Switch to SystemD

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xenopeek
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Re: Switch to SystemD

Post by xenopeek »

Have you used systemd? I'm using it on my Arch Linux install and much prefer it to the old SysV init. Together with journald, it's all easier to manage. I feel (my opinion) that a lot of flack is given to systemd based on that it works differently, because long ago learned things now have to be relearned. Anything new has a learning curve. Looking at the user side and what it does for the user, I much prefer it. I don't see Linux Mint switching to it, as Ubuntu is bound to Upstart. But perhaps if Debian switches to systemd...

30 biggest myths about systemd is an informative read: http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/the-biggest-myths.html
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js3915

Re: Switch to SystemD

Post by js3915 »

Will be interesting to see if Debian adopts to SystemD.. Though still dont think Mint will as they follow ubuntu closely unless ubuntu scraps upstart... that said im sure its possible to switch but i dont know what that would entail... Might be too much work to remove one and install another
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xenopeek
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Re: Switch to SystemD

Post by xenopeek »

js3915 wrote:Though still dont think Mint will as they follow ubuntu closely
I was talking about LMDE, which of course follows Debian :wink:
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clfarron4

Re: Switch to SystemD

Post by clfarron4 »

There is talk about debian moving from init, so LMDE may move.

I had more problems with init because of daemons not starting leading to the whole boot process halting.

Also, start-up with systemd in Arch is around 15 seconds for me, where startup in Mint is much longer (at least double that of Arch on the same hardware, or so it feels).
lehjr
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Re: Switch to SystemD

Post by lehjr »

I know this discussion is a little bit old, but it appears that both Debian and Canonical will be moving to systemd: http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2014/02/ubun ... ng-systemd
asbesto

Re: Switch to SystemD

Post by asbesto »

But perhaps if Debian switches to systemd...
Yeah... perhaps if billions of flies are all going on $h1t, they can't be wrong! :)
Timberbeast

Re: Switch to SystemD

Post by Timberbeast »

Hi all,

I just ran across this about SystemD. Sounds like Linus is really really pissed off.

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=n ... px=MTY1MzA

larry
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xenopeek
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Re: Switch to SystemD

Post by xenopeek »

Timberbeast wrote:Sounds like Linus is really really pissed off.
It's not news quoting Linus, unless he's pissed off... Count me the number of articles you've seen where Linus wasn't pissed off :lol:

Anyway, if you've read that you'd know this is conflict with one developer--not with systemd as a whole. As a regular user this doesn't affect you at all (it's about the debug boot parameter).
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clfarron4

Re: Switch to SystemD

Post by clfarron4 »

mmix wrote:IMHO, systemd must not be used.
http://boycottsystemd.org/

mdev is udev alternative.
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Mdev
Unfortunately, Debian has already confirmed they're moving to systemD, so it won't be long before Ubuntu does.

Unless you're into stripping your system down and building initscripts or OpenRC for yourself.
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kmb42vt
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Re: Switch to SystemD

Post by kmb42vt »

clfarron4 wrote:
mmix wrote:IMHO, systemd must not be used.
http://boycottsystemd.org/

mdev is udev alternative.
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Mdev
Unfortunately, Debian has already confirmed they're moving to systemD, so it won't be long before Ubuntu does.

Unless you're into stripping your system down and building initscripts or OpenRC for yourself.
Mark Shuttleworth already confirmed this back in February 2014 but exactly when the switch would take place is still undetermined:

http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/1316 ("Losing Graciously")

And associated media pick ups on above article (quick Google search: "Mark Shuttleworth on switching to systemd")

https://www.google.com/#q=mark+shuttlew ... to+systemd

I don't think we'll see this anytime soon as it's pretty clear that the Mark isn't pushing for a rapid transition to systemd. Ultimately, it's up to the Ubuntu Tech board to decide on how to implement this. If they were smart about it, they'd take their time (within reason and feasibility) and implement the switch in stages rather than try one massive rewrite.
"Humph. Choice, it is the quintessential Linux delusion, simultaneously the source of it's greatest strength, and it's greatest weakness." (All apologies to The Architect)
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xenopeek
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Re: Switch to SystemD

Post by xenopeek »

kmb42vt wrote:I don't think we'll see this anytime soon as it's pretty clear that the Mark isn't pushing for a rapid transition to systemd. Ultimately, it's up to the Ubuntu Tech board to decide on how to implement this. If they were smart about it, they'd take their time (within reason and feasibility) and implement the switch in stages rather than try one massive rewrite.
Ubuntu will follow Debian on systemd adoption. Debian is already making good progress, but yeah it will likely take a while before it becomes default in Ubuntu (you can already install it though).

