• Tartas1995@discuss.tchncs.de
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    8 months ago

    The argument is basically that it does too much and as the motto of Unix was basically “make it do 1 thing and that very well”, systemd goes against that idea.

    You might think it is silly because what is the issue with it doing many things. Arguably, it harms customization and adaptability, as you can’t run only 2/3 of systemd with 1/3 being replaced with that super specific optimisation for your specific use case. Additional, again arguably, it apparently makes it harder to make it secure as it has a bigger attack surface.

    • fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works
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      8 months ago

      Sustemd is modular though, you don’t have to use every subsystem. The base init system and service manager is very comprehensive for sure.

      • Tartas1995@discuss.tchncs.de
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        8 months ago

        I tried to express my understanding of the arguments. I don’t know and I couldn’t argue either case to a point that it is worth adding to the conversation

    • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      Then again, it doing all those things can lead to those parts working together better because it’s the one project instead of a dozen different projects with every distro having a different mix.

      • Tartas1995@discuss.tchncs.de
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        8 months ago

        I understand your point and I want to make clear that my own opinion is not in favor of systemd or against systemd. I am very much neutral. I just expressed my understanding of the arguments. But I welcome the discussion.

    • whoelectroplateuntil@sh.itjust.works
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      8 months ago

      Problem is, nobody’s alternative solves all of the problems people wanted their init system to solve. sysvinit didn’t solve booting/service supervision well, so it’s hard to say it was really a UNIX philosophy solution, and it wasn’t even part of the OG Unix system but came over a decade later in 1981 with AT&T’s system iii (later included in system v, hence the name sysvinit). There’s nothing sysvinit does well. The most popular services and distributions had simply thrown away so many hours of time and effort bashing their heads against sysvinit’s limitations that they had managed to make them work, but that’s different from the system overall working well.

      Anyways, people don’t like Poettering, but he made inroads with systemd in large part because he actively took notes on what people wanted, and then delivered. He’s an unlikable prick, but he delivered a product it was hard for many projects to say no to. That’s why project after project adopted it. It solved problems that needed solving. This counts for more than adherence to an archaic design philosophy from the 70’s most people don’t follow anyways and which the predecessor wasn’t even a good exemplar of anyways.

    • Possibly linux@lemmy.zip
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      8 months ago

      You can in fact run 2/3 Systemd whatever that means. Systemd components are modular so you can run the base system by itself if you want to.

      Additionally systemd just works. You really don’t need to care about the details as running something like a web server or service is as simple as starting it. Dependencies are handled automatically.

    • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Unix was also made in 1969, Computers are a tiny bit more complicated now and expected to do slightly more than they did back then.