F22 System Wide Change: Systemd Package Split

[Kay Sievers]

On Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 12:21 PM, Jaroslav Reznik <jreznik at redhat.com> wrote:
> = Proposed System Wide Change: Systemd Package Split =
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/SystemdPackageSplit
>
> Change owner(s): Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmek <zbyszek at in.waw.pl>
>
> Split systemd-units out of the main systemd package
>
> == Detailed Description ==
> Systemd contains many binaries and depends on a fairly large number of
> libraries. Packages which carry systemd units currently have to depend on
> systemd (through %post, %preun, %postun macros used to install and uninstall
> systemd units), which grows the dependency tree and increases the size of
> minimal installs.
>
> With this proposal systemd-units subpackages will be split out again:
> systemd-units
>
> This subpackage will contain the directories and binaries necessary to satisfy
> %post, %preun, %postun macros for packages containing systemd units
> (systemctl, systemd-escape, systemd-sysusers, udevadm, journalctl), and config
> information (pkg-config files).
>
> The main systemd package would require this package so it will be pulled in on
> all existing systems. All packages which have BuildRequires:systemd will also
> pull it in transitively.
>
> Systemd previously had a -units subpackage and ~150 packages still depend on
> it. Those packages would start using the reduced subpackage immediately. Other
> packages wishing to use the reduced dependency, would have to change the
> BuildRequires and Requires to systemd-units.

We have been there, we merged it back for many reasons, and do not
want to go back. This all sounds like a really bad idea and has no
support from my side.

Systemd binaries, unit files and RPM macros are not supposed to live
in separate packages, they are one entity and should live in one
package.

If you want to play such weird package installation games, the only
sensible option I currently see, would be to create an empty,
zero-file-content systemd-filesystem.rpm which only owns the
directories for other stuff to put things into.

Randomly splitting active parts which belong together into different
packages makes no sense at all. Please just drop this proposal as it
is. It creates more problems that it is supposed to solve.

Thanks,
Kay