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Questions about SystemD and OpenRC

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d2racing911 at gmail

Aug 7, 2012, 5:47 AM

Post #1 of 103 (1546 views)
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Questions about SystemD and OpenRC

Hi everyone, for a couple of months now, I see on the list some of
activities about OpenRC been ported to FreeBSD or OpenRC to Debian and
other stuff related to SystemD.

I have some basic questions about all that :

1. The SystemD and Udev projetcs are merged now, so what is the impact on
the Gentoo on a short term period ?

2. I saw on some lists that Gnome/Kde and Xfce plan to use some SystemD
API, so does it means that we will need to install SystemD aside of OpenRC
?

3. In a long term vision, can OpenRC still exist on a Gentoo box(OpenRC
might be able to boot the box then give the control to SystemD/Udev for the
rest of the boot process) or we will need to migrate to SystemD to be able
to use Gnome/Kde or Xfce ?

4. Finally, is there any reason why Gnome/Kde/Xfce wants to add deps
related to SystemD ? I don't understand why these desktops want to depend
on a specific Sysint....

Thanks !

Sylvain aka d2_racing

rich0 at gentoo

Aug 7, 2012, 6:17 AM

Post #2 of 103 (1524 views)
Permalink

Re: Questions about SystemD and OpenRC [In reply to]

On Tue, Aug 7, 2012 at 8:47 AM, Sylvain Alain <d2racing911 [at] gmail> wrote:
> Hi everyone, for a couple of months now, I see on the list some of
> activities about OpenRC been ported to FreeBSD or OpenRC to Debian and other
> stuff related to SystemD.
>

You and half the world. Most of the issues you raise are much bigger
than Gentoo and are taking the whole linux world by storm.

> I have some basic questions about all that :
>
> 1. The SystemD and Udev projetcs are merged now, so what is the impact on
> the Gentoo on a short term period ?

In the short term nothing, although systemd has half-decent support
now, the default remains openrc and there are no plans to change that.

>
> 2. I saw on some lists that Gnome/Kde and Xfce plan to use some SystemD API,
> so does it means that we will need to install SystemD aside of OpenRC ?
>

Now, no. In the future - nobody really knows for sure, but it seems
likely that at least in some cases not only will you need to install
it, but you'll need to run it also.

I'd heard only Gnome was moving in this direction, but perhaps other
projects are as well. I'd be surprised if Xfce moves in this
direction - they've always been about being minimal.

> 3. In a long term vision, can OpenRC still exist on a Gentoo box(OpenRC
> might be able to boot the box then give the control to SystemD/Udev for the
> rest of the boot process) or we will need to migrate to SystemD to be able
> to use Gnome/Kde or Xfce ?
>

If you do need systemd for gnome/etc then most likely you'll just want
to use it across the board. Trying to run some kind of a hybrid seems
like the worst of both worlds.

> 4. Finally, is there any reason why Gnome/Kde/Xfce wants to add deps related
> to SystemD ? I don't understand why these desktops want to depend on a
> specific Sysint....

You'd have to talk to them, but I believe their goal is to go for more
of a vertically-integrated experience (which fits more with Gnome or
KDE than Xfce, but again the last I'd heard only Gnome was going in
this direction so far). Ubuntu is doing similar things with
Unity/Upstart.

I don't know everything that the integration will support, but I can
imagine they're interested in things like better WiFi and network
roaming support (re-set your network, re-configure your firewall
settings, update the UI, etc), better behavior during
suspend/resume/etc, handling of things like bluetooth, and so on. I
don't run linux on a laptop unless you count my Chromebook so I can't
really vouch for what the current experience is like or what needs
improvement.

I've tried to stick to the facts here, at least as far as I'm aware of
them. I don't think we need another 50-post thread on The Unix
Way(TM) and whether it is a good or bad thing. These developments are
going to be a challenge for distros like Gentoo or Debian that aim to
be general/meta distributions. It used to be that you could swap out
major components and all the APIs/interfaces still worked. In the
future it might be much harder to run Gnome on Gentoo on an OSX
kernel, etc. However, all of this is a bit speculative and it is hard
to say how things will actually turn out.

Rich

peter at stuge

Aug 7, 2012, 7:11 AM

Post #3 of 103 (1520 views)
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Re: Questions about SystemD and OpenRC [In reply to]

Rich Freeman wrote:
> In the future it might be much harder to run Gnome on Gentoo on an OSX
> kernel, etc.

