[SOLVED] Is 2019 Still Too Soon For Intelligent Assessment of SystemD?
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When you install Crux, yes, it's fully binary. But all subsequent updating is from source code (except for a few huge packages like FF and LO).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Crux Handbook
Creating a package is done using pkgmk. This utility uses a file called Pkgfile, which contains information about the package (such as name, version, etc) and the commands that should be executed in order to compile the package in question. To be more specific, the Pkgfile file is actually a bash(1) script, which defines a number of variables (name, version, release and source) and a function (build)... If the package built without errors it's time to install it by using pkgadd and try it out.
You can find a detailed explanation of how the updating system works in chapter 4 of the handbook.
I've always liked Crux. I used it for years. And it is very similar to Slackware in its philosophy. But it is source based, and building from source is becoming more and more difficult with things like rust increasingly being necessary. That's why I reluctantly gave it up.
As far as choice of software is concerned, the basic idea is that the official repos contain only simple packages (so no big DE's) but there are private repos that provide those.
Same here. I used 2.x for some time. After LFS. But compiling was still far too long for the spare time I had. Although I kept an eye on it. Hardware is much faster nowadays and one can reuse a compiled ports tree or pkg-get. And ccache helps a lot. There are many other advantages. BTW they use rust-bin. The time spent building your private ports is definitely worth it. The distribution's design is much more flexible than Slackware. If I need to add systemd, it would be a walk in the park compared to Slackware.
Actually CRUX is not similar to Slackware. It does the things much better. It is lean. It has a better packaging system. Its ports system is more flexible than SBo. It is developed on git. And it survived the retirement of its BDFL.
Now if that had been a sysvinit distro, he could simply boot into a shell and test out the scripts and find out if there was a blockage somewhere. That's certainly what I would do in Slackware or LFS. But what the heck do you do if systemd crashes?
1. On GRUB boot prompt, hit E, add systemd.unit=rescue.target and then Ctrl-X to boot.
2. If that fails, try the same thing with systemd.unit=emergency.target.
3. If that fails too, boot an emergency system, mount the partitions and chroot into your installed system.
Last time I had some trouble (bad LDAPS configuration on 389 Directory Server), systemd.unit=rescue target did the trick, and I could figure out what was wrong.
Systemd is just a different kind of tool in your toolbox. That's it.
Distribution: Slackware/Salix while testing others
Posts: 1,718
Rep:
Quote:
Originally Posted by enorbet
Thanks for the links but I was already familiar with the nightmare on Debian of installing no-systemd.deb and removing systemd. I just didn't know enough to fix the nightmare and gave up in disgust.
Creating this thread did lead me to some newer videos and papers that have clarified for me that systemd has very little to do with SOHO Desktop, which is apparently why the only plus I've ever witnessed, and even then only on some systems with some hardware, is the oft quoted but rarely realized "faster boot times" which I don't give a hoot about anyway.
Enterprise Server Administration however does seem to have a longer list of benefits to enjoy from systemd, which is beginning to get through to me more of why the switch to systemd was nearly universal and so sudden. Just as most schools require a uniform program if not also the underlying system upon which it was developed so that a teacher/professor does not have to convert to a format that each and every individual student prefers, Enterprise values uniformity. They always have, even to ridiculous degrees. (Aside: I read that IBM employees were once "called up on the carpet" for not wearing garters on their approved socks! ) Apart from the ridiculous there is the consonant advantages of system-wide upgrades and improved security on every single workstation accomplished extremely quickly. I have to admit that this is not trivial nor is it the end of the benefits to Enterprise.
I'm no longer even a candidate for really large business systems, so I don't really "have a dog in that race". The largest system I ever admin'd was just under 200 workstations and these days I'm down to roughly a dozen since I'm all but fully retired.
Anyway judging from the gist of this thread and the reception, or lack thereof, of the original video here's one that gets a lot more specific about the value to Enterprise. Maybe 1 or 2 will actually watch it.
enorbet, it was adopted by "enterprise" distros for one main reason...Gnome made it a hard dependency and since most enterprise distros ship with or are oriented around Gnome hence the switch. The other programs are using systemd mainly out of laziness, new generation of people calling themselves coders/programmers/admins that want shortcuts. One of these days automation of computers is going to cause a major sh*tstorm and they will not be able to figure out how to stop it. For a pop culture reference, there is a scene in Jurasic Park when the young girl says: "Its a Unix system, I know this, these are all files of the entire park it tells you everything, i've got to find the right file...". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxIPcbmo1_U
Distribution: Slackware/Salix while testing others
Posts: 1,718
Rep:
Quote:
Originally Posted by kikinovak
1. On GRUB boot prompt, hit E, add systemd.unit=rescue.target and then Ctrl-X to boot.
2. If that fails, try the same thing with systemd.unit=emergency.target.
3. If that fails too, boot an emergency system, mount the partitions and chroot into your installed system.
Last time I had some trouble (bad LDAPS configuration on 389 Directory Server), systemd.unit=rescue target did the trick, and I could figure out what was wrong.
