Linux: concerns over systemd [OT]

Tue Oct 21 19:11:55 UTC 2014

I've done a fair amount of hand-to-hand combat with systemd.

When it's good it's good, tho not always apparent why it's good. But
for example some of my servers boot in seconds.

When it's bad it can be painful and incredibly opaque and a huge time
sink.

Googling for suggestions I've found several threads where the
co-author (Poettering) jumps in usually to be annoyingly arrogant (I'm
sure he's very bright and good to children and pets and overworked)
responding with comments like why don't you just read your logs and
not bother this list or similar (that was paraphrased.) The logs are,
in my experience, almost always useless or nearly so, "mumble failed
to start" basically.

I'm not the only one:

   http://www.muktware.com/2014/04/linus-torvalds-happy-systemd-author-kay-sievers/25151

It also resists tools like strace because it tends to do things by
IPC. In one extreme case I just reworked an /etc/init.d script to
avoid systemd (not use the various /etc/rc.foo files), mostly just hit
it with a sledgehammer and put fixing that on my TODO
list. Unfortunately I am mortal and have limited time on this earth.

My experience as I said is mixed, hard cases are very hard where they
really seem like they shouldn't be (just tell me roughly what you're
trying to do rather than just fail, eg, via some debug enable), most
are just your usual oops it wants this or that situations.

I don't think I'd want to revert to sysvinit, systemd seems
architecturally superior.

But it needs a lot more transparency and some attempt to gather common
problems -- like why is it hanging asking for a password on the
console when I can't see why it thinks it needs one? -- and FAQ them
with real answers or add some code/configuration to fix that (never
ask for a password in this script OK? And no --no-ask-password isn't
fixing this so stop repeating that answer!)

-- 
        -Barry Shein

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