Because they can.
For the good of all of us
Except the ones who are dead
But there’s no sense crying after every mistake.
You just keep on trying 'til you run out of cake.
And the science gets done, and you made a neat distro.
For the people who are using linux.
Me using runit, I agree
- OpenRC just feels nice
- Runit is simple
- S6 is really fucking fast
- Some distros (e.g. Guix, Void, Gentoo) come with non-systemd init systems by default, but I use them for other reasons
As for why I sometimes use musl, I like BSD. Also, Alpine Linux uses it by default, and most glibc software I’ve tried works just fine with gcompat.
Gentoo comes with OpenRC as default so I roll with it. And it’s simple and it works.
Plus the idea of having to randomly wait for some obscure stuff to block for a minute the boot/shutdown is not my thing.
The cool thing with Gentoo is that you can just decide one day to switch to systemd and it’s about as easy as changing your profile and updating your system (and maybe recompiling your kernel)
You have to compile everything though, even from a stage 2 installation. I haven’t attempted one for like 15 years, but I imagine it’s still not quick.
I like how simple and fast runit is. And the added security is nice.
For a while I had an Asus laptop, and no matter what, it seemed to not want to work properly with systemd-based distros. It would hang on-boot about 95+% of the time, I’d hard shut-off, restart, repeat.
On a whim, I tried Void Linux (runit) on it. And for whatever reason, it worked.
Makes me feel smarter and my system boots slightly faster… yeah
I used to configure and compile my own kernels in attempt to make them leaner and faster… They always ended up slower 🤦♂️
I use gentoo, so I feel that
My initial learning was in 2004 with Ubuntu, so Upstart and I also messed with FreeBSD, so I was familiar with the RC system. Systemd took me a bit to wrap my head around, and I don’t mind it. It’s good to know both.
Totally valid reason lol
SysV init works more reliably, is smaller, does just one job and is much, much better architected.
SystemD tends to fail if you do anything out of the ordinary, is massively bloated, has it’s claws into far too many parts of the system, is IMHO poorly architected, the many of the individual components are poorly designed and the whole thing is a huge, and utterly unnecessary, attack surface.
SystemD is probably adaquate if you just want to use your machine in the most basic way, but as soon as you try to do anything beyond that you start running into the rough edges and bad design decisions that it’s plagued with.
Could you elaborate on this? As someone who uses SystemD extensively on workstations and servers for spawning and managing both system-level and user-level services, I do find minimal issues overall with SystemD minus some certain functionalities such as socket spawning/respawning.
Of course some of default SystemD’s housekeeping services do suck and I replace them with others. I would like to see the ability to just remove those services outright from my systems as separate packages since they do remain useless, but it isn’t that big of an issue.
SysV init does one job, it runs a set of scripts in an admin defined order, the init portion of SystemD attempts to solve a dependency graph at boot time and execute the startup scripts (units) in the order it devines from that. The big problems I’ve had around that have been services silently failing to start because it failed to resolve the ordering, and the difficulty of inserting a new unit into the ordering in a specific place. It’s doable if there happens to be a target at the point you want, but if not you can’t really do it as the existing, and any new, services all sequenced on the existing target. With SysV, of course, setting the service start order is trivial.
The thing is, if SystemD was just an init system it wouldn’t be as bad, and has some useful ideas, but it tries to replace huge swathes of the system. As you say, some, and I’d say most, of the default housekeeping services suck, and you need to replace them. Unfortunately this then breaks the much vaunted integration of those services. Leaving them on the system isn’t a great plan as it just leaves the extra attack surface. So now you need to contemplate repackaging it to exclude the stuff you don’t need, which is a huge pain, and makes keeping up-to-date a big job. You’ve also got to worry about breaking dependencies from other packages.
Probably the biggest issue though is the huge attack surface SystemD exposes on your system. We’ve just seen an example of how that can be taken advantage of, with malware in a library way down the dependency chain from the system library that gets jammed into all sorts of things. I understand there is an effort underway to reduce those dependencies, but it’ll always be worse than simply not doing that in the first place.
