systemd: please stop trying to take over the world :)

[Lennart Poettering]

On Mon, 13.06.11 22:46, Denys Vlasenko (dvlasenk at redhat.com) wrote:

> > In this case you are not better/worse than before, once the network will
> > come up you'll add a script to change the hostname.
> > Setting it earlier in systemd makes no difference.
> 
> You continue to avoid answering my question: WHY systemd, a service
> management tool, bothers with setting hostname? It's not its task!

As mentioned already: so that all userspace can rely on a valid hostname
to be set. Which makes things much nicer for early boot logging as one
example. And then there is simplicity, because you need no further
configured service deps and you use less resources too, and it's simpler
to read the sources, and faster, and more robust.

> Slide 6:
> "We can now boot a system shell-free"
> 
> IOW: shell is bad, my new shiny toy is good.

Oh god. If you had listened you'd have understood that my aim is to
deemphasize shell in the boot process, not as an interactive tool or
scripting tool. It's about the boot process, and nothing but the boot
process.

And as a matter of fact in all my talks I explicitly underline that
fact.

You are FUDding, and it's not helpful.

> Slide 14:
> "systemd is an Init System"
> "systemd is a Platform"
> 
> systemd is a platform? Really? What next? systemd is an Aircraft
> Carrier? 

That is not a technical argument, but just FUDing. Of course, systemd is
not an aircraft carrier. If all arguments you can come up with are made
up arguments then you have no arguments at all. If you want to criticise
systemd, then do it on technical grounds, not FUDing with things I never
said and you sucked out of your fingers.

> More to the point: Lennart can call his program whatever he
> wants, even Nuclear Submarine. The point is: some people might disagree
> with having service management tool with Napoleonic aspirations. For
> one, I do!

Good for you then. 

> Slide 50:
> "Shell is evil"
> "Move to systemd, daemons, kernel, udev, ..."
> 
> Again, shell, a tool which endured for 40+ years, is suddenly "evil".
> I don't think this being the consensus.

Yeah, it's not the right tool for the boot process. Doesn't mean it
wasn't useful for interactive use or for scripting. Just not the right
tool for the boot process. Since you seem to have trouble understanding
that, let me repeat it a couple of times: shell is not the best tool to
accomplish a quick and reliable bootup. shell is not the best tool to
accomplish a quick and reliable bootup. shell is not the best tool to
accomplish a quick and reliable bootup. shell is not the best tool to
accomplish a quick and reliable bootup. shell is not the best tool to
accomplish a quick and reliable bootup.

> Slide 79:
> "Substantial coverage of basic OS boot-up tasks, including fsck,
> mount, quota, hwclock, readahead, tmpfiles, random-seed, console,
> static module loading, early syslog, plymouth, shutdown, kexec,
> SELinux, initrd+initrd-less boots, cryptsetup, ..."
> 
> That's what I refer to by "taking over the world".

Well, I just refer to that as "systemd as a platform for building an OS from".

> Note that neither slides, nor this email thread produced an explanation
> WHY all this stuff is thrown together into one project.

In fact those slides you refer to explain all that. If you don't listen
and don't want to read, then I cannot help you. One last try with
different words, nonetheless: simplicity, speed, robustness,
compactness, functionality.

Lennart

-- 
Lennart Poettering - Red Hat, Inc.