There are still many issues with systemd and a biggie for me is the very slow shutdown/reboot times while it does it's thing. There are many posts on various forums about systemd not shutting down well, the unmounting of /var and /home, an issue with which I have struggled too.

This has been an ongoing issue for many years, some posts I have read date back to 2016 and the issue still persists. If the devs cannot sort these sort of issues, why are we getting ever more reliant on it? It still beats LIRC hands down for ir remotes though!

Cheers, Tony.

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I don't ask this question to dismiss your point, because you make a good point, but I do wonder, is it possible we don't have what you termed a real UDEV fork; because at the moment the current method of forking works? That is to say, just because no ones taking the time to create this "real fork"; doesn't mean they won't if the current situation changes. I wonder if there is any more evidence to suggest what would happen if the situation became, create a "real fork" or move to systemD.

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I'm perplexed by the assertion that eudev is somehow not a "real" fork. I'm a software engineer and have seen a lot of forked projects, and eudev seems very much typical of a forked project.

Udev had only recently been subsumed into systemd when the eudev folks forked it, and iirc they started with a version of the udev code which dated prior to its integration with systemd.

This line of criticism seems entirely without merit.

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Err, I didn't clearly understand what you were talking here? Originally I just watched the thread but upon seeing this comment confusion arose me. MX Linux always had systemd and SysVinit since its beginnings, it uses systemd-shim specifically to allow users to choose their init at boot. Binaries there are for people who may want to run apps that depend on systemd (like Skype), but systemd is not used unless you will it at boot (obviously), so I don't understand why the need to laugh like an idiot...?

As for systemd itself. I have a position very RMS-like, as long as it is free software, I don't mind. I don't run servers or routers nor am I a sysadmin so I don't care.

Good point. I was pondering to my self what would constitute a "real fork" in this instance; but gave the author the benefit of the doubt; while believing he made a fair or good point regardless.

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I know this is going to open a can of worms and people here are going to tear me a new one for it, but I'd consider Distrowatch ranking to guide my choice, if I didn't know any better that is.

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"So what you're saying is..." .

Insulted? No. I contribute to Open Source. I understand *some of* the motivations that people have for doing so. I respect people's decisions about the software that they maintain week-in week-out. How could I be insulted by the actions of people who's software I've had the benefit of for decades?

SystemD is not a freedom respecting software. I have a hard time believing RMS in his right mind would think SystemD with its tyrant approach is acceptable. If you have no choice, you have no freedom. SystemD is in my opinion not compatible with the mission of the free software foundation.

If the Linux Kernel would force you to use Gnome3, it would also not be a freedom respecting software. It would be removing your freedom and restricting your choice and forcing you down one given path. That has nothing to do with freedom.

RMS need to wake up an realize what's going on in 2019 and the dangers that are posed on the whole free software movement. 99.9% of people don't have a choice of free software on their mobile phones and tablets for example, and PC's are sadly becoming irrelevant.

Free software is not enough anymore. We need governments to grant freedoms and remove hardware chokeholds and ownership and such things. So even if RMS thought SystemD is freedom respecting software, it would be irrelevant. Free software is coming to an age where free software in itself can become irrelevant unless something is done. I wrote RMS and mentioned about free hardware as one possible path, and government regulation and granting ownership over hardware to users rather than the producing companies. You can't have free software if all the devices deny you access to the hardware and make it impossible to install free software. At that point, free software is merely theoretical.

This was back in the time when mobiles and tablets really took off and it even looked like Microsoft and the PC hardware manufacturers would start locking the hardware to Microsoft Windows and denying any free software.

RMS only cares about licensing. As long as systemd is free software, he won't have a problem with it. And he doesn't:

https://www.networkworld.com/article...-and-more.html

https://imgur.com/r/linux/5aM3Y

Add to that the fact that he doesn't talk about it. If he did have a problem with systemd, we'd all know.

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I think the point Zeebra was making is that RMS may be fighting yesterday's battle. The great enemy used to be proprietary software and Windows in particular. Now it is proprietary firmware that locks you into using particular systems. I think that's a greater threat than systemd is.

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x86 is a rats nest of proprietary firmware - not just the IME/PSP firmware, but also the UEFI and CPU microcode, LAN adapter firmware, etc, etc - most of which are proprietary closed source code. It's not an open or free platform and running a free OS on such a platform, while patting oneself on the back for being so free, is token at best.

Windows OEM hardware is clearly heading in the same direction as platforms like Android and macOS/iOS. This is because, the only way forward for MS, will be to give away the OS for free with the hardware. To achieve this, you have to ensure that the OEMs are locking the hardware to the OS - or at least making it very difficult and onerous to change.

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Post #258 @ jakedp
A “woman’s circle”?! Seriously? Some of us might construe that as misogynistic.

On topic: I don’t often post here anymore. Unfortunately, because I found it too difficult to use bleeding edge software, or even to try not so bleeding edge software without considerable work, I moved from Slackware to Arch quite some time ago. systemd occasionally causes problems, booting, shutdown which are magically fixed with another update. It is beyond my modest ability, limited time and willingness to determine what the problems are, though I have gotten much better at looking through journald. Race conditions from inappropriate parallelization would be my guess, and yes, I’ve noticed a certain Windows like behavior in that the computer is not always really “ready” after boot. That’s my data point in 2019.

I miss Slackware at times, have supported Mr Volkerding and wish him well. It’s possible that if the inclusion of systemd came to Slackware, it might make it easier to use programs which apparently, according to what I’ve read here, currently require what I felt were contortions. Maybe more people would use Slackware. Just a thought, not a wish or an opinion.

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You played hockey and American football in Australia?

I' am speaking from Canada you are speaking from Australia. At first impression the rules of any sport are different between us. In hockey and tackleball, I still say the same. Soccer maybe it is different down there. Everything is different there.

Uses Windows and then complains about systemd. Just had to point out the irony. In the window title bar is Windows Thin PC.


https://www.anandtech.com/show/4281/...s-slimmed-down

The RMS idea of freedom is not actually freedom. It is a "freedom from", not a "freedom", nor a "freedom of". If enough are interested I will spend a few minutes looking up a thread from the OpenBSD mailing list. Would take awhile but the story is RMS came there, I wonder if he was in Cambodia smoking weed when he thought of this, and was soliciting his GNU philosophy to the developers of OpenBSD on their own mailing list. Of course it did not go well for RMS. Theo is kind of like Linus was before the Bolsheviks neutered Linus.

It was a good read and it gave a new perspective on the GPL. The GPL is not true freedom, that is the BSD license, what the GPL is a protection license in the public interest. Where copyright is the protection of private property in the public, copyleft does the opposite and makes private property public and then protects it as a communal property.



If you think RMS would have a technical problem with systemD use Emacs. RMS would probably be fascinated with systemD if he took the time to look at it and then rewrite it in Lisp with an editor interface. Where have we seen that before? Oh yeah, Emacs the Portable Lisp Machine.


I agree totally about the free hardware. There is progress being made with that: RISC-V. PowerPC?, there is an open SPARC, several bare bone boards I believe.