I Switched (Back) Over To Fedora As My Main OS & It's Going Great!

[Alejandro Nova]

Complementing my own post:

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/systemd

http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/buildinfo?buildID=605859

Please, check the minor release data for systemd. The Ubuntu package has been updated 9 times (systemd-208-8ubuntu8.2) from development to release, while Fedora's systemd (systemd-216-17.fc21) has been updated 17 times. If you check those updates, Fedora features backported bugfixes from the main systemd tree, while Ubuntu changes tend to be minor packaging patches.

[newwen]

87% of all statistics are made up

Actually it's always 83%

[jukk]

In my opinion Fedora 21 is the best release ever. And it is evolving all the time. It is impressing that Fedora managed to release such polished and working software after the big changes in the Fedora organization. I have been using Fedora since FC 1 (and Redhat before that). Fedora 14 - 15 had some issues on my hardware combinations, but after that, the quality has become better. I have never had any issues with Gnome or systemd. I like both a lot and it is not a big deal to learn new stuff and new ways to work. Of course, Fedora needs 3rd part repositories. Rpmfusion is probably enough for most users; to get better fonts, binary drivers, multimedia etc. Right now I especially like also negativo17.org. Fedora is probably one of the best distros to test new stuff, especially for developers. We are in good company with Linux Torvalds and others.

[Michael_S]

lol, hope this was meant as joke or at least continuation of my argument since it was answer to me. i like systemd and use it ever since fedora implemented it as default. i wouldn't go back to old... EVER!

Since the people who hate systemd have yet to be convinced, I wanted to bring up most of the common objections to systemd and counter them. It's probably a waste of time.

There's actually an additional problem with this argument. No one else important other than linux was actually using SysV, the BSDs used their own BSDInit from the beginning, Solaris uses SMF, and OS X uses launchd.

Good point. I think the main problem people have along these lines is that if Debian and Gentoo make systemd their primary init system, Debian GNU/kFreeBSD, Debian GNU/HURD, and Gentoo/FreeBSD become much harder to maintain. I doubt those are commonly used, but I'm sure a lot of effort went into making them work and a lot of it will be lost.

But most software design choices will involve discarding perfectly some good work in favor of some other good work. Those three projects are not critical to the future of Linux, or Debian, or Gentoo.

I don't think so, they say "Ubuntu/whatever is broken".

AFAIK systemd packaging for Debian is severely lacking, and Ubuntu's implementation of systemd has suffered/is suffering because of packaging issues. On the other hand, Fedora's systemd implementation is overseen by Lennart Poettering himself: if something fails, Lennart and the upstream systemd dev team themselves will write the patch, upload it to Koji, help out with testing, and you'll get it on fedora-updates-testing in a matter of minutes. That's why the majority of systemd haters come from Debian/Ubuntu, while the majority of systemd lovers tend to come from Fedora, OpenSuSE, and other distros with systemd well implemented.

To be honest, I haven't tried systemd on Ubuntu yet. I'm still using Upstart.

While I do understand and I do respect user frustration with systemd problems, what you describe is not a sign that systemd is flawed. It's a sign that the packages were released to the community before they're ready.

[wizard69]

The vocal folks are the minority. If 10 folks hate it vocally, there are 90 more that hate it without saying a word.

The other way to look at this is that the vocal 10% have no idea what they are talking about. Their outbursts are simply ignorance made loud.

Except that there are thousands of folks that hate it vocally. 10s of thousands that just keep their mouths shut.

Sure bud.

