Longtime Debian contributor Tollef Fog Heen has announced his resignation from the Debian systemd maintainer team. His announcement states that "the load of the continued attacks is just becoming too much."
He has since written a detailed blog article surrounding the circumstances of his resignation. As he puts it,
I've been a DD for almost 14 years, I should be able to weather any storm, shouldn't I? It turns out that no, the mountain does get worn down by the rain. It's not a single hurtful comment here and there. There's a constant drum about this all being some sort of conspiracy and there are sometimes flares where people wish people involved in systemd would be run over by a bus or just accusations of incompetence.
This is yet another dramatic event affecting the Debian project in recent months. The adoption of systemd has been extremely controversial, even going so far as to result in calls for Debian to be forked. There have been other problems as of late, too, ranging from a serious bug breaking Wine just days before the Jessie freeze deadline, to the possibility of Debian GNU/kFreeBSD being dropped from Debian 8. And it was only just over a week ago that Joey Hess — another longtime Debian contributor — left the project, citing the "very unhealthy directions" that Debian has been led in lately.
Is the internal tension and strife caused by systemd about to tear the Debian project apart? Recent events such as the aforementioned have suggested that this is becoming more and more of a possibility. The repercussions of this drama will no doubt be felt wide and far, given Debian's own popularity, as well it forming the basis of other major Linux distros such as Ubuntu and Linux Mint.
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by Kell on Monday November 17 2014, @11:26AM
For once all the whiney systemd comments will be on topic.
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday November 17 2014, @11:28AM
I was just thinking, wouldn't it be funny if all the systemd-complainers had run out of steam posting their stuff in other threads, and this thread ends up with nothing but off topic ramblings.
(Score: 3, Funny) by cockroach on Monday November 17 2014, @12:18PM
Fuck beta.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 17 2014, @12:48PM
Systemd comments are always on-topic, regardless of the topic.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday November 17 2014, @03:24PM
"For once"? We have systemd articles around here all the time, that are directly about it.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday November 17 2014, @11:45AM
Well, so what?
I'm gonna try BSD anyway... hope it works for me and I can let those drama queens behind. It was their choice, they'll have to live with it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by radu on Monday November 17 2014, @12:38PM
I read this a lot during the last few month and kept waiting for someone mentioning servers. Didn't happen so I'll start here, even if it's not quite on topic.
I'm running a few VPS, no host seems to be offering BSD, only different Linux flavors. At least not in the price range I'm paying now (~5-15€/month for 512-2048MB RAM). Gentoo and/or Slackware (no plans to default to systemd yet) are also quite difficult to find (and somehow more difficult to administrate)
What do we do when/if no wide-spread Linux distribution without systemd is available any longer?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday November 17 2014, @12:54PM
E.g. https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/freebsd-hosting-shared-vps-etc.21472/ [freebsd.org]
Seems many are Europe based.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by SNK on Monday November 17 2014, @01:09PM
You might want to try RamNode http://www.ramnode.com [ramnode.com]
It is even cheaper if you take 5 mins to google for discount coupons.
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Monday November 17 2014, @04:53PM
Thanks!
(Score: 5, Interesting) by zocalo on Monday November 17 2014, @01:12PM
Downsides... Well, there was obviously a learning curve, but nothing a competent *NIX admin would struggle with; no different from moving between any two unicies, really. We also have some COTS software which either won't run on BSD (not yet really looked into why that is in most cases) or runs but isn't supported/certified on BSD (in discussion with the vendors), but we're mostly still working through the standard builds that are easy migrations at the moment. We also have some systems that are so crufty and/or reliant on Linux specifics that we've not even considered moving them to BSD yet, plus personal preference - several of our staff are sticking with Linux on their desktops and we'll also be maintaining some Linux servers for testing & development work in addition to any production servers we can't migrate.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by forsythe on Monday November 17 2014, @03:53PM
I'm simply replying to this post because it's the first reply I happened to see using the spelling, but why are so many posters calling the software ``systemD?'' It seems to call itself ``systemd'' pretty clearly, for example in the Wikipedia entry [wikipedia.org], where I would expect to find the correct capitalization.
(Score: 2) by novak on Monday November 17 2014, @05:51PM
Maybe it was a typo and he meant to write substance D. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Scanner_Darkly [wikipedia.org]
I think it fits. Substance D splits the two hemispheres of the brain, causing them to conflict, not unlike the two camps in the linux world.
novak
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Monday November 17 2014, @06:31PM
Capitalizing the D makes it look less like a typo if you are already capitalizing the S in System per English language conventions for proper nouns.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by fnj on Monday November 17 2014, @09:39PM
Rather than get bogged down in whether systemd is a proper noun or not, I would just settle for long established Unix-type-OS practice. Other damons are not capitalized; it's "httpd" and "smtpd". It gives of a dumb hick smell to spell it System-D. In fact executables in general are not capitalized; it's "cp" and "rm".
freedesktop.org's systemd home page [freedesktop.org] even tells you how to spell it.
"Spelling
"Yes, it is written systemd, not system D or System D, or even SystemD. And it isn't system d either. Why? Because it's a system daemon, and under Unix/Linux those are in lower case, and get suffixed with a lower case d. And since systemd manages the system, it's called systemd. It's that simple."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 18 2014, @04:17AM
As an intact Christian, your use of daemonic eunuchs disgusts me.
(Score: 2) by Pav on Monday November 17 2014, @12:50PM
BSD is not an answer for many of us. Desktop FreeBSD collapsed in a sad heap as soon as Apple decided to hire away key developers, and it has never really recovered. Was anyone surprised? In the early 90's when I discovered Unix Linux was fresh on the scene. The kernel only started getting a following because the GPL stopped closed forks (which was a big deal during the Unix wars) and the codebase didn't have the legal worries that came with BSDs commercial heritage. BSD was superior in almost every way, but developers voted with their feet. The second round of legal wrangling over BSD in 2003 seemed to be the final nail, at least among people I knew.
Perhaps the snarling and baring of teeth comes when paycheques and contracts are at stake. The Redhat and Ubuntu guys certainly seem to have invaded Debian and changed its ethos - Debian was a cooperative and volunteer-friendly distro for much longer than most of the others. I don't think the move-or-not to systemd would have been a problem once upon a time. Its hard to believe how much the culture of Linux as-a-whole has changed. I must admit I'm understanding the anger that had RMS performing coding-marathons against the commercial outfits, and mourning the non-commercial cooperative hacker culture at the AI lab. I just wish I had RMSs talent. ;) Still, I do what I can, and will lend my very small weight to any freedom-supporting alternative that respects its users.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 17 2014, @12:58PM
That's all entirely your own fault. I invested in OpenBSD years ago and they are the same unmarketable asshole pricks as they were back then. Not even TSLA comes close.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday November 17 2014, @01:02PM
I'm gonna try anyway. I intend to start with the LXDE port for FreeBSD [lxde.org]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by SNK on Monday November 17 2014, @01:17PM
Just make sure that you use pkg instead of pkg_add as mentioned in the LXDE manual.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday November 17 2014, @01:21PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Informative) by fnj on Monday November 17 2014, @08:48PM
You might also consider PC-BSD. It is FreeBSD with mostly, but not all, FreeBSD packages, configured with a graphical installer to end up with a perfectly working DE with zero tinkering or intervention. When I say it is FreeBSD, I mean it. Complete with freebsd-version and freebsd-update. They maintain their own package repo though.
The usual precautions to make sure you have supported hardware apply - particular attention to graphics and WiFi hardware.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 17 2014, @03:24PM
Well said and thank you.