Yes, but if the upstream that is Gnome decides to start depending on
systemd features then that's their decision, and the place to discuss
if it's good or bad (more important, the place to change it!) would
be within the Gnome project.

I guess Gentoo will always continue to offer the best of upstream.

OTOH, if upstream goes and make some change that means a regression
for Gentoo users, then they deserve bug report floods from their users! :)

//Peter

rich0 at gentoo

Aug 7, 2012, 7:43 AM

Post #4 of 103 (1515 views)
Permalink

Re: Questions about SystemD and OpenRC [In reply to]

On Tue, Aug 7, 2012 at 10:11 AM, Peter Stuge <peter [at] stuge> wrote:
> Yes, but if the upstream that is Gnome decides to start depending on
> systemd features then that's their decision, and the place to discuss
> if it's good or bad (more important, the place to change it!) would
> be within the Gnome project.

More or less, but again my goal was not to start another discussion -
just to inform. Anybody inclined to comment on whether this is good
or bad should go look at the list archives and see if any of the 400
messages in the last month already covered their points.

>
> I guess Gentoo will always continue to offer the best of upstream.

I don't think Gentoo has to limit itself to what upstream supports (I
don't think anybody would look at Prefix and say that this was what
any upstream had in mind). However, the bottom line is that to do
something exotic takes effort, so nothing will happen unless somebody
makes it happen.

>
> OTOH, if upstream goes and make some change that means a regression
> for Gentoo users, then they deserve bug report floods from their users! :)

Perhaps, but don't count on it going anywhere. With Gnome 3 they must
already have pretty thick skin. I suspect upstream would say that if
you want a smooth desktop experience you shouldn't be running Gentoo.
To some degree they probably even have a valid point. Gentoo is about
more than a just-works desktop so I think the best we'll be able to
offer is a "reasonable" experience. If things get really integrated
you might see some Sabayon-like forks favoring particular DEs/etc, and
as long as those forks contribute to our main tree I think that is
good for all of us.

Rich

d2racing911 at gmail

Aug 7, 2012, 8:33 AM

Post #5 of 103 (1511 views)
Permalink

Re: Questions about SystemD and OpenRC [In reply to]

The KDE team seems to work on that too :
http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-core-devel&m=134052539215508&w=2

Now I understand why some devs are working hard to make Mdev working with
OpenRC.

They want to replace Udev/SystemD with Mdev/OpenRC and solve this situation.

Sylvain aka d2_racing

2012/8/7 Rich Freeman <rich0 [at] gentoo>

> On Tue, Aug 7, 2012 at 10:11 AM, Peter Stuge <peter [at] stuge> wrote:
> > Yes, but if the upstream that is Gnome decides to start depending on
> > systemd features then that's their decision, and the place to discuss
> > if it's good or bad (more important, the place to change it!) would
> > be within the Gnome project.
>
> More or less, but again my goal was not to start another discussion -
> just to inform. Anybody inclined to comment on whether this is good
> or bad should go look at the list archives and see if any of the 400
> messages in the last month already covered their points.
>
> >
> > I guess Gentoo will always continue to offer the best of upstream.
>
> I don't think Gentoo has to limit itself to what upstream supports (I
> don't think anybody would look at Prefix and say that this was what
> any upstream had in mind). However, the bottom line is that to do
> something exotic takes effort, so nothing will happen unless somebody
> makes it happen.
>
> >
> > OTOH, if upstream goes and make some change that means a regression
> > for Gentoo users, then they deserve bug report floods from their users!
> :)
>
> Perhaps, but don't count on it going anywhere. With Gnome 3 they must
> already have pretty thick skin. I suspect upstream would say that if
> you want a smooth desktop experience you shouldn't be running Gentoo.
> To some degree they probably even have a valid point. Gentoo is about
> more than a just-works desktop so I think the best we'll be able to
> offer is a "reasonable" experience. If things get really integrated
> you might see some Sabayon-like forks favoring particular DEs/etc, and
> as long as those forks contribute to our main tree I think that is
> good for all of us.
>
> Rich
>
>

