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systemd is destructive

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golinux
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Re: systemd is destructive

#136 Post by golinux »

/tmp wrote:I'm more concerned about fracturing the GNU/Linux landscape further. Let's say that Devuan becomes discontinued in a year. Would I be able to change repos on the system and point them back to Debian GNU/Linux without breaking the system?
In addition to desktop users, there is already a lot of infrastructure running and counting on Devuan. It is not going away anytime soon.
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Re: systemd is destructive

#137 Post by pendrachken »

sgage wrote:
That's cool. I just wanted to let you know that Devuan IS stable and reliable - it's Debian without systemd, that's all. But you know what you're doing, and what you want...

Devuan is only semi-stable. And bug resolution is horrendous crap. No reply ( at all ) on a bug filed... oh it has to be 6+ months ago now. Using Chromium under Cinnamon kills X.org if you have ANY extensions enabled on my machine, while using Chromium with all extensions like normal under XFCE / KDE / LXDE works fine. Persists with new users created for testing.

I like the reasons fro Devuan, but they need to build up some more man power in the dev team, and really get some triage going for bugs that get reported.


Hmm, looking a bit further they actually have a BTS now... I wonder if they bothered to import outstanding bugs from the old github bug tracking that was crap to use.
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Re: systemd is destructive

#138 Post by golinux »

pendrachken wrote:Using Chromium under Cinnamon kills X.org if you have ANY extensions enabled on my machine, while using Chromium with all extensions like normal under XFCE / KDE / LXDE works fine. Persists with new users created for testing.
Cinnamon has three strikes against it - gnome, lots of gtk-3 and ubuntu. That makes it one of the worst choices to install on Devuan. Devuan humors desktop users but the focus is on a platform that can be used to admin large installations for real work.
pendrachken wrote:I like the reasons fro Devuan, but they need to build up some more man power in the dev team, and really get some triage going for bugs that get reported.
This is true and the team is acquiring some real talent. But again . . . desktop stuff is not a priority.
pendrachken wrote:Hmm, looking a bit further they actually have a BTS now... I wonder if they bothered to import outstanding bugs from the old github bug tracking that was crap to use.
Yes, those bugs - at least the most critical ones - have been imported. A resource that helped us get a handle on the bugs submitted on Devuan's gitlab (not github) can be found here and here
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Re: systemd is destructive

#139 Post by arochester »

Time to "wake up and smell the coffee"?

In less than two weeks time Jessie with systemd will be two years old.

Two years.

Two years and some people are still whinging.

What will this whinging achieve? To the official Debian, nothing. The Developers are not going to throw out systemd and revert to systvinit. Change people away from Debian to use something else? Using Debian User Forums to promote that?

Jessie was released as Stable. Not destructive. Not slightly unstable. Stable.

Debian with systemd is greatly more popular than any fork or derivative based on sysvinit.

Get over it.

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Re: systemd is destructive

#140 Post by edbarx »

During the last few weeks I needed to install software for a USB external oscilloscope. First, like a purist, although I am nowhere near someone like that, I searched online for an open source oscilloscope. Notwithstanding I successfully succeeded to compile the C++ code after many days of struggling, I couldn't make the software comunicate with the hardware as no drivers worked. At the end, I decided it would be idiotic of me not using my newly purchased oscilloscope just because it couldn't function with open sourced projects. So, to make it short, I installed MS Windows 8.1 and it worked like a charm.

Going back on topic: if systemd proves to be reliable and trustworthy as an init, and if it does not put rods into the spokes of freedom, more specifically, if it does not assume everyone likes the same cup of tea, any reluctant users would adopt it sooner or later.

Discussions like these require posters to be objective like a research scientist who uses mathematical tools to test their hypotheses.

Some pertinent questions are:
i) Did the adoption of systemd increase software choice?
ii) Does it promote more flexibility in having libraries depending on which package loads an operating system?
iii) Is software 'communism', that is, is having everyone with the same system setup, an advantage to users or to personal data miners?
iv) Is Big Business putting its fingers where it shouldn't?
v) How many open source developers work for big business in directorate positions? Do these have a conflict of interest?
Debian == { > 30, 000 packages }; Debian != systemd
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Re: systemd is destructive

#141 Post by debiman »

edbarx wrote:Some pertinent questions are...
what's pertinent? that's just, like, your opinion.

i heard that Lennart Poettering left the systemd development team. true? reasons?
i know i could just look it up, but it's much more fun to rant about it.

