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Re: Really, about udev, not init sytsems



On Sun, Nov 25, 2012 at 04:03:21PM +0100, John Paul Adrian Glaubitz wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 25, 2012 at 10:52:58PM +0800, Thomas Goirand wrote:
> > On 11/25/2012 01:30 AM, John Paul Adrian Glaubitz wrote:
> > > Why? Why would you want to rip such low-level stuff apart?
> > 
> > Well, isn't it the opposite thing that is happening? "Such low-level
> > stuff" are being merged (with systemd+udev merge), they were
> > separated projects before.
> > 
> > So, I'd rather ask you: why would you want "such low-level stuff"
> > to merge, since some others like it separated (like for example,
> > to be able to have the choice of replacing one or another)?
> 
> Well, systemd and udev are developed by the same developers. Both
> daemons interact very closely and integration of the sources was the
> natural consequence.

udev and pulseaudio are developed by the same developers. Both daemons
interact very closely and integration of the sources was the natural
consequence.

glibc and the kernel is developed by the same group of companies. Both
interact very closely and integration of the sources was the natural
consequence.

Internet explorer and Windows are developed by the same company. Both
interact very closely and integration of the two was the natural
consequence.

I'm not sure I agree with any of those arguments.

> Yes, it makes it more difficult to use udev with a different init
> system, but again most people don't care
[citation needed]

> as long as the init system they have works reliable. And since udev is
> Linux-only anyway, I don't see a problem merging it with a Linux-only
> init system.

You're basing that statement on the premise that everyone agrees
switching the init system to systemd is fine, and that therefore merging
udev and systemd isn't a problem. This is false.

First, there are those among us who dislike systemd, for various
reasons. The fact that this thread exists, should prove that.

Second, there are distributions (like Ubuntu) who don't seem to have any
long- or near-term plans to move to systemd. Making them use systemd
just so they can continue to use udev seems fairly problematic.

> If it's so important to be able to choose such a low-level component
> as the init system, why aren't people demanding that you can choose
> different kernel stacks of choice? For example OSS4 instead of ALSA or
> the old Firewire stack instead of the new one?

Back when OSS was the only in-kernel option on Linux (2.4 and before,
IIRC), ALSA was developed alongside the kernel. Eventually it got
merged, as _an alternative_ inside the kernel. It's only fairly recent
that OSS support was dropped -- even if that's happened at all, of which
I'm not sure (and I don't care enough to check).

If you're going to merge udev and systemd, then suddenly such choice
becomes much more difficult. That's the problem here: that a technical
choice, which may or may not be the best (I really don't care at this
point) is forced upon people who don't care about those who disagree
with them.

udev took quite some time to be accepted by the community too, but now
it's probably fair to say that it has been. To try to couple that to
systemd sounds like a bad form of systemd advocacy to me.

Oh well, we'll see what the future brings, I suppose.

-- 
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