systemd has been a complete, utter, unmitigated success
Submitted 2 days ago by lemmydividebyzero@reddthat.com to technology@lemmy.world
https://blog.tjll.net/the-systemd-revolution-has-been-a-success/
Comments
melfie@lemy.lol 1 day ago
BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world 1 day ago
You motherfucker I can barely breathe right now!
finalarbiter@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
Fucking slop images contributed less than nothing to the article.
Logged logs logging loggily
Go off, king. Great point.
SpikesOtherDog@ani.social 1 day ago
Jurassic Park.
Not sure about the other one, but I don’t shun people for having their fun. Technical articles can be quite dry.
finalarbiter@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
I recognize the reference, and am also not actually against people having joy in their lives.
My problem is with the use of a tool that is built on a corpus of unlicensed works (regardless of how you feel about the current copyright system, which imo is broken af) and has caused significant environmental and economic damage to the world.
Ludicrous0251@piefed.zip 2 days ago
cecilkorik@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
Systemd killed my father, but it’s okay because he was Darth Vader anyway.
Technus@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
I honestly don’t get what people were so up in arms about, besides just not wanting to change what already worked for them.
adespoton@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
It uses a completely different paradigm of process chaining and management than POSIX and the underlying Unix architecture.
That’s not to say it’s bad, just a different design. It’s actually very similar to what Apple did with OS X.
On the plus side, it’s much easier to understand from a security model perspective, but it breaks some of the underlying assumptions about how scheduling and running processes works on Linux.
So: more elegant in itself, but an ugly wart on the overall systems architecture design.
hoppolito@mander.xyz 2 days ago
It uses a completely different paradigm of process chaining and management than POSIX and the underlying Unix architecture.
I think that’s exactly it for most people. The socket, mount, timer unit files; the path/socket activations; the
After=,Wants=,Requires=dependency graph, and the overall architecture as a more unified ‘event’ manager are what feels really different than most everything else in the Linux world.That coupled with the ini-style VerboseConfigurationNamesForThatOneThing and the binary journals made me choose a non-systemd distro for personal use - where I can tinker around and it all feels nice and unix-y. On the other hand I am really thankful to have systemd in the server space and for professional work.
MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
On the plus side, it’s much easier to understand from a security model perspective
Lol, no. Way more code in Systemd. Also more CVE per year than in other init/svc lifetime.
namingthingsiseasy@programming.dev 1 day ago
I’m so tired of reading this stupid argument. “People only dislike systemd because they’re afraid of change.” No, there are plenty of other concerning issues about it. I could probably write about a lot of problems with systemd (like the fact that my work laptop never fucking shuts down properly), but here’s the real issue:
Do you really think it’s a good idea for Red Hat to have total control over the most important component of every mainstream distro in existence?
Let’s consider an analogy: in 2008, Chrome was the shit. Everyone loved it, thought it was great and started using it, and adoption reached ~20-30% overnight. Alternatives started falling by the wayside. Then adoption accelerated thanks to shady tactics like bundling, silently changing users’ default browser, marketing it everywhere and downranking websites that didn’t conform to its “standards” in Google search. And next, Chrome adopted all kinds of absurdly complex standards forcing all other browser engines to shut down and adopt Chrome’s engine instead because nobody could keep up with the development effort. And once they achieved world domination, then we started facing things like adblockers being banned, browser-exclusive DRM, and hardware attestation.
That’s exactly what Red Hat is trying to pull in systemd. Same adoption story - started out as a nice product, definitely better than the original default (SysVInit). Then started pushing adoption aggressively by campaigning major distros to adopt it (Debian in particular). Then started absorbing other standard utilities like logind and udev. Leveraging Gnome to push systemd as a hard dependency.
Now systemd is at the world domination stage. Nobody knew what Chrome was going to do when it was at this point a decade ago, but now that we have the benefit of hindsight, we can clearly see that monoculture was clearly not a good idea. Are people so fucking stupid that they think that systemd/Red Hat will buck that trend and be benevolent curators of the open source Linux ecosystem in perpetuity? Who knows what nefarious things they could possibly do…
But there are hints, I suppose. By the way, check out Poettering’s new startup: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46784572
ranzispa@mander.xyz 13 hours ago
Red Hay has helped a lot the Linux system, I doubt desktop systems would be a good viable idea by now without their contribution. Does your analogy imply that you think Red Hat made systemd to eventually break it and thus make Linux not viable? I doubt they could do that without losing all their customers.