(Score: 2) by fnj on Monday November 17 2014, @08:52PM
Nonsense. No it didn't. FreeBSD is still very much alive and actively developed. I'll give you that desktop installations are not the raison d'etre or prime focus. For that you have the PC-BSD customized FreeBSD.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 18 2014, @03:47AM
Not churning the desktop is a feature. Innovation isn't needed there, it is a solved problem. It works just like it always did, and it did always work.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 17 2014, @11:52AM
This is nothing to worry about. Mr Heen, Mr Hess, and anyone else can resign and Debian will get better than ever. Why? Because a new, young package and system maintainer named Sy Stemd will take over their workload and do it all faster and better. Sy may not be as experienced as all those who preceded him but Sy can do anything he puts his mind to. In fact Sy is taking over more and more everyday. That's just the way Sy rolls.
(Score: 2) by ticho on Monday November 17 2014, @12:07PM
Can you blame him? Even with thickest of all skins, there is only so much abuse one can take. And with the kind of immature uproar that is out there against systemd (for fuck's sake, death threats have been made), it's no wonder. It's amazing how abusive and vindictive Linux users can be.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 17 2014, @12:26PM
It's amazing how abusive and vindictive Linux users can be.
What? The Internet is full of abusive and vindictive people. Just look at the Windows haters, Apple haters, Linux haters, Google haters. The list goes on and on. Add to that the hate filled comments about the opposing political party, racists comments, the amateur and professional trolls, et al, and you've got a recipe for anonymous confrontation disaster. No wonder sites like Reuters don't allow comments any more. The noise to signal ratio drowns out any real discussion.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 17 2014, @01:07PM
A lot of weak-minded people, such as yourself, find it difficult to understand that criticism is often valid.
You mistakenly think that everybody else is a pathetic, emotional basket case like yourself. Well, most of us aren't!
I don't really give a fuck about systemd one way or the other. I don't like it, and I don't hate it. It's a tool. Now if a tool is broken, I'll damn well point this out. I don't care if it's a hammer, a vacuum cleaner, or systemd.
Systemd is a failure from a technical perspective. Systemd is a failure from a political perspective. Systemd is a failure from a marketing perspective. There's just nothing good about it, so I will never say anything good about it.
I'm not one of your so-called "haters". I just won't put up with shitty software.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 17 2014, @11:09PM
Can somebody please fix up the mismoderation of the parent comment? It's clearly not "flamebait".
(Score: 1) by Horse With Stripes on Tuesday November 18 2014, @12:28AM
Wow, that's a load of shit right there.
There's a big difference between "No matter how I try I just can't get used to insert product here>; I can't unserstand why they would ever do that." and "insert product here> is shit and their fanbois wouldn't know quality if it shit down their necks."
Criticism, whether some, most or all agree with it, is valid from the point of view of the person stating it as long as it's truthful and genuine. Paid shills, professional trolls, hate baiters and the like aren't criticizing. If you think people who can differentiate between bullshit and genuine comments (negative or positive) are "emotional basket case like yourself" then you've got some maturing to do.
AFA systemd, there are the people who hate it because it's different, because it violates their "freedom to choose" Linux sensibilities, because it doesn't do everything it should while it does plenty it shouldn't, because change for the sake of change is generally a suckfest, because it has derailed professional relationships, the undeniable political failure and chaos that has ensued, blah blah blah. They all have valid point of view and they should have the choice to install systemd if they'd like, or not. There are shit-stirrers, "make it easy for me"s, "all in one means one for all", "better is better than worse"ers, and pro systemd people who think the progress systemd brings in some areas is worth the compromise in others. They too have valid points of view and they should have the choice to install systemd if they'd like, or not.
Systemd should be a choice, not a default and certainly not a requirement.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 18 2014, @12:47PM
No, systemd is shit no matter how you look at it. Some stuff just inherently is completely shitty. You know, like feces.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Monday November 17 2014, @12:26PM
You can't really call the uproar 'immature'. Most of the people that are so against it have been through the sorts of problems that sort of architecture causes.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday November 17 2014, @12:30PM
But they "need" all that for the desktop linux users, because they're the only fictional people who matter.
Its an interesting developmental anti-pattern where they've narrowcasted themselves into a tiny little niche where no one wants to be. No one. But its all for those imaginary users. Its all about blind belief and obedience to authority.
Gentlemen, I believe we may be seeing the birth of a new religion. Personally I was hoping it would be emacs not desktop environment linux, but you can't win them all.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday November 17 2014, @12:36PM
Too bad emacs was so immature it never got to implement a couple of FPS or RPG-es MMO style. We'd be talking about "year of emacs on desktop".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday November 17 2014, @01:01PM
I was just thinking a day ago of what it would take to implement tinyfugue as an emacs extension, or would I be better off implementing something more "emacs like" that TF config language, or should I just run TF in a multi-term (I mostly use multi-term) or ansiterm.
Since the late 80s I've gone thru cycles of complicating up my emacs until I get sick of it then going all simple with vi until I miss the features then back to emacs. Starting a new emacs cycle again now. I much prefer flycheck and helm to their generational predecessors I was using during last cycle.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday November 17 2014, @03:27PM
Well, it does have a "text-mode adventure game," it's just not MMO.
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/CategoryGames [emacswiki.org]
"Dunnet"
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 17 2014, @01:02PM
I don't see why this Debian systemd maintainer is being painted as the victim here.
His work on forcing systemd into Debian in such a way as to make it unavoidable has hurt many people, too.
This maintainer's work has wasted people's time. It has prevented their systems from booting properly, among other problems. It has caused issues worse than we'd typically see from Windows malware, even!
Here's an example [debian.org] of somebody who was a systemd victim. He was clearly hurt by a simple updating bringing in systemd, which then trashed his system, preventing it from booting properly.
And here's another victim of systemd [slashdot.org]. And yet another victim of system [debian.org]. And of course, even one more victim of systemd [debian.org]. And yet again, there was another victim of systemd [debian.org]. And those are just from within the past couple of weeks! All of these poor souls probably wasted significant time, and suffered considerable pain, all thanks to systemd.
I can't feel sorry for somebody who has caused so many others so much pain. There are real victims here, and they are the people who have been forced to use systemd, and the people who have had their systems utterly trashed and destroyed by systemd. The victims of systemd are the only victims in this case.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by arashi no garou on Monday November 17 2014, @06:32PM
Oh please. The plain and simple fact is that he is the victim, because he received death threats. That is inexcusable. I don't like systemd; I don't want it on any system I maintain and I hope it stays out of Slackware in particular. But death threats? Even Poettering himself doesn't deserve threats, let alone some Debian developer who happens to work on that part of the distro and had nothing to do with creating systemd in the first place. Get a grip.
Bottom line: Anyone who would threaten any other person over something like a software choice is mentally unstable and needs help.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 17 2014, @11:12PM
While I agree that death threats are not acceptable, the fact that somebody did receive such threats doesn't absolve them of harm they've brought to others.
His work has caused unwanted harm to people. That cannot be denied. Even one system that fails to boot due to systemd is too many, and we're well past that threshold at this point.
(Score: 2) by arashi no garou on Tuesday November 18 2014, @02:54PM
His work has caused unwanted harm to people. That cannot be denied.
Ok so it's obvious at this point that you're trolling. But just in case you're only being obtuse by accident: Heen didn't create systemd nor did he have anything to do with its creation (he doesn't work for Red Hat). He didn't ask for systemd to be placed in Debian, and there are signs that he didn't agree with the way it was forced into Debian. He was put on the team packaging it, that's it; he is also on several other teams within Debian, and so far hasn't left those posts. Attacking him is just shooting the messenger and does nothing at all to prevent systemd from being a part of Debian. All it does is make systemd opponents look bad, even those of us who simply don't wish to use it and have no other interest in the matter.