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Re: systemd is destructive

#142 Post by arochester »

“You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time”.”
John Lydgate (c. 1370–c. 1451)

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Re: systemd is destructive

#143 Post by edbarx »

Why are some people upset by people discussing such topics as systemd? Yes, I agree, the topic title is questionable, but that, can be edited. There shouldn't be complaints about that.

Ranting is for gossip people... ranting takes you nowhere. This is a discussion. An opinion is a belief or a conclusion without supporting data or evidence. At first, positions like mine could have been described as an opinion, but not now. The evidence is there. Furthermore, Lennart Poettering leaving the project does not change anything about it as systemd is a paid project by Redhat. As a professional Mr Poettering is free to be employed with whichever employer offers the best offer. Serious discussion does not discuss people, maybe their belief systems and their values, but not people.

In the event I buy a new computer and Devuan does not work properly, I will definitely consider using a distribution with systemd. This is why I said earlier that I installed Windows 8.1 so that I could use my new oscilloscope. However, I should not be forbidden or blamed for airing my criticism about systemd and its implications regarding software choice.

Although I can, I will not label dissidents.
Debian == { > 30, 000 packages }; Debian != systemd
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Re: systemd is destructive

#144 Post by debiman »

debiman wrote:i heard that Lennart Poettering left the systemd development team. true? reasons?
i know i could just look it up, but it's much more fun to rant about it.
dunno where that came from but it's definitely not true:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemd
https://github.com/poettering?tab=overv ... 2016-04-08

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Re: systemd is destructive

#145 Post by pendrachken »

arochester wrote:Time to "wake up and smell the coffee"?

In less than two weeks time Jessie with systemd will be two years old.

Two years.

Two years and some people are still whinging.

What will this whinging achieve? To the official Debian, nothing. The Developers are not going to throw out systemd and revert to systvinit. Change people away from Debian to use something else? Using Debian User Forums to promote that?

Jessie was released as Stable. Not destructive. Not slightly unstable. Stable.

Debian with systemd is greatly more popular than any fork or derivative based on sysvinit.

Get over it.
The reason people are angry is because:

1: too much crap has been crammed into systemD as dependencies, and to much crap, that really REALLY shouldn't, depends on systemD due to sheer laziness.
2: the way it was pushed through to become the default
3: due to number 1, there is no EASY way to decide to use another init system
4: systemD is trying to get its hands into EVERYTHING, leading to stupidly complex and intertwined spaghetti code... like X.org is accused of having so wayland can be put forward. Why the hell does a damn init system ( or even a "service manager" ) have to completely rewrite and take over DHCP and time protocols?
Answer: NIH syndrome.
5: the defaults are crap. Instead of adding easily readable date and timestamps to our logs ( and a parser for date / time searching ) lets make binary logs that can only be read by specialized tools that may or may not be fully available in the event of catastrophe... you know when the logs would actually be the most useful. And then lets not have text logging enabled by default, even though it is available ( more distro specific, but still a valid complaint ).


Lets look at some more things using your perspective:

My GFX card isn't supported well by the in kernel drivers, but the non-free drivers work

- get over it.

I have an edge case bug in the kernel that 99.999999 other people don't have and it won't be fixed.

- get over it


Gimp doesn't do what I need it to do when PhotoShop has done the same thing for the last decade

- get over it



Oh, and BTW, Debian STABLE doesn't mean "bug free". It means the major versions of software, and related API's won't change for the release cycle. Bugfixes will try to be backported to the version released in stable, but versions will not be bumped except in extreme security cases where backporting is not possible. This is kind of the very reason the backports repo was started and finally made official... For those who NEED newer versions of things that can't have every commit backported into the older packages, like kernels and such.
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Re: systemd is destructive

#146 Post by ruffwoof »

pendrachken wrote:Oh, and BTW, Debian STABLE doesn't mean "bug free". It means the major versions of software, and related API's won't change for the release cycle. Bugfixes will try to be backported to the version released in stable, but versions will not be bumped except in extreme security cases where backporting is not possible. This is kind of the very reason the backports repo was started and finally made official... For those who NEED newer versions of things that can't have every commit backported into the older packages, like kernels and such.
If you adopt/upgrade to the current stable around a year after its release, then bugs will have been ironed out during development and a year into release. Often a search of the internet will have plenty of articles/tips about workarounds for where there may still be problems. Adopt that for a couple of years, until a year or so into becoming old-stable and security patches will still be being provided ... and then repeat (adopt the then current stable that is a year into release).

