Slackware 14.1 Goes Into Beta, Brings New Packages

[gens]

i think the base problem is systemd attack a problem that most regular can't perceive because most distros have very dedicated packagers, Desktop Enviroments are really good at hidding the problem and ISV have tackled the issue with very bastardic hacks to make things works in most distros.

Current issues invisible to users:

1.) bash init file are really complex beast in sysv like systems and for most packages maintainers have to heavily modified them to work well in your specific init system for your distro, aka an openrc init file probably won't work unmodified in upstart and won't work in sysV either without a maintainer wasting hours adapting it.

5.) no sane linux developer will ever try to track spawned subprocess, is just impossible to make it work right in every distro. just make a huge monoprocess statically compiled blob and duplicate the subprocesses you need inside your code or avoid to death spawn subprocesses at all<-- not exactly efficient

Init dosen't have anything to do with your DE, nor does a DE "cover up" anything (example dwm)

slackware init scripts are not in bash, but in POSIX shell (ksh, ash etc.) (bash implements almost all POSIX, and lot more)
they have been almost unchanged for years now, and they are the same for x86 x64 and ARM

what sub processes are you talking about ?

what DE's ?
what does a desktop have with init or syslog ?

other stuff i havent even read, am too tired now

PS see how grub 2 is an option
even thou lilo is still default you still have a choice to go all fancy
but you dont have to grub for anything as theres elilo for the efi thing

[rvdboom]

yeah you can work without systemd just fine[less new features ill say later] is just a lot hackier and ugly and error prone, ill get to the point of more info

Advantages from user perspective

1.) lots easier to write init files[20 lines for real badass service] very rock solid and less error prone
2.) habilty to start/stop service ondemand[nginx start only when someone try to access your webpage and goes down after it for example]
3.) resouce jailing and nice level for service [for example, my nginx should have 512mb ram max, nice 20 and X% of cpu use]
4.) start service by specific timeframes [nginx is only available each friday from 3am to 5pm] aka no more need for cron
5.) journald is alot faster than grep[since is indexed] and provide more information than syslog + it can integrate with r/syslog too
6.) freaking fast boot speed and no more init levels
7.) don't require VT but it emulate the needed info to start X very cleanly
8.) easy integration with any session system [ldap,afs,kerberos,radius,unix,AD,etc]

Thanks for the list. Seems to me that the advantages for servers administrators and developers far outweight the ones for users. I mean : what is "fast boot" when my old HD booted on console in less than 10 secondes and my new SSD in less than 4? What's particularly interesting in not using cron? Grep takes less than 5 secondes on my system to check the various systems logs, what's important in being 2 seconds faster? What do I do if my X session borks and I can't switch to VT? Reboot? Udev and ConsoleKit work already very well through DBUS without systemd on my Slackware, so I don't see that as a particular improvement coming from systemd.
And you should check Slackware init scripts. They're not more complicated than what you seem to describe.
Honestly, as a simple user, systemd doesn't bring anything to the table as is that will change my life in a particularly interesting way. And I would be very pissed off if it was not possible to switch to a VT if something went wrong with my X session, for instance.

On the other hand, I think that providing a better experience for system administrators and developers is indeed a good reason to offer a new init and login system so I don't reject it altogether.

[curaga]

7.) syslog is a royal pain in the ass to use from C/C++ without a bunch of layers[mostly DE's] since every distro out there find entertaining to modify default socket path/log paths and to put the sweet caramel touch you have like 4 types of syslog servers + stderr that not always points to the distro log path but to the default <-- in the end many devs just make their own log files and dump them somewhere in /var

Um, what? openlog() is dead-simple to use, and it does not take any paths.

