Re: upgrades must not change the installed init system [was: Re: Cinnamon environment now available in testing]
On 09/09/2014 16:59, Russ Allbery wrote:
> Carlos Alberto Lopez Perez <clopez@igalia.com> writes:
>> So, when upgrading from Wheezy to Jessie, we have three options:
>
>> 1) Keep the user init system (sysvinit most probably)
>> 2) Upgrade to systemd after asking the user.
>> 3) Upgrade to systemd silently without asking the user.
[...]
>> I understand that we want users to switch to systemd, so proper testing
>> is done and bugs are reported. So option 2 is a good compromise. By
>> asking users, each one can decide if he wants to risk to try systemd or
>> not.
>
> +1
>
> I don't believe we should switch init systems on upgrade without at least
> a prompt, and given how easy it is to switch to systemd later, I think it
> would be best to not switch init systems at all during an upgrade unless
> forced to do so by other package dependencies (that may not happen at all
> if systemd-shim is good enough).
I think there are good arguments for both switching to the new default
and not: on one hand the migration will fail in some cases (and I doubt
we will find all of them), on the other hand I believe we want most
users to switch to the default init system, at least mid to long term.
Being the default means it will be better tested and provide a better
experience to (most) users.
We could delay the transition-on-upgrade by one release, but the
migration from sysvinit to systemd on a Jessie -> Jessie+1 upgrade will
probably end up less tested (though systemd itself would probably be
more tested by then).
Having only some systems switch to a different init system on upgrade
seems potentially confusing to me. That said, it would be nice if
systemd-sysv could check for common problems on installation and issue a
debconf warning, e.g. when not currently mounted entries are present in
/etc/fstab or when keyscripts for cryptsetup are used.
Ansgar
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