Few updates, software that works well individually and as a set, and where you can adopt hand-me-down older kit. For desktop users who are content to be running on older kit and older versions of software that have been well tried-and-tested that makes Debian great. Let others who want the latest hardware/software be the forerunner testers. Debian 'Stable' is great as-is, as is the lifecycle duration.

Those that NEED newer versions can adopt newer, more buggy/less tested choices ... such as Debian Testing. As-is they have a choice, as do those who prefer to be running stable well rounded/tested (which by its nature will be older).

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Re: systemd is destructive

#147 Post by acewiza »

pendrachken wrote: The reason people are angry is because:

1: too much crap has been crammed into systemD as dependencies, and to much crap, that really REALLY shouldn't, depends on systemD due to sheer laziness.
2: the way it was pushed through to become the default
3: due to number 1, there is no EASY way to decide to use another init system
4: systemD is trying to get its hands into EVERYTHING, leading to stupidly complex and intertwined spaghetti code... like X.org is accused of having so wayland can be put forward. Why the hell does a damn init system ( or even a "service manager" ) have to completely rewrite and take over DHCP and time protocols?
Answer: NIH syndrome.
5: the defaults are crap. Instead of adding easily readable date and timestamps to our logs ( and a parser for date / time searching ) lets make binary logs that can only be read by specialized tools that may or may not be fully available in the event of catastrophe... you know when the logs would actually be the most useful. And then lets not have text logging enabled by default, even though it is available ( more distro specific, but still a valid complaint ).
You seem pretty smart, but I suspect somewhat clouded by your irrational fear of systemd. Were that not the case, you would realize there are perfectly legitimate counterpoints to every item listed above making them positives in favor of systemd. I'm not going to argue them with you because it's already been done ad nausem. Maybe you missed it. But they almost all to a "t" come in the theme of better, more reliable performance, the logging in particular, being a perfect example. Maybe you've never administered a system that logs enough to choke the fastest I/O available, dunno. :?
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Re: systemd is destructive

#148 Post by millpond »

It should be clarified that Devuan is NOT without systemd. It is used in udev, and its intended replacement, vdev, has not been updated in around a year:
https://github.com/jcnelson/vdev
(Possibly not a priority for a community that is largely sysadmin based - who needs to spin down a server!!!).
eudev is being actively maintained at:https://github.com/gentoo/eudev
but I do not know how seamlessly a gentoo util would fit into a debian system (thinking directory organization).

The only difficulties this systemd/udev seems to have caused here is the breakage of basic power management, like hibernation. Not as issue as the functions can be replaced by other software. In fairness, this is a large install, so it may be possible that the power problems are caused by other conflicts.

It needs to be stated, and even endlessly repeated that systemd is *not* the devil. It is metastasizing corporate software hiding behind GPL3 cover.
As a system lib it is harmless, even possibly benign. But it is as an ever expanding *process*, with aspirations of even taking on kernel processes (and it has already caused Torwalds problems) - is wherein the issue lies.

In my Win boot I have no problems using Ubuntu/systemd as a VM. Its not meant to be a base or productive system. I dont intend to run servers on it. I dont even reallly intend to customize it. Its an *appliance* there. Like a can opener. And as a can opener it runs fine.

Now, *this* system is being packed to the gills. My long terms plans are simple: As Debian veers away from traditional Linux, i will veer away from it. All updates are turned off, the Devuan ops can all take a hike to Shangri-La, but my future plans are to hack the dpkg/apt system here, and do my own .deb filtering.

As far as reversion back to 'pure' debian goes, I do not believe it would be difficult. Just remove devuan from sources.list, go to synaptic, enter 'devuan' in the search function to take a look at exactly the devuan packages installed ( i see 94 TOTAL packages, mostly i18n, with only 18 actually installed.). apt-get update;apt-get-upgrade, and possibly even apt-get dist-upgrade should so it. I would consider removing non-essential packages first. And of course, backup (to an ext filesystem, and not NTFS or a default format USB stick!)
Hopefully there is a Devuan 'undo' FAQ around somewhere. If not there needs to be one.

