X.Org Server Systemd Integration Proposed

[kigurai]

Please go back to Windows. Because this is precisely the kind of crap we need an alternative for. The whole reason for Linux existence used to be that nobody could force anything upon the community. And now people talk about freedom in the FOSS more than ever yet somehow they're ready to surrender what's left of that freedom without a fight.

Nothing is stopping you from taking a bare kernel, and start adding only the parts *you* want, to build the perfect system for you.
But I don't see why your preferences should force the rest of us to suffer sub-par alternatives when better things exist, or force developers to use the same sub-par pieces to write their code.

Instead of whining about what other people should do, man up and gather all the other systemd-haters and build your own systemd-free system. Considering all the noise generated online, this distribution should skyrocket its installation base in a matter of weeks.

[alanc]

it's well past time for the X.Org server code base to be cleaned up of much of the old cruft that's hardly used anymore or which is so buggy that it begs for a rewrite.

Yes, it's long since the time when X.Org developers started doing that and huge progress has been made so far (most recently, 40k lines of old GLX code removed in a big cleanup, to add to a few hundred thousand lines over the previous few years, such as the removal of the previously mentioned Xprint).

[Vim_User]

But I don't see why your preferences should force the rest of us to suffer sub-par alternatives when better things exist, or force developers to use the same sub-par pieces to write their code.

And I don't see why your preferences should be forced on anyone else. caligula explicitly has asked for forcing systemd on anyone else, without alternative, so your "build up your own system from the ground" wouldn't even work.

Instead of whining about what other people should do, man up and gather all the other systemd-haters and build your own systemd-free system.

Systemd free distros already exist, Debian, Ubuntu, Slackware, Crux, Gentoo, ChromeOS, ... . The first two alone are considered to have the largest userbase of all distros, so they have already skyrocketed.

[caligula]

And I don't see why your preferences should be forced on anyone else. caligula explicitly has asked for forcing systemd on anyone else, without alternative, so your "build up your own system from the ground" wouldn't even work.

Systemd free distros already exist, Debian, Ubuntu, Slackware, Crux, Gentoo, ChromeOS, ... . The first two alone are considered to have the largest userbase of all distros, so they have already skyrocketed.

The problem with alternatives is the lack of good audio sink switching capability. ALSA supports switching the recording device, but not output device unless you have a special HDMI capable hardware with many HDMI ports. Then it lets you pick the port dynamically. My only solution is to output audio to all devices if I don't use PulseAudio. PulseAudio doesn't work well if you also don't run systemd, dbus and soon kdbus.

[prodigy_]

It's crazy the number of alternatives the X Server had all these years...

I can do a lot on a system without X. Not so much without init. Besides, X was originally an MIT creation while systemd is de-facto a Red Hat creation. Do you feel the difference?

[caligula]

I can do a lot on a system without X. Not so much without init. Besides, X was originally an MIT creation while systemd is de-facto a Red Hat creation. Do you feel the difference?

Systemd is not preventing you from using your own init system. It just doesn't make sense to have support for many init systems in udev, pam, X sessions. These more complex use cases usually need whole lot of funtionality that only systemd can provide (see the chart previously in this thread). If you want some minimal embedded system, you can still get it, but without udev and dbus and X support. Don't know if the system boots that well currently. Maybe you need to turn off bootsplash and initramfs too. The other init systems just don't support hotplugging devices so well or these X session "seats".

[ncopa]

I hope they make it a hard dependency.

You hope that anything non-linux (and even non-systemd) will not be able to run xorg in future? (the *bsd's for example)

The major problem with systemd is that it is not portable. It encourage people to do their own thing and compete rather than re-use and contribute.

[ncopa]

Whatever shall we do if the userland becomes coherent rather than the total clusterfuck it is currently.

Oh the tragedy.

The systemd style "if you don't agree with our values, then do your own thing" does not contribute to a more coherent userland. Unfortunally it does the opposite.

[ncopa]

I wonder why all the systemd hate. Sometimes you need to politically force a technically superior technology.

Because what is "superior" depends on your values. What is most important: cheap? small form factor? fast? portable? profitable? stability?

What do you think happens if someone try politically force their values on people who have different? People get frustrated and angry.

[caligula]

Because what is "superior" depends on your values. What is most important: cheap? small form factor? fast? portable? profitable? stability?

What do you think happens if someone try politically force their values on people who have different? People get frustrated and angry.

Systemd boots fastest. Some argue it's bloated, but in reality if you consider running init scripts with bash, it's one of the most bloated shells and contains tons of inefficient code. I'd be happier with scripts if the interpreter did JIT, but I doubt bash does. So the only good arguments against systemd are a) don't like Lennart b) not yet support for BSD c) written in compiled language d) minor bugs to be fixed e) political drama with Canonical.