Re: If Not Systemd, then What?
On 11/16/2014 6:40 AM, Klistvud wrote:
> Dne, 21. 10. 2014 04:06:23 je Marty napisal(a):
>> On 10/20/2014 03:45 PM, Patrick Bartek wrote:
>>> After much vitriolic gnashing of teeth from those opposed to systemd,
>>> I wonder... What is a better alternative? And it can't be sysvinit.
>
> Why not? I do not see sysvinit -- or any other legacy init system, for
> that matter -- as contradicting the following:
>
>> Whichever one the user wants is the best. The users should decide,
>> individually and collectively. The distro should be the testbed for
>> new ideas, with users trying out and choosing solutions that work best
>> for them. Debian should not make that choice for users. "Upstreams"
>> should not make that choice for Debian.
>
> I'll second that. There has been much gnashing of teeth and talking
> about forks and pitchforks on this list. Instead of talking of
> catastrophic upheavals, such as systemd or forking, why not talk of
> refreshing/refurbishing/maintaining sysvinit and other existing systems?
> After all, we probably wouldn't be dealing with this hot systemd potato
> now had sysvinit been maintained intensely, actively, and with adequate
> manpower through all these years. Instead, it has been left more or less
> bitrotting on savannah (kudos to the few maintainers working on it
> despite the hostile stance of the Linux community), and this major
> upheaval is now the result.
>
The problem here is lack of time and/or skills. I would love to help,
but I already have my plate full. Additionally, I've done device
drivers and applications, but never dealt with init systems. There
would be a big learning curve. And then there is the politics of being
accepted by the DD community. Maybe some people don't think it's too
bad - but I get enough politics in real life that I don't want to deal
with it in a volunteer position.
Most of the qualified people I know are pretty much in the same position.
>>
>> This is official Debian Policy but some people seem upset about it.
>
> Exactly. Instead of all the ire, sysvinit & alternatives are in dire
> need of some love. Instead of reinventing the square wheel, much of this
> misguided energy could be directed toward patching up the old wheels
> which, after all, had been serving us -- and serving us well -- for the
> last 20 years.
>
So why, instead of spending all this time on a new init system didn't
developers already familiar with sysvinit work on it? Systemd wasn't
one person alone.
>> I hope this just a misunderstanding that gets cleared up after the
>> dust settles and everyone starts talking again, instead of just
>> yelling at each other.
>
> Ditto. I hope some defectors come back to Debian and realize that if
> they give Debian/upstream packages some work, many bitrotten packages
> may be reinstated into Debian main, without having to make a blend/fork
> or whatever. For the benefit of us all.
>
I don't think this is going to happen. I know a lot of people who are
looking at another distro, or even helping with a fork. This includes
me. And when I find a distro I like, I won't be coming back. The
others feel the same way.
I don't change distros very often; it's a lot of work to test new
systems before placing in production. And then there is the learning
curve.
>>> So, what would you all propose? For a server? Or for a user desktop?
>>> Or something that fulfills both scenarios? And why?
>>
>> We all should be able to propose our ideal solution with a reasonable
>> expectation that if it's a good idea, and somebody does the work, it
>> could be adopted and help other people, without being unduly hindered
>> by a software bundle laying exclusive claim to PID 1.
>
> 1. Reviving the existing init systems. Modernizing them, making them
> into true, interchangeable drop-in replacements of each other, which do
> the task assigned, and do it well. Each of them accomplishing at least
> the common subset of tasks an init system is supposed to provide.
>
That would be great, but it's not going to happen. The TC has already
indicated systemd is going to be the default, and packages are already
beginning to require systemd. I predict more and more packages will
require systemd as time goes on.
> 2. Complementing them with existing or new tools (again, drop-in
> interchangeable replacements of each other) which build on them and
> provide the next layer. For example, the kernel autofs facility provides
> very nice automounting and could be deployed to the majority of desktop
> installs (instead of being just an optional package, as it is now), thus
> making the various automount daemons of the various desktop
> environments/file managers virtually superfluous. As a further example,
> the former udev (prior to being merged into systemd) has already been
> forked and could/will serve us well for years to come. And so on.
>
This would also be great. However, who's going to spend the time
building these replacements? Maintaining/upgrading sysvinit is minor
compared to this job, and even that couldn't be done.
> We don't need another Windows,
> We don't need to know the way /home
> All we want is life beyond the Thunderdome
>
I agree here. Unfortunately, after the TC's decision, it looks like
Debian (along with a lot of other major distributions) is headed this way.
I think you have some great ideas. However, I just don't see the
desire/manpower to fight the Debian hierarchy. We've already lost one
long-time developer; I expect others will follow.
Jerry
Reply to: