Linux: concerns over systemd [OT]

Tue Oct 21 22:29:44 UTC 2014

The thing that I don't understand about systemd is how it managed to get
*EVERY SINGLE DISTRIBUTION'S RELEASE MANAGER* on board in less than a year,
given how thoroughly it violates the Unix philosophy, and how poorly
documented it is -- to the point where you can't even run sysvinit anymore
unless you're willing to build initscripts by hand, since packages don't
even include them anymore.

Does Poettering have compromising photographs of all these guys in a 
puppy pile at a Linuxcon somewhere?  

Cheers,
-- jra

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Barry Shein" <bzs at world.std.com>
> To: "Israel G. Lugo" <israel.lugo at lugosys.com>
> Cc: nanog at nanog.org
> Sent: Tuesday, October 21, 2014 3:11:55 PM
> Subject: Re: Linux: concerns over systemd [OT]
> 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
> 
> The World | bzs at TheWorld.com | http://www.TheWorld.com
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