--
Salut
alp
Sylvain

mgorny at gentoo

Aug 7, 2012, 9:29 AM

Post #6 of 103 (1514 views)
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Re: Questions about SystemD and OpenRC [In reply to]

On Tue, 7 Aug 2012 11:33:59 -0400
Sylvain Alain <d2racing911 [at] gmail> wrote:

> The KDE team seems to work on that too :
> http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-core-devel&m=134052539215508&w=2

it's actually worth it.
more user-spread FUD or however you like to call it on the topic than
I'm not sure if *devs* are actually working on that. I believe there's

> Now I understand why some devs are working hard to make Mdev working
> with OpenRC.

different, you could as well disable USE=udev and use regular udev.
equivalent to KDE/GNOME/whatever without anything? And if it's no
But you are aware that KDE/GNOME/whatever+mdev would be practically

> They want to replace Udev/SystemD with Mdev/OpenRC and solve this
> situation.
>
> Sylvain aka d2_racing
>
> 2012/8/7 Rich Freeman <rich0 [at] gentoo>
>
> > On Tue, Aug 7, 2012 at 10:11 AM, Peter Stuge <peter [at] stuge> wrote:
> > > Yes, but if the upstream that is Gnome decides to start depending
> > > on systemd features then that's their decision, and the place to
> > > discuss if it's good or bad (more important, the place to change
> > > it!) would be within the Gnome project.
> >
> > More or less, but again my goal was not to start another discussion
> > - just to inform. Anybody inclined to comment on whether this is
> > good or bad should go look at the list archives and see if any of
> > the 400 messages in the last month already covered their points.
> >
> > >
> > > I guess Gentoo will always continue to offer the best of upstream.
> >
> > I don't think Gentoo has to limit itself to what upstream supports
> > (I don't think anybody would look at Prefix and say that this was
> > what any upstream had in mind). However, the bottom line is that
> > to do something exotic takes effort, so nothing will happen unless
> > somebody makes it happen.
> >
> > >
> > > OTOH, if upstream goes and make some change that means a
> > > regression for Gentoo users, then they deserve bug report floods
> > > from their users!
> > :)
> >
> > Perhaps, but don't count on it going anywhere. With Gnome 3 they
> > must already have pretty thick skin. I suspect upstream would say
> > that if you want a smooth desktop experience you shouldn't be
> > running Gentoo. To some degree they probably even have a valid
> > point. Gentoo is about more than a just-works desktop so I think
> > the best we'll be able to offer is a "reasonable" experience. If
> > things get really integrated you might see some Sabayon-like forks
> > favoring particular DEs/etc, and as long as those forks contribute
> > to our main tree I think that is good for all of us.
> >
> > Rich
> >
> >
>
>

--
Best regards,
Michał Górny

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mikemol at gmail

Aug 7, 2012, 10:31 AM

Post #7 of 103 (1510 views)
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Re: Questions about SystemD and OpenRC [In reply to]

On Tue, Aug 7, 2012 at 12:29 PM, Michał Górny <mgorny [at] gentoo> wrote:
> On Tue, 7 Aug 2012 11:33:59 -0400
> Sylvain Alain <d2racing911 [at] gmail> wrote:
>
>> The KDE team seems to work on that too :
>> http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-core-devel&m=134052539215508&w=2
>
> it's actually worth it.
> more user-spread FUD or however you like to call it on the topic than
> I'm not sure if *devs* are actually working on that. I believe there's

Perhaps not official Gentoo devs, but users taking development
initiative to solve a problem in userland. I'm not an official Gentoo
dev, either, but I think it'd be a very bad idea to discourage or
ridicule such initiative. Someone putting in that much effort in light
of all the information already available isn't something that should
be taken lightly!

>
>> Now I understand why some devs are working hard to make Mdev working
>> with OpenRC.
>

> different, you could as well disable USE=udev and use regular udev.

> equivalent to KDE/GNOME/whatever without anything? And if it's no

> But you are aware that KDE/GNOME/whatever+mdev would be practically

(My reason for replying...looks like a few chunks of text got lost here.)

[snip]

--
:wq

tester at gentoo

Aug 7, 2012, 12:00 PM

Post #8 of 103 (1513 views)
Permalink

Re: Questions about SystemD and OpenRC [In reply to]

Hi,

Let's cut the FUD.

