why do we use systemd?

[Patrick O'Callaghan]

On Sat, 2014-07-05 at 16:35 +0300, Adrian Sevcenco wrote:
> > +1. One of my pet gripes about systemd is that it introduces a lot
> of
> > new terminology without a clear explanation. I still don't
> understand
> > the difference between a target and a service.
> a service is a service

A rose is a rose is a rose. I know what people mean by service in the
traditional Unix sense, where it's only loosely defined if at all. Is
that what systemd means by service? I suspect it means something more
precise, but it's not clear.

> .. a target is :
> "A unit configuration file whose name ends in ".target" encodes
> information about a target unit of systemd, which is used for grouping
> units and as well-known synchronization points during start-up."
> 
> as said in man systemd.target (which i found by "apropos systemd
> target")

Well if you're just going to look up the manual, anybody can do that :-)

More to the point, to understand "target" I now have to understand
"unit". According to systemd(1), under the heading "Concepts", we find
that "systemd provides a dependency system between various entities
called "units" of 12 different types". 12 different types! I'm getting a
sinking feeling already ...

The point I want to make is that though systemd may be the greatest
thing since sliced bread, the effort required to read and understand the
docs, plus the verbose nature of the command system, doesn't win it any
friends.

poc