Re: let's split the systemd binary package
On 25 October 2013 10:00, Olav Vitters <olav@vitters.nl> wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 03:33:56PM +0800, Thomas Goirand wrote:
>> Seems I misunderstood what logind was about. I thought it would force to
>> use specific Xdm implementations that would support it. So you do
>> confirm that it's not the case, and that we aren't forced into using
>> GDM? Or is it that other Xdm implementations all have logind support
>> these days? What exactly Gnome requires?
>
> logind is basically the replacement of ConsoleKit. However, it also will
> do more. It will handle VT switching, something which we want/need for
> _optional_ Wayland support[1]. ConsoleKit was mainly maintained and
> started by GNOME developers.
>
> E.g. XFCE either wants ConsoleKit, or logind. If you look at ConsoleKit,
> you'll notice it is NOT maintained. For the last 1.5 years, no
> development. See http://cgit.freedesktop.org/ConsoleKit/log/ for
> details.
>
> I wrote about logind and systemd in more detail at:
> https://blogs.gnome.org/ovitters/2013/09/25/gnome-and-logindsystemd-thoughts/
>
> I find it quite sad that on debian-devel the majority seems focussed on
> emotional arguments such as conspiracy theories, hidden agendas, etc.
>
Sure, but it doesn't help "logind" case though when:
- it's maintained in "the systemd daemon collection"
- it's pam module called "pam_systemd" instead of logind
- plently of packages that had to be fixed to check for "logind"
presence instead of "init is systemd" presence, when deciding to
enable logind support vs consolekit/none
- using XDG_* environment variables, instead of LOGIND_* or SYSTEMD_* variables
I think from above points you can see, that it's not unreasonable to
easily mistake that systemd brings logind, instead of "logind is part
of the systemd software collection" & that all of "the systemd daemon
collection" somehow is required / endorsed by FreeDesktop project.
I don't know if it works on older kernels and/or without cgroups
and/or how portable /just/ logind is, or other individual daemons in
"the systemd daemon collection".
Debian doesn't ship single binary package "GNOME" with all modules and
apps build and included in the single binary package, in the same way
it is not reasonable to maintain "systemd daemon collection" as a
single binary package. It already splits udev into separate
library/daemon packages, but at the moment logind is not. Debian is a
Universal OS, that supports multiple kernels, and a pleaora of
configurations, as one of Debian's core values. It is perfectly
acceptable for Debian installations to exclude/include udev, cgroups,
consolekit/logind, etc. Preserving that core value is important to
Debian. And Debian does take pride it the amount of architectures and
kernels it supports.
> Simple question: logind is maintained, ConsoleKit is not. I have not
> seen anyone raise this. Why?
That one is easy. Both are written by the same predominantly mayor
author and in some ways one project is superset of the other, and/or
compete to provide same feature. It's not unreasonable for one author
to pick to work on the superset and stop work on the other one. Then
later switching one major desktop environemnt to support new one and
not the old one and boom: old one goes from "stable/feature complete"
to "dormant/obsolete/unmaintained/legacy" project.
Regards,
Dmitrijs.
Reply to: