Debian May Need To Re-Evaluate Its Interest In "Init System Diversity"

[oleid]

Is the author of systemd any better than rms? Probably not, and neither is his view of "Linux or nothing". Systemd is completely the wrong way to go about compatibility, but what is required for the lackeys to realize that?

Compatibility to what? And why?

[jacob]

I will use BSD before I use systemd

I hope all the people who agree with your views will do the same.

[danmcgrew]

In order to get all sides of the story, suggest you type into your browser's search-bar,

"Systemd--Progress Through Complexity".

[cb88]

To me it is always about choice. If systemd is desired, use it. If not, don't. Nothing political or emotional about it. The freedom to choose is what matters.

Unfortunately the problem is... systemd has a goal of making itself a hard dependency all over the place to drive out alternatives through brute force. Same as pulseaudio... it's super annoying to setup a non pulseaudio desktop for no valid reason. However puseaudio worms it's way into software and then later native audio support is dropped for example with Firefox.

If systemd was a launchd alike... hey that'd be great and we could use that but it isn't it's a monster be all and end all project that nobody should want.

[Delgarde]

Unfortunately the problem is... systemd has a goal of making itself a hard dependency all over the place to drive out alternatives through brute force. Same as pulseaudio... it's super annoying to setup a non pulseaudio desktop for no valid reason. However puseaudio worms it's way into software and then later native audio support is dropped for example with Firefox.

Yeah, It's almost like these projects are providing functionality that other developers find useful, isn't it?

[computerquip]

If Debian goes the route of being systemd only, then what is their distinguishing feature, compelling reason for users to choose it instead of some other Linux distro that also uses systemd, or, perish the thought, also uses Debian's own source?

Long-term support release? Redhat and Ubuntu already do that.

Fancy desktops? Boxes full of distros already do that.

Some sort of super-duper, solves every issue distribution installer and updater? Seriously, that's all you got? There's APT, pacman, and many others. Pick one.

I am pretty certain I have mentioned this in the past, maybe even years ago, but lack of feature diversity between various Linux distributions simply calls up the question to the marketplace: "Why do they bother to exist when they seem so much alike?"

Those fancy desktop interfaces that most distributions tout, and some are little more than "skins", isn't enough to make them a lasting product in the marketplace...even if the marketplace is "free".

A critical factor in the marketplace success of any product is focusing on "distinguishing features" and "compelling reasons to use the product" rather than just being another "me too!" product.

You seem to imply that Debian had no purpose before systemd existed.

[computerquip]

Linux is not an OS. So "compatibility between Linux systems" is just a mythical objective that will never be obtained. Just say what you really want - "I want RedHat, Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, SUSE,opensuse , and Arch to all work the same". Once you honestly name the real objective, you should realize you are already there. Since you don't really care about Gentoo or Puppy or antiX or Void or Hyperbola or a thousand other projects, there's no reason to lump them all together under this mythical "Linux OS" umbrella.

I don't want things to work the same, I simply want them to work better than they currently are. systemd happens to fit that bill.

[jacob]

Ok at the risk of feeding the trolls... what's with this fetish of what they call "init" systems? No-one seems to whine for "choice" between 10 incompatible and broken system call ABIs, why should the event, configuration and services manager be any different? Besides, Linux has IMHO a very pressing and urgent need for de-unixifcation and systemd is probably a very good place to start.

[jacob]

I don't want things to work the same, I simply want them to work better than they currently are. systemd happens to fit that bill.

For the most part systemd makes things work better, but as controversial as that opinion may be, I would say we would need (something like) systemd EVEN IF it was worse than the existing solutions. Why? Because the Linux community must learn the value of having ONE TRUE WAY of doing things if it ever wants to reach any noticeable relevance as a desktop OS.

[KellyClowers]

In order to get all sides of the story, suggest you type into your browser's search-bar,

"Systemd--Progress Through Complexity".

I don't know if you noticed, but... software is more complex now. computers are more complex. the world is more complex. Sometimes a degree of complexity is needed do deal with complex things. Also, you stumble into abstraction territory here. Yes abstractions make things more complex. But that complexity allows it to deal with unavoidable external or inherent complexity *there* rather than have it leak everywhere, and thus *simplify* things for many many other users/systems/programs/etc