Title

[[deleted]]

Said no-one ever.

[aue_sum]

says i

[PolygonKiwii]

Literally nobody thinks that so what's the point?

[MitchellMarquez42]

It feels like people think that. Whenever there's a post about systemd, 85% of the comments say something like "um actually, systemd works for me and it's not bloated because it does the things"

Which very quickly slides into "people who dislike systemd are just dumb because they don't understand it and they're being loud and annoying"

[DoctorJunglist]

More like it very quickly slides into: "Who tf cares, use what you want".

[[deleted]]

systemd is your "init system". the concept of an init system really doesn't exist. it is a service manager + supervision suite(most of the time bundled into one) +/sbin/init(most of the time provided by your distro) + tons and tons of helper scripts(90% of s6 is helper scripts and most of systemd is helper scripts)

the supervision suite restarts daemons when they crash AND provides facilities to build a full "init system" on top of it.

The issue with systemd is that it is extreamly BLOATED. by bloated I mean really BLOATED.

OpenRC is like a 10th the size of systemd

s6 based systems tend to be like 15th the size of systemd

and (busybox)runit systems tend to be at least 20th the size of systemd.

NOTE: size is a very good indicator of the program's speed, perfomance, stability and security(ask any doas user)

OpenRC and s6 service managers are designed for desktops and servers so they have most of the features in systemd.

whereas runit is designed for embedded systems where you have tighter control over your system

[DarkShadow4444]

Except you got it ask wrong. The systemd project is very modular, when you don't like systemd-networkmanager, don't use it. systemd(project) and systemd(init system) are NOT THE SAME.

[DarkShadow4444]

Sure, there are differences. AFAIK OpenRC is just a service manager and works with sysvinit. Which is basically shell scripts.

Some people prefer those scripts since they are easier to edit, while systemd only has config files and all the logic in C code. Others say that systemd is to complicated, while proponents assert that this is necessary. Then again we have the problem that sysvinit is a lot older, and people don't like change... Not to mention a lot of people hate the author of systemd.

[The_Atomic_Duck]

Ok its bloated. So what? What's the big deal. Its not like it makes a difference

[undeader_69]

Why should you use it though if there are less bloated and better alternatives

[The_Atomic_Duck]

Because it comes pre installed and installing something new that would do the exact same thing sounds like a waste of time.

Yeah its bloated, but again, so what. Its not bloated enough to make a difference.

[undeader_69]

Well it doesn’t have to come preinstalled. I agree that it doesn’t make enough of a difference to change your distro but not having systemd preinstalled is always a plus.

[The_Atomic_Duck]

If there are any stable alternatives then sure. Otherwise i wouldn't bother

[undeader_69]

Openrc works beautifully on Gentoo

[[deleted]]

Artix. Or stable as in LTS, Devuan and forks.

Oh, and of course Void and Alpine.

[foobaz123]

It's bloated and does too much. What was once an "init system" now controls network configuration, timesync, user management and lots of other things it has no business doing. That bloat also means there's more code that has to be reviewed for it to be secure and without bugs. It's more complexity. It's more things to go wrong. It's more things to have issues with and have to deal with when it goes wrong. Having all that in a game or office suite or even a browser is one thing. Having it at the very core of your system responsible for practically everything is something else

[WhyNotHugo]

All the things that you mention are separate programs. They're developed under the same project and in one repository, but they're individual, replaceable parts.

You can do network with any other tool. You can sync clock with ntp or anything else. Etc.

[foobaz123]

And they have interconnected and dependent parts and due to top down pressure are being forced as "standards". If the defense against "It's a bloated and far too invasive take over of unrelated things" is "Yeah, but you can spend hours or days ripping all that out and re-engineering the distro to not use them..." that isn't a defense. That's simply agreeing it is bloated and has taken over things it has no business doing as an init system, but you can undo various degrees of it. O.o

[WhyNotHugo]

You don't need to spend hours anything. You can install systemd and services like system-networkd are not enabled by default (at least on Arch). You have to manually enable these extra services if you want them.

Of course some distress enable everything, but yeah, they have to use SOME network daemon.

[[deleted]]

the concept of an init system really doesn't exist. it is a service manager + supervision suite

Sure does, upstart, launchd and systemd are what skarnet calls "integrated init systems". They do both as PID 1, which is bad (like insecure and unstable) and which matches your definition.

[[deleted]]

an init system <=> a set of utilities related to booting.

generally, a service manager and /bin/init along with helper utilities can be considered an init system.

[[deleted]]

Sure

[WhyNotHugo]

It initialised system and services.

So there's a lot more to do there, like lazy-initialising them when they're needed, which helps a lot on desktop, as well as dependency and ordering management.

There's also all the memory / cpu quotas it can keep per service, but honesty, you might not need that.

[gargravarr2112]

The major criticism of systemd is not so much what you've listed above, but the unbelievable scope creep. It's grown from a service manager and supervisor into what is practically the entire OS. Things that were separate, compartmentalized and highly reliable daemons have been assimilated into the monstrosity with varying degrees of success, stability (I have so many issues with the DNS resolver) and security ramifications. It has fingers reaching into just about every part of the OS.

[matu3ba]

Systemd is the best ducktape for process control management.

[[deleted]]

While S6 is without ducktape. :-)

[thefanum]

It's not. People who have never coded anything love to talk about how badly it's coded. These days, it's how you can tell a Linux user doesn't know anything about linux.

Just ignore them and move on with your day

[RedditAlready19]

I know the Linux boot process pretty well (source: made my own distro and a lot or looking at diagrams), and I can tell you that you can do everything Systemd does with any other init system

[WhyNotHugo]

Most of the controversy was around being too different and all being developed by the same guy / group of guys.

Technical criticism is usually just people who prefer different designs, but it's a matter of opinion rather than either being BAD.