On Tue, 2012-08-07 at 08:47 -0400, Sylvain Alain wrote:
> 1. The SystemD and Udev projetcs are merged now, so what is the impact
> on the Gentoo on a short term period ?

Only the build system is merged, they're still separate binaries.

> 2. I saw on some lists that Gnome/Kde and Xfce plan to use some
> SystemD API, so does it means that we will need to install SystemD
> aside of OpenRC ?

The APIs that GNOME is using from systemd are simple, well designed and
well documented D-Bus APIs [1][2][3]. They are implemented by simple
binaries separate from the core systemd. Legacy init systems can just
re-use them as-is.

Also, systemd includes logind, which replaces ConsoleKit with a much
better design.

> 4. Finally, is there any reason why Gnome/Kde/Xfce wants to add deps
related to SystemD ? I don't understand why these desktops want to
depend on a specific Sysint....

Old versions of GNOME (and KDE, XFCE, etc) had to have distro-specific
code for a bunch of things, such as changing the timezone, the system
locale or the hostname. Because these things are in separate places in
every distribution for historical reason. So every desktop had to
re-implement these things for every distribution, making a lot of
duplicated code. The goal is to have a single set of tools using a
common D-Bus API that you only have to implement once per distribution
and that every desktop can use.

> 3. In a long term vision, can OpenRC still exist on a Gentoo
> box(OpenRC might be able to boot the box then give the control to
> SystemD/Udev for the rest of the boot process) or we will need to
> migrate to SystemD to be able to use Gnome/Kde or Xfce ?

I expect that in the not so long term, systemd will become an essential
user-space component of desktop Linux, just like crond, syslog, dbus,
udev or glibc. Sharing that code just makes sense, that allows
distributions to focus on their strength instead of having to maintain a
nightmare of shell scripts. Sure you can do a Android and write your own
crappier version, but that doesn't gain you anything.

Refs:
[1] http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/hostnamed
[2] http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/timedated
[3] http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/localed
[4] http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/logind

--
Olivier Crête
tester [at] gentoo
Gentoo Developer

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mgorny at gentoo

Aug 7, 2012, 1:13 PM

Post #9 of 103 (1504 views)
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Re: Questions about SystemD and OpenRC [In reply to]

On Tue, 7 Aug 2012 13:31:32 -0400
Michael Mol <mikemol [at] gmail> wrote:

> On Tue, Aug 7, 2012 at 12:29 PM, Michał Górny <mgorny [at] gentoo>
> wrote:
> > On Tue, 7 Aug 2012 11:33:59 -0400
> > Sylvain Alain <d2racing911 [at] gmail> wrote:
> >
> >> The KDE team seems to work on that too :
> >> http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-core-devel&m=134052539215508&w=2
> >
> > it's actually worth it.
> > more user-spread FUD or however you like to call it on the topic
> > than I'm not sure if *devs* are actually working on that. I believe
> > there's
>
> Perhaps not official Gentoo devs, but users taking development
> initiative to solve a problem in userland. I'm not an official Gentoo
> dev, either, but I think it'd be a very bad idea to discourage or
> ridicule such initiative. Someone putting in that much effort in light
> of all the information already available isn't something that should
> be taken lightly!

I don't want to offend anyone but let's be honest: people start many
initiatives, and they are not always right, no matter how many effort
is put. I don't want to discourage it but sometimes I dislike
the importunity accompanying it.

Users are free to do whatever they want as long as it doesn't harm
the rest of users. And I'm afraid that too much enthusiasm over mdev
will actually cause a number of users to end up being disappointed
that one or another magic requiring udev no longer works.

>
> >
> >> Now I understand why some devs are working hard to make Mdev
> >> working with OpenRC.
> >
>
> > different, you could as well disable USE=udev and use regular udev.
>
> > equivalent to KDE/GNOME/whatever without anything? And if it's no
>
> > But you are aware that KDE/GNOME/whatever+mdev would be practically
>
> (My reason for replying...looks like a few chunks of text got lost
> here.)

Sorry for the confusion caused to you and the others. You need to read
it bottom-to-top. I reversed the line order for Sylvain who seems to
prefer reading that way.

