning argument?"
Sorry, that fine gentleman can no longer answer you. If I am reading his body language correctly he is saying yes... or maybe he's saying 'I cant breathe!' yeah well one or the other, for certain.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Tuesday March 03 2015, @07:21PM
>I'm glad I'm not the only one who saw "download from the Internet" as a vague threat.
Why? Do you not have wget or curl installed on your machine? Or Perl, Python, or anything that can do sockets? Do you have su or sudo installed? Do you not worry that someone might sudo wget shady.site.com/not-virus /usr/bin?
Of course, you might say "Why have systemd-import when I already have sudo and wget?" I have no answer, but I don't see it as a big problem personally.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by GlennC on Tuesday March 03 2015, @07:46PM
You're correct...someone might 'sudo wget shady.site.com/not-virus /usr/bin'.
IF they were on my sudoers list with sufficient rights. In that case, it would be logged to a text based log file.
Don't think "my laptop that I tinker around with occasionally" or "some random VPS that I use to host my blog."
Think "a server farm that contains information to be governed by HIPPA, SAS-70, ISO-20001, or some other data privacy/security regulation."
Yes, Linux is used in these types of environments.
No, unverified and poorly documented system packages are not wanted on them.
Sorry folks...the world is bigger and more varied than you want it to be. Deal with it.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by morgauxo on Monday March 02 2015, @07:24PM
Why would you want a user application writing logs in the same place as the init system?
This is just a video player right? It's started manually by a user who is actually sitting at the terminal right? If I'm playing a movie and it has a problem aren't I there to notice it? And if I'm not then why to I care?
Really, I'm not just Systemd trolling here. I don't get it!
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @07:42PM
It's about equality. Why is systemd allowed to use binary logs, but no other app is? Well, it shouldn't be that way, because thst's racist against all software that isn't systemd. All software is equal and all software has the right to use binary logs!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @07:59PM
> Why would you want a user application writing logs in the same place as the init system?
In case you hadn't noticed (which is hard to believe given how massively vocal people have been about it) systemd isn't just an init system. Like a giant blob out of an old-school anime, it's grown into an all encompassing service in the middle of everything. Given that, sending application logs its way is not extra-ordinary.
(Score: 2) by morgauxo on Monday March 02 2015, @08:41PM
Nope. I hadn't seen it go that far into userspace yet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @01:46PM
Because Gnome has not yet finalized the renaming into systemd-gnome.
(Score: 2) by SlimmPickens on Monday March 02 2015, @08:10PM
Maybe it's most useful for the vlc-phonon "audio backend".
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Monday March 02 2015, @09:08PM
By "binary log" this means stuffing the entire, encoded stream into the log collection stream. Everything you ever watch is journaled forever on the expanding pool of systemd/btrfs connected pool of "free" cloud storage space.
P.S.: NSA
The only thing stopping this? Just policy. Lumpy Potluck already coded the pipeline, and VLC just further enabled this.
Why hasn't RedHat had a platform or application security architect shoot-down Potluck's evil reimagining of VMS/Windows?
P.S.: NSA
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Monday March 02 2015, @07:30PM
Is this a valid function of the init system? I suppose you might want to automatically download an image and boot it when booting up, but it seems sort of weird. Is this like a hypervisor where you have guest OSs running under a host OS? Or is this booting into one system, then downloading another and letting it take over the system? I'm really sort of confused about what this does, and why it does it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @08:10PM
What are you suggesting? That systemd suffers from feature creep? That systemd is monolithic? That systemd even includes the kitchen sink?
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday March 02 2015, @09:06PM
What, you suggest that Poettering might ultimately get his hands on Emacs? NOOOOOOOO!
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @10:24PM
It is not an init system, it is a collection of system deamon, one of them is an init system but each deamon can be used alone using system-shim
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday March 02 2015, @10:54PM
I see -- I guess I had been thinking of systemD as an init system. So now it sort of makes more sense -- it isn't that you'd want to automatically boot a remote disk image, it's that you can use systemD for init, and to do some other things as well. Why though? I suppose it could be possible to write a civilization clone that runs in a spreadsheet -- buy why use a spreadsheet that way. And if systemD isn't an init system, but does that on some other random things -- what exactly is it?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @11:47PM
what exactly is it?
A collection of system deamons
(Score: 3) by sjames on Tuesday March 03 2015, @09:03AM
A collection of system deamons tangled together like a blob of coat hangers.
FTFY
(Score: 5, Informative) by Marand on Tuesday March 03 2015, @03:11AM
Why though? I suppose it could be possible to write a civilization clone that runs in a spreadsheet -- buy why use a spreadsheet that way. And if systemD isn't an init system, but does that on some other random things -- what exactly is it?