In short, stop trolling please. You're not helping.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday November 17 2014, @07:20PM
Well, it made my system unbootable, too, but there's a reason that Jessie is called Debian testing. If you want stable, you pick stable.
That said, I don't support systemd, and nobody has yet made a decent case for it that I understood. I've seen lots of arguments against it that I understood. But I'm *NOT* an expert in the field. I don't trust systemd, and it looks like a disaster waiting to happen, but I could easily be wrong.
So after my system crashed, I switched to Debian stable. I did modify it to NOT install systemd. And I'm going to wait awhile before deciding...say 5 years. (FWIW, though, Ubuntu 14.04 worked on my system without problems, so systemd isn't inherently unusable.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by arashi no garou on Monday November 17 2014, @08:41PM
FWIW, though, Ubuntu 14.04 worked on my system without problems, so systemd isn't inherently unusable.
If you're using 14.04 you're using Upstart. Ubuntu didn't start using systemd until 14.10.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday November 19 2014, @09:30PM
Thanks. I'm not using it anymore, but I used it to test that my system wasn't actually broken, just the installation. So I couldn't check by looking. (I went back to Debian stable.)
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 Wednesday November 19 2014, @12:14PM
That's a bit of hyperbole. Debian testing/unstable are not stable distros. Updates are expected to break things; it's great that that doesn't happen often, but there's no guarantees to that effect. I've had my Debian Sid system rendered unbootable by updates on multiple occasions (the install is 8 years old now so it's been through a lot). Yes, systemd was one of them. I fixed it (I believe it was a known bug in some configuration so it was pretty simple to fix once I figured out the right thing to Google for). (The others were due to grub, I think.) If I didn't want to deal with debugging issues like that I would run a stable distro. And, in fact, for exactly that reason most of my computers run Xubuntu (Mint, etc. work too if you don't like Canonical).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Bot on Monday November 17 2014, @12:10PM
I can understand not contributing to a project that is not taking the direction you want, given that's voluntary.
But ceasing contribution to a project that basically has abandoned its own slogan ("the universal operating system") to take your direction?
I wonder what he'd done if he'd been maintaining upstart instead.
But I am asking for sanity in a systemd thread, not gonna happen.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 17 2014, @12:19PM
He didn't quit to go his own direction. He quit because of the stress of the "abuse" he feels he was receiving due to his involvement with the systemd package. He seems passionate about contributing to Debian but does not think that he should be a target of other people's unhappiness with what he is contributing to.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by lizardloop on Monday November 17 2014, @12:37PM
That was the impression I got. He didn't seem to have anything to say about the technical merits of systemd.
Interestingly at the bottom of his blog post he mentions having reservations about the Debian constitution. I get the feeling he may be a bit disenfranchised with how the Debian organisation makes it's decisions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 17 2014, @01:31PM
There's nothing to be said about the merits of systemd. It has no technical merit at all.
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Monday November 17 2014, @05:05PM
But... but... BINARY LOGS!!!11
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 17 2014, @05:37PM
Don't forget the always mentioned 'faster boot times!' even though it's just a couple of seconds.
(Score: 2) by sudo rm -rf on Monday November 17 2014, @08:16PM
I know you're joking (you are, aren't you?), but what always made me wonder is why faster boot time is thought to be a valid argument for server software. That coulpe of seconds sum up to not even half a minute / year for my testing server....
(Score: 2) by everdred on Tuesday November 18 2014, @12:06AM
> I know you're joking (you are, aren't you?), but what always made me wonder is why faster boot time is thought to be a valid argument for server software.
I'm neither defending systemd nor approving this argument, but I believe I'd read that this has to do with near-instantly spinning up virtualized server instances quickly to meet spikes in demand.
(Score: 2) by caseih on Tuesday November 18 2014, @06:42AM
Running RHEL 7 now. Rsyslog works just fine. systemd works just fine with syslog facilities and enterprise distros will probably all have syslog in them for many years.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Monday November 17 2014, @07:32PM
I *think* you're joking, but just to be sure...
I'm quite sure that it has many technical merits, but they don't seem to be very well explained to someone who isn't expert in the field.
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 November 17 2014, @11:18PM
I don't think that's meant as a joke.
It really has no technical merit, or at least none that justify the devastation is has brought to Debian. Can you name any?
No, I don't think that "booting 200 ms faster" is a valid merit in this case.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Monday November 17 2014, @04:47PM
I dont know, the very first sentence of his blog post makes it obvious this guy has mushy-head SJMW disease, which makes it seem very plausible this was nothing more than one of those undisciplined temper tauntrums that SJMWs are so prone to.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Monday November 17 2014, @05:29PM
SJMW? Care to expand that acrynom? (unless you actually mean Schweizerischer Jugendmusikwettbewerb)
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday November 17 2014, @06:01PM
social justice ______ warrior.
I can't guess the blank
(Score: 2) by Arik on Monday November 17 2014, @06:51PM
They call themselves Social Justice Warriors, but I find the expanded term a much better fit, as they dont seem to accomplish or even attempt anything other than to garner media attention.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 3, Informative) by steveha on Monday November 17 2014, @06:06PM
ceasing contribution to a project that basically has abandoned its own slogan ("the universal operating system") to take your direction?
0) He hasn't ceased contribution to Debian; he has resigned from the SystemD team. So this statement is just wrong.
1) Stating that Debian has abandoned its slogan is flamebait. You should feel remorse for saying that. Debian BSD is still available and won't be going away; and there were no plans to remove SysV Init (just make it an option instead of the default).
2) He plainly explained why he resigned, and it had nothing to do with whether Debian "took [his] direction"; he just couldn't handle the endless torrents of vitriol and abuse he was receiving. Are you okay with anti-SystemD people being so nasty to Debian developers that they resign their positions? I'm not.
I wonder what he'd done if he'd been maintaining upstart instead.
Gee, that's an easy one. Nobody is dumping torrents of vitriol on the Upstart guys, so he wouldn't have felt the need to resign.
But I am asking for sanity in a systemd thread
Are you? Are you, really?
P.S. Tollef Fog Heen posted about this on Slashdot: http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=6078013&cid=48398675 [slashdot.org]
So what we have here is: the volunteers who were doing the actual work of making new releases of Debian did a bunch of research, and they concluded that SystemD was the best choice for Debian. A bunch of people took strong exception to that, which is okay. Some of those people made Mr. Heen's life so miserable that he quit, which is not okay.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday November 18 2014, @01:23PM
> So this statement is just wrong.
Ok, what about: ceasing contribution to the item (systemd) for which a project (debian) basically has abandoned its own slogan ("the universal operating system")?
It's the same point as before, just stronger.
Some have already replied it's because of abuse. Ok, but if I am convinced that I'm doing the right thing, it is my perseverance the thing that would shut people up.
> Stating that Debian has abandoned its slogan is flamebait. You should feel remorse for saying that.
It is my opinion, so I wrote "basically", because it's a de facto situation. If projects like void, BLFS, gentoo, slackware and others manage without systemd, my definition of "universal" implies that Debian should make it possible too.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 18 2014, @05:01PM
if I am convinced that I'm doing the right thing, it is my perseverance the thing that would shut people up.
I doubt it. The anti-SystemD crowd is very vocal and does not seem to care about facts. They say things like "SystemD is not the UNIX way" which means whatever they want it to mean; facts don't touch them, no arguments persuade them. Especially the ones who are so bad they will harass a Debian developer.
If projects like void, BLFS, gentoo, slackware and others manage without systemd, my definition of "universal" implies that Debian should make it possible too.
Debian's plan was to make SystemD the default, but still continue to provide SysVInit as an option. Thus Debian would "make it possible too" as you request.
