Devuan 1.0 RC2 Released: Systemd-Free Debian

[rtfazeberdee]

Gentoo to the rescue. Gentoo where it's all about choice and you can choose to use SystemD or not.
Overhauling all that init might be a nice idea, but I still haven't worked out what binary logs that might need a proprietary reader software, can be good for.

journalctl is a great tool for reading the journal, its a tool like grep, awk etc all rolled into one. Once you know the options its makes reading the journal faster and a lot less messy than trying to write and debug scripts to extract a load of log records from a multitude of log files for a specific date/time range and get them in the correct order- but if you prefer the slow way, syslog and rsyslog import the journal into their systems and you can write scripts to your hearts content.

[L_A_G]

Because logind is calling core systemd functionality to work, afaik they use udev.

Ok, so we've now established that there's clearly an unwise dependency chain in place...

I don't see any good reason to not use elogind, btw.

Yes and I don't see why it should have such a strong dependency relation with an init system.

Also, there is eudev that is a udev fork that lacks systemd dependencies at all.

If there is such a thing, why does udev even need to exist in the first place? Can't it be subject to what happened to Unity and Mir?

It's not a dependency for the sake of it. That init system is providing security features, process and user isolation, and various other stuff they want/need/use.

Yes, but why does the init system need to provide security features? Why can't it be it's own thing and not have a dependency relationship so strong with logind and udev that they're all functionally the same application.

Because it lacks modern security, user/process isolation features and system management facilities that systemd provides.

I once again fail to understand why an init system needs to do this. Does it really need to do everything from being an init system all the way to sending and receiving email?

[starshipeleven]

Yes and I don't see why it should have such a strong dependency relation with an init system.

Because it makes the most sense to place such security and process isolation features in the init, or to integrate a dynamic device monitoring system (udev) with the init that deals with processes that will likely want to access devices every now and then.

If there is such a thing, why does udev even need to exist in the first place? Can't it be subject to what happened to Unity and Mir?

You got it reversed. udev is upstream, eudev is downstream. Development happens on udev, not on eudev.

Yes, but why does the init system need to provide security features?

Because it makes the most sense to place daemon tracking and isolation in the PID1, as it is the program that starts processes so it is their parent process and can see all they do, the program that inherits all zombie processes, and the program you gave most power over the system already anyway.

If you somehow break out the "init" part from the process tracking and isolation, you end up in a stupid situation where you have a dumb PID1 and a PID2 that does the other stuff. And userspace stuff relying on this new PID2 program will still need it and there won't be any improvement on interoperability.

Why can't it be it's own thing and not have a dependency relationship so strong with logind and udev that they're all functionally the same application.

Because then you'd have a bunch of daemons running as root all doing the same security-sensitive thing, this requires coordination and is not a good idea in general.

Systemd project made many secondary daemons because that way they can be run as non-root users to make them safer, and since they offload on the same program there is no coordination issue.

Also udev is integrated with systemd, but not a part of it. It works also without.

[labyrinth153]

It's "Veteran", not "Venerable".

I disagree.

[L_A_G]

Because it makes the most sense to place such security and process isolation features in the init, or to integrate a dynamic device monitoring system (udev) with the init that deals with processes that will likely want to access devices every now and then.

Well if it makes so much sense to have them all so tightly linked with hard dependency chains, why not roll them all into one single application that exposes a standardised API/APIs to other parts of the operating rather than only being a single application functionally? That way you avoid having a long almost unbreakable dependency chain all the way to the desktop environment.

The thing about SystemD that annoys me the most is that something that's sort of been designed as it's been developed with loads and loads of stuff just piled, either as part of it or as stuff that just relies very heavily on it, as times goes on rather than anything that's been clearly thought out from the get-go. To call it a mess and amateurishly designed is probably the west way to describe it.

[anarki2]

: D remember what I said in the previous announcement thread? That they won't be able to support all this stuff on their own. Because that's not how change management works. And guess what, you're still like a broken record, "they can do it", "there's no reason it wouldn't work", yada yada.

And you still brainstorm about how they should do it. Why don't you help out instead?

Let me answer my own question: coz you'd instantly realize how hard things are in real life. Then you'd realize that you were WRONG and bam, there's your ego defending itself. So keep up, come up with your clever ideas how things should be sorted out, how everyone else is incompetent, lazy or wrong, etc.

There ya go, it's only RC2, and KDE, GNOME and Cinnamon are already gone.

Classic case of "dead on arrival". Farewell, Devuan, we hardly knew ya.

[starshipeleven]

Well if it makes so much sense to have them all so tightly linked with hard dependency chains, why not roll them all into one single application that exposes a standardised API/APIs to other parts of the operating rather than only being a single application functionally?

Because that way you have a ton of code running as root. They split daemons so they can be run as non-root users, and this way any fault in them won't compromise the whole system, while a fault in a single large application running as root and PID1 is insta-pwn.

Note that there are already standardized APIs in place to talk with systemd daemons, how do you think DEs talk with logind? By using shell commands and interrogating exit codes?

That way you avoid having a long almost unbreakable dependency chain all the way to the desktop environment.

No it would not. If your DE of choice wants to use a standardized API to do some stuff, then it depends from whatever application provides this interface, be it a single blob running as root or a team of non-root daemons talking to the init running as root. I don't understand how you can even think something like this can change the matters.

But you can make your own API provider to keep downstream applications happy, which is what elogind does, for example.

The thing about SystemD that annoys me the most is that something that's sort of been designed as it's been developed with loads and loads of stuff just piled, either as part of it or as stuff that just relies very heavily on it, as times goes on rather than anything that's been clearly thought out from the get-go. To call it a mess and amateurishly designed is probably the west way to describe it.

Please note: this critique is posted by a person that has clearly shown he has no idea of how systemd works at all, that is clueless about the most basic security measures in software design, and that thinks that a program relying on a standardized API somehow stops being dependent on some API provider depending on how the API provider is structured internally.

So please mind what you believe.

[stiiixy]

I still don't understand why the DEs can't test their shit on 'otjer' into systems 8-D

As was noted, and it came to mind as I typed ithe first question, Gentoo doesn't seem to care. However this could be because Gentoo users don't care about the unnamed issues? Or mayhap know about them already and have their own patches for said issues?

I'm just asking the air here. Its not like its a huge deal the three DE's were removed from install anyway.

[dungeon]

My Devuan 1.0 openbox, played with a gimp a bit... heh, maybe iF should be smaller maybe not or maybe little cloud where Jessie warns you to watch your first step ! ... blah good enough

[GreekGeek]

Hi Michael,

thanks for the heads up, about the venerable Devuan Distro making even more progress.

To minds so narrow and blinkered, they can not comprehend that there is more than one way to do something, can I recommend coffee?

GreekGeek :-)