SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Controversy is nothing new when it comes to systemd. Many people find this new Linux init system to be inherently flawed in most ways, yet it is still gaining traction with major distros like Arch Linux, openSUSE, Fedora, and soon both Ubuntu and Debian GNU/Linux. The adoption of systemd for Debian 8 "Jessie" has been particularly fraught with strife and animosity.
Some have described the systemd adoption process as having been a "coup", while others are vowing to stick with Debian 7 as long as possible before moving to another distro. Others are so upset by what they see as a complete betrayal of the Debian and open source communities that there is serious discussion about forking Debian. Regardless of one's stance toward systemd, it cannot be argued that it has become one of the most divisive and disruptive changes in the long history of the Debian project, threatening to destroy both the project and the community that has built up around it.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 28 2014, @07:05PM
Since I'm a Debian Developer, though I don't work with any init system, may I suggest that Debian is not "ramming something down your throat". SysV was abandoned for some good reasons, like no one maintained it upstream or cared to. It's also a fragile system. Anyway, you can use any of
1. systemd
2. sysvinit-core
3. upstart
And with sysvinit-core, you can use sysv-rc, file-rc or openrc
Just because systemd will be the default, does not mean you can't use another init. What's the purpose of a fork anyway? If the purpose of a fork is to just make sysvinit-core with sysv-rc the default - each use can do that already. Maybe instead of forking Debian, invest that time helping sysvinit maintainers in Debian that are trying to keep SysV functional.
There is also, https://wiki.debian.org/Debate/initsystem/openrc [debian.org]
I use Debian on my desktop since the turn of this century. I've only recently started using systemd and the experience is relatively good. It does not matter to me which init system Debian runs as long as it runs, and the system is maintained.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 28 2014, @07:34PM
That description is disengenous at best. The real situation there is
1. systemd
2. systemd+sysvinit-core
3. systemd+upstart
That's systemd being rammed down our throats. The Linux way would have been to arrange the init systems so that any one of them could be swapped for any other. That scenario is not possible.
Stupidly, the final vote was deadlocked and should have gone on to vote F for further discussion, since more discussion is obviously needed, Overall the whole thing has been mismanaged, to add to the technical problems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 28 2014, @08:14PM
Fundamental architecture changes weren't even within the purview of the technical committee to begin with. That requires a general resolution which never happened. The whole thing was a sham. Or a "bug" (not having systemd as default for us poor lemmings)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 29 2014, @03:50AM
I was just able to completely purge systemd from Debian installation in Sid and use sysvinit-core instead.
init
--\ PreDepends (1)
--\ systemd-sysv | sysvinit-core | upstart
id systemd-sysv 215-4 -73.7 kB
pd systemd-sysv 215-5
p sysvinit-core 2.88dsf-53.2
p sysvinit-core 2.88dsf-53.4
pi sysvinit-core 2.88dsf-55.3 +254 kB
p upstart 1.11-4
Where is this "systemd is everywhere"? Don't use it. Don't use GNOME, I don't. I'm using fluxbox and starting X with startx from console. Now, if you want some notifications about volume mounting and stuff like that, then yes, you probably need systemd for it. And the reason is no one cares enough to provide an alternative with similar functionality.
So, there are 3 choices,
1. Use systemd and have functionality you like
2. Don't use systemd and don't have functionality (because you don't care about it anyway)
3. Cry on forums because world doesn't listen to you
Anyway, here's the entire removal of systemd in Debian,
--\ Packages to be installed (1)
ci sysvinit-core +254 kB 2.88dsf-55.3
--\ Packages to be removed (11)
idA colord -879 kB 1.2.1-1 1.2.1-1
idA gvfs -565 kB 1.22.0-1 1.22.0-1
id gvfs-daemons -682 kB 1.22.0-1 1.22.0-1
id libpam-systemd -304 kB 215-4 215-5
id policykit-1 -337 kB 0.105-6.1 0.105-7
id policykit-1-gnome -820 kB 0.105-2 0.105-2
id systemd -12.0 MB 215-4 215-5
id systemd-shim -47.1 kB 8-2 8-2
id systemd-sysv -73.7 kB 215-4 215-5
id systemd-ui -222 kB 3-2 3-2
id udisks2 -1,525 kB 2.1.3-3 2.1.3-3
In the end, I'm keeping Systemd for now, but I removed some of the cruft here that I don't use anyway (like udisk2, gvfs, colord, etc.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 28 2014, @08:50PM
It does not matter to me which init system Debian runs as long as it runs
It's when it doesn't run when it matters.