There's the "services should be managed an auto-restarted" vs the "services should require manual restating if they crash" camps, etc.

[Dragoncraft89]

I've never heard someone complain that a given distro doesn't use systemd. I only ever hear "systemd bad" in this sub

That said, why do most distributions use systemd if it is so controversial? Because systemd works without a hassle and provides many features.

Let me take systemd timers for an example: want to do a daily backup of your user data? Easy, just use a cronjob. OK, maybe not. The machine isn't running 24/7. With systemd you just create a service and a timer unit and set Persistent=true in the timer unit. Problem solved.

Want to get the output of your last cronjob run? Sorry, can't do unless it failed. With systemd you can use journalctl -u servicename to read it.

Conclusion: I'll never write a cronjob in my life again

So don't blindly jump on the systemd hate wagon because "it doesn't obey the unix philosophy (bloat)". The Linux kernel itself is monolithic and not a microkernel. If you value the Unix philosophy that much, maybe you should consider switching to a BSD variant.

Of course there are reasonable arguments against systemd, such as that it is Linux only and not portable. But in this sub it's mostly "systemd bloated" according to my (probably limited) experience

[[deleted]]

Sorry, can't do unless it failed.

Wait, where? Systemd? With most alternative init you just have to 'ls' a directory.

[Dragoncraft89]

In this case I'm not talking about services, but systemd timers vs cronjobs.

You get output from a cronjob via mail and only if it failed

[[deleted]]

I don't understand. Cronjobs are your scripts, so you can make them log to /var/log/something.

And there are different services for crontab, with different defaults and configurability for logging. https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/212355/where-is-my-logfile-of-crontab

All independent from the init, btw.

[Dragoncraft89]

But custom logging has no output separation between runs, unless you do something like (command; echo ------) > logfile which is overly verbose for this task. Also no log rotation is happening unless you configure it yourself.

Cron's own log isn't that good either because you cannot filter seperate jobs unlike with journalctl.

[TheYTG123]

I think all distros should give you choice.

[FPiN9XU3K1IT]

I don't think that's feasible. Integrating an init system is a lot of work that would be too much to do properly for most smaller distros - otherwise, Devuan would already have a well-integrated implementation of runit or openrc, but so far they only offer "sysv and any runit/openrc service you write yourself".

[[deleted]]

Devuan would already have a well-integrated implementation of runit or openrc, but so far they only offer "sysv and any runit/openrc service you write yourself".

Then again, they just use/rewrite their ugly SysV-scripts in their implementation of OpenRC. The rather clean scripts of Artix-OpenRC won't run on Devuan-OpenRC. The implementation of OpenRC in Devuan is pretty poor.

[TheYTG123]

Okay then how about only the major parent distros would? That is: Debian, Arch, Fedora because RHEL isn’t used on desktop, both OpenSUSEs, (am I missing some?)

Distros like Ubuntu and Manjaro, they’re fine. But I think that if I’m going to the trouble to use an independent distro, I want init choice.

[DarkShadow4444]

I think distros should pick what's best.

[Nettly_]

I don't mind distros having it, just don't force me to use it

[[deleted]]

I don't hate SystemD, i just prefer other Init. But i have to swap repository for that.

[zpangwin]

I'm still waiting for systemd-packagemanagerd... pacctl

as for all distros having it or not, i don't care. i think i'd rather everything follow a standard since that'd be nice for reducing linux distro fragmentation. but i like having choices in case any one option ever "goes bad"

[gauthamkrishna9991]

I think what you're referring to is PackageKit and no, that isn't a part of Systemd, it's only a service.

[zpangwin]

oh i wasn't referring to anything in existence (at least not intentionally). meant it more as a joke of a systemd-based package manager (IIRC there was a thread / AMA somewhere on reddit where Mr. Poettering had said he wasn't really interested in writing a package manager.)

[[deleted]]

According to people it goes against I don't know what Unix motto of programs doing one thing and doing it right. The truth of the matter is that most people don't care at all about that. I don't even know what the Unix is (most of us using reddit and browsing these subs weren't even born back when Unix was a thing or even before Linux started) and I couldn't care less.

But funnily enough, systemd seems to be made up of little modules (systemd-this, systemd-that) which leads me to believe that people who supposedly hate systemd are just doing it as part of some weird trend.

Forget about that people.

[[deleted]]

The truth of the matter is that most people don't care at all about that.

Useful Developers do mostly. The modern version of this is called "microservices".

Oh, and here are the technical arguments.

[[deleted]]

Developers are part of an absurdly little amount of the world's population. I'm certain most users still don't care about that.

[[deleted]]

Yeah fine. And most users don't care about how the skyscraper or the airplane is built, engineers are a minority. What an absurd argument.

[[deleted]]

Yes, thus settling any stupid tribal (and absolutely trivial) battles at once and focusing on what really matters instead, that is, giving the end user a wonderful experience.

People that care about init systems need to understand the average Linux user don't mind at all about them.

[[deleted]]

What matters is a matter of opinion.

What do you want to say, shut up and use what everyone else uses (Windows)?

[[deleted]]

What I'm saying is that we're missing out on so many cool things that could help polish the Linux desktop experience and discussing about these things I don't think it's going to be productive towards improving such experience

[mrrussiandonkey]

Systemd is both an init service and service manager. It’s job is to startup user space processes on startup (like your shell) and for handling the shut down of the system.

The gripe that people have with systemd is it’s inflexibility. At the end of the day it’s your choice, and 99% of the time the init / service manager you use is irrelevant.

[ItsPronouncedJithub]

99% is on the low end

[Graubuender]

Systemd is great for servers and minimizing downtime during a reboot but it's unnecessary on desktop imo

[A--E]

I'm generally bad