In any case, with Linux Mint staying on Ubuntu 14.04 package base till mid 2016 and LMDE possibly moving to Debian stable--you're not likely to see systemd as default on Linux Mint soon.
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Monsta
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Re: Switch to SystemD

Post by Monsta »

In Debian Testing systemd is the default init system already.
ansak

Re: Switch to SystemD

Post by ansak »

When Ubuntu switches to systemd, when Mint adopts it, too (in a way that infringes on freedom), I will be looking for another distro.

I have used slackware (really ancient), Debian (90s, reliable, it was my firewall), Gentoo (00s -- emerge is not always your friend), Ubuntu (dabbled -- but they lost me after Gnome2 went away) and now Arch. I came upon the systemd controversy after lots of the flames had flown and after it had already caused me a bunch of pain (I wonder if some of my on-going pain isn't a result of it as well but I'm currently blaming heat and hardware on that front).

systemd's advocates promise all kinds of things -- and admittedly my LaserJet1020 printer has been slightly (but only very slightly) easier to keep running in a systemd world, but not by very much. "Quick booting" isn't why I came to Linux. I consider it an undesirable feature actually. I'd like the boot to go at a speed where I can just barely keep up with the dmesg lines going by -- whenever I'm forced to do a full re-boot, like on a kernel upgrade, that is. It gave me a sense for the health of my system and if the shape of the message stream changed it functioned as a canary -- either of more change than I thought I had adopted, or of something going/gone wrong.

I say the following with no personal animus, just a feeling that "The Art of Unix Programming" was never read and taken fully to heart by the people who wrote and decided to adopt systemd:

1. I question the wisdom of a 40Mb program running as PID1. It's bloat-ware at the one place there should be no bloat. Speaking from a security point of view, it's a set of broad attack surfaces that we shouldn't put up with.

2. Anyone who doesn't like scripts (as L.P. has stated he does not) shouldn't be writing a PID1 program. Not liking script is a sign of failure to be enculturated in the Unix Way -- go back and read the Rootless Root: "Three pounds of Vax!"

3. Anyone who cares that PIDs climb up into the thousands during boot up (as L.P. has stated that he finds distasteful) shouldn't be writing a PID1 program. Who cares! All those little processes were wonderful in their moment: they started, they did their work, they died ... and they left clear messages about what they did so that if anything went wrong we can figure it out -- even if the logs are in 5 different places, the single fact that they exist as text files that we can use less and grep on is a treasure beyond words.

4. Responding to "Corrupt Journal file" as a bug with "RESOLVED-WONTFIX" is so wrong-headed, language fails me (to be clear: not an FS journal, all logs in a systemd world go into the journal, accessed through journalctl).

5. Log files trapped in a binary journal that you can't read unless your system is running is even worse.

6. And haven't enough people been hurt by Pulse Audio [for the record, I haven't, but tales of woe from this corner are so common that they give me cause for caution] that we should be far more cautious about accepting anything else from the same people? Even I have my besetting idiocies -- I just don't insist on imposing them on whole communities and then callously ignoring the complaints.

So, when a version of Mint adopts systemd to the deprecation or exclusion of others, I will go quietly into the night. Even if sysvinit can't hotplug the way somebody wants it, too (I hadn't noticed a problem myself), there's got to be a more Unix-like way to do it than systemd.

I admire Mark Shuttleworth's calm tone in his piece on "losing gracefully". He's acting like an adult in the sense of not getting het-up about this issuse, where "all around are losing theirs". But I also think that the nose entering the tent, claiming to be that of a camel (a necessary, useful animal in some settings, if really frustrating and annoying notwithstanding) really belongs to a basilisk and the time for torches and pitch-forks (double-entendre there, absolutely intentional) is only just beginning.