The arguments over systemd inevitably reflect a clash of cultures. And a concept of what an OS is, and what it means. For some of us, a well tuned OS is as certainly as dear as a fine tuned musical instrument. Imagine a musician replacing parts of his piano, only to find his keys no longer are hammers to anything, but are now optical switches. And the innards have been replaced by a raspberry pi.

And now its time to plug in the 8-track of 'Look What They Did To My Song, Ma'.
The piano wont play it no more.

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Re: systemd is destructive

#149 Post by Funkygoby »

This discussion's scope goes beyond systemd.
We can discuss and rant about why we dislike systemd (on one side) or wonder why people can't just accept changes (on the other side) but to me the source of the friction isn't there.

I finally chose to post in this sensible thread because of this quote that is spot on:
arochester wrote:
“You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time”.”
John Lydgate (c. 1370–c. 1451)
I totally agree with this guy!

To me Ubuntu tries to please every one and thus will never be focused or trully reliable since it's built on a shifting ground: the hype.
Fedora has another focus: bleeding edge? and its users are never disappointed I guess.
My point is the only reliable systems are the one with a clear focus, pleasing a niche target audience whatever this focus might be.

I ?wrongly? though that Debian was about stability. The slowly moving distro built with proven concept and tech.
Systemd was an important change that, I believe, should have been pondered, postponed.
The systemd units seems to be a nice feature that solves problem without much cost but the growing creep seems to be the major concern. Maybe the design is cool, the implementation not so much? Maybe instead of switching to systemd, Debian could have "wait 'n' see" what works and what breaks.

Gnome was the same story. People were used to something then found themselves with something alien. The question was not "Is Gnome3 good or bad?" but rather "Is Gnome3 == Gnome2+1".

I am not sure what defines Debian today and that is what worries me.

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Re: systemd is destructive

#150 Post by bw123 »

Funkygoby wrote:This discussion's scope goes beyond systemd.
<snip>
I ?wrongly? though that Debian was about stability. The slowly moving distro built with proven concept and tech.
Systemd was an important change that, I believe, should have been pondered, postponed.
The systemd units seems to be a nice feature that solves problem without much cost but the growing creep seems to be the major concern. Maybe the design is cool, the implementation not so much? Maybe instead of switching to systemd, Debian could have "wait 'n' see" what works and what breaks.
You're right about the thread getting offtrack, so thanks for making some good points.

I think systemd has been pretty successfully implemented, and in ONE version upgrade. It is so stable that years later people seem shocked to learn they are using systemd. I didn't know myself when I upgraded to jessie for months. It's a huge project and if debian had played, "wait and see" then we would now be a couple years behind in implementation.

To the extent there are problems, doesn't it seem likely that they will be addressed? Isn't this the way open development works? We air out the dirty laundry and see if anyone has an idea how to fix the problems?
I am not sure what defines Debian today and that is what worries me.
It's defined by it's policy, not it's users or it's developers or it's software.
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Re: systemd is destructive

#151 Post by arochester »

I ?wrongly? though that Debian was about stability. The slowly moving distro built with proven concept and tech.
Systemd was an important change that, I believe, should have been pondered, postponed.
Ahhem! systemd was introduced into the Repository in April 2012. What would be a reasonable period to "ponder, postpone"?
The statement mentions that systemd is “hasty”. It is forgetting that several major releases of several distributions have already happened using systemd as default. It is no longer an experimental technology at all. Compatibility at upgrade time should not be a concern either, since the real outside interfaces (D-Bus, unit files, Debian configuration files) have always been stable (forward compatible) and will remain so.
https://wiki.debian.org/Debate/initsystem/systemd
Overall, many of the arguments of those who don’t want to migrate away from sysvinit (with or without OpenRC) boil down to rumors or irrelevant political stances, while the decision to choose a default init system should be based on technical facts and the shape of the community.
https://wiki.debian.org/Debate/initsystem/systemd

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Re: systemd is destructive

#152 Post by debiman »

once again, i'm not trying to give an opinion, but some facts.
fact: systemd has been around (on github) since 2003. i didn't know it was so long.

