why do we use systemd?

[David Benfell]

Kevin Fenzi writes:
>
> Is it an improvement over upstart/sysvinit? I would say absolutely so.

A false dichotomy.

The question is not simply whether we should stick with the old init  
scripts or go with systemd, but really, what is the best way to start up a  
linux system?

It is indeed possible to use one service (unit?) file as a recipe for other  
services. I have done this in the past, when I was on Arch Linux, which  
adopted systemd whole hog, and many AUR packages had not been upgraded.

That's probably not really the case we're concerned about. The problem, as  
illustrated in, now, two threads, is what has to be understood, when all of  
a sudden things aren't working the way they should, and you're under the  
gun to get them fixed. right. f***ing. now.

The way I found the solution to my problem with postfix, nsd, and ejabberd  
(and possibly other services I haven't noticed yet) was hardly systematic.  
In trying to look at the network.target file, I hit tab for tab completion  
and got an unexpected pause because at that point, it was ambiguous.

Then, and only then, did I discover there was even a network-online.target.  
Please understand, the time when things are broken is not the time when I  
want to explore rat holes. As it turned out, this *wasn't* a rat hole, but  
yet an additional layer of complexity.

A layer of complexity, by the way, whose purpose has yet to be explained,  
and which rests on top of all the other complexity that others in this  
thread have complained about.

Which returns us back--and I hope I'm recalling the initial posting in this  
thread correctly--to the beginning of this thread. Do we really need this  
complexity for the sake of a few seconds?

But there's something more insidious about this as well.

The mantra I learned as a system administrator was, if it ain't broken,  
don't fix it. The message I'm getting from this thread, when people point  
out (correctly, as far as I know) that all the distributions are going for  
the latest greatest shiny thing, is that they're abandoning that mantra.

Yes, I'll agree that init is not ideal. But at this point, I'm not at all  
persuaded that the distributions shouldn't have looked at Lennart and said,  
you're out of your flipping mind. But then, at the risk, of opening up  
another flame war, they might have done the same about pulseaudio, which I  
leave alone right up to the moment I have problems--any problems--with  
sound, and then eliminate as a usually successful first stab at a solution.

One problem here is that while I can blow away pulseaudio without qualms, I  
can't do the same with systemd. I'm committed. Whether I like it or not.

-- 
David Benfell
See https://parts-unknown.org/node/2 if you do not understand the  
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