--
Best regards,
Michał Górny

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rdalek1967 at gmail

Aug 7, 2012, 2:36 PM

Post #10 of 103 (1502 views)
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Re: Questions about SystemD and OpenRC [In reply to]

Michał Górny wrote:
> On Tue, 7 Aug 2012 13:31:32 -0400
> Michael Mol <mikemol [at] gmail> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, Aug 7, 2012 at 12:29 PM, Michał Górny <mgorny [at] gentoo>
>> wrote:
>>> On Tue, 7 Aug 2012 11:33:59 -0400
>>> Sylvain Alain <d2racing911 [at] gmail> wrote:
>>>
>>>> The KDE team seems to work on that too :
>>>> http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-core-devel&m=134052539215508&w=2
>>> it's actually worth it.
>>> more user-spread FUD or however you like to call it on the topic
>>> than I'm not sure if *devs* are actually working on that. I believe
>>> there's
>> Perhaps not official Gentoo devs, but users taking development
>> initiative to solve a problem in userland. I'm not an official Gentoo
>> dev, either, but I think it'd be a very bad idea to discourage or
>> ridicule such initiative. Someone putting in that much effort in light
>> of all the information already available isn't something that should
>> be taken lightly!
> I don't want to offend anyone but let's be honest: people start many
> initiatives, and they are not always right, no matter how many effort
> is put. I don't want to discourage it but sometimes I dislike
> the importunity accompanying it.
>
> Users are free to do whatever they want as long as it doesn't harm
> the rest of users. And I'm afraid that too much enthusiasm over mdev
> will actually cause a number of users to end up being disappointed
> that one or another magic requiring udev no longer works.

User perspective follows:

What I don't like about the way Walter, mdev, is being treated is this.
People say that if you don't like the way udev is going, WRITE CODE. If
you are not going to write code, don't complain about udev. Then
Walter, I think I got the name right, comes along and comes up with a
alternative for udev that seems to work well for the people using it.
Then people complain because he is actually stepping up and WRITING
CODE. Well, it seems a person can't win on this.

Some, no names mentioned, need to make up their minds. Either listen
when people don't like the way things are going or let people write code
to have a alternative to whatever people are not liking and don't
complain because people are stepping up and doing something about it,
for example, writing code.

As to mdev not being as feature rich as udev, well, some people don't
need the features udev has and I don't think anyone is saying mdev is
the same as udev. It even says on the wiki that there are some
situations where it should not even be tried because it is known to not
work. Given that, if a person tries to use mdev to replace udev in a
situation where it is known not to work, then they should read more
closely. It's not Walters fault, it's the person in the chair.

Now, since Walter didn't like the way things are going, can he write
code and be left in peace to do so? Maybe have a little bit of support
while he is doing it?

Dale

:-) :-)

--
I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how you interpreted my words!

rich0 at gentoo

Aug 7, 2012, 7:21 PM

Post #11 of 103 (1505 views)
Permalink

Re: Questions about SystemD and OpenRC [In reply to]

On Tue, Aug 7, 2012 at 5:36 PM, Dale <rdalek1967 [at] gmail> wrote:
> Now, since Walter didn't like the way things are going, can he write
> code and be left in peace to do so? Maybe have a little bit of support
> while he is doing it?

++

I can't say I think that preferring mdev over an initramfs is a good
choice, but I can say that I prefer that people have the choice to
make in the first place. Nobody can expect anybody to maintain
something for them, but if some are willing to step up and give Gentoo
a bit of a broader perspective that is what we're all about. Where
else are you going to find a linux distro that can run a fair bit of
their repository on Interix of all things?

We all get grumpy from time to time, but I've learned that if you're
going to speak up it is best if you're doing so to offer something
better, and not just to gripe. My hat is always off to those who
write code, and the community around Gentoo that has allowed us to
choose whether to run it. Systemd, Dracut, Wayland, and more - bring
it on, and if my writing an odd init script/unit/whatever for a
package I maintain makes it possible to do something genuinely new
with Gentoo, then file all the bugs you want. :)

Rich

1i5t5.duncan at cox

Aug 8, 2012, 3:55 AM

Post #12 of 103 (1492 views)
Permalink

Re: Questions about SystemD and OpenRC [In reply to]

Michał Górny posted on Tue, 07 Aug 2012 22:13:21 +0200 as excerpted:

> Sorry for the confusion caused to you and the others. You need to read
> it bottom-to-top. I reversed the line order for Sylvain who seems to
> prefer reading that way.

