Problems with Systemd and Why I Like BSD Init | Hacker News Reader

Problems with Systemd and Why I Like BSD Init

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18 pointsFizzadar9 comments

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10771100 (different URL, but looks like it's the same article)

I have some issues with this article. First off, the standardisation issues have nothing to do with the "benevolent dictator" system, if anything it's an issue with the lack of an equivalent mechanism outside of the kernel. Secondly it's IMHO naive to think that "waiting a few years more" would have solved the division within the Debian technical committee, considering how vocal systemd opponents still are. What I'd be more interested about is "here is what you get with all this technical debt", ie what makes core systems so complex.

"Notice how tiny it is. I can change anything in here I want. I can remove the part where it starts services and manually start just one or two services. I can change where the console output goes, like redirecting it to a file. I can make this script call whatever I like, however I like. Unlimited flexibility."

When people say stuff like this I feel lucky not to have to work with any their systems. :)

having built custom systems for appliance usage, this is great, I don't mind being on these sorts of systems so long as its well advertised whats going on.

Hah! Yeah I've definitely been bitten by this but, I've also been bitten in general by systems that are nonsensical and impossible to understand. The difference in the rc case is that I have a chance at reimplementing it in a sane way, probably given a few hours. I have no hope of understanding systemd in months, let alone replacing it or modifying it in hours.

There's a real genius in implementing the init system as a bunch of scripts. I sympathize with devs who have to maintain... 4 (?) different scripts for different systems, and boot times are definitely better. But the major issues were "hey I'd like to maintain fewer scripts, I wish my desktop booted faster, and having some way to list dependencies in my startup script would be nice", and I just don't think that "OK, we can fix that by completely overhauling system logging, daemons, configuration and management in 100,000s LOC of completely new, non-portable C code" was a reasonable response.

More good points why systemd is harmful: http://suckless.org/sucks/systemd

> one of the things that pushed me to look into the BSDs

This doesn't make sense for somebody already familiar with Gentoo and OpenRC.

I'm sure I will get downvoted; but I wish people would get over bitching about systemd.

You are wasting your energy (just as I am writing this) in anger. You are not doing anything productive except saying I don't like this; let me put my head under the sand.

You don't like what you see; so help fix it. Instead of being a Doubter who makes his doubts loud and known; roll up your sleeves and help out.

I hope systemd makes an appearance in FreeBSD as the old init system is old; it needs to be retired.

Sometimes pain can come from something new; but with that we learn.

It's should be retired because it's old? That's a terrible reason to retire something. New isn't always better, just as old doesn't mean worse. Also systemd won't be making any appearances in BSD. The one thing systemd got right is to couple it to the operating system.

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