Gentoo Gets GNOME 3.30 Running Without Systemd

[duby229]

I wouldn't be surprised if there's a huge overlap in the people that complain about both systemd and wayland.

That's not true. Wayland truly is minimalistic, almost definitely too much so, where-as the entire and -only- point of systemd is to throw everything including the kitchen sink into it and then to lock it the fuck down.

The point and purpose of wayland is -very different from systemd's.....

[g3wcm2V8uqwR]

Yay Gentoo, the only real Anti-virus people !

I don't know man...
I'm using ArchLinux because I'm not comfortable having Gentoo's build system run my compiler/ccache as root at some phases in the build process (like pkg_setup, ie. running ./configure as root?)

Check out this : https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=492910#c5
(reproduced below)

> Does the fact that root is owner on some ccache subfolders suggest that ccache is ran as root at some point?

It definitely ran as root. With FEATURES=userpriv, some phases (such as pkg_setup) still run as root, so it looks like one of these other phases called the compiler.

> Hopefuly it's not a security issue. In other words, is using
> CCACHE_UMASK just a workaround?

Well, you can't stop the compiler from being called during phases that run as root. Therefore, CCACHE_UMASK seems like the simplest solution.

Sounds like some phases always run as root and there's no way to change that! Which is what 'userpriv' would've done (run portage as unprivileged user).

Likely the ./configure script is the one that ran the compiler/ccache in that case. My guess.

With ArchLinux, only the installation of the (binary)package runs as root, not any of the compilation steps(tested only makepkg).
Do I want to risk some malformed(or even *puts-on-tinfoil-hat* evil) configure script wrecking some havoc in my system by using Gentoo because it's ran as root? Maybe I'm using spaces in some dir names, or some other edge case that would cause it to inadvertently cause some filesystem changes. Either way, compiling as non-root surely must be better, I figure.

[drone4four]

Distros were already exploring, building and using other init options before systemd starting being used.

Canonical developed Upstart for Ubuntu before systemd. Upstart solved many of the problems systemd later solved (including: parallel launching of services to speed up boot time & restarting crashed services). Canonical weren't even planning on using systemd and Mark Shuttleworth thought migrating to it was pointless. They only seemed to switch over when Debian (the Ubuntu, upstream distro) switched and the effort to maintain a systemd-free OS became more than the effort to switch to systemd.

So systemd didn't start the fire and the desire for an alternative to a Sys V init system was already there before systemd. One of the largest & most popular distros (Ubuntu) only switched to it as it was less work. This was actually all documented on the wikipedia systemd page in the history section with citations and everything. However, it seems that someone has gone through and wiped out this history.

Lots of distros are choosing systemd as it's the path of least resistance.

The design of systemd is such that avoiding usage of requires a fair bit of work. It's kind of designed virally, like the GPL v2 license.

It also makes me think of Windows. Many people don't choose to use Windows because it's awesome or exactly what they want. They choose to use it because it has a viral quality to it so choosing something else is hard and choosing Windows is easy. I have a family member who likes using Acorn systems. He can do most of his computing work on his modern Acorn systems, however he also has a Windows machine just because he needs it for certain applications and hardware driver support.

This viral quality of Windows, the GPL and systemd isn't just about circumstance and luck. Windows had a very deliberate EEE policy and also got involved in crony capitalism and propaganda by going to great effort to get their OS into public schools. The GPL is overtly designed to be viral. Systemd says right on the home page that they want to become a defacto standard for "Linux" and they have made architectural decisions which lend towards requiring that systemd replaces existing GNU/Linux software with systemd-speciic alternatives which then become dependencies for software which wants to use that functionality.

It would be possible to design a service management / init system which wasn't viral like systemd-init. However Red Hat & Co opted not to do that. Upstart is an example of a non-viral design. Same with Runit, Sys V init and OpenRC.

For better or worse: the systemd design is such that it is becoming a required dependency of many GNU/Linux distros.

If systemd was a person, you would say that it wants to assimilate everything such that everyone must interact with it.

If OpenRC, Runit, Upstart and Sys V init were people, you would say that they want to make their own set of customers/users/friends happy without creating any requirement for people who don't like their style to easily use one of their friends services instead.

Note: I know I'm preaching to the choir here. I expect most the people who don't get this wont get it after reading my comment & most the people who do get it will simply nod in agreement. If there is anyone reading who genuinely gained a new understanding of systemd from reading my comment, please let me know! That would be awesome.

@cybertraveler I don't usually comment. But I do lurk the Phoronix message boards often. Your post is spot on. I felt compelled so say thanks for sharing, my friend.