[jrch2k8]

Um, what? openlog() is dead-simple to use, and it does not take any paths.

is not always thrustworthy, of course for simple log stuff is more than enough but for critical data that need warranty of always be logged is not 100% thrustworthy between distros/version/options.[i specially hate rsyslog with sql option]

ofc this applies mostly to commercial apps that process very important data like finance, industrial operations, etc.

in my tests so far journald is very very thrustworthy even on forced shutdowns and is the same in every systemd able distro + other goodies, ofc i still maintain my fsynced hard logs in /var/log

[gens]

...ofc i still maintain my fsynced hard logs in /var/log

fsync() is not 100% trustworthy on linux

[jrch2k8]

fsync() is not 100% trustworthy on linux

maybe is true[i haven't tracked every possible usecase scenario], but as far i used it, works as expected. of course for me a batery backed 4+ drives RAID 10/60 is a must and for my apps i normally add to all ext4 fs in fstab commit=1[1 seconds forced sync] that i guess helps to get it closer to 100% and a good backup policy per commit blocks through automated rsync helps in case the shit hit the fan

[jrch2k8]

Thanks for the list. Seems to me that the advantages for servers administrators and developers far outweight the ones for users. I mean : what is "fast boot" when my old HD booted on console in less than 10 secondes and my new SSD in less than 4? What's particularly interesting in not using cron? Grep takes less than 5 secondes on my system to check the various systems logs, what's important in being 2 seconds faster? What do I do if my X session borks and I can't switch to VT? Reboot? Udev and ConsoleKit work already very well through DBUS without systemd on my Slackware, so I don't see that as a particular improvement coming from systemd.
And you should check Slackware init scripts. They're not more complicated than what you seem to describe.
Honestly, as a simple user, systemd doesn't bring anything to the table as is that will change my life in a particularly interesting way. And I would be very pissed off if it was not possible to switch to a VT if something went wrong with my X session, for instance.

VT session is not related to tty switch and is important if you are in ARM or MIPS or X86_64 ULP embedded systems for example

[Ramiliez]

Advantages from user perspective

1.) lots easier to write init files[20 lines for real badass service] very rock solid and less error prone
4.) start service by specific timeframes [nginx is only available each friday from 3am to 5pm] aka no more need for cron
5.) journald is alot faster than grep[since is indexed] and provide more information than syslog + it can integrate with r/syslog too
6.) freaking fast boot speed and no more init levels

Disadvantages from real users perspective
1 Soo rock solid when it fails to boot on my machine and really like the delays in initializing processes (when service misbehaves systemd waits for process)
4 Its new its cool and cron is old why use old thing when you have new right?
5 That indexing is just band-aid journald produced massive binary files which are slow to search and cannot be easily backupped
6 not sure now but i think init levels are still emulated somehow by systemd also init levels are sometimes really useful for me
Whats really slowing down boot times on my machine is SlowFI and systemd waiting for services

[jrch2k8]

Disadvantages from real users perspective
1 Soo rock solid when it fails to boot on my machine and really like the delays in initializing processes (when service misbehaves systemd waits for process)
4 Its new its cool and cron is old why use old thing when you have new right?
5 That indexing is just band-aid journald produced massive binary files which are slow to search and cannot be easily backupped
6 not sure now but i think init levels are still emulated somehow by systemd also init levels are sometimes really useful for me
Whats really slowing down boot times on my machine is SlowFI and systemd waiting for services

1.) you should be using old script compat mode, because networkmanager+systemd allow deferred connections, i have wifi and other types of slow connections and a pure systemd system never wait for network. either waybe more specific
4.) is nice to have integrated tools especially in ARM/mips and helps a bit with the fact that not every distro ship the same cron daemon
5.) well for me in rPI is wicked fast and so far not much bigger than regular syslog files, again smells like rant be more specific
6.) no systemd start all services in parallel and defer some services until its dependecy is up(or kill the whole dep tree) but never stops, be more specific it seems maybe is your installation that is giving you issue but is hard to figure it out without more info

[LinuxGamer]

1.) you should be using old script compat mode, because networkmanager+systemd allow deferred connections, i have wifi and other types of slow connections and a pure systemd system never wait for network. either waybe more specific
4.) is nice to have integrated tools especially in ARM/mips and helps a bit with the fact that not every distro ship the same cron daemon
5.) well for me in rPI is wicked fast and so far not much bigger than regular syslog files, again smells like rant be more specific
6.) no systemd start all services in parallel and defer some services until its dependecy is up(or kill the whole dep tree) but never stops, be more specific it seems maybe is your installation that is giving you issue but is hard to figure it out without more info

Just tell the newbs systemd RULES and all others suck systemd>all