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As long time SoylentNews community member Marand observed during some recent discussion of severe systemd boot problems, it turns out that systemd disables the magic SysRq key.
The magic SysReq key is described at Wikipedia as:
[...] a key combination understood by the Linux kernel, which allows the user to perform various low-level commands regardless of the system's state. It is often used to recover from freezes, or to reboot a computer without corrupting the filesystem.
A Fedora user who logged a bug report for this issue back in 2013 described the problem with systemd's unexpected and harmful default setting:
As systemd depends on many files on a rootfs, in case of any problems with rootfs, it is not able to do its basic function - control processes and (cleanly) shutdown/reboot when crtl-alt-del is pressed on local keyboard. As this is a feature, I'd like to ask to enable the sysrq by default on Fedora, otherwise it is not possible to reboot system even locally in case of emergency situation.
While that Fedora bug report is set to CLOSED NOTABUG, other Linux distros, like Mageia and Debian GNU/Linux, have restored the proper behavior.
Now that this problem has come to light, all Fedora users should evaluate whether or not they need to fix their systems to work around systemd's incorrect default setting. Users of other Linux distributions using systemd should also evaluate their systems, too, in case their distro has not yet fixed this unexpected bug.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Monday December 22 2014, @04:04AM
you probably don't want software made by these guys.
Yup, that is a big part of the objection. Nothing in the past performance of the key people inspires confidence they have the skills or personality to be essentially taking sole responsibility for the the userspace side of GNU/Linux. (Note I'm normally first in line to say RMS's insistance on the GNU/Linux naming is bogus but I can't see another way to distinguish the GNU/Linux flavor of Linux from other Linux based products like Android/Linux and the busybox/Linux embedded products, etc.)
Even if you think System Manager and Event Logger is the star to guide by, these idiots aren't the right navigators.
(Score: 1) by ghost on Monday December 22 2014, @03:02PM
heh, I wonder if RMS will insist Linux with SystemD NOT be called GNU/Linux.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 23 2014, @02:25AM
Exactly, the key part of the "problem" is that a group of loudmouths have taken a known pattern of logical fallacy and are using it is their basis for campaigning against the inclusion of choices they don't like. Not just advocating against people choosing the "wrong" thing, but advocating against things they disagree with even being allowed to be included in the choices.
I guess that is Software Freedom, right? Taking away choices made by people Somebody Doesn't Like.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 23 2014, @03:46AM
The only people I see taking away choice are the systemd developers and Debian.
I was never asked if I wanted systemd on the Debian testing system I just installed. It was selected for me by default, and the installer presented me no option for selecting another init system.