LOL! THAT's what it was! Along the same lines...

...senil emas eht gnolA !saw ti tahw s'TAHT !LOL

http://www.textreverse.com/

(While the link I had saved was stale it did mean I still remembered
enough about it to plug the idea into google and successfully find it.
Link updated. =:^)

--
Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman

kentfredric at gmail

Aug 8, 2012, 4:06 AM

Post #13 of 103 (1490 views)
Permalink

Re: Re: Questions about SystemD and OpenRC [In reply to]

On 8 August 2012 22:55, Duncan <1i5t5.duncan [at] cox> wrote:
> LOL! THAT's what it was! Along the same lines...
>
> ...senil emas eht gnolA !saw ti tahw s'TAHT !LOL
>
> http://www.textreverse.com/
>
> (While the link I had saved was stale it did mean I still remembered
> enough about it to plug the idea into google and successfully find it.
> Link updated. =:^)

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=reverse+hgual%20doog%20a%20ekil%20sdnuos%20taht

Google not required ;D

(Also, that textreverse.com link was really slow to load )

--
Kent

peter at stuge

Aug 8, 2012, 4:22 AM

Post #14 of 103 (1491 views)
Permalink

Re: Re: Questions about SystemD and OpenRC [In reply to]

Kent Fredric wrote:
> > (While the link I had saved was stale it did mean I still remembered
> > enough about it to plug the idea into google and successfully find it.
> > Link updated. =:^)
>
> https://duckduckgo.com/?q=reverse+hgual%20doog%20a%20ekil%20sdnuos%20taht
>
> Google not required ;D

Internet not required:

$ rev <<< foobar
raboof
$ tac <<< 'line1
> line2'
line2
line1
$

//Peter

1i5t5.duncan at cox

Aug 8, 2012, 4:30 AM

Post #15 of 103 (1489 views)
Permalink

Re: Questions about SystemD and OpenRC [In reply to]

Dale posted on Tue, 07 Aug 2012 16:36:30 -0500 as excerpted:

> What I don't like about the way Walter, mdev, is being treated is this.
> People say that if you don't like the way udev is going, WRITE CODE. If
> you are not going to write code, don't complain about udev. Then
> Walter, I think I got the name right, comes along and comes up with a
> alternative for udev that seems to work well for the people using it.
> Then people complain because he is actually stepping up and WRITING
> CODE. Well, it seems a person can't win on this.

FWIW, while this isn't (currently at least) a solution I'd use, I
certainly respect the man both for coming up with a solution to his own
problems, and more importantly, for sharing it with others. =:^)

The more so here, since as he's stated (and much like me), he's
reasonable with scripting, etc, but doesn't claim to be a C/C++ coder.

I believe there's quite a few list readers who have a similar respect for
his efforts. Just because it's not something they'd use personally,
doesn't mean they don't respect the idea.

I believe at least some of the push-back isn't out of disrespect per se,
or even saying it shouldn't be done, it's more a skepticism many within
the FLOSS community develop over time, having seen all sorts of projects
begun, but few of them actually survive more than a few months,
continuing to be maintained and updated over years. Just take a look at
sourceforge or github or the like, for the number of half-or quarter-
finished projects...

FLOSS projects are similar to business startups in that regard.
Something like 80% don't survive a year or ever become even close to self-
sufficient, but if they do... they're generally around for five. (Tho a
difference with FLOSS is that in 5-10 years, the /need/ for the project
has often disappeared as well, at least as originally envisioned. By
that point many projects that actually survived their first year and got
a userbase, have either evolved far enough from the original idea that
they're hardly recognizable, or have simply disappeared as no longer
necessary or useful. By contrast, a business life cycle, once it gets
beyond that first year, tends to be rather longer...

So I think a lot of it is more a "nice idea, we'll see if it sticks
around", more than a disrespect for it or the person behind it, per se.
If it's still around and actually useful in a couple years, I expect
you'll see a lot more overt respect that simply isn't evident, now.

--
Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman

peter at stuge

Aug 8, 2012, 4:39 AM

Post #16 of 103 (1495 views)
Permalink

Re: Re: Questions about SystemD and OpenRC [In reply to]

Duncan wrote:
> I believe there's quite a few list readers who have a similar respect
> for his efforts.

I believe so too!