To further explain what the AC means, a quote from my previous comment [soylentnews.org] the last time this question came up during the KDE-requiring-systemd discussion:
"systemd" is a bunch of different things, ranging from an init system and binary (ick) logger to programs that manage login sessions, date and time, etc. It's a blanket moniker for a group of programs that Poettering and co. have decided will be the standard components for Linux systems. With that mindset, they're not worrying about those parts depending on each other, because it's supposed to be a standard kit that you use all together.
It's sort of like how FreeBSD separates the base system, which updates all together at once, and is separate from the other packages.
The naming of the entire suite as "systemd" causes issues because people sometimes say "systemd" while meaning "systemd init", and it's akin to the problem that the KDE people tried to solve by naming the desktop Plasma, the entire KDE suite of apps as "KDE Software Collection", and using another name for KDE as a community/entity.
Most of the new features are additions to the suite, not pieces bolted onto systemd-init in the style of emacs. There's still the question of "why do I want to use this suite at all?" however, which is harder to answer. For the distro maintainers it's probably going to make things easier, because adopting systemd as a FreeBSD style userland will simplify testing and maintenance. For the user, unless you happen to like the systemd components, it's either "I don't touch it and don't care" or "I don't like my stuff being ripped up and replaced by systemd's stuff", the latter of which either hates all of systemd, or like me, dislikes the excessive integration that makes it hard to cherry-pick the good parts and replace the rest. I, for example, avoid the init and logger, but allowed systemd-logind because it's generally inoffensive and desktop components need it.
I think my biggest complaint with this FreeBSD-style approach is that it's essentially making RedHat the gatekeeper of the Linux userland. You see it in the features it's adding here, like the containers. It's good if you want homogenisation, sure, but it's essentially turning the other distros into respins of RedHat instead of unique systems with their own strengths. If every distro has the same underlying FreeBSD-esque userland (systemd) and the only difference is what extra software is on top, then the distros become little more than Kubuntu vs. Ubuntu vs. Mint. I'm using Debian for a reason, and that reason isn't "I love how RedHat works".
I've seen people claim over the years that distro fragmentation is what has kept Linux from "winning" against Windows and OS X, and that what it needs is a consistent base. They may be right, but I'm not looking forward to victory when it requires handing the keys to the kingdom over to RedHat, via systemd. As the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Tuesday March 03 2015, @04:15AM
Thanks for that explanation. Very informative.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @01:54PM
Makes one wish that a comment could go beyond +5.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday March 05 2015, @12:49AM
Reminds me of the term pyrrhic victory. [wikipedia.org] You can spin it as victory all you want, but in reality you are talking about critical failure. There is literally nothing good that could possibly come of this.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @01:50PM
That would imply that systemd-shim is maintained by the systemd dev. Not at all the case.
If it was, there would be little to no complaining, as people would just use systemd-shim and shut up.
No, systemd-shim is maintained independently. And so has to chase the systemd API tail. Every time logind or similar has a change in how it talks to systemd-as-init (*groan*), the shim devs have to track down and implement the changes on their own. Thus -shim is in pretty much the same situation as Wine, except for having been started earlier.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by morgauxo on Monday March 02 2015, @07:33PM
"Container Solution?" I had to look up Docker to see what that is. Looks like sort of it's own package mangement and repository system combined with it's own set of support libraries. It sounds almost like a standardized linux distro running within the user's own non-standardized one in order to allow everyone to run the same applications without rebuilding them right?
So.. now Systemd is sort of a packaging system too?
(Score: 3, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday March 02 2015, @07:49PM
That's just fucking disgusting. SYSTEMD MAKES ME WANNA SHIT!
(Score: 5, Funny) by SlimmPickens on Monday March 02 2015, @08:11PM
heh. cysternD
(Score: 4, Informative) by VLM on Monday March 02 2015, @08:04PM
It sounds almost like a standardized linux distro running within the user's own non-standardized one in order to allow everyone to run the same applications without rebuilding them right?
Basically, yeah. Its what one of those old fashioned "operating systems" was supposed to implement. But the old standards were huge and baroque and interdependent so we'll create a new small sleek standard, which will rapidly metastasize into something as big as the old system with an even bigger wrapper around it, until someone comes up with a new small sleek standard, .... repeat infinitely into the future.
IBM VM was supposed to do this. Then microcomputer sized server hardware. Then OS packages. Next, java jarfiles. Next, virtual images. Next, not-so-partitioned docker containers. I'm sure there will be a new one. It never works out and there's plenty of money to be made selling the dream. This time I'm sure they'll get it right. Yeah.
(Score: 3, Informative) by nukkel on Monday March 02 2015, @08:23PM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner-platform_effect/ [wikipedia.org]
" The inner-platform effect is the tendency of software architects to create a system so customizable as to become a replica, and often a poor replica, of the software development platform they are using.
