[mythtv-users] SystemD (Was: Recommended Linux Distro post CentOS)

[Simon Hobson]

Yes I know SysVInit has it's problems. But for most people it does the job just fine.
And there are alternatives that deal with those problems without applying a scorched earth policy.
And which are both simpler and proven.


Stephen Worthington <stephen_agent at jsw.gen.nz> wrote:

> When you had to write an init script, that was a mini-project on its own

It doesn't have to be

> getting it to do everything needed - it took ages.  Using systemd to start a program is usually easy - just
> add the options you want and it often works first time.

Sorry, you lost me with "usually" and "often". That's not good enough.
With an init script it will always work for the simple reason that you have complete control over what it does. What systemd has done is abstract a lot of what normally ends up in init scripts into it's internal code - meaning that if what they offer doesn't do exactly what you want, then it's "somewhat harder" to tweak things.
Just to be clear what I'm pointing out here - systemd doesn't actually remove any of that complexity (especially when it comes to service startup sequencing), it tucks it away where you cannot get at it when that level of control is actually what you need.

But apart from that, a major objection I have is the way it's being forced on people regardless - and hence needing whole new distributions (e.g. Devuan) in order to keep other choices available. The "we don't care if SysVInit works for you, we aren't going to support it - because systemd" mentality - backed up by a policy of changing stuff in such a way that makes life harder for devs who do want to keep that choice.

And not to mention, the downright arrogance of a lead developer who has a clear policy of break whatever suits him, whenever it suits him, and leave others to work around whatever it is he's broken this week.

lastly, do you really want to trust your system, your PID1 which **WILL** bring down your whole system in a very messy way if/when it goes wrong, to coders with such good skills that Linus told at least one of them to "f-off and stop putting sh*t in the kernel" ?

If I wanted a system where things changed "because we wanted to change them" for no good reason, where users are alpha testers for buggy code, where large parts of the system had been morphed into a hairball of interdependent code, where user input isn't welcome, well I'd be running Windows. But I don't, which is why I run Devuan (or pre-systemd Debian for those that still need major upgrades) on my servers.



Dan Ritter <dsr-myth at randomstring.org> wrote:

> Except -- and this is actually really big -- using daemontools /
> runit / supervisor / similar init systems are also much better
> than both sysvinit and systemd. And all of those
> daemontools-style systems offer smooth integration with the
> PID=1 portion of sysvinit, and let you move over services one at
> a time.
> 
> The objection is not "systemd isn't better than sysvinit". The
> objection is "systemd isn't enough better than sysvinit to put
> up with the crap that goes along with it". And, also: "systemd
> wants to take over everything, making things worse along the
> way".

Well that's a lot better put than mine.



Simon