(actually i might have posted in the wrong thread)

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Re: systemd is destructive

#153 Post by pendrachken »

acewiza wrote: You seem pretty smart, but I suspect somewhat clouded by your irrational fear of systemd. Were that not the case, you would realize there are perfectly legitimate counterpoints to every item listed above making them positives in favor of systemd. I'm not going to argue them with you because it's already been done ad nausem. Maybe you missed it. But they almost all to a "t" come in the theme of better, more reliable performance, the logging in particular, being a perfect example. Maybe you've never administered a system that logs enough to choke the fastest I/O available, dunno. :?
I don't give a crap about performance. No, really, I don't. I care more about availability: The last administration job I did I was in charge of backups and a build farm. I can't recall a time in the last 25 years where I actually needed to squeak out every last cycle on a machine rather than either add or design in buffer hardware in case of growth. In other words design to be scalable from the get go.

Why I care about availability:
1: I need systems I designed to be available. Period. This includes services both on my main machines and on my failovers. If a service dies on a single machine I want it to STAY DEAD until my monitors can either switch to a failover machine or or take that machine out of the failover pool. SystemD will just keep restarting the service ( by default anyways ). I see this as bad design either way you look at it.
1a: that means that a service could actually be down in a state of being restarted on a failover machine if data is then sent to it. Better to have the service stay dead so I can figure out WHY it fell on its face and correct the issue. Even if it is a semi random occurrence.
2: I can always throw more hardware at a problem if there is a desperate need for more performance. I will say I have never had issues come up where I had to run around with my hair on fire trying to get more hardware in an emergency. I planned ahead and made sure I had enough spare capacity to be a buffer in case of SHTF scenarios. It was kind of my job, and why after the first time I left I was offered almost triple my original pay to come back and clean up after the guy who replaced me decided my "oldschool ways of setting everything up" cost the company millions in a few days of backups that didn't actually backup to anywhere in his "new ideas to make everything easier".
3: for every argument that someone says is solved because systemD "has more performance" I can point out at least one area where it comes up worse compared to sysV / the UNIX philosophy ( which I might add has withstood the test of time... ~47 years so far). I also covered why, at least in the case of services that is always trotted out, the "reliability" argument is actually an argument to avoid using that system.


As an aside, if you are saturating IO with logs you are either doing something VERY wrong like logging an entire cluster to a single non raid arrayed disk, or you have some really serious problems like an array dropping a ton of disks and trying to rebuild itself from spares on the fly while still logging and being used. That or truly poor designs that didn't scale with your growth. At all.


All that being said, I am not afraid of systemD. I don't like it, for many reason including the feature creep and bloat, but I still use it on some of my machines. It works, mostly. Sometimes it needs a little tuneup with a large hammer ( more often than SysV ever did for me anyways ), but it does work. I don't like it, but I don't specifically avoid it. Just like Windows / OS/X / BSD ETC. I don't really like any OS since none of them are perfect, they all have at least a few ugly warts. Well, except for iOS, that's just a toy piece of crap crammed into a phone. I use whatever OS best fits the needs of the job I am doing at the time.
SystemD is OK for Desktops / Laptops, but a pretty poor choice for servers, at least in my grumpy old network designers opinion.
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Re: systemd is destructive

#154 Post by Danielsan »

pendrachken wrote: SystemD is OK for Desktops / Laptops, but a pretty poor choice for servers, at least in my grumpy old network designers opinion.
Don't worry you are not alone, at Google they think the same:

http://marc.merlins.org/linux/talks/Pro ... ProdNG.pdf
"page 16"

SysV vs Debian Insserv vs Upstart vs Systemd: Insserv
  • Debian had an upstart like dependency specified boot, before everyone else with insserv and startpar.
  • Before reboot, insserv will analyze specified dependencies between scripts, and rename initscripts as S10, some as S20, and so forth.
  • Everything under S10 is started at the same time, and things in S20 won't start until all of S10xx has started.
  • It's easy to visualize and review dependencies before reboot.
  • We can freeze them in our image, and deploy everywhere
  • Simple, and everything is the same => winner for us.

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Re: systemd is destructive

#155 Post by acewiza »

pendrachken wrote:SystemD is OK for Desktops / Laptops, but a pretty poor choice for servers, at least in my grumpy old network designers opinion.
Some of the most high-end high-availability mission-critical systems on the planet have been running with systemd for many years. You appear to be one of the old veterans stuck in the past I alluded to earlier. Your opinion is obviously misinformed.
Nobody would ever ask questions If everyone possessed encyclopedic knowledge of the man pages.

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