[jacob]

The real problem is freedom. They are taking away your freedom bit by bit.
Systemd can't run on any c-library but glibc. Already your freedom to use musl, diet-libc, u-clibc etc are taken away from you.

That's a rather specific definition of "freedom". I go by Stallman's four freedoms and there is nothing in there about upstream developers being obliged to go out of their way to accommodate a zillion of half-functional me-too implementations of libc.

[Veerappan]

There is also an incredible amount of work done in Debian regarding these architectures.

In fact, a lot of the people who do the upstream work on the kernel also run Debian on these architectures (for example, in the case of PA-RISC, 68000 or Alpha).

If Debian were still shipping an Alpha version, I'd probably have saved myself the headache. But Debian 5 (Lenny) is the last released Alpha port of Debian, unless I missed something and there's a build server still chugging away in the background.

With regards to systemd on my Alpha, I'll have to go back and try again. I swear there was something that prevented me from compiling the kernel when I enabled the systemd checkbox under Gentoo settings on my machine, but it's been a month, so I've forgotten the exact details. I might try again at some point, since I've run into a bit of a wall with what appears to be some conflicting USE flags when I try to use dantrell's 3.30 repository with Alpha support grafted on top (https://github.com/awatry/gentoo-ove...ell-gnome-3-30 and https://github.com/awatry/gentoo-overlay-dantrell-gnome).

I'm in the middle of a system update, so it won't be tonight, but as soon as it's done, I'll try to at least rebuild the kernel with the right options. Also, ugh... gcc 8.2.0's taking forever to build.

I run systemd on my Alphas. If there's a problem, please file a (Gentoo) bug and let me know.

Also, feel free to join us in #gentoo-alpha on Freenode.

I'll let you know, or hash it out on freenode. As said, I'm failing to remember the exact issue I had earlier, but I'll give it another shot. I'm more familiar with systemd anyway, since I use Ubuntu on *most* of my other systems.

[smitty3268]

I wouldn't be surprised if there's a huge overlap in the people that complain about both systemd and wayland.

Paging weasel.

[microcode]

I'm glad they did.

I've been spending some of my hobby project time bringing an old Alpha PWS 500a back to life (upgraded to USB2, a Radeon 5400, and a few other non-original pieces, like my old SB AWE64 Gold).

I've got gentoo booted/rebuilt so that I've at least got a working console and a bunch of the system rebuilt. I'm currently working on getting Gnome Shell running on this machine, but it's not possible to use systemd on the Alpha architecture due to some missing kernel functionality. With elogind and the systemd-less Gnome it's at least potentially possible for me to get this working, as long as I'm willing to wait for things to build... and wait, and wait... Hmm, maybe I should try again to get that cross compiler functional on my Ryzen 2700 system.

Which required kernel features are missing on Alpha?

[r08z]

Bless Gentoo developers! They're at the final frontier of the resistance against this virus that plagues the Gnu/Linux ecosystem!

[rtfazeberdee]

systemd might be the reason some distributions might cease to exist ...

Thats their choice

I will stop now.

thank god for that

I made my point that systemd is not portable to non-glibc systems (including other unix like systems) and poses a problem for software that depends on it.

I don't think anyone but you cares. If any software you want depends on systemd, speak to developers of said software and ask them to create a version that doesn't or make your own changes.

You have been informed, make of it what you want.

Post your thoughts here (or similar) www. conspiracy. com

[ssokolow]

I wish people would stop misrepresenting the UNIX philosophy. This (and nothing more) is what it is, according to one of the creators of UNIX:

A number of maxims have gained currency among the builders and users of the UNIX system to explain and promote its characteristic style:

1. Make each program do one thing well. To do a new job, build afresh rather than complicate old programs by adding new "features".
2. Expect the output of every program to become the input to another, as yet unknown, program. Don't clutter output with extraneous information. Avoid stringently columnar or binary input formats. Don't insist on interactive input.
3. Design and build software, even operating systems, to be tried early, ideally within weeks. Don't hesitate to throw away the clumsy parts and rebuild them.
4. Use tools in preference to unskilled help to lighten a programming task, even if you have to detour to build the tools and expect to throw some of them out after you've finished using them.

-- Doug McIlroy, E. N. Pinson, B. A. Tague (8 July 1978). "Unix Time-Sharing System: Foreword" (PDF). The Bell System Technical Journal. Bell Laboratories. pp. 1902–1903.

The document then continues on with some examples of its benefits which we now take for granted. (See for yourself. The PDF linked from the citation responds well to Ctrl+F.)

Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.
-- Mark Twain, as quoted in "An Interview with Mark Twain", From Sea to Sea: Letters of Travel (1899) by Rudyard Kipling, Ch. 37, p. 180