Maybe what you actually want is for Debian to not even ship SystemD, but that's not what you said you want. Debian is giving what you said you want.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday November 18 2014, @07:27PM
Crappy multi-architectural support. Not available for my powerpc workstation, or my MIPS or ARM servers.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday November 19 2014, @05:40PM
Nope. It's already been dropped. [linuxtoday.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 17 2014, @12:57PM
Mr. AC sure has a bug up his butt with his "serious bug" in Wine, which was nothing more than launch script says run it from one directory when the executable was actually in another directory (such as /usr/bin vs /usr/local/bin).
Don't worry Mr. AC, you don't need to rehash your impassioned arguments that point out how this portends the fall of civilization itself, you've spammed that in plenty of stories thus far. However, those many arguments are an excellent example of the whiny bitching that this story is all about.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 17 2014, @01:13PM
The cause of the bug is irrelevant. Maybe it was just a few characters that needed to change.
The problem is that the bug happened in the first place. That's what makes it so serious.
It was a totally obvious problem. The most basic level of testing, which obviously involves just running the broken "wine" script, would have shown that there was a serious problem.
It's the kind of bug that's totally inexcusable. The fact that it did happen shows that something is seriously wrong with Debian. This bug is indicative of a complete and total quality control failure on Debian's part.
Debian's quality has taken a nosedive since systemd was integrated. It was one reliable and trustworthy; now it's riddled with totally unnecessary and unjustifiable problems.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday November 17 2014, @07:36PM
Idiot. That is should have happened that close to release *is* bad, but it was easily fixed without reversion, and anyone can make a typo.
Perfection does not exist in this world, and to expect it is to beg for disappointment. One should, however, strive to approach it.
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 November 17 2014, @11:20PM
I'd expect a sloppy bug like that when I'm using Fedora.
I do not expect a sloppy bug like that when I'm using Debian testing or Debian unstable.
This bug cannot be justified. The evidence suggests that the package maintainer didn't even bother to try running the script before making the update publicly available. Even if he or she did, the fact that the bug got through suggests that the testing process is extraordinarily flawed.
Regardless of what happened, it's not acceptable in any way.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday November 17 2014, @01:07PM
OK, so I haven't been following this systemd thing very closely, certainly not from a technical perspective. Pretty much all I know is pieced together from what people have posted (often off-topic) on this site. At this point I don't feel well-enough informed to have a strong opinion pro or against systemd. Therefore I feel like I have a fairly neutral, outsider's perspective on it, despite being a linux (debian-based, no less) user myself.
Something that I've noticed is that the way people are behaving about this is really weird. It has turned into a rabidly partisan issue. Mud is being slung, spurious accusations thrown around, trolls are being raised and fed, people are posting off-topic and anon all over the damn place... The whole debate has a certain smell to it, and I couldn't quite put my finger on it until now.
It smells of astroturf.
The arguments and tactics in use here just make me think of the global warming debate, or universal healthcare, or any other topic where wealthy vested interest marshal legions of shills and useful idiots to try to shift public opinion.
So, just to add even more speculative shit to the storm, what if some party who shall not be named but who had an interest in seeing Linux implode, were to try use (or create?) the systemd debate to divide and fracture the community by fuelling a holy war?
Discuss.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 17 2014, @01:23PM
How the hell is there a "conspiracy"?
Systemd just happens to be bad software that has caused a lot of people a lot of problems. When people are put in such a position, they'll often speak out against what has been harming them.
At least two Debian maintainers have quit the project or reduced their involvement thanks to systemd. What, are you saying some mysterious cabal of Anonymous Coward commenters at SoylentNews have somehow pulled the puppet strings and caused this to happen?
And from just the last two weeks alone, we can find numerous reports from different people about various problems systemd has caused them:
Those are just problem reports I saw linked to from this topic today. I went and browsed the Debian mailing lists, and I saw other reports of problems with systemd, too.
Face it, systemd is bad software, it has been forced into Debian in a brutal way, and it has caused tons of problems for tons of people. It has earned every bit of dislike shown toward it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday November 17 2014, @01:37PM
Like I say, I have no opinion on whether it's good or bad. I'm not saying that people against don't have a point.
I'm not talking about people's arguments, but the way they are making them. This isn't a rational technical discussion about a bit of software. It's a holy war potential to damage the Linux community.
Now, if someone wanted to damage the Linux community, and they saw a divisive topic arise, wouldn't it be in their interest to fan the flames a little using tried-and-true astroturfing techniques?
Call me a crazy conspiracy theorist if you like, but just remember how many crazy conspiracy theorists were proved right by Snowden.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 17 2014, @03:20PM
I, too, just don't see the conspiracy.
The ones harming the Linux community the most are those who are forcing systemd on unwilling victims. Things were just fine before they showed up.
But I don't think there's a conspiracy there, either. The pro-systemd crowd is just ignorant, inexperienced, delusional, or a mix of those three.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday November 17 2014, @03:32PM
If you read back through Slashdot (and here, but probably less) articles, there have been a number of technical objections raised and dismissed. Unfortunately you'd have to wade through a lot of bile to find them :P
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1) by PiMuNu on Monday November 17 2014, @02:14PM
Well if you aren't hiding something, why post as AC? Why are all the anti-systemd posts AC? Smells fishy to me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 17 2014, @03:05PM
Maybe because creating an account and logging in is a dumb waste of time?
That's why I post as AC, at least. Maybe it is the same for the GP.
Besides, it's the message that matters, not who wrote it.
Systemd will always be terrible, regardless of the names on the comments.
Sorry, there's no conspiracy here. There are just a lot of different, independent people who have been wronged by systemd in one way or another, and aren't happy about it.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 17 2014, @03:42PM
Maybe because creating an account and logging in is a dumb waste of time?
I'll add to this (I'm not any of the other ACs) that the damn SoylentNews site logs me out every few days, and the login fields don't seem to auto-fill with Firefox, so staying logged in is just a pain in the ass. There would probably be a lot fewer AC posts if the system didn't make it so tedious to be logged in.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday November 17 2014, @07:41PM
The trouble with being an AC is that you can't be told from the other ACs. E.g., I don't know that you aren't posting a reply to yourself.
OTOH, I'm very skeptical about systemd. There are lots of small reasons to distrust it, and nothing that I've ever heard about it makes me want to use it. (OTOH, I still prefer grub over grub2.)
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 November 17 2014, @10:07PM
And how can the rest of us be assured that you aren't also the AC you just replied to?
It's trivially easy to create multiple accounts here, and registered members can post as AC easily, too.
Somebody used to constantly point out how that Torx (or whatever his name is) admitted to posting as AC just to enflame arguments. How do we know you aren't doing that, too? How do we know you aren't also posting here as Torx?
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday November 17 2014, @03:35PM
Why are all the anti-systemd posts AC?
They aren't. I've seen the better part of a dozen logged-in users identifying themselves as sysadmins and saying they don't like it. But that's on Slashdot.
Or did you mean "pro-systemd"? ;)
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by arashi no garou on Monday November 17 2014, @08:58PM
Not AC. Not a fan of systemd. Not a *nix sysadmin either, at least not my day job. But I do build out and support GNU/Linux and BSD servers in my spare time, bare metal and hosted/virtualized, and I have a few *nix boxes at home serving various purposes.
I'm not a rabid systemd hater; I just don't think it's ever going to be a good thing for me. My specific issues with it, beyond the obvious political furor, are what most would consider minor things. I don't like the commands, they are redundant and unnecessarily long compared to traditional commands[1]. I don't like binary logs, the whole idea of that just screams "inaccessible during an emergency".
Call me when systemd is past the political shenanigans, and when it actually offers me something more than a ~2 second savings on boot times.
