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ldng

It is not simply a clone of Apple's launchd. It's a lot more. Too much at that. It's about it getting in the way.

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Afaik they both do:

- init

- dependency management

- inetd-type spawning

- timed / cron launching

- managing processes depending on network state or filesystem mounting

You’re missing some:

- logging (replacing syslog)

- login (replacing login managers such as ConsoleKit)

- network configuration

- tmpfiles

- timedated (replacing ntpd)

- udev (userspace /dev manager)

- boot (replacing boot managers like grub)

As you can see, systemd has taken over a great many things that are totally unrelated to its core mission of replacing sysvinit. The fact that it continues to grow and take over all these other facilities and the fact that the systemd team actively fights people trying to develop alternatives is why people hate the project so much.

Per JWZ's Law, I am waiting for it to read mail:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski#Principles

- systemd-nspawn (replacing Docker)

- systemd-resolved (DNS resolver)

- systemd-cryptsetup

etc etc

I see we've reached the point in any systemd-related debate where someone tries to claim systemd is bloated by listing off projects that are not part of the systemd init system and just happen to share a common name and dev team.

The problem isn't the common name, it's the tight coupling between components. This is antithetical to the Linux philosophy, which emphasizes modularity, interchangeability, and configurability.

That is not the Linux philosophy. According to a usenet post made by Linus Torvalds in 1996 [0], the Linux philosophy is "Do it yourself."

[0] https://groups.google.com/groups?&selm=Pine.LNX.3.91.9610161...

When you wish to cite Usenet articles, please cite the message ID.

(I also think that those who use mailing lists should just use NNTP instead, possibly having NNTP as an alternative interface to the same data.)

In this case, the Message-ID seems to be <Pine.LNX.3.91.961016155929.27735D-100000@linux.cs.Helsinki.FI>.

I assume you mean the UNIX philosophy? Regardless, almost all of said components are optional, systemd doesn't in any way force you to use them. As a matter of fact many of the components you listed have alternatives that are more popular than the systemd tool (NetworkManager over systemd-networkd, GRUB2 over systemd-boot, etc).

Most yes, not all of them. For example logind. Is there any reason why this should be coupled with systemd? Apparently not as has been proved by elogind project.

> As you can see, systemd has taken over a great many things that are totally unrelated to its core mission of replacing sysvinit.

This is my pet peeve: systemd-as-init is / may be fine. systemd-as-NTPd or systemd-with-udevd seems like overly tight coupling.

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