Gentoo Announces Eudev Project -- Its Udev Fork

[ryao]

Note from the OP (in FAQ format) that the concept of the Gentoo project announcing things is a somewhat problematic one:

"You are a Gentoo project. What does this mean?

Gentoo as an organization is quite similar to github, although it is exclusive to Gentoo developers. Our rules permit all Gentoo developers have the ability to start a project and such projects are entitled to be hosted on Gentoo infrastructure. This by no means constitutes official endorsement by Gentoo's governing body and we have no authority to dictate the future direction of Gentoo. We do have the ability to provide an alternative to Gentoo users, which we fully intend to do."

(emphasis mine)

How is it problematic?

[Delgarde]

Yes, But two issues; 1) i still need to download the systemd source if all i want is udev. 2) i have build systemd if all i want is udev. To build systems I also need dbus installed. Not all systems using udev want/need/have room for dbus.

Partly correct - yes, you need the systemd sources, but you don't need to build the entire of systemd, nor it's dependencies. It's a little fiddly though.

For an example of how this is done, look at the Linux From Scratch project - they use the latest systemd tarball to install udev...

http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/view/development/chapter06/udev.html

Basically, they've patched in their own hand-written Makefile to compile and install the udev sources independently of the systemd build system. Not pretty, but not as ugly as it sounds...

[finalzone]

Lennart Poettering actually said:
So if people wanted to have a supported udev for non-SystemD setups, forking looked like the only option. It looks like udev *is* planning to drop support for anything else.

For now: https://plus.google.com/111049168280...ts/R387kQb1zxc

If udev is becoming redundant duplicating the functionality of systemd, it is logical to drop it. What is the last time a static dev was used in modern distributions?
At the moment, euvdev appears useless as fork other than being an anti-systemd crusader or like an already doomed udev-lsd

[RealNC]

Lennart Poettering actually said:

udev on non-systemd systems is in our eyes a dead end, in case you haven't noticed it yet. I am looking forward to the day when we can drop that support entirely.

So if people wanted to have a supported udev for non-SystemD setups, forking looked like the only option. It looks like udev *is* planning to drop support for anything else.

[cynyr]

When? Because it's definetly still supported.

Yes, But two issues; 1) i still need to download the systemd source if all i want is udev. 2) i have build systemd if all i want is udev. To build systems I also need dbus installed. Not all systems using udev want/need/have room for dbus.

[AdamW]

Note from the OP (in FAQ format) that the concept of the Gentoo project announcing things is a somewhat problematic one:

"You are a Gentoo project. What does this mean?

Gentoo as an organization is quite similar to github, although it is exclusive to Gentoo developers. Our rules permit all Gentoo developers have the ability to start a project and such projects are entitled to be hosted on Gentoo infrastructure. This by no means constitutes official endorsement by Gentoo's governing body and we have no authority to dictate the future direction of Gentoo. We do have the ability to provide an alternative to Gentoo users, which we fully intend to do."

(emphasis mine)

[Ibidem]

An arch dev -and sysD contributor- commented that in order to fix what they wanted to achieve all they had to do was "write some trivial patches for the builtsystem". Probably the hate for Lennart and Kay played a big role in this fork.

ISTR seeing those "trivial patches" submitted, and rejected.
If upstream refuses to consider merging support for something that used to work, then what reason is there to expect that upstream won't break it worse?

Also, maybe they'll be more sane about asyncronous firmware loading...I'd give it a 90% or better chance.

[89c51]

I don't have anything against systemd.

I might not know what I am talking about so correct me if I am wrong, but I have got the impression that systemd authors have tied systemd to udev so to force systemd onto everyone, I think that is very ugly and very wrong!

An arch dev -and sysD contributor- commented that in order to fix what they wanted to achieve all they had to do was "write some trivial patches for the builtsystem". Probably the hate for Lennart and Kay played a big role in this fork.

[uid313]

I don't have anything against systemd.

I might not know what I am talking about so correct me if I am wrong, but I have got the impression that systemd authors have tied systemd to udev so to force systemd onto everyone, I think that is very ugly and very wrong!

[YoungManKlaus]

Ok, after reading up on the follup-thread it seems that various patches in the direction were rejected, as were bug reports (closed with "WONTFIX"). So, it seems, forking has it's valid points ... hope they can work out their differences though and merge back together (someone needs to convince Lennart first that udev without systemd also has it's use(r)s)