(mis-quoting a 70s rock tune) Hold the line! It's not always 'bout booting time... ank
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xenopeek
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Re: Switch to SystemD

Post by xenopeek »

systemd counts up to about 4 MiB for me, not 40. That's including everything that is systemd; PID1 is just 1.7 MiB.
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As for reading the journal while your system isn't running, you can tell journalctl to read the journal from another location (like your hard disk while booted from something else):
-D DIR, --directory=DIR
Takes a directory path as argument. If specified, journalctl will operate on the specified journal directory DIR instead of the default runtime and system journal paths.
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ansak

Re: Switch to SystemD

Post by ansak »

xenopeek wrote:systemd counts up to about 4 MiB for me, not 40. That's including everything that is systemd; PID1 is just 1.7 MiB.
Shenanigans has been appropriately been called on me. I should have checked this fuzzy memory on my (not now reliably functioning) arch system (with systemd) to check it. The true size is still 20 times bigger than /sbin/init, so my over-all point about excess size and attack surface still stands even if the file size differs by an order-of-magnitude.
As for reading the journal while your system isn't running, you can tell journalctl to read the journal from another location (like your hard disk while booted from something else):
-D DIR, --directory=DIR
Takes a directory path as argument. If specified, journalctl will operate on the specified journal directory DIR instead of the default runtime and system journal paths.
Okay, so you don't need the target system's systemd to be running but this is still a far cry from being able to call less on log files, the gold standard for this kind of thing, not to mention the persistent reports that even a non-filtering invocation of journalctl takes several times as long as invoking less.

So, i will accept the slight modifications to my points -- thanks for the good data, xenopeek, but I'm afraid I don't hold myself answered. ...ank
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xenopeek
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Re: Switch to SystemD

Post by xenopeek »

ansak wrote:but I'm afraid I don't hold myself answered
I'm just clarifying on the misinformation your post had. I didn't see a question in your post.

As for speed of journalctl, what retention policy have you setup in /etc/systemd/journald.conf? I initially had a slow journalctl also, but I tweaked retention period to be shorter (2 months) and cleared up older files from /var/log/journal (run journalctl --update-catalog after deleting files). journalctl is now as snappy as can be--and it's using less as a pager by default BTW. Even piping journalctl into grep is no problem speed wise.

You can probably tweak it in other ways also. As noted in the manpage, you can even disable it (Storage=none) and output would go to the syslog daemon if you have that installed.

Anyway, you've already made it clear you are going to leave Linux Mint over systemd. For the Unix Way; have you considered BSD. Linux isn't Unix, BSD is.
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ansak

Re: Switch to SystemD

Post by ansak »

I didn't pose a question that required "answers". I posed mis-givings about the decision which were not answered. The only answer I got was:
xenopeek wrote:Anyway, you've already made it clear you are going to leave Linux Mint over systemd. For the Unix Way; have you considered BSD. Linux isn't Unix, BSD is.
For the record, "The Unix Way" was just as much a part of the Linux world as the BSD world.

But if that's the answer all Linux distros give me, then perhaps that's my only option if I feel so strongly about systemd. Thank you for your tmie.

(cue track 8 from the Proclaimers, Hit the Highway...) ...ank
KittimX

Re: Switch to SystemD

Post by KittimX »

Hello, please forgive my naiveté.
But would it not be possible to offer different versions of the O/S one that uses init and one that uses system?
I must admit that some of the articles I've read about system speak very badly of it. One called it the Linux equivalent of svchost in Windows, I process I'm not a fan of I must admit.
I take the view that if I can see a process, I can learn about it. I can't do that if they are hidden by something like svchost.

My thanks for anyone taking the time to explain things to this noob :)
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xenopeek
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Re: Switch to SystemD

Post by xenopeek »

This topic started out as a suggestion early last year;
hal8000 wrote:As a suggestion I'd like to see a future realease of Mint switch from Upstart to SystemD.
The topic has been drifting recently and I've had to delete some comments from people just coming here to kick up controversy with misinformation. With the decision made both by Debian and Ubuntu to migrate to systemd, which Linux Mint 18 and LMDE 2 will follow, the original suggestion has been answered. Hence locking this topic.

Those wishing to discuss the merits or demerits of systemd, can do so in the Chat about Linux forum.
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