In some ways I think the filesystem is philosophically the exact opposite of systemd — I can boot my system with an ext4 root, with a btrfs /home…or vice versa. Or add some ZFS, or whatever. The filesystem is (with the exception of some special backup schemes) largely independent of the rest of the system, despite being of core importance.
On the other hand, I can’t change my init system (i.e., systemd) without serious, serious work.
It’s also “infectious” software. The way systemd positions itself on the system, it can make it more difficult for software to be written in an agnostic way. This isn’t all software, and is often more of a complaint by lower level software, like desktop environments. https://catfox.life/2024/01/05/systemd-through-the-eyes-of-a-musl-distribution-maintainer/
This isn’t a terrible summary of some of the aspects of it.
Another aspect is that when it was first developed, the lead on the project was exceptionally hostile to anyone who didn’t immediately agree that systemd definitely should take over most of the system, often criticizing people who pointed out bugs or questionable design decisions as being afraid of change or relics of the past.
It’s more of a social reason, but if people feel like the developer of a tool they’re forced to use doesn’t even respect their concerns, they’re going to start rejecting the tool.
It’s that it also decided to take over log management, event management, networking, DNS resolution, etc, etc.
If it were just an init system that would be perfectly portable. People were able to write software that way with sysv for years.
It’s that in order to do certain low level tasks on a systemd system, you need to integrate with systemd, not just “be started by it”. Now if a distro wants that piece of software, it needs to use systemd, and other pieces of software that want to be on that distro need to implement integration with systemd.
A dependency isn’t infectious, but a dependency you can’t easily swap out is, particularly if it’s positioned near the base of a dependency tree.
Almost all of my software can run on x86 or arm without any issues beyond changing compiler targets.
It’s closer to how it’s tricky to port software between Mac and Linux, or Linux and BSD. Targeting one platform entails significant, potentially prohibitive, effort to support another, despite them all being ostensibly compatible unix like systems.
My understanding is that some people are die hards to the software philosophy of “do one thing really well”. systemd at the very least does many different things. These people would prefer to chain a bunch of smaller programs together to replicate the same functionality of systemd since every program in the chain fits the philosophy of “does one thing really well”.
Systemd breaks all three of though by being monolithic and binary. It actually makes you have to jump through more hoops to do things in certain cases. I understand it’s a mindset shift but it really starts making it feel more like Windows with how it works and the registry and event log.
I don’t see how systemd has anything like the Windows registry. At least its journals are leagues ahead of Windows event logs, I hate those things and the awful viewer they have.
People don’t like it because it’s declarative. It felt cool to be able to just put bash files into certain directories to have them executed on startup. That was elegant, in the sense of “everything’s a file”.
systemd is more of an api than a framework, so it’s a different design paradigm.
I hated systemd until I printed out the docs, for some coffee, and sat in a comfy chair to read them front to back. Then I loved it.
Mostly I hated it because I didn’t know how to do things with it.
Also, “journalctl” is kind of an ugly command. But really, who gives a fuck. It’s a well-designed system.
And if a person absolutely must execute their own arbitrary code they can just declare a command to execute their script file as the startup operation on a unit.
Someone please convince me why I should hate systemd because I still don’t understand why all the hate exists.
The idea as far as I can tell is that it’s responsible for too many things and gives a massive point of failure.
Man, wait until these people hear about the filesystem and kernel.
In some ways I think the filesystem is philosophically the exact opposite of systemd — I can boot my system with an ext4 root, with a btrfs /home…or vice versa. Or add some ZFS, or whatever. The filesystem is (with the exception of some special backup schemes) largely independent of the rest of the system, despite being of core importance.
On the other hand, I can’t change my init system (i.e., systemd) without serious, serious work.
hurd “exists”
Does it ? I thought it was never completed !
On the other hand, if you want a microkernel that does exist, there’s Mach. But I don’t think you can replace Linux with it 😆
It’s been two years away for the last 30 years.
The very existence of a defined kernel is an insult to the Linux philosophy
The Linux kernel (the part that gives Linux the name) is antithetical to Linux philosophy? I could understand it being contrary to GNU philosophy
It’s also “infectious” software. The way systemd positions itself on the system, it can make it more difficult for software to be written in an agnostic way. This isn’t all software, and is often more of a complaint by lower level software, like desktop environments.
https://catfox.life/2024/01/05/systemd-through-the-eyes-of-a-musl-distribution-maintainer/ This isn’t a terrible summary of some of the aspects of it.
Another aspect is that when it was first developed, the lead on the project was exceptionally hostile to anyone who didn’t immediately agree that systemd definitely should take over most of the system, often criticizing people who pointed out bugs or questionable design decisions as being afraid of change or relics of the past.
It’s more of a social reason, but if people feel like the developer of a tool they’re forced to use doesn’t even respect their concerns, they’re going to start rejecting the tool.
What do you expect from an init system? It’s like saying my cpu is infectious because my computer depends on it
It’s that it also decided to take over log management, event management, networking, DNS resolution, etc, etc.
If it were just an init system that would be perfectly portable. People were able to write software that way with sysv for years.
It’s that in order to do certain low level tasks on a systemd system, you need to integrate with systemd, not just “be started by it”. Now if a distro wants that piece of software, it needs to use systemd, and other pieces of software that want to be on that distro need to implement integration with systemd.
A dependency isn’t infectious, but a dependency you can’t easily swap out is, particularly if it’s positioned near the base of a dependency tree.
Almost all of my software can run on x86 or arm without any issues beyond changing compiler targets. It’s closer to how it’s tricky to port software between Mac and Linux, or Linux and BSD. Targeting one platform entails significant, potentially prohibitive, effort to support another, despite them all being ostensibly compatible unix like systems.
My understanding is that some people are die hards to the software philosophy of “do one thing really well”. systemd at the very least does many different things. These people would prefer to chain a bunch of smaller programs together to replicate the same functionality of systemd since every program in the chain fits the philosophy of “does one thing really well”.
For me it’s 3 things
Systemd breaks all three of though by being monolithic and binary. It actually makes you have to jump through more hoops to do things in certain cases. I understand it’s a mindset shift but it really starts making it feel more like Windows with how it works and the registry and event log.
You forgot: use as many dependencies as you need. For example, my init system does not use
xz-utils.I don’t see how systemd has anything like the Windows registry. At least its journals are leagues ahead of Windows event logs, I hate those things and the awful viewer they have.
I remember the clusterfuck that existed before systemd, so I love systemd.
People don’t like it because it’s declarative. It felt cool to be able to just put bash files into certain directories to have them executed on startup. That was elegant, in the sense of “everything’s a file”.
systemd is more of an api than a framework, so it’s a different design paradigm.
I hated systemd until I printed out the docs, for some coffee, and sat in a comfy chair to read them front to back. Then I loved it.
Mostly I hated it because I didn’t know how to do things with it.
Also, “journalctl” is kind of an ugly command. But really, who gives a fuck. It’s a well-designed system.
And if a person absolutely must execute their own arbitrary code they can just declare a command to execute their script file as the startup operation on a unit.