Re: Irony

[koanhead <akane@freegeekseattle.org>]

On 08/10/2014 11:40 PM, saint@eng.it wrote:
> koanhead writes:

>  > For the record, in case anyone is interested, I'm writing this from a
>  > Jessie box without systemd...
> 
>  > All I did was use aptitude interactively to remove systemd-* and then
>  > review and adjust the solutions as necessary. Nothing broke or caught fire.
> 
> Did it install automatically something else to manage the boot?
> 

It did not, because sysvinit was already present. Before I removed all
the systemd components I had already taken steps to keep sysvinit as
pid1. This installation is 2 years old, and never had systemd managing
its boot. If someone intends to go systemd-free on a new jessie install,
that person will have to do different things from what I have done.
I *think* all that's necessary is to install the sysvinit package, and
then remove all the systemd things. I don't know, and given the changing
nature of jessie I won't be able to determine any exact sequence of
steps until after the freeze. I don't intend to compile any such
instructions at any time. It's easy enough to figure out, and anyone who
can't manage it ought not use testing.

>  > I'm not a particular fan nor partisan of systemd. I have used (and
>  > supported) it in the past on various servers.
> 
> Hmmm. I see systemd more a client-machine-with-frequent-changes tool
> rather than a server tool:
> 
> - server should not change this often
> - server should not boot this often
> 
> While it  is fine to give  a good solution to  boot time dependencies,
> recomputing  them at  each  boot makes  sense if  you  think that  the
> machine will face changes (network, attached HW) at each boot. Else
> you should cache your computation results.
> 

This makes sense to me, but the systems I was supporting were not
provisioned by me and so the use of systemd was not my decision. I would
not choose it in most cases but am perfectly willing to work with it
when it's already there. In my experience systemd provides some
advantages, including good troubleshooting tools.

>  > I think systemd-as-default
>  > is wrong for Debian if only because it's Linux-only (and therefore not
>  > Universal) but I do find it good that Debian supports systemd.
> 
> systemd could stop Linux from being a Unix replacement o spur an
> innovation in the Unix world that could even lead to something
> smarter. I don't know which one will happen.
> 

My crystal ball is also cloudy on this point. I don't know what effect
systemd will have on the future of Linux, but I do feel that it's not
ideal for the present of Debian. In general I disapprove of adopting
defaults which don't work with all kernels on all architectures Debian
supports.