[cocklover]

yet, everyone i knew who used arch still uses it, except 2 or 3 distro hoppers who never stick with anything anyway.
and let me clue you on 2 things
- when person is unhappy there is 1/50 chance he will whine and scream, when person is happy there is 1/5000 he will stand up and praise. that's just human factor. or do you see arch dying? i don't, if anything damn thing is getting more and more popular
- each new tech has problems when it is in start phase of enabling. there are simply too many factors that one can forget to check. if you think otherwise, try some big scale change for your self

Arch linux is used primary by only 2 kind of people. Students and Arch Linux developers/packagers. If the popularity of arch is increasing is because there are more students starting on IT degrees. But when students start to develop, debug and deploy they move to a "better" OS. Most of Arch linux legacy user have moved to Debian, Mint and Ubuntu. The most relevant factor is that there are so many troubles on arch linux forums, is insane. And those are new users... So old people leave and new people arrive, but those new people have to deal with the mess of arch linux of today, no more kiss and pr bullshit. Kiss maybe for the developers, but for users not.

what do you mean with power off/reboot from terminal? i see absolutely no change here. same commands still work
switching time display was always clusterfuck on linux. each distro had different approach. but, i cant remember one time i would need it
enabling and disabling services? i don't know, but on fedora they did awesome job at it. all old commands still work and when you execute for example "chkconfig httpd on", not only it does what it is supposed to, it also writes out how same thing is done on systemd natively

i have to deal with both kind of logs. old and new on my rhel installs. and there is no difference for me. and if it wouldn't be i could install syslogd whenever i wanted. it's not like it takes over kernel facilities. but, i really got used to journal and i like it. but, in most cases i can live with "systemctl status servicename" since it provides last lines of log which usually contain error

Changing the time is useful if you have windows and linux dual boot, cause example systemd change the clock every boot to utc and windows using local time get the time changed...
Well I'm not sure what distro are you using, but commands to reboot, poweroff doesn't work on Ubuntu (bug). To power off your machine on arch you have to use systemct, probably you have an alias to that check it up. I never see systemcl showing last lines of logs, probably is a new thing.

There is no trouble on learn something new if you have time and worth it, but if you are as I say doing something useful on you machine and they changed everything from 1 day to another is a pain in the ass and what are the features for the users ? I don't see any more than wasting time reading systemd manual...

[wizard69]

Nice article Micheal, unfortunately the forum is off track.

I continue to take interests in the reports about Fedora and how it is working out for you. It would be most interesting to see fedora working on that new quad core Raspberry PI.

[Gusar]

Most of Arch linux legacy user have moved to Debian, Mint and Ubuntu.

Reading the Arch forums, it's actually the other way around - a lot of Arch newcomers started their Linux journey with Ubuntu and have then moved on to Arch.

The most relevant factor is that there are so many troubles on arch linux forums, is insane.

There are troubles on every forum. Heck, check the official Nvidia Linux forums - nothing but troubles there. And yet, the Nvidia blob is regarded as high quality and way better than the competition (Catalyst). I'm sure if I went to check Ubuntu forums, I'd see plenty of troubles there. Or any other distro forum.

Kiss maybe for the developers, but for users not.

Arch never was and never will be user-centric. The KISS-ness of Arch was never about "simplicity for the user". You're trying to ascribe something to Arch that was never meant to be a characteristic of Arch.

I never see systemcl showing last lines of logs, probably is a new thing.

Err, that was a systemd feature from the very beginning. Querying a service's status shows the last lines the journal has about the service.

[Michael_S]

Arch linux is used primary by only 2 kind of people. Students and Arch Linux developers/packagers. If the popularity of arch is increasing is because there are more students starting on IT degrees. But when students start to develop, debug and deploy they move to a "better" OS. Most of Arch linux legacy user have moved to Debian, Mint and Ubuntu. The most relevant factor is that there are so many troubles on arch linux forums, is insane. And those are new users... So old people leave and new people arrive, but those new people have to deal with the mess of arch linux of today, no more kiss and pr bullshit. Kiss maybe for the developers, but for users not.

Actually, the number of bug reports and questions about a Linux distribution is probably the best indicator of popularity we have. No Linux distribution is flawless. There are many websites and thousands of forum questions about Ubuntu. That doesn't mean Ubuntu is awful, just that a lot of people have questions and problems. I'd say the same is true for Arch. I don't mean to pick on a distribution, but for example consider Aptosid Linux (a Debian unstable respin). I loved it while I used it, but the forums are mostly dead. Even in the months after a major release, there would be just a few dozen posts per month.

Changing the time is useful if you have windows and linux dual boot, cause example systemd change the clock every boot to utc and windows using local time get the time changed...