I mean, systemd can indeed do a lot of things but it mostly is used for startup and service management. And I prefer systems services to a cronjob.
MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Amutable - verifyable system integrity
0x0@infosec.pub 1 day ago
Systemd inserted a lot of flaws, many of them highly unsecure, for basically no reason other than “easier”,
The main developer being a microslop emoyee and getting windfall from other corporate entities didn’t sync up that great for integrity or security conscious people.
Eldritch@piefed.world 2 days ago
Technically, sysv everything was just a file full of instructions for the shell to parse and initialize. Human readable “technically”. It was simple and light weight. SystemD is a bit heavier and more complex as a system service binary. But that load and complexity is generally offset by added features that are extremely nice to have. Providing much more standardized targets and configuration iirc.
I had to search and dig trying to figure out how to set up services properly for my distro, back in the 90s. And when/how to start/restart them. There wasn’t one way to do it all. SysD made it all much more standard, simple, and clear. It’s biggest sin, is that it’s one more binary attack surface that might be exploited.
MajinBlayze@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Why are binaries uniquely attackable in a way that init scripts aren’t?
frongt@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Yeah, sysv init is all just scripts under the hood, and it’s a bit fragile/arcane. You have to write a bunch of files by hand, reference them correctly, and place and link them in the right directories. Systemd is a bit better, I have to admit that.
MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Openrc, Runit, s6, dinit…
driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br 2 days ago
When the drama started, the argument of my anti-systemd friend was that it goes against unix philosophy of one program do one thing only. But eventually even him turned on and become a fan.
INeedMana@piefed.zip 2 days ago
I haven’t been an opponent but I must admit, when you have headless machine of different arch (so no chroot) you try to make connect to LAN and start sshd, managing those links in those directories feels more like shooting in the dark. In that case simple scripts in a dir were easier
MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
There are now alternatives that do a better job at what Systemd does.
aBundleOfFerrets@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
ew ai “””art”””
phoenixz@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
Did somebody let Lennart out again? You know he shouldn’t be walking around alone outside, he’s just going to get himself into trouble.
On a slightly more serious note: systemd does some things nice, a lot of things it does very badly, and it really seriously needs to stop trying to push it’s grubby little fingers into every sub system out there.
All that is one thing, but the main issue with systems always seemed it’s main developer, Lennart Poetteting who was never one to shy away from drama and controversy, and not in a good way.
thoralf@discuss.familie-will.at 2 days ago
I don’t think I could name one thing that systemd improved for me. But I can name at least one major annoyance that made things worse for me.
The real issue is the backwards incompatibility which essentially forced everyone to switch instead of being able to choose.
For that alone I will keep disliking it.
Railcar8095@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Not specifically about systemd, but some things can’t be backwards compatible because they might want to just do things different.
Nobody was forced to change, the distros saw the options and decided in favor of systemd, the same they decide a million other things.
corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
Nobody was forced to change,
Red hat dominated the market and pushed it on out. You must remember this, don’t you?
MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Systemd usually can’t be in the same repo with other init systems/service managers (or with shims and hacks) *, while they themselves happily coexist. This is the Reason that there are non-systemd distros, not some unreasonable hate for new thing or anything.
* Yes, except Openrc, which was made as a drop-in for Systemd.
Simulation6@sopuli.xyz 1 day ago
I tried to stop worrying and love systemd, but it really is terrible to deal with sometimes.
Treczoks@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Any recommendations for a good book or online resource to learn about systemd? Not “how to use it” or “ten tricks for systemd users”, but how it works, what makes it tick, basically a systematic overview, end then a dive into the details.
zarlin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
The systemd website itself seems quite information-rich: systemd.io
WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
read the man pages. type “man systemd” into a linux terminal, and when finished also read the “see also” pages at the bottom. man systemd.unit is also a “central” page, it says lots of things common to all unit file types.
when you stumble into long parameter lists, you can skip them, you probably won’t use most of them. not because they are useless, though, so it’s better to at least read the names of all the parameters you come across that way so you have a picture what’s available.
skip systemd.directives, but know what it is: a catalogue of all systemd directives with the man page they are documented at. very useful, when you want to find something specific.