I think it's a great effort. It may not fit my use cases, but I don't
care about that - even if it is *only* Walter scratching his own itch
I agree that it's important to show some love for the work. It
doesn't matter right now if the itch will go away or if mdev will
rule the Linux desktop one day. It's ongoing work and I think it's
important not to dismiss it.

//Peter

1i5t5.duncan at cox

Aug 8, 2012, 4:47 AM

Post #17 of 103 (1497 views)
Permalink

Re: Questions about SystemD and OpenRC [In reply to]

Peter Stuge posted on Wed, 08 Aug 2012 13:22:54 +0200 as excerpted:

> Internet not required:
>
> $ rev <<< foobar
> raboof
> $ tac [...]

Thanks.

I'd read about those before (at least tac), but they aren't links (stale
or not), so I'd forgotten them...

Hmm... links to the manpages might solve that! =:^)

http://ss64.com/bash/tac.html

http://ss64.com/bash/rev.html

--
Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman

Jason at zx2c4

Aug 8, 2012, 1:27 PM

Post #18 of 103 (1487 views)
Permalink

Re: Questions about SystemD and OpenRC [In reply to]

On Tue, Aug 7, 2012 at 3:17 PM, Rich Freeman <rich0 [at] gentoo> wrote:

> You'd have to talk to them, but I believe their goal is to go for more
> of a vertically-integrated experience (which fits more with Gnome or
> KDE than Xfce, but again the last I'd heard only Gnome was going in
> this direction so far). Ubuntu is doing similar things with
> Unity/Upstart.

It's worth noting that KDE is actually becoming more independent, as
KDE Frameworks 5 is going to focus on having smaller separate reusable
components, with fewer monolithic dependencies.

lu_zero at gentoo

Aug 9, 2012, 1:42 AM

Post #19 of 103 (1487 views)
Permalink

Re: Questions about SystemD and OpenRC [In reply to]

On 08/07/2012 09:00 PM, Olivier Crête wrote:
> I expect that in the not so long term, systemd will become an essential
> user-space component of desktop Linux, just like crond, syslog, dbus,
> udev or glibc. Sharing that code just makes sense, that allows

As in completely optional and easily replaceable? That would be a nice
improvement over the current "use it or die" attitude.

> distributions to focus on their strength instead of having to maintain a
> nightmare of shell scripts. Sure you can do a Android and write your own
> crappier version, but that doesn't gain you anything.

Repeat after me: having your first process require anything more than
libc is stupid and dangerous.

Once that concept gets accepted then we could discuss about why
reinventing shellscript may not be that sound and other less glaring,
horrid and appalling design choices.

Most ideas behind systemd are interesting, their current implementation
is sometimes completely wrong and given the experience with pulseaudio
we all know that they won't change even if you provide code for it.

Obviously it is always fun seeing people first say "accept it or fork
it", then "do not keep your fork you are wasting time" once somebody
starts forking and/or working for an alternative.

lu

peter at stuge

Aug 9, 2012, 7:02 AM

Post #20 of 103 (1475 views)
Permalink

Re: pid 1 design [In reply to]

Luca Barbato wrote:
> Repeat after me: having your first process require anything more
> than libc is stupid and dangerous.

Why do you say?

And why is libc different from other libraries, say libuuid or
libext2fs? I mean: Why allow pid 1 to require libc, it could
just be statically linked.

//Peter

rich0 at gentoo

Aug 9, 2012, 8:25 AM

Post #21 of 103 (1470 views)
Permalink

Re: pid 1 design [In reply to]

On Thu, Aug 9, 2012 at 10:02 AM, Peter Stuge <peter [at] stuge> wrote:
> Luca Barbato wrote:
>> Repeat after me: having your first process require anything more
>> than libc is stupid and dangerous.
>
> Why do you say?
>
> And why is libc different from other libraries, say libuuid or
> libext2fs? I mean: Why allow pid 1 to require libc, it could
> just be statically linked.

So, while I've had only positive (but limited) experiences with
systemd, I can understand the fundamental design concern with having a
complex process running as pid 1. If init dies, the kernel panics
(just boot your system with init=/bin/bash and type exit to see).

So, a simple init that is less likely to die is a good thing.

