Bug#727708: init system other points, and conclusion

On Wed, Jan 1, 2014 at 4:56 AM, Colin Watson <cjwatson@debian.org> wrote:

On Tue, Dec 31, 2013 at 04:27:16AM -0008, cameron wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 30, 2013 at 7:17 PM, Colin Watson <cjwatson@debian.org>

> >inotify is used to notice changes to configuration files. This is
> >certainly helpful for users, but it isn't critical as "initctl
> >reload-configuration" works without it. We could probably do without
> >this with the aid of a dpkg trigger.
>
> inotify use can easily be ported to kqueue within Upstart, or
> libinotify-kqueue can be used.

Note that I'm talking about the Hurd here. kqueue is a kFreeBSD thing,
as far as I know. (Compare e.g.
https://lists.debian.org/debian-hurd/2013/10/msg00021.html)

> >prctl (PR_SET_CHILD_SUBREAPER) is used to make SIGCHLD notification
> >work properly when Upstart is supervising a user session. This isn't
> >a required feature and could easily be compiled out until suitable
> >kernel support is available (this actually seems like the sort of
> >thing that could be done in the Hurd without too much difficulty, but
> >I haven't looked into it). If absent, it might well impede the
> >ability to do an advanced desktop port, but it wouldn't get in the
> >way of porting the bulk of services.
>
> Unity, likely the only desktop environment using Upstart as a
> session init, is not in Debian. The sacrifice of this functionality
> on non-linux systems is perfectly acceptable.

While this is true today, we need to look to the future. Using Upstart
as a session init is not conceptually tied to Unity in any way, and I
expect that other desktop environments will want to use more advanced
session supervision soon enough.

I place less importance on the session init capabilities of Upstart, as alternative home grown solutions ww.ritten by the environments are in place and are portable. Furthermore, portability of these environments hinges on a session and seat manager, ConsoleKit support in GNOME is quickly disappearing, and ConsoleKit itself is completely abandoned. What this means, to me, is there is a lot more effort required to accomplish this than to port Upstart's session init capabilities or use the current portable session inits.

Sincerely,

Cameron Norman

--
Colin Watson [cjwatson@debian.org]