“man systemd.special” is special, it’s more about its internals, very informational, but relies on preexisting knowledge
Treczoks@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
I know how to find and read man pages, therefore I was looking for something that is better structured. A view from the top, not looking at the details that a man page delivers.
corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
Diving into Systemd would be a book written by Nietzsche.
darklamer@feddit.org 1 day ago
“Und wenn du lange in Systemd blickst, blickt Systemd auch in dich hinein.”
lemmydividebyzero@reddthat.com 2 days ago
I’m not experienced at it either and don’t know the best resources.
But what I can usually recommend in case you don’t want to see the usual “THIS-IS-A-PIECE-OF-THE-PUZZLE—COME-BACK-REGULARLY-FOR-MORE-CONENT” stuff, but more in depth stuff: Enter “filetype:pdf systemd” in your search engine. Google or DuckDuckGo will then only spit out pdf files about that topic… And the people who write PDF files are usually more experienced with the topic than those who write blog posts or “how to’s”.
Let me know if that helped in your case… :)
Treczoks@lemmy.world 2 days ago
OK, first impression: loads of PPTs turned PDF. Not a single book far and wide…
Treczoks@lemmy.world 2 days ago
You’ve got a point here, although this topic would do well as a wiki or similar linked documents.
frongt@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Its success is mitigated by how difficult it makes networking with . All I want to do is write out the config and have it work. I don’t want networkd or resolved mucking around with stuff. You end up having problems like this guy: piefed.social/c/…/oddness-with-systemd-resolved
MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
The day i had to debug DNS issues was the day i ditched systemd.
northernlights@lemmy.today 1 day ago
Yeah for that I like Canonical’s way with netplan. Write a very short and simple yaml, “netplan apply”, 'k tx bye.
Eryn6844@piefed.blahaj.zone 2 days ago
can someone please tell me how to make .mount files start at boot for smb shares ffs? is the only thing systemd is failing for me.
Eggymatrix@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
I dont know what you are doing, but I have my smb shares simply in fstab and never heard of any .mount file
avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
On modern systems, fstab entries are read by systemd and .mount files are automatically created for each entry. 😄
bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 2 days ago
Systemd can use .mount files to make services and stuff depend on the availability of a mount. They can either be created by hand or are created automatically from fstab.
Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org 2 days ago
IIRC You simply write/change the fstab as in every system. Then you say “systemctl daemon-reload” once, and this (re)creates your .mount files. Then “mount -a” or whatever you need.
darcmage@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
wiki.archlinux.org/title/Samba#As_systemd_unit
That’s the guide I followed on my desktop and laptop.
Eryn6844@piefed.blahaj.zone 2 days ago
thanks,
Eryn6844@piefed.blahaj.zone 2 days ago
thanks everyone.
hesh@quokk.au 2 days ago
Can you see if its trying and failing by using journalctl?
Eryn6844@piefed.blahaj.zone 2 days ago
no matter what i do it only does on try.
caseyweederman@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
My nfs mounts always add 1:45 to my boot even though I added _netdev to their lines in fstab. I don’t get it.
FauxLiving@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Use
_netdev,nofail,x-systemd.device-timeout=10snofail doesn’t interrupt the boot and 10 seconds is a more sane timeout. You can also use
x-systemd.automountAnd it will automatically mount the directory the first time it is accessed.
corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
If you shoot the competitors and reject questions and dissent, then you win. Good job, IBM !
lemmydividebyzero@reddthat.com 2 days ago
Didn’t expect this topic to still be that controversial… Maybe I’m too young to know, but how was IBM involved?
Paradox@lemdro.id 1 day ago
Ibm owns red hat
flying_sheep@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
Here we go again with the conspiracy bullshit
badgermurphy@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
Its not, though. The chain of events is well documented, with much of the original correspondence still there to read and evaluate for yourself. Its arguably not a conspiracy, either, since it was perpetrated by a single entity.
Their motivations for doing it are the subject of a lot of speculation, some of it pretty wild, but the facts that they did do it and how it was done are public record.
umbrella@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
this one is gonna be controversial.
lemmydividebyzero@reddthat.com 2 days ago
Yup.
Fokeu@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
LLM slop detected
P1nkman@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
ai:dr
EmpathicVagrant@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
Affluent Intelligence; Don’t Read?