That said, init NEEDS to be able to communicate with other processes
if you don't want it to keep propping things up when you're trying to
shut the system down. This is usually done via signals (init can trap
them all at least on linux), but I believe there are other mechanisms
that have been used in traditional init implementations. It seems
like the big changes to systemd/etc are to allow it to communicate via
dbus.

I'm not sure why having systemd be a monolithic PID=1 solution was
chosen - that is probably a better topic for their lists. Maybe a
more resilient solution would be to have an init as PID=1 that does
nothing but launch systemd and keep it propped up until it gets a
signal from systemd. However, that could have issues I'm just not
thinking of. That could be accomplished just by running the
traditional init and having a runlevel with just systemd in it, aside
from any issues not being PID 1 creates for systemd.

Rich

lu_zero at gentoo

Aug 9, 2012, 8:59 AM

Post #22 of 103 (1470 views)
Permalink

Re: pid 1 design [In reply to]

On 08/09/2012 04:02 PM, Peter Stuge wrote:
> Luca Barbato wrote:
>> Repeat after me: having your first process require anything more
>> than libc is stupid and dangerous.
>
> Why do you say?

Because libc supposedly should be stable, other libraries are a bit more
prone to radical changes and other annoyances. You wouldn't like to
reboot your system if you replace/update dbus or glib, do you?

> And why is libc different from other libraries, say libuuid or
> libext2fs? I mean: Why allow pid 1 to require libc, it could
> just be statically linked.

Actually statically linked initial process would be another reason why
you'd like to NOT use large libraries and in large number.

Obviously if you are thinking about desktop and not system in which
replacing kernels should be done w/out downtime (qnx and some linux
patches let you do that) it isn't a huge concern.

Yet I'm not used to have to reboot after issuing emerge -u world and
most of the times I don't have even to restart X...

lu

wyatt.epp at gmail

Aug 9, 2012, 9:00 AM

Post #23 of 103 (1471 views)
Permalink

Re: pid 1 design [In reply to]

On Thu, Aug 9, 2012 at 11:25 AM, Rich Freeman <rich0 [at] gentoo> wrote:
> ...have an init as PID=1 that does
> nothing but launch systemd and keep it propped up until it gets a
> signal from systemd. However, that could have issues I'm just not
> thinking of.

I'm not the maintainer, but this method does seem to work pretty well
for OpenRC and our old friend baselayout-1 (so, the last decade or so,
as I understand it).

rich0 at gentoo

Aug 9, 2012, 10:13 AM

Post #24 of 103 (1471 views)
Permalink

Re: pid 1 design [In reply to]

On Thu, Aug 9, 2012 at 12:00 PM, Wyatt Epp <wyatt.epp [at] gmail> wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 9, 2012 at 11:25 AM, Rich Freeman <rich0 [at] gentoo> wrote:
>> ...have an init as PID=1 that does
>> nothing but launch systemd and keep it propped up until it gets a
>> signal from systemd. However, that could have issues I'm just not
>> thinking of.
>
> I'm not the maintainer, but this method does seem to work pretty well
> for OpenRC and our old friend baselayout-1 (so, the last decade or so,
> as I understand it).

Yes, but OpenRC basically just launches processes and considers itself
done with them. Systemd is a bit more like a shepherd, looking after
things for their entire lifecycle. When you use openrc to stop a
process it just runs a script which is responsible for cleaning up.
If you stop a systemd service it can try nicely first, but if any
descendant of the service is left running it will be cleaned up with a
vengeance. If a process is supposed to be running and stops, systemd
can restart it (which makes it more like init - which restarts
anything in inittab if it dies).

Systemd isn't a like-for-like replacement for traditional inits. It
aims to be much more, so this is a bit of an apples-to-oranges
comparison. Again, I'm not sure that it HAS to work the way it does,
but I wouldn't dismiss their design simply because it is different.
Also again, if curious I'd probably ask on their own list, assuming it
hasn't already been answered there.

Rich

williamh at gentoo

Aug 9, 2012, 10:29 AM

Post #25 of 103 (1472 views)
Permalink

Re: pid 1 design [In reply to]

On Thu, Aug 09, 2012 at 05:59:39PM +0200, Luca Barbato wrote:
> Yet I'm not used to have to reboot after issuing emerge -u world and
> most of the times I don't have even to restart X...

What if sysvinit is updated as part of that emerge -u world? Don't you
reboot then?

William

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