But hey, when it doesn't you can always debug it or check the logs... oh wait!
(Score: 1) by Arik on Sunday September 28 2014, @11:11PM
There is no upstream. SysV is a specification, not a project. Each implementation is specific to the OS it's designed for. If you, as a debian developer, thought there was some mythical 'upstream' that was unresponsive here you were sadly misinformed. But in actual fact these things tend to be nearly 'unmaintained' for the reason that mature stable software rarely requires maintenance.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 29 2014, @03:32AM
There was an upstream, look at the changelog,
http://metadata.ftp-master.debian.org/changelogs//main/s/sysvinit/sysvinit_2.88dsf-13.1+squeeze1_changelog [debian.org]
sysvinit (2.87dsf-1) unstable; urgency=low
* New upstream release.
- Update patch 10_doc_manuals to drop the parts now included upstream.
- Drop patch 11_doc_mountpoint now included upstream.
- Drop patch 13_doc_telinit now included upstream.
- Update patch 14_doc_fsf_addr to drop the parts now included upstream.
- Drop patch 15_doc_pidof now included upstream.
- Drop patch 16_doc_runlevel now included upstream.
- Drop patch 17_doc_halt now included upstream.
- Drop patch 25_last_sanify now included upstream.
- Drop patch 26_last_ipv6 now included upstream.
- Drop patch 27_last_usageopts now included upstream.
- Drop patch 28_last_full-time now included upstream.
- Drop patch 30_strip now included upstream.
- Drop patch 31_build_warnings now included upstream.
- Drop patch 40_selinux now included upstream.
- Drop patch 41_utmp_64bit now included upstream.
- Drop patch 42_utmpdump_retval now included upstream.
- Drop patch 45_pidof_symlink now included upstream.
- Drop patch 47_pidof_chroot now included upstream.
- Drop patch 50_bootlogd_exitcode now included upstream.
- Drop patch 51_bootlogd_syncalot now included upstream.
- Drop patch 52_bootlogd_createlogfile now included upstream.
- Drop patch 53_bootlogd_ttyB now included upstream.
- Drop patch 60_init_race now included upstream.
- Drop patch 61_init_msg now included upstream.
- Drop patch 63_init_longer_procname now included upstream.
- Drop patch 64_init_reexec_env now included upstream.
- Drop patch 64_init_set_PATH now included upstream.
- Drop patch 65_init_u_in_06 now included upstream.
- Drop patch 66_init_emerg_tty now included upstream.
- Drop patch 67_init_hddown now included upstream.
- Drop patch 69_init_waiting now included upstream.
- Drop patch 70_init_consoleopen now included upstream.
- Drop patch 70_wall_ttyname now included upstream.
- Drop patch 71_wall_hostname now included upstream.
- Drop patch 80_killall_pidof now included upstream.
- Drop patch 80_killall_sched now included upstream.
- Drop patch 81_killall_avoid_init now included upstream.
- Drop patch 82_killall_exclude_pids now included upstream.
- Drop patch 82_killall_retval now included upstream.
- Drop patch 83_killall_manref now included upstream.
- Drop patch 84_killall_fuse now included upstream.
- Drop patch 85_killall_safecwd now included upstream.
- Drop patch 90_shutdown_H now included upstream.
- Drop patch 92_sata-hddown now included upstream.
- Drop patch 93_sulogin_fallback now included upstream.
- Drop patch 95_halt-name now included upstream.
* Modify shutdown(8) manual page to make it more clear when -c
work (Closes: #374038). Based on text proposal from Dan Jacobson.
* New patch 50_bootlogd_devsubdir to change bootlogd to recursively
search /dev/ for the correct terminal device (Closes: #376406).
* New patches 60_init_selinux_ifdef and 70_compiler_warnings to get
rid of compiler warnings.
* Rewrite rules to unpatch after the 'make clean' to get rid of binaries
depending on debian patches.
-- Petter Reinholdtsen Sat, 25 Jul 2009 16:44:55 +0200
Homepage: http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/sysvinit [nongnu.org]
If you think someone rewrites /sbin/init for every Linux flavour out there, you would not be correct.