Sorry, I had that problem with dual boot Windows/Linux since 2001, nine years before systemd was invented and twelve years before I used systemd.

Well I'm not sure what distro are you using, but commands to reboot, poweroff doesn't work on Ubuntu (bug). To power off your machine on arch you have to use systemct, probably you have an alias to that check it up. I never see systemcl showing last lines of logs, probably is a new thing.

Do they not work, period or do they not work the first time you switch to systemd? I had the opposite problem with another distribution. I replaced systemd with runit, and reboot didn't work because after the switch my reboot binary was trying to signal runit - which wasn't running yet. I had to use the systemctl power off command, then start up, and shutdown/reboot worked fine.

There is no trouble on learn something new if you have time and worth it, but if you are as I say doing something useful on you machine and they changed everything from 1 day to another is a pain in the ass and what are the features for the users ? I don't see any more than wasting time reading systemd manual...

Faster boot time, better service monitoring, simpler service configuration files, cleaner service stop and restart (lower risk of leaving unclosed resources), prevent hidden mangling of system logs to cover hacks - these are not new things things?

It's not like this is SysV init with changes to command names for no reason, or Upstart with changes to command names for no reason. This is an improved init system with new features. You have to learn something because it does more. If it didn't do anything extra there definitely would not be any reason to learn something new.

[justmy2cents]

Arch linux is used primary by only 2 kind of people. Students and Arch Linux developers/packagers. If the popularity of arch is increasing is because there are more students starting on IT degrees. But when students start to develop, debug and deploy they move to a "better" OS. Most of Arch linux legacy user have moved to Debian, Mint and Ubuntu. The most relevant factor is that there are so many troubles on arch linux forums, is insane. And those are new users... So old people leave and new people arrive, but those new people have to deal with the mess of arch linux of today, no more kiss and pr bullshit. Kiss maybe for the developers, but for users not.

why do you want hardcore and kiss at the same time? those two are most impossible to ever work together

Changing the time is useful if you have windows and linux dual boot, cause example systemd change the clock every boot to utc and windows using local time get the time changed...
Well I'm not sure what distro are you using, but commands to reboot, poweroff doesn't work on Ubuntu (bug). To power off your machine on arch you have to use systemct, probably you have an alias to that check it up. I never see systemcl showing last lines of logs, probably is a new thing.

There is no trouble on learn something new if you have time and worth it, but if you are as I say doing something useful on you machine and they changed everything from 1 day to another is a pain in the ass and what are the features for the users ? I don't see any more than wasting time reading systemd manual...

Fedora and i while reboot and poweroff do exist, i never bothered with them and use shutdown since it has all and more features under same command.

also, Fedora still supports all commands like chkconfig, service... it also supports old init structure

BUT, LET ME INDULGE YOU NOW!!!!

ok, and here i went as far checking it as creating old bash script. just copied and emptied case network service file from /etc/init.d to file named mysvc.
# basically usual upstart comment and description
case $1 in
start)
;;
stop)
;;
restart|reload)
;;
status)
;;
esac

NOW LOOK

chkconfig mysvc on (just as on any FC1)
and look what happened

there is a new file /run/systemd/generator.late/mysvc.service with following contents

# Automatically generated by systemd-sysv-generator

[Unit]
SourcePath=/etc/rc.d/init.d/mysvc
Description=LSB: Bring up/down networking
Before=runlevel2.target runlevel3.target runlevel4.target runlevel5.target shutdown.target network-online.target network.target livesys-late.service
After=iptables.service ip6tables.service NetworkManager-wait-online.service NetworkManager.service livesys.service
Wants=network-online.target
Conflicts=shutdown.target

[Service]
Type=forking
Restart=no
TimeoutSec=5min
IgnoreSIGPIPE=no
KillMode=process
GuessMainPID=no
RemainAfterExit=yes
SysVStartPriority=10
ExecStart=/etc/rc.d/init.d/mysvc start
ExecStop=/etc/rc.d/init.d/mysvc stop
ExecReload=/etc/rc.d/init.d/mysvc reload