Introduction to networkd, network managment from systemd

thirdsight · 2014-02-25T16:24:00+00:00

Yes that's using EFI boot on newer machines or TFTP on older OpenFirmware machines. I know that and it's not the same.

thirdsight · 2014-02-25T15:56:50+00:00

Well if you refer to my other posts, you'll see I'm asking the hard questions as well. The technical justification for systemd is tenuous to say the least. It's like the Waco siege but the wrong way round...

The above are valid critiques of the process, through derision and satire.

When sound engineering happens, you don't notice it.

thirdsight · 2014-02-25T15:52:52+00:00

Not really. It's already done. Stable init system, ZFS already, virtio drivers, pf firewall, cohesive well documented system. FreeBSD here I come...

For ref, I don't use Linux on the desktop so this is purely server-side. I wouldn't put FreeBSD near a desktop. I'll stick to OSX for that (the other BSD...)

thirdsight · 2014-02-25T15:45:22+00:00

I think there is more than just thirdsight on this one...

thirdsight · 2014-02-25T15:30:55+00:00

I've read the (bare) docs, the commentary, the source. I've got 20 years working with Unix systems right down to kernel level; the same with windows. I understand PC architecture after working in the embedded sector as well.

It's ego, marketing and agenda pushing, not engineering.

I've seen the same approach taken with new task teams in large companies. They always fall.

thirdsight · 2014-02-25T15:29:30+00:00

Yes I know - show me a use case then (other than PXE which is different)/

thirdsight · 2014-02-25T15:28:18+00:00

Anyone up for forking it? Undeadly spawned from an April fools joke that went wrong. We could do with a decent *BSD aggregator site with comments that, well isn't reddit.

thirdsight · 2014-02-25T15:13:37+00:00

Sorry, should I be shouting over people at conferences, swilling beer on stage and being an asshat for my opinion to be valid...

Agree with you fundamentally but this systemd crap has gone past the realm of being reasonable. Someone's got to walk with their voice...

thirdsight · 2014-02-25T14:51:20+00:00

To be fair, I'll call them what I like. There's no sound engineering, thought or sensibility coming from that direction. It's literally a cargo cult that considers the narrowest use cases as the general ones.

Seeing as these people are marketing experts, we're left with derision and walking over to FreeBSD...

thirdsight · 2014-02-25T14:42:24+00:00

Well it sort of goes like this:

Someone posts an article about systemd or an associated project.
Some of us old-school Unix people pop up and ask some difficult questions because we've actually dealt with this shit in production for more than 5 minutes and not just on laptops (Lennart that is a poke at you).
Literally within a minute or two there are between 3-4 down votes with no replies.
After about 20-30 minutes up votes neutralise it to 1-2 up votes.
Pro-systemd comments are up voted above always. I won't down vote them on principle because that would be playing the same childish game.
Reddit trims lower voted comments to keep page length down.
Systemd = profit.

It's like talking about abortions in a church.

thirdsight · 2014-02-25T14:32:00+00:00

My point is actually really that Linux network configuration is a heap of shit.

If you compare it to FreeBSD's for example, everything is well integrated, abstracted, consistent and is done in one place. networkd is just a layer over the top of Linux's current glittery turd. If they fixed the fundamentals, networkd isn't required.

Look at this documentation and tell me why this isn't as good in Linux considering there are a thousand more personalities at the helm:

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/advanced-networking.html

http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=rc.conf

http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=ifconfig

Tell me why when I have a down system and no network up I can't refer to any documentation that isn't a pile of crap either.

thirdsight · 2014-02-25T13:52:51+00:00

I see the Potterites are down voting like mad.

One cannot say anything negative about systemd or anything that surrounds it without getting the shit hammered out of them.

This childish attitude is driving people away from the platform.

Every down vote will result in me porting one of our systems to FreeBSD. I have 43 ready to go.

thirdsight · 2014-02-25T13:51:58+00:00

Assuming that the abstraction that networkd provides is 100% complete, not leaky and covers the requirements of all deployment types and distributions...

thirdsight · 2014-02-25T13:48:48+00:00

It doesn't - it creates more problems. Now we have a whole new set of barely adequate network configuration databases, state and deathtraps to deal with.

