[HEADS-UP] systemd for F14 - the next steps

[Lennart Poettering]

On Thu, 15.07.10 07:33, Chuck Anderson (cra at WPI.EDU) wrote:

> 
> On Thu, Jul 15, 2010 at 01:58:33AM -0400, James Antill wrote:
> > 1. Leave /etc/inittab functionally as it is in Fed-13, with 3 and 5
> > doing the obvious thing and the big comment saying stuff about systemd
> > instead of upstart. If people want to opt. in to "the new way" they can
> > just cp /dev/empty /etc/inittab.
> > 
> > 2. For F-15 or F-16 change inittab to be:
> > 
> > id:default:initdefault:
> > 
> > ...and have anaconda write that out and configure using a symlink
> > instead. Users can still change it to 3 or 5, or whatever ... but if
> > they don't it'll work as though inittab doesn't exist (the "new" way).
> > 
> > 3. At some point you remove support for parsing inittab, so people have
> > to configure using symlinks ... some people will still not like you
> > removing free compat. code, but assuming you wait a few years at least
> > "everything" will support "the new way".
> 
> I agree.  You went through all the trouble to make systemd backwards 
> compatible with /etc/fstab, why not /etc/inittab for the default 
> runlevel too?

Because it reverses everything.

I.e. generally we have the rule that "native configuration breaks legacy
configuration". However, to make the inittab stuff useful we'd have to
turn that around, and say that "legacy breaks native". Why? Because the
/etc/systemd/system/default.target symlink is created by the rpm in all
cases and would hence make the inittab ignored anyway.

If I added inittab parsing support even when keeping "native breaks
legacy" around, then inittab would matter only if the default.target
symlink doesn't exist. We could certainly inform the user to delete that
symlink, via some blurb in inittab, however, if he goes and deletes it,
wouldn't it be much easier to just fix properly and to the right boot
target, and have a future-proof system?

i.e. isn't this:

    # vi /etc/inittab        
        ... user reads the blurb and changes a line, exits
    # rm /etc/systemd/system/default.target

really that much better in your eyes, than this:

    # vi /etc/inittab
        ... user reads the blurb, quits right-away
    # ln -sf /lib/systemd/system/multi-user.target /etc/systemd/system/default.target

I don't think it is...

Lennart

-- 
Lennart Poettering - Red Hat, Inc.