why do we use systemd?

[Ian Malone]

On 9 July 2014 14:15, Rahul Sundaram <metherid at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi
>
>
> On Wed, Jul 9, 2014 at 7:19 AM, lee  wrote:
>>
>> The bug --- or call it misstatement if you like --- is with systemd in
>> that things can still be started even when they are disabled.
>
>
> Err.  no.   Before systemd, the equivalent of mask simply didn't exist and
> there was no systematic way to disable dynamically started services.  So in
> sysvinit,  if a service is D-Bus activated,  you had no good way to control
> that.   systemd for the first time harmonized that process.
>

The fact that this discussion keeps coming back and that it keeps
catching people out is something of a symptom that the names have been
chosen wrongly. Yes you could call it 'banana' when a service is off
by default and started by demand and 'handkerchief' when it is
prevented from starting altogether, but words that actually clued
people in to what they did would be more useful. You could call off on
and on off and tell people they're thick because they didn't RTFM. But
it's not helpful.
As it is, 'disabled' has turned out to be a highly confusing name for
the state it has been used to describe since its use is slightly at
odds with its everyday meaning and what turns out to be expected by
people familiar with chkconfig (which you might not expect since it
doesn't use the name itself, though its man page does choose to use
'to disable a service' to describe 'off').


-- 
imalone
http://ibmalone.blogspot.co.uk