[1] Call me crazy, but "service foo start" is just easier to type and makes more sense than than "systemctl start foo.service". Even worse is changing runlevels; "telinit 3" is simple and quick, unlike "systemctl isolate runlevel3.target". It's like they added words just to be different, not caring that it's needlessly complicated and that much more to memorize. One of the tenets of *nix is do one thing and do it well. Why complicate things?
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Tuesday November 18 2014, @05:23AM
Astro-turfing can occur whether an account is used or not. The only difference is that some posts are tied to one account but this does not imply that a single user accesses the account or that a single user has a coherent or honesty advanced position.
For the record, I'm against systemd. At best, it seems to be re-implemention of launchd, daemon-tools, djbdns and anything else a bunch of greenfield programmers can devise. Although they develop at a furious rate, they think they can solve difficult problems [cr.yp.to] in an afternoon but fail in obvious ways [soylentnews.org].
1702845791×2
(Score: 3, Insightful) by janrinok on Monday November 17 2014, @04:12PM
Unlike many of those who are actually criticizing systemd - I'm actually running it on 2 of my systems so that I can make my own assessment. I have not (yet) discovered any major benefits, it does the job that it claims it does, but so do all the other init systems in use. I am also running FreeBSD and PC-BSD on 2 other systems to learn what I can, and cannot, do with them that I can do with linux. I have found several shortcomings that will not affect many users but do cause me considerable annoyance. For example, I use PaleMoon because it has maintained the 'traditional' browser interface and runs all of my Firefox add-ons, but currently there is no PaleMoon version for BSD. However, such issues will not prevent BSD from being used by the majority of those who want to use it.
However, your comment is, I believe, inaccurate. One developer/maintainer has left Debian because of the Debian Constitution - nothing at all to do with the software itself. TFH is leaving because of the ridiculous nature of the 'debate' which is, I agree, more than he should have to put up with.
The vast majority (but certainly not all) of the systemd criticism is posted by ACs who offer no technical debate about the software but repeatedly point out the unsubstantiated claims that it will take over the world, is a tool for the NSA, or is something spawned by the devil himself. The personal invective and threats have no place in intelligent debate and emanate from the lower strata of web users.
This should be a site for intelligent conversation but, as an editor, I feel that a growing minority have brought all that is bad from whence they came and seem to think that repeating trivial and unsubstantiated claims here will make give them some form of 'technical street cred'. They are mistaken.
I do not see any reason to change to systemd, and I can think of many reasons why not. There will undoubtedly be a number of bugs waiting to bite the community as it goes into more widespread use - but that can be said of any software. But I would appreciate a more intelligent discussion of the software.
There is no need to take any of my comments personally - those to whom they are directed will know that they are the intended recipients of my criticism.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 2) by Pav on Monday November 17 2014, @05:01PM
What's wrong with making decisions not based on technical merit? Surely I'm not the only one who has been burnt time and again by projects that don't consider users when making decisions eg. Gnome and SSL-explorer particularly inconvenienced me personally. Yes, developers don't have to make users happy, but if I'm one of those users they don't consider then I think it's justified for me to consider my relationship to that project. Personally I have a bias towards GPL3, because in my experience projects so licensed tend to be more user focused (Gnome notwithstanding). As an aside systemd seems to be LGPL and sysvinit is GPL3. Upstart is some weird BSD-alike license tied to Ubuntu, so I can understand not choosing that.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by http on Monday November 17 2014, @06:10PM
You have missed a big point. It doesn't matter what percentage of the critics are AC. What does matter is that almost all of the criticisms are valid and most are unaddressed. That such badly built software is gaining traction in the second most important component of the linux ecosystem (init) is more than a lot baffling. When baffling things happen, people strive for explanations, and when nothing obvious explains, they get more creative. Some of the unsubstantiated claims would actually explain what's going on.
I, too, would appreciate a more intelligent discussion of the software - first and foremost, a design document. Given that we're dealing with Poettering here, I'm not holding my breath.
I browse at -1 when I have mod points. It's unsettling.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday November 17 2014, @07:52PM
No. *MOST* of the criticisms are unverifiable. *SOME* of the criticisms appear valid. Some also appear dubious.
The real point, though, is that there has been essentially nothing posted that seems to me a valid reason to choose it. I don't really have an iron in this fire, as I've chosen to revert to Debian stable while waiting for the dust to settle. My bias is such that I have ensured (via update parameters) that I won't install systemd by accident. It's also true, however, that I ran an install of Ubuntu 14.04 on this system after Debian testing crashed with the install of systemd, and it worked without problems....and I saw no advantages. (But would I? I'm not much of a sysadmin, I only run my own system and that of my wife.)
For me the problem is that it's harder to understand what systemd is doing. I spent a lot of time over the years picking up managing sysv-init...I don't want to need to repeat that. (OTOH, this argument is often used by people who are using clunky systems when a sleek automated replacement comes out. I sure wouldn't want to go back to a hand cranked starter, even though it was easier to repair when it broke.)
So. I'm biased against systemd, but not strongly. I just haven't heard or experienced anything that would make me think it's a good decision.
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 November 17 2014, @11:23PM
Cut the crap, son. This isn't reddit. We aren't fucking morons here.
The criticism against systemd is valid, and you know it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 18 2014, @03:54AM
Exactly, this is why we can't have nice things. That sort of name-calling has no place in a technical discussion, and it raises the question of if you are a mean kid, or part of an astroturfing FUD campaign.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 18 2014, @04:15AM
There's nothing to discuss here. Systemd is full of technical flaws. Cry "conspiracy theory!!@!@!" all you want. None of that will change the fact that systemd is broken software that has no place in Debian, or any other serious Linux distro.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday November 18 2014, @09:52AM
So please enlighten us all and explain what all the 'valid criticisms' are. I don't just want bald statements that cannot be substantiated, but an intelligent and technical discourse on the problems as you perceive them. I'm using it and it works - I don't see a reason to change to it, but that is simply a personal view and not 'valid criticism'.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 18 2014, @12:42PM
If you're discussing this matter, then you should already be aware of the criticism of systemd. If you aren't, then you should probably not participate in this discussion until you've done some research.
Since finding basic information like this is apparently a severe challenge for you, you can start here: http://boycottsystemd.org/ [boycottsystemd.org]
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday November 18 2014, @06:44PM
Thank you AC, you have made my point perfectly.
I didn't ask what other people dislike about it - I asked what the previous poster didn't like, why he didn't like it, and what he felt it stopped him from doing. I'm using it and I have no problems whatsoever with it. It works, I do not think that I will convert my other system over to it because I cannot see any advantages, but the binary logs are not a problem, the all-encompassing dependencies are not a problem. In fact, I haven't got any problems with it. Others may have - I haven't - and I asked for the previous poster's views. Not some regurgitated information about why someone else doesn't like it.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Saturday November 29 2014, @02:25PM
Even that really depends on the application. An electric starter is very convenient in my car, which carries it's own battery and charges said battery whenever I drive. It's true if the car sits for a very long time it might cause a problem, but that's remote, unlikely, and already 'covered' in the sense of having a battery charger handy as well. And it's true it's more complicated to fix when it breaks - but there are several stores nearby or online that will replace the whole unit for a reasonable price, so again that's covered in a sense ahead of time.
On the other hand an electric starter for the generator at the hunting cabin would be a very bad idea. There, I will stick to my hand crank, thank you very much, and I don't much care if hipsters mistake me for a luddite as a result.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Monday November 17 2014, @08:21PM
Agreed, except that is not what I said. I referred to 'ACs who quote unsubstantiated claims without any technical support for their claims'. I don't have anything against ACs - but I deplore those who cannot discuss and justify their points without the discussion deteriorating into a slanging match. Unsubstantiated claims are just that - unsubstantiated. I might as well claim that the problem is caused by pixies for all the good it will contribute to the discussion. Having waded through the decision process that Debian have documented, I can see how the decision to adopt systemd was reached. I do believe that certain companies wield an unfair and unjustified influence on the committees but any one of us (if we have the appropriate technical abilities) is free to join the Debian team and to make our contribution and, maybe, end up on one of the committees instead of an existing member - but I don't expect that to happen in the near future. I am also of the opinion that the adoption of systemd was taking place too quickly and without consideration of what the users actually wanted.