(Score: 1) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @01:56PM
Yep. And Poettering pretty much forewarned this some months back.
He then did a blog posting about piling together containers via some BTRFS tricks.
And if you look over to the Gnome camp, they are more than happy to play along.
All to protect the user from themselves, natch.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @07:54PM
I would much rather see an update on uselessd being a drop-in replacement.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Monday March 02 2015, @08:23PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @08:35PM
It would be a short submission. It would basically say "Uselessd is still useless (no pun intended)." That's it. That's the entire submission.
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Monday March 02 2015, @09:01PM
I suspect uselessd is in a difficult situation: just like Wine and Octave, it's running to catch up with a moving target. (uselessd with systemd, Wine with MS Windows, Octave with Matlab).
So people don't appreciate the value of the program, instead they whine: "why hasn't it implemented feature X yet, that has had for 2 months?"
Better to just not step on that caroussel at all.
My sincere hope is that the Devuan project will work good enough to provide a "safety net" for disillusioned uses dropping out of Debian Jessie.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Nerdanel on Monday March 02 2015, @09:59PM
Another thing recently added to systemd is a "fsckd daemon for inter-fsckd communication" [anzwix.com]. Not joking. This adds systemd-fsckd for systemd-fsck.
The (feature) creep goes ever on and on
Far from the init where it began
Now far away the creep has gone
And I must follow if I can
...or so orders Lord Poettering, but I refuse.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @01:59PM
oddly the author and submitter are both using ubuntu.com email addresses...
(Score: 2) by present_arms on Monday March 02 2015, @11:57PM
I'll stay with the systemd less distro I use, PClinuxOS, even with KDE looking at systemd in 6 months time there isnt an issue because we'll just change the default UI :) It's not that I'm against systemd it's because it's a buggy piece of shit that lazy distro rollers are using way before it's ready. There isn't one systemd distro that will boot after being installed on this laptop. It's all fucking INTEL and they can't boot heres my INXI output:"inxi -F
System: Host: localhost Kernel: 3.18.8-pclos1 x86_64 (64 bit)
Desktop: KDE 4.14.3 Distro: PCLinuxOS
Machine: System: FUJITSU product: LIFEBOOK S751 v: 10601409485
Mobo: FUJITSU model: FJNB223 v: G3
Bios: FUJITSU // Phoenix v: Version 1.15 date: 07/05/2011
CPU: Dual core Intel Core i5-2520M (-HT-MCP-) cache: 3072 KB
Clock Speeds: 1: 1193 MHz 2: 808 MHz 3: 1002 MHz 4: 919 MHz
Graphics: Card: Intel 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller
Display Server: X.Org 1.16.4 drivers: v4l,intel
Resolution: 1366x768@60.00hz
GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Sandybridge Mobile
GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 10.4.5
Audio: Card Intel 6 Series/C200 Series Family High Definition Audio Controller
driver: snd_hda_intel
Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k3.18.8-pclos1
Network: Card: Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6205 [Taylor Peak] driver: iwlwifi
IF: wlan0 state: up mac: xx.xx.xx.xx
Drives: HDD Total Size: 250.1GB (75.9% used)
ID-1: /dev/sda model: WDC_WD2500BEKT size: 250.1GB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 12G used: 9.8G (89%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1
ID-2: /home size: 153G used: 145G (95%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda6
ID-3: swap-1 size: 4.19GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda5
RAID: No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present
Sensors: None detected - is lm-sensors installed and configured?
Info: Processes: 217 Uptime: 1 day Memory: 981.0/3869.7MB
Client: Shell (bash) inxi: 2.1.96 " Distros that do boot use another init like systemV, upstart and run nice scripts as God intended. Nice human readable scripts and logs and don't give me that shit about a convertor for the binary shite.
http://trinity.mypclinuxos.com/
(Score: 5, Funny) by epitaxial on Tuesday March 03 2015, @01:24AM
I can't wait for this new Linux feature called a "registry". A large binary database where every setting and variable is help. That will certainly make everything more manageable.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @04:16AM
You already have a binary hierarchical database for everything. It's called a filesystem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @02:02PM
Don't tell that to ebassi, he'll tear you a new one...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @01:46AM
Sorry. There is no use case for this. This is an imaginary use case developed by a stupid fuck who thinks he is a computer programmer.
I mean, I just installed a fedora system as a dhcp server, for test purposes.
By default, systemd couldn't even start dhcpd. I thought I was going crazy. But, it's an actual thing.
The unit file contained improper crap, and the result, dhcpd would never start automatically.
Distro issue or systemd issue? Who gives a fuck. Fact is, no-one from systemd or the distro "caught" this specific use case.
It's time for Lennart and co to fuck off. Their ideas are fucking stupid.
