Getting harder and harder to debug startup probs

[M A Young]

On Mon, 13 Feb 2012, Matthias Runge wrote:

> More general:
>
> If you're hit by some bug, you get lost; nowadays sooner than later. I
> can't count, how many times I had some error getting X up (or even
> system up) since the move to systemd.
>
> Next sad thing is, it isn't reproducible every time. Since we're
> testing moving targets, it's pretty unclear, how to reproduce the
> situtation _now_ on _my_ special system? Since I can't login, I can't
> get a package list.

It isn't just systemd. I don't think gnome-shell helps either, because you 
tend to get an unhelpful "blue screen of death" type message if something 
goes wrong making it difficult to work out what the problem is. Previously 
the system continued as best it could, meaning you might see what the 
problem was in what did and didn't appear on the desktop, and might get 
enough functionality on the desktop to debug the problem more easily.

 	Michael Young