The architectural and design issues are to do with the way the different parts are so tightly linked when they have no rational reason for being, the level of complexity introduced to core services and the incoherence of some of the choices around behavior. A recent bugbear was the automounter. It works most of the time, but if a mount unit fails it just gives access to the mountpoint, when by definition you obviously and explicitly didn’t want that. It also has a nasty habit of marking the unit failed, so future attempts also get bypassed until you reset it or have a recovery unit to do that.
Anyway this turned into a wall of text, and its late, so I’m going to stop there, I hope it’s reasonable coherent.
Systemd has a larger attack surface area since it touches more things, even though you can assign user accounts and such. Just the simple fact that it does more things than simply executing a shell script (like everything before systemd does) makes it more vulnerable.
Systemd has a larger attack surface area since it touches more things
That’s what the critics always say but are the things it manages unnecessary? If not, you’d use other tools for that but the overall attack surface would be the same.
deleted by creator
Such as?
I can actually configure and understand everything the UNIX way, which is actually important to me, because I do some wacky shit with my system + I’m a developer, I physically need to understand my system so I can debug it when it starts to eat shit
Although, seriously, if you’re not a developer and don’t intend on doing something specific with your system, just pick a mainstream distro and roll. I install Mint MATE or Ubuntu on my secondary systems too.
I’m not an anti-systemd extremist. I use Void because it is a simple distro that doesn’t break as often as Arch does, while also being very up-to-date.
I do have some things I dislike about systemd though which is why I will continue avoiding it in the future.
- It doesn’t follow the Unix Philosophy. This is a big problem for me, I want to be able to switch out different parts of my system as I please. Systemd is a collection of projects that are all so deeply integrated that you can’t use them without also running the Systemd init system. And now Desktop Environments are starting to depend on Logind for example and there’s no alternative for non-systemd users. (Except Elogind but that’s just Logind ripped out of SystemD)
- It’s bloated and has many features I don’t use. I just need an init system to start all my services at boot and restart them if they fail. Nothing more
Also using a Distro without Systemd is not really that hard
deleted by creator
By importance, descending:
First, I don’t like people promoting systemd. I don’t need it more than other init systems. It’s about picking the right group.
Second, I want a simple distribution so I use Void, which famously uses runit. It’s about being lazy.
Third, I don’t like the idea of it sprouting dependencies which it shouldn’t. It’s about paranoia. See recent news with a backdoor which wouldn’t work if not for this.
At this point i don’t care anymore if my system has systemd or whatever, as long it’s works i don’t have complaint
Maybe back when I’m still young i will agree with majority linux enthusiasm that systemd is bloat, GUI is bloat, or whatever. But now as long it’s work & can do job properly i don’t care or even careLife is bloat.
Jokes aside, GUI really is bloat. Especially when it’s made by a corporate company with absolute dogshit development practices.
On a more serious note, systemd is bloat. With all of you new kids coming over to this side, start with the right way: the runit way. Also compile Gentoo whilst you’re at it.
Obligatory /s if anyone is offended, you bunch of snowflakes
/s is bloat, say it like you mean it!
I would, but I’m 2 years old and care about attention on Lemmy. I got downvoted already.
Maybe votes are bloat. I need to change my mentality
Btw I’m using Garuda Linux for my daily drive
Does Alpine Linux count as “running”?
SystemD just isn’t necessary for every Linux install.
Linux has thousands of uses that aren’t “running on bare metal on my customized gaming rig at my computer desk to play steam games and pretend to look like Mr. Robot”
deleted by creator
Hate to be that guy, but all those articles are 5 years or older. Have people had more recent complaints about systemd or did that movement that complains about it kinda move on?
People don’t need more recent complaints when those complaints are still relevant today.
My initial experience with Linux was without systemD and I didn’t like it when Debian switched to it. Void is comfy enough.
Staying lean in my init is a hobby