I think, http, that we are both arguing from the same viewpoint here. As it stands at present, even Jessie when released will give you the option of choosing systemd or an alternative, but if you want to use Gnome then it has dependencies being built into it for systemd. Simply choose a different desktop.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 1) by fritsd on Monday November 17 2014, @11:32PM
I've tried to find a spec for "things the modern low-level userspace Linux environment is supposed to do" on freedesktop.org, but haven't found anything so far.
If any of you could post such a link here, it would help rational debate.
For example that PID 1 has to do the cgroups management, that is totally not clear to me. OK, only 1 process can do cgroups management (I'll accept that as given for now), why can't PID 1 fork a cgroupmanager process then? Let cgroupmanager do its
(complicated) thing, and if it crashes 30 virtual machines deep, the system doesn't go down because (uncomplicated) PID 1 is still around.
Are there more such "Highlander" processes??? Generic Linux things that need to start before the system-specific /etc/init.d/rc is run?
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday November 17 2014, @06:38PM
How the hell is there a "conspiracy"?
Try this search [google.com]. My favorite headline is "Systemd = Jewish NSA/Mossad Backdoor - progrider.org."
This was covered on Soylent as well: Link [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 18 2014, @03:50AM
When you say the words, "bad problems," you mean actual technical problems? Or things like, "I don't like the name of the author," or "Not Invented Here," or "it reminds me of emacs?"
Of the technical accusations I read, they all seem to be debunked. ;)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 18 2014, @01:01PM
None of the technical problems listed at http://boycottsystemd.org/ [boycottsystemd.org] have been debunked. They're all totally unacceptable, and still present.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 17 2014, @02:14PM
The arguments and tactics in use here just make me think of the global warming debate, or universal healthcare, or any other topic where wealthy vested interest marshal legions of shills and useful idiots to try to shift public opinion.
So "astroturf" works when it has massive public support? I think the problem here is your perception of things.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday November 17 2014, @03:30PM
It has turned into a rabidly partisan issue.
Yeah, that's what generally happens when neither side want to compromise. The anti- crowd wants to take it out back and shoot it; the pro- crowd wants to force everyone to use it.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 18 2014, @03:57AM
Nobody is trying to force anybody to use it. If they don't like it, they can fork whatever distro they like whose paid professionals chose it.
It is the other way around. Those of us who like it and like the progress are being told we shouldn't be allowed to have it, even when we've chosen a distro that uses it.
There is no reason to whine and complain about it. Just choose something that doesn't use it, and be done with it forever. There is NO UTILITY AT ALL in trying to take it away from those who use it, just because you want to use their distro, but with your own favorite choices. You can do that already by forking.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 18 2014, @04:09AM
Systemd does not belong in Debian.
If you really want systemd, use a shitty distro like Fedora.
Everyone is happy that way.
Debian users get a stable, reliable system that just works.
Fedora users get the shitty, hype-driven system they so badly desire.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jmorris on Monday November 17 2014, @04:54PM
I do think there is a distinct stench of astroturf but it isn't the primary issue. The problem is there are two arguments running in parallel and co-mingling.
Is systemd a viable technical project and does it actually work or is it likely to in the near future?
All of the arguing about bugs and Pottering's history of leaving smoking wreckage in his wake are tied to this question. It is not the most interesting of the arguments. Bugs can be fixed, Pottering will move on to wrecking something else eventually. So if you agree with the goal, the technical issues revolve more around whether systemd is ready yet, so even the most extreme views against systemd in this camp would say to wait a few years and let it prove itself but it is only a question of when the change happens.
The other argument is over whether systemd is a good idea in the first place.
By systemd I mean the whole Pottering "UNIX Hater's Club" project of systemd as an OS in userspace, absorbing everything in its path. It means the adoption of an overly complex port of Service Manager and Event Logger, burying everything under layers of virtualization and sandboxing to get security instead of fixing the damned bugs in the first place at the price of making the internals so complex that new admins will require years to understand what is actually happening instead of a month or two.. which will have its own security implications. It means objecting to the whole idea of tossing POSIX and the essentially the whole gnu-utils package and the other UNIX classics like grep, etc. In short, do we want a free Windows or a UNIX?
Note that this is a cultural question. This is why the Debian TC had so most strife over it and their final verdict had almost zero impact on the NO side. Because they were trying to solve a problem outside their mandate.
You can't compromise on this issue, you can split the difference. It is a fork in the road, taking one precludes the possibility of the other. There is going to be a fork, the only question is whether enough people realize it in time to avoid a lot more developers getting burned out by the fighting.
(Score: 2, Informative) by fritsd on Monday November 17 2014, @06:00PM
Very well put; I think the crux is whether systemd is a good idea in the first place (your second argument).
It seems to me that systemd is written by geniuses, but not written *for* common-as-muck sysadmins who use Linux in production, instead for some mythical average desktop use case.
Try to read some of the comments on http://debianfork.org/ [debianfork.org] (scroll down; about 50% rants, 50% complaints of people who sound like real actual sysadmins, and a website that's easy to read for the 60+ sysadmin with poor eyesight)
I think the best comment there (can't attribute; the author is not shown) is:
"There is a debate whether to replace legacy init-systems. It is a good
debate, and imho a new init system is very due.
What should have been done (*):
1.) define interfaces/apis for a new init system by the linux
community/process
2.) standardaize these interface
3.) have somebody provide a reference implementation and
reference-test-suite (an init-system is missing critical, I cannot debug
umteenth servers when they fail initing)
what has been done:
1.) a reference implementation has been pooped into existence with
interfaces/apis 'designed' on the fly
2.) this mix of standards/implemention has then been pushed and force-fed
to the community
3.) now the community is pissed
The discussion about whether or not systemd must be used is moot. If
standards exist, systemd can be replaced. If not, like we have now, it
cannot."
(Score: 2) by melikamp on Monday November 17 2014, @08:50PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 18 2014, @03:59AM
It is just a bunch of nastiness.
Of course it is "viable" it is already in widespread use. Most linux users are running it already, without any problems. Slandering the author is silly, his past projects that get name-called are the ones that won on technical merits, fixed the bugs, and are still in use. Still in use. Still in use. That is not failed. That is succeeded. D'oh!
(Score: 1) by jmorris on Tuesday November 18 2014, @07:37AM
No. I'm typing this on a Thinkpad running F20. PulseAudio is f*ck*d. It has been f*ck*d for years and years on pretty much every platform I have had the misfortune to use it.... which because RH and the GNOMEs rammed it down everyone's throat is almost everywhere; exactly like systemd. Years have passed and I'm sick and damned tired of listening to excuses for that useless piece of crap that you can't get rid of without a week of intense effort. Just because someone might have a bluetooth headset and want to 'seamlessly' (yea, that will be the day) transition the stream between their headset and the speakers we have all had to suffer broken audio for almost a decade now.
Drop onto the docking station, a couple of RANDOM outputs will mute themselves. Suspend and guess what happens? Undock and guess what happens. Launch the PulseAudio Graphic EQ plugin and GUESS WHAT HAPPENS! While you could attribute the dock and power management related ones to potential kernel bugs, the EQ doing exactly the same thing kinda gives the game away.