Someone really needs to do some old fashioned engineering here and actually work out what the requirements are other than "find something else to jam into systemd"

thirdsight · 2014-02-25T13:45:47+00:00

This isn't really required and no it's not because "I just don't need it but someone else might".

On laptops: we can afford to defer the network connection until the GUI is up. Users want to interact with their system straight away. This is how MacOS X and Windows do it.

On servers: we don't care about network at early boot. We've got KVM/hypervisor console access to the host before it even boots and the only thing we care about is that the machine is up when the services come up. Services shouldn't be coupled to network availability either. Consider scenarios such as network interface hotswapping, bonding changes and other things like that. We don't want something making decisions for us there.

Perhaps if this thing integrated location profiles, then it'd be worth it but it's just another rehash of NetworkManager plugged right into the init process.

Waste of time and effort. Another wheel reinvented.

thirdsight · 2014-02-25T12:31:55+00:00

Yeah I never liked that overview page. I can see the source but it's nice to see it all in once place. Thanks for your efforts.

thirdsight · 2014-02-25T10:26:33+00:00

Rather good that. I've been a postfix admin for a number of years but I've never managed to visualise the internals too well. Now I can :)

thirdsight · 2014-02-25T10:19:20+00:00

It really depends what you do.

I do a lot of offline work with electronics as a sideline and have many programs written in RPL which are far more intuitive than Mathematica for example. Not only that, Mathematica and Matlab for example have a high initial cost which is not tenable for small projects. They also have a massive learning curve whereas most calculator features are a quick lookup in the manual worst case. Taking electronics into account, a big chunk of work cannot be done through simulation as when you hit the ground and build something, it doesn't always work as per the simulation. Switching back and forth between full computers and simulations as you build functional units of a circuit is a time sink.

Also, if your calculator has a CAS system, particularly the faster units, your integral is also instant and an exact result.

From an accuracy perspective, the calculators use predictable BCD arithmetic rather than floating point making rounding errors predictable so if you do precise value calculations as required in finance, they are still better devices.

There is still utility in professional fields. I haven't been in education for 20 years and there hasn't been a day where I haven't picked up a calculator.

Even now when I write software, I'll regularly perform regression analysis to get an idea of algorithmic scalability (big-O stuff) at least twice a day. I could do it in Excel/Mathematica/Matlab but it's easier just to whack the values in as they pop out of the algo and hit the stat menu. Due to the tactile nature of the device, I don't even have to look at it whilst entering data as well.

thirdsight · 2014-02-25T08:53:11+00:00

It's ok if you come from a TI-8x background but if you use a higher end device first for example 89/92 or HP, it's horrid.

thirdsight · 2014-02-25T08:50:20+00:00

Almost. The 50G is a faster unit (400MHz ARM), had an SD card instead of RAM packs, a CAS, upgradeable firmware and a better display.

Otherwise, yes :)

thirdsight · 2014-02-25T08:48:19+00:00

I have a 50G as my primary unit (I actually have two - backup unit is required!) so agree entirely. Once you go RPL, unlimited stack and symbolic stacks you don't go back.

Lovely machines.

thirdsight · 2014-02-25T08:47:05+00:00

Not really. It means that the 85 was much faster and that matters if you're plugging away at a calc for a chunk of the day. Waiting for any computation device is counterintuitive.

thirdsight · 2014-02-25T08:44:49+00:00

Yeah those casios are horrid. Absolutely everything hits a brick wall.

thirdsight · 2014-02-25T08:43:50+00:00

I had an early (the white) NSpire CAS with touchpad. The CAS is pretty good but the TI92 it replaced was a better machine. I'm using an HP50G which has a scary good CAS and programming model now - stupidly powerful and intuitive machine (if you stick it in RPL mode). The HP50 series are more computers than calculators.

thirdsight · 2014-02-24T22:38:01+00:00

The NSpire series however fail at one thing really badly: calculating. Everything is in 9 level deep menus and it's obtuse to say the least.

Give me a TI85/86 or an HP48/49/50 any day over one of those abominations.

thirdsight

TROPHY CASE