axl wrote:so.. you could technically install gentoo with systemd useflag and still not use systemd. technically.
in my opinion, servers don't technically need systemd. they could work without it.
Why install something you aren't going to need or use? It's just another vector for attacks.
but desktops... it's becoming harder and harder to run a desktop without systemd because peripherals and how they are handled. because of how (at least in gnome) things are moving towards (at some point) mobile devices. 20 years ago linux didn't have "users". it only had sysadmins masquarading as users. u had a linux, u had to administer it yourself. and 20 years ago was a totally different thing. but now...
My desktop works just fine without systemd. I don't run GNOME. Specifically, I don't like what they design of GNOME 3 since it hobbles my workflow, so I don't use GNOME 3, but rather Mate (GNOME 2 - even then, I only switched from GNOME 1 + E16 to GNOME 2 several years after the initial release of GNOME 2, once they added the functionality I need back into GNOME).
If you or your users need someone to hold their hand, then you do. Myself and my users don't, so why should I cripple us?
i freaking hated systemd when it first came out. i didn't know what it was. why it pulled those weird dependencies. what happened to my kernel and my system and my dev. i was so confused and i hated it. but powered on and tried to understand it... and it's not that bad actually, once u get to know it. at this point i'm confident i have enough skills to manipulate and change anything and everything about my init system, may it be openrc or systemd. and i prefer systemd, knowing both of them pretty well.
if you are one of the folks that knows how to manually do in openrc shells to emulate systemd... that's great for you. awesum.
What makes you think that we want to emulate systemd in the first place? We've spent years detailing different aspects of systemd that we not only find technically unsound, but outright harmful and dangerous. Don't think that our opposition to systemd is based out of simple comfort/familiarity with openrc or sysvinit - those of us you're arguing with probably know system engineering better than you do. Most of us have decades of experience with UNIX, POSIX, shell scripting, C, etc.
As the saying goes, those whom don't understand UNIX are condemned to reinvent it, poorly.
but my original point still stands. I don't think gentoo/gentoo devs should be required to give that. everyone moved to systemd. because hey... now linux has users. who would have known?! and gentoo should keep with the times. that's all i'm saying.
Correction - everyone moved to Microsoft, particularly on the desktop. Linux still has roughly the same market share of the desktop as it did pre-systemd. Regardless, popularity isn't indicative of quality. Likewise, homogeneity is a WEAKNESS when it comes to security. If all of the routers from a specific brand share the same weakness (say, a factory backdoor password), all of those routers can be trivially hacked. If systemd has a security flaw that allows privilege escalation by manipulating PID1, every systemd based distro is possibly exposed. Diversity is a GOOD thing when it comes to security, as it limiting the attack surface (arguably systemd's biggest weakness is the lack of coherent design combined with owning PID1, poorly implementing lots of functionality that belongs in other packages (look at the DNS bugs in it), and constantly rewriting or adding more large chunks of code, so nobody can really be sure what any version is doing - it's alpha quality at best). See also the Pwnie award systemd "won".
the useflag "openrc" doesn't guaranty you an openrc distro. using the official portage tree you have to know some stuff to make an openrc distro out of gentoo. gentoo doesn't do it for you. especially if you want gnome3. so to say gentoo is an openrc distro is a lie.
This just in. Gentoo gives you the freedom to do what you want with your system (at least when tyrannical devs aren't trying to force their choices on you), including the freedom to make mistakes and, most importantly, the freedom to learn. That said, I didn't have to do anything to make Gentoo an openrc system - everything works and all I did was block systemd to make sure a dev didn't try to force their opinions on me. I choose not to use GNOME 3 - there are literally dozens of other window managers in portage that someone might want instead of GNOME 3.
The question is, if you're so happy with the RedHat base system - systemd, GNOME 3, etc, why are YOU using Gentoo instead of RedHat, Fedora, or one of it's near clones like Debian? The entire point of systemd was to standardize the Linux desktop on systemd because RH couldn't pwn Linus and the kernel. The idea was everyone talks to systemd and systemd talks to the kernel. The entire purpose was to usurp control so that RedHat could monopolize and monetize Linux support. Why even have any other distros if RedHat's are the only ones that matter?
the night i first entered in this conversation, I was on a youtube run watching gentoo videos. SO MANY that support that idea. gentoo is the last openrc distro. it's not. it's simply not. even leaving gnome3 aside, there are tons of apps that pull systemd as a dependency and that is because it is. that program uses either this that or the other. I dont expect gentoo devs to make forks out of every single one of those programs just to avoid systemd.
Most packages don't hard depend on systemd. Instead, they have a soft preference which favors systemd because of the way that certain devs try to nudge you to do it their way. Some packages have tried to force users into systemd just because the maintainer wants to force systemd on people - a simple addition for a USE flag makes it go away. Sometimes, there's a bump which forces systemd but gets revised because the force was "an oversight" - it's happened enough that I don't believe it is simple coincidence, but I'm sure plenty of people have unwittingly switched to systemd, or at least stopped fighting it and let it take over, since they consistently "break" it in the favor of systemd.
and ultimately why? i can't think of ONE daemon that benefited from openrc shell type file but had to suffer under systemd.
Want one? Tell systemd to fix NFS. To them, it's WONTFIX NOTABUG. I don't have any problems with my NFS mounts though.
I really don't know / understand what y'all problem is with systemd. i really don't. i'm not trying to be thick or sarcastic. I just don't get it. It's C code that you can read for yourself. Where is the mistrust coming from? Why do people want to get stuck in the 80's with IPC? I honestly don't get it.
Go through and read all the systemd threads here. We've spent hundreds of hours laying out the faults and it's gets tiring to have to restate them every time some new systemd crusader comes to repeat the same "hurr, you guys just don't understand it, you're too stuck in the past and don't want to learn anything new." We know C and we know what a mess the systemd code is. We know UNIX and we stick to the principle of "do one thing and do it well." We've discussed how the kernel has had great, modern IPC support for a decade that the systemd devs either chose to ignore, couldn't bother to investigate, didn't understand, or intentionally chose to reinvent poorly because NIH syndrome. Basically, educate yourself before you say you don't understand what our problem with systemd is.
Furthermore, openrc has repeatedly, intentionally been crippled by a systemd dev that is intentionally wanting to harm it's functionality so it isn't any better than systemd. That same dev got on the Council, where he pushed the Council to approve the breaking of sep-usr, deliberately ignored patches that ensured continued support for sep-usr, etc, all because poettering decided he didn't see a use case for sep-usr. Him and his friends also took over a number of other committes to run protection for them. So, they've actively been waging a war on us. I, personally, have always supported the choice of systemd for those that want it, and only became involved because of the abuse of him and a handful of others that would like to see systemd as the only choice.