Better, since I ditched Gnome3 for Mate there isn't even a graphical tool remaining (unsure if there is one in Gnome but there migh) that can even manipulate the actual hardware volume controls, only pulse. All I have found is alsamixer in a terminal window. (Although the GUI alsamixer would be viable too with the -c0 switch... since it has no graphical way to select the card to control and defaults to pulse.)
No, I will never allow Pulse, Networkmanager or systemd near a production server. Never. When Debian becomes unusable I'll look for a fork. If there isn't one Slackware. Should it too fall to the forces of darkness BSD will always be there.
Because I'm in both dissenting camps. systemd is a bad idea that isn't likely to ever work reliably and securely. Or at least not work in the twenty or so years I have left before retirement.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 17 2014, @01:46PM
Posting AC since I already modded.
I've seen so much anger and gripe towards systemd but many major distros are using it. Why?
Now I don't want some sort of conspiracy theory about how redhat/nsa/illuminati is out to destroy linux and force us all to use windows me. But if so many independant groups are signing on for systemd there must be a good technical reason why.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 17 2014, @01:59PM
Major distros are using it because the legacy init system was antiquated and had become a pain in the neck: among other complaints, there is no good and reliable way to express dependencies between system services so every startup script had to do its own checking to see if it had the prerequisites to start. Package maintainers didn't like it.
It was obvious that an improved init infrastructure was needed. The controversy, as I see it, is primarily about whether the cure is worse than the disease, and secondarily about who did what with whose mother.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by jbruchon on Monday November 17 2014, @03:06PM
What Linux (and all UNIX-like systems) really needs is the equivalent of Microsoft's Service Control Manager. Everything in Linux/UNIX is a kludge by comparison; systemd uses cgroups to corral services, but there's no way for systemd to actively communicate with and poll the status of a program like Apache or dnsmasq so that they can be properly managed. Most init systems don't monitor services at all; a totally different (non-standard, since service management on UNIX-likes is the Wild West) program tends to be set up to handle this. There are no standards for "system services," they are absolutely indistinguishable from normal executables.
We need a standardized, minimal, and **very well documented** service control and monitoring C API that allows programs to interface with (and be polled by) an arbitrary "service control manager" on Linux. This could be done and not violate the UNIX philosophy of "do one thing and do it well." It would also fix the main problem that systemd was initially created to solve: kludgey "reinvent the wheel for each program and hope no PIDs sneak away" management of system services.
I'm just here to listen to the latest song about butts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 17 2014, @04:47PM
Huh? Are you for real?
Sysvinit isn't perfect, but I'd take it over the Windows approach any day. I say this as someone who has managed Windows systems since NT 4, along with all sorts of Linux, BSD and UNIX systems.
(Score: 1) by jbruchon on Tuesday November 18 2014, @06:15AM
I'm not advocating "the Windows approach." I'm suggesting that there be a standardized way for system services to be brought up and down and polled for lockups. I'm not suggesting that a service manager be the ONLY way to start services, either.
I'm just here to listen to the latest song about butts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 18 2014, @12:49PM
Let me quote what you wrote:
What Linux (and all UNIX-like systems) really needs is the equivalent of Microsoft's Service Control Manager.
You are advocating the Windows approach.
(Score: 1) by jbruchon on Tuesday November 18 2014, @01:11PM
By your logic, saying Nautilus is "the equivalent of Explorer from Microsoft Windows" is false. "Equivalent" does not mean "identical."
I'm just here to listen to the latest song about butts.
(Score: 2) by TheLink on Monday November 17 2014, @05:07PM
What?!! Pre-Vista stuff was like this: https://support.microsoft.com/kb/203878 [microsoft.com]
e.g. services have dependencies NO Windows doesn't check them during shutdown!
It took them so long, and then they implement it with preshutdown notifications AND that's not supported for .Net!:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms685149%28v=vs.85%29.aspx [microsoft.com]
http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/641737/add-windows-service-preshutdown [microsoft.com]
See also: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7437590/is-it-possible-to-register-for-preshutdown-service-events-using-net [stackoverflow.com]
Microsoft could in theory have created a C++ service that handles preshutdowns of .Net stuff. Maybe one day I'll do it if nobody else gets around to doing it (I'm not a great coder - so I'd rather not unleash another crappy C++ service on the world if possible).
(Score: 1) by jbruchon on Tuesday November 18 2014, @01:20PM
If someone wrote a "service manager" for Linux, none of what you just wrote would matter. No one suggested "porting Microsoft's services.exe program" here. Everything that attempts to improve on or replace sysvinit tries to manage services better; I'm saying that we need services to be able to talk back to the program that manages them and that program needs to be able to do things like poll the services to make sure they haven't done something bad, such as having crashed without the PID terminating.
I'm just here to listen to the latest song about butts.
(Score: 2) by forsythe on Monday November 17 2014, @05:13PM
there's no way for [an init system] to actively communicate with and poll the status of a program like Apache or dnsmasq so that they can be properly managed
I hope I'm misreading you, because if you're saying what I think you're saying, then you'll have to explain to `rc-status` that it doesn't exist.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 17 2014, @11:25PM
He's saying what you think he's saying. And, yes, he's wrong. Pretty much everything in his comment is dumb. Seriously, he's suggesting using the approach that Windows takes, including its well-known problems, and bringing it over to Linux. That's really fucking stupid thing to suggest.
(Score: 1) by jbruchon on Tuesday November 18 2014, @06:02AM
Says someone who obviously had no better suggestions.
I'm just here to listen to the latest song about butts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 18 2014, @12:57PM
We don't have to suggest anything new. Sysvinit has worked perfectly fine for a long time. We don't need a "better suggestion" because nothing needs to change.
(Score: 1) by jbruchon on Tuesday November 18 2014, @01:13PM
I disagree. I have been using runit for a long time and it's definitely better than sysvinit. http://busybox.net/~vda/init_vs_runsv.html [busybox.net]
I'm just here to listen to the latest song about butts.
(Score: 1) by jbruchon on Tuesday November 18 2014, @06:12AM
http://dev.gentoo.org/~vapier/openrc/projects/openrc/ticket/120.html [gentoo.org]
http://dev.gentoo.org/~vapier/openrc/projects/openrc/ticket/145.html [gentoo.org]
Also, how can OpenRC know that e.g. httpd hit a bug and is hosed but the httpd service PID has not terminated?
I'm just here to listen to the latest song about butts.
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Tuesday November 18 2014, @05:56AM
I thought that was #gamergate.
1702845791×2
(Score: 5, Insightful) by fritsd on Monday November 17 2014, @03:43PM
The way I see it, there are three factors leading to the widespread adaptation of systemd:
1. "Marketing": It was touted by its makers as the greatest thing since sliced bread, because sysvinit is just so obsolete, we have been using it without fault for like 20 years, surely there must be something more modern we can adapt our boring bank and hospital computers to. Sysvinit has only few features. Systemd has many features. Really, oodles of features. That's a fact. The words "nethack kitchensink" comes to mind. It is also not disputed that some of these features are genuine improvements aimed at solving problems the old-fashioned init didn't do by itself, such as "is a service still alive?"
2. "Red Hat": Many Linux distros (look at distrowatch.com) are descendants of three "tribes" defined by their packaging system: Slackware has its own way, then Red Hat came with its .RPM format, and Debian with its .DEB format. Many distros that descend from Red Hat also use the RPM packaging format. Red Hat is the main "sponsor" of systemd, and the popular Fedora distro uses its packages. Now it is difficult and costs quite a bit of work to properly package something. So, many distros are happy to re-use a working package that an "up-stream" distro has already made. And anything that uses Fedora's packages (SuSe? Mageia? CentOS? Arch) will be tempted to use those unchanged packages. Systemd dependencies included (what, you haven't switched over to the new cool shiny systemd yet? you're not OLD, are you?)