ZOMFG LETS IMPORT CONTAINERS!!#@#@#@!oneone!!eleventy. What the fuck is dhcpd? Who cares, we are building systemd-dhcp.
Seriously Lennart and related system developers need to fuck off. They don't know shit about Linux, and are hell bent on fucking it up because they all have hard ons for Apple, and think systemd will turn linux into os x.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @03:02AM
-1 Troll for speaking the truth?
Fact is, anyone modding this as troll is a systemd appologist. The web is full of them.
And I doubt any of them run even one server for a living. No, running a linux box in your mums basement does not count, nor does running Linux on your laptop.
I guess I will be seeing FreeBSD sooner rather than later, with fuckwits like lennart and soylentnews calling me a troll because of stupid and avoidable mistakes, that aren't seen as issues, because thats the price we need to pay to live with the greatness that is systemd.
Die in a fire.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @02:14PM
They run them on "servers", aka a 3 digit number of instances over at Amazon's E2C service.
The biggest complainers, and usually scoffed at for being old farts, are the traditional server admins.
One take on it is to look at it as ranch animals vs pets.
The "cloud" way is like ranches, the VM instances cattle. If one keel over ten more are ready to take its place.
Traditional servers are like pets. Groomed and taken care of to ensure a long and happy coexistence.
The big drivers behind systemd are firmly in the server ranch camp. Most of them don't use Linux as anything more than middleware between the VM and their oh so fancy web service, while on the desktop is the macbooks all the way.
There is a undercurrent though, and that is government/military systems. It seems the US military has finally figured out that using Windows is not a reliable option. As such they have embraced RH in a massive way. And apparently NSA is actually using a in-house recreation of Amazon's E2C. Meaning that it is in software terms E2C, but running on NSA hardware within NSA buildings.
So what looks like a webserver push at first glance, may also be a sales pitch to the MIC.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @02:33PM
They didn't catch it because systemd has its own dhcp "client"...
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Pav on Tuesday March 03 2015, @03:17AM
I wonder how long before our entire viewing log can be forwarded when VLC and/or systemd phones home and/or the RIAA. Do you think that's crazy talk? VLC already does by default (for media info), and the Debian Ganeti packages phone home (ie. Google) explicitly to track who's using it if you want another example. Browsers are particularly famous for this kind of thing, but there are plenty of other offenders, and they're multiplying exponentially - never thought I'd see this in the Linux world.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Tuesday March 03 2015, @06:05AM
Citation on VLC phoning home for anything other than updates? Because if that is the case I'm gonna have to remove it from my standard install library, I liked giving my customers VLC as a backup as occasionally they'd run into files that MPC-HC wouldn't play but its not worth it if its datamining.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by Pav on Tuesday March 03 2015, @07:03AM
Doesn't VLC retrieve media information from the internet by default? It's easy enough to disable, but I'm sure most users do not. As for what systemd logs now, I have no idea, but I can't think of a valid reason to do this by default either.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Pav on Tuesday March 03 2015, @07:24AM
I just double checked... the default behavior [dummies.com] seems to be to retrieve media information on files that are played. This most probably completely innocent, but (for example) there are moves afoot in my country (Australia) to implement data retention laws.
(Score: 1) by NickFortune on Tuesday March 03 2015, @04:39PM
I think the concern is that some part of the systemd ecosystem may make those binary logs remotely available by some covert channel.
In which case, VLC writing to those same logs would be sufficient to expose your habits of media use to a third party. I don't think there was any intention to cast aspersions on VLC itself.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @07:11AM
Now you know how men felt when they banned marrying girl children.
Does it feel good?
(Score: 2) by Pav on Tuesday March 03 2015, @09:56AM
Yes, of COURSE noone would want to keep what they're watching secret. Suggesting otherwise is like condoning pedophilia!
"Citizen, our records show you have been watching forbidden subversive media. Please report to your local deprogramming centre."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @05:15PM
Marrying grl cldrn is forbidden and subversive in this fmst plce state.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @05:17PM
And that post couldn't be submitted without mangling the words because the PRO FMNST CNTS that run this site have word filters against such.
FK YOU, Pieces of SHT.
Hans Reiser did the right thing.
Fmnsts should be killed.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @07:08AM
All of userland needs to be forked.
(Score: 1) by sce7mjm on Tuesday March 03 2015, @06:02PM
"As systemd is already the preferred init system of most major Linux distributions today," maybe of the distro's for their own reasons. The users on the other hand, may have a different opinion...Time will tell.
I don't really see why the init system needs to be included at all in the "container system" at all. Since the machine at that point is serving the images which surely can use their own init system in the chrooted environment. Unless of course after an image is downloaded the whole machine needs to be rebooted so both inits can work together...
Once again we see the boundaries being blurred by yet another "feature".