Linux: concerns over systemd adoption and Debian's decision to switch

Thu Oct 23 08:48:57 UTC 2014

Systemd Blackhole  is a very apt term as I am discovering.
I was once a linuxfromscratch  "superuser" 10 years back, in a sense that
if anyone asked me the location of a lib.so and how to resolve a version
mismatch, I could fix it in a matter of minutes even if woken up at 4am in
the morning. Likewise for almost any other  complex debugging challenge.
Take it with a pinch of salt though - it is more a statement of my
confidence in my own abilities then, than  something absolute and
ahistorical.  I have since downgraded to being a mere power user over the
years who just wants to get the job done with the focus being my objective
as an end-user. Right now I am having difficulty auto mounting an NFS
partition at boot from /etc/fstab, and systemd isn't telling me if it even
attempted to and why it failed. Google and wiki isn't helping either. No
log line ...absolutely nothing.  A manual "mount -a" works flawlessly. In
the older days I would read a log line and navigate to the init script if I
had to, read and understand  the sequencing and dependencies and learn to
fix things.  Right now I am clueless and helpless. My confidence about
fixing problems on a Linux with systemd is very low. I am reduced to being
a Googler searching for answers in the unknown rather than upgrade my
skills level back to where I was earlier.

I am glad this topic came up and I discovered early enough that there now
has to be a strategic choice and decision making I need to make in the
Linux world that is not going to be a dead-end for me if I choose to go the
init way - one that stays loyal to the original Unix philosophy. I am glad
to hear there is a substantial movement and backing for this that might
pave the way for a non -systemd  alternative.

I wonder what Mr. Linus Trovaldis himself thinks on this matter though. I
am curious to find out.

Rahul
Sent from MiPad
On Oct 22, 2014 1:18 AM, "Jim Popovitch" <jimpop at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Oct 21, 2014 at 3:41 PM, Eugeniu Patrascu <eugen at imacandi.net>
> wrote:
> >
> > I think systemd wants to become the next Emacs ;))
>
> Or the next user activity collection point.   Systemd really is a
> black hole to 99.9% of the people who will use/deploy it... seems
> perfect for lots of things.
>
> -Jim P.
>