When Debian is also "converted", this will mean its "down-stream" distros such as Ubuntu and Mint will probably follow.
3. "Network effect": Systemd is rapidly absorbing many different small "services" that were previously independent *nix projects: udev, D-Bus, ntpd, automounting, etc. That leads to a "network effect" where all programs that previously depended on "something that does printer setup for a USB printer that was just plugged in" now depends on "systemd, because it does that and lots more". The authors have helped this interconnectedness along: libpulse0, the pulseaudio system library, has a dependency on libsystemd-journal0. why? So that your audio daemon can log to the new binary log files. Why is this new, extra dependency necessary? I don't know; the authors put it in (same authors). If you don't take it out and recompile libpulse0 with --disable-systemd, then from this day onward everything that uses pulseaudio for sound on Linux has a dependency on systemd. That is how it could spread so quickly, IMHO. From the authors point of view (I'm just guessing here!!!) "everybody needs systemd anyway, so we might as well start with making our own audio daemon optionally log to our new shiny binary log format"
Sorry for the wall of text again but hopefully this was less ranting than my previous posts ;-)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 18 2014, @04:12AM
We'd been begging for something to fix the obvious problems of SysV since the 90s. It was an obvious kludge even when it was the best game in town.
systemd delivered. The other competitors all had fatal problems and lacked the requested features.
It is a major win, but is hated in a hateful way. It is like the gamergate of distros. There is smoke and there is fire, but all the fire is from the torches of the haters. There is no actual scandal that they are upset about, and the majority of the complaints are in the categories of "subjective opinion" and "debunked lie." There are basically no technical complaints that are not debunked. It is just hate-hate-hate.
And nonsense like here, "Systemd is rapidly absorbing many different small "services" that were previously independent *nix projects: udev, D-Bus, ntpd, automounting," this is just nonsense. Complete nonsense. ntpd didn't get "absorbed," systemd just offers a ntpd client daemon. You can still use ntpd. It just has a default lightweight client. Why? Because the existing ntpd implementations were all heavy-weight servers. There is real technical merit in having one that is only a client, especially for sysadmins who might not want to even have the time server installed locally. Same with the other stuff. The reason you swallow this whopper is probably that you were set up with the astroturfed lie; that systemd is monolithic. This sets you up for these other traps, without realizing that these are just optional things that are in the same source repo but that distros don't have to include. And even if your distro includes it, you don't have to use it. D-bus didn't get swallowed, it is just a dependency. It is natural for that to be a dependency, because d-bus is what much of the modern world is using for IPC. It is the new generic IPC mechanism that replaces the old SysV ways of doing things, which worked but were painful.
There are real technical reasons for having the automounter handled by systemd. If you go and look up what they are, hopefully you'll take that out of your list, or at least find some technical complaint with the reasoning that is... technical in nature and not hand-waving. I'll give you a hint, it involves networking and dovetails with another popular systemd feature.
(Score: 1) by fritsd on Tuesday November 18 2014, @02:16PM
Thank you for informing us that I was wrong about ntpd being absorbed. Could you explain, or point us to a link, what the design rationale was for the init system to include an ntp client? I.e. what is the purpose that was served by this decision?
"D-bus didn't get swallowed, it is just a dependency"
I think I disagree with you here because I read something Lennart Poettering wrote about this. Unfortunately, I can't find it anymore :-( so I can't prove that.
You claimed there are real technical reasons for having the automounter handled by systemd, but you don't give a link to support your claim, and tell me to go look up those reasons. Sorry, no.
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Tuesday November 18 2014, @08:17AM
I'm very concerned that the major authors of systemd are causing an increase in technical debt [wikipedia.org] through a large and unnecessary coupling of packages. Even if systemd is voted out of Debian [debian.org], it will continue to cause unnecessary problems.
1702845791×2
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 18 2014, @12:54PM
Debian's reputation has been irreparably damaged by this ordeal. It was once seen as a bastion of robust and reliable software, put together by some of the best software developers out there. But after these systemd shenanigans, Debian is widely seen as a farce. It has been perpetually disgraced. While I wish that some sort of redemption were possible, I don't think that it will be possible.
(Score: 2) by forsythe on Monday November 17 2014, @04:23PM
fritsd has covered it better than I will, but here's what I see as the short, slightly oversimplified version:
Systemd is written by the same guys who write other omnipresent packages (GNOME, PulseAudio, etc.). They've added dependencies on systemd to those packages, so a distro that wants to ship without systemd now has to choose between letting well-known packages fall out of date or patching them to remove the dependencies (good luck).
Exceptions are distros that have strong ideological foundations (e.g. Slackware) and distros that were designed for myriads of configuration choices anyway (e.g. Gentoo).
(Score: 4, Informative) by Arik on Monday November 17 2014, @05:00PM
But adoption is not being driven by any technical advantages. It is 100% political. RedHat is the biggest player in terms of paying people to work on Free Software, and they are the ones developing this and pushing it into every distro they can get to, by hook or by crook.
I havent been too involved with debian, and I am glad at this point, because the way it's been co-opted would certainly have my blood at a full boil if I had been. What's the point of having such clearly defined rules and procedures if you cant be bothered to follow them anyway?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by novak on Monday November 17 2014, @06:15PM
I've used Debian since about 2008, it's not my main desktop but I have some servers on it. That's fairly recent by most people's standards here, but I've always been more of a slackware guy.
I'm still hoping that the Debian general resolution to preserve init system choice passes. Maybe this is wishful thinking but here's how I see it: more distros depend on Debian than any other, and I don't want every linux locked into systemd. Most of these are crappy knock-offs that really don't set themselves apart in any way- it's usually "debian with X default desktop" or "Ubuntu with a few programs installed by default to do Y." But you know, one of the great things about linux is that you have the freedom to do whatever you want, and that includes making distros that I think have no real purpose. Who even cares what I say? Some of these little distros have done pretty well for themselves. I really don't want to see every distro forced into using the ever-expanding monster that is systemd.
novak
(Score: 2) by Arik on Monday November 17 2014, @06:56PM
Same here, but I have used Debian on and off when it fit my needs.
"I'm still hoping that the Debian general resolution to preserve init system choice passes."
Here's what I dont understand. Maybe I am missing something, but by my reading of the debian by-laws, this is the only way the change could have been accomplished in the first place. The technical committee doesnt have authority to re-architect the system by fiat, and fake manufactured bug reports cannot change that.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by novak on Monday November 17 2014, @07:40PM
Yeah, I don't really know or care who has the authority (except to fight back against systemd). In my experience, the best distros are those made for the distro maintainers, and are often basically dictatorial (obviously slackware comes to mind here, among others). Running everything via a massive bureaucracy has its downsides. Everyone keeps claiming that there has been a 'coup' in Debian. I honestly don't know if that's true, I don't keep track of who is in charge of what or where they are from, especially not for something on the scale of Debian. I'd rather stick with something higher quality made by people I trust, instead of trusting a giant system to not screw itself.
That being said, Debian is the only distro (that I know of at least) which has both been taken over by systemd, and is fighting the takeover. I applaud their efforts to keep choice open. There are any number of popular userspace daemons for various tasks, and I don't want a single replacement, especially one as poorly made as systemd. Gentoo and Slackware won't be able to hold out forever on their own, as systemd's roots go deeper. Once the big boys go down, smaller ones like crux and voidlinux will have an even harder time keeping their heads above water.
novak
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 18 2014, @04:20AM
We do agree on the merits, we don't repeat it over and over because you read the reasons years ago and just don't care.
http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html [0pointer.de]
Maybe people are too busy name-calling the author to believe that he explains the reasons why the old sysadmins in charge of the decisions are often choosing systemd. ;)
There is really no reason to explain the reasons over again when they came on the box when it was first being introduced to the world.