Re: piece of mind (Re: Moderated posts?)
On 10/15/2014 07:54 PM, Jonathan de Boyne Pollard wrote:
<snip>
* http://freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/hostnamed/
* http://freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/timedated/
* http://freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/localed/
* http://freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/logind/
These RPCs are supplied by server daemons, that communicate with client
programs (e.g. the aforementioned gadgets) over D-Bus. The operating
system specific stuff, such as exactly what configuration file contains
the static hostname on the system, is intended to be contained within
these server daemons. All that a client knows is that it makes the "set
the static hostname" RPC call, and some server does the necessary work
whatever that is. The Debian systemd package comes with its own
implementation of these server daemons. Contrary to the recommendation
of the GNOME people almost three years ago, but in line with what the
systemd people prefer, on Debian they aren't packaged separately and are
indivisible from the remainder of the package.
Did their interdependence not prevent them from being packaged
separately or at least make it pointless?
*
https://mail.gnome.org/archives/distributor-list/2012-January/msg00003.html
This is what three years' worth of hoo-hah has, at its root, all been
about: a packaging decision. I'm not going to summarize or re-hash the
hoo-hah here.
I would read it, but I think it will all be re-hashed again anyway, in
one way or another, and I don't think that's a necessarily a bad thing.
I thought I was keeping up with the news, but I missed most of this.
Suffice it to say that there are both engineering
rationales and socio-political rationales for the decision, and the
major problem is logind, the systemd server daemon that provides the
"login" API. Even though the other three somewhat are (modulo the fact
that they all pick the particular choices of configuration file
locations that match what other programs in the systemd package, such as
systemd-machine-id-setup, use), logind is not at all severable from the
rest of the systemd package, because the operating-system specific
underpinnings of it (These daemons are intended to be abstracting a
whole bunch of operating-system-specific non-portable stuff, remember.)
target a Linux system that is running the systemd daemon and its
ancillary daemons and utilities. Naturally enough <snip>
When I remove systemd and replace it with sysvinit, it still seems to
work. Can that part which is still working be refactored and turned back
into a modular login package? Is this the main problem of maintaining a
modular system? (It seems too simple.)
Or is it likely that the main problem is (what you call) "socio-political."
Thanks for the summary.
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