Systemd is just a different kind of tool in your toolbox. That's it.
It becomes the only tool in the toolbox which is part of the problem. Phillips does not work on flat head, square does not enter circle.
Distribution: Slackware/Salix while testing others
Posts: 1,718
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LuckyCyborg
Greg Kroah-Hartman. This is the man who invented and maintained UDEV for years, before it was integrated in systemd.
Also Mr. Kroah-Hartman is a well payed programmer, and the rumors says that he earns at least $1000000 per year. I say "rumors" just because we do not know for sure from official sources, compared with Mr. Torvalds' public declared $3000000 per year. BUT, we know who payed Mr. Kroah-Hartman to develop that UDEV in that particular era: Novell, Inc. - the company behind SuSE.
And that's only a part of what is today that systemd. Then I wonder how much costs to challenge systemd? Several millions of dollars every year, to be payed to very skilled programmers?
You people talk about philosophy, when behind is about astonishing sums of money which someone should pay to satisfy your philosophical complains.
Guess what? Nobody bothers yet to pay millions just for the sake of a bunch of "cyber-Luddites" like you, who are insignificant as customers, because you make a point of pride from making a Linux operating system unusable in business.
Wonderful job pointing out the genius of modularity and why vendor lockin should be avoided at all costs in an FOSS/FLOSS project. That was not your intention but thank you Darth.
When you install Crux, yes, it's fully binary. But all subsequent updating is from source code (except for a few huge packages like FF and LO).
Hmmm...
I do not remember precisely every detail, but certainly I used a tool named "pkg-get" to update my installation from loops like this one: http://ftp.morpheus.net/pub/linux/crux/loop/
Well, was nothing fancy in my setup. Just XFCE and Firefox as additions.
The distribution's design is much more flexible than Slackware. If I need to add systemd, it would be a walk in the park compared to Slackware.
Is this actually true? I can't find anything related to using crux and systemd with a search engine, only how crux does not have systemd. However it was trivial to find dlackware with a search engine which seems actively maintained.
Is this actually true? I can't find anything related to using crux and systemd with a search engine, only how crux does not have systemd. However it was trivial to find dlackware with a search engine which seems actively maintained.
Looks like you belong to the group mentioned here.
If for some reason systemd makes its way into CRUX, it will be the same way PAM did it. The port will appear in a private repository. Then eventually it will make its way into contrib an then into opt. And finally maybe it will land into core. There will be no drama.
In the meantime if I want a systemd enabled CRUX I will make my own port and will modify a few core/opt/xorg ports and give them higher priority. That's it.
Dlackware only touches the surface of what is needed to implement systemd into Slackware.
Looks like you belong to the group mentioned here.
If for some reason systemd makes its way into CRUX, it will be the same way PAM did it. The port will appear in a private repository. Then eventually it will make its way into contrib an then into opt. And finally maybe it will land into core. There will be no drama.
In the meantime if I want a systemd enabled CRUX I will make my own port and will modify a few core/opt/xorg ports and give them higher priority. That's it.
Dlackware only touches the surface of what is needed to implement systemd into Slackware.
Cheers
So let me get this straight (I'm a bit lost here). SystemD is not currently easier to add to crux; but in the future it will / might be? I'm still confused about what group here is, that Orbea supposedly belongs too; and yes I clicked the link and read the post.
Or is this a general complaint about how one would go about getting SystemD into the main tree; that is a complaint that it is not done in a more democratic manner; and that you favor a more democratic method of getting software moved into the "core"?
Last edited by khronosschoty; 08-25-2019 at 08:03 PM.
If for some reason systemd makes its way into CRUX, it will be the same way PAM did it. The port will appear in a private repository. Then eventually it will make its way into contrib an then into opt. And finally maybe it will land into core. There will be no drama.
In the meantime if I want a systemd enabled CRUX I will make my own port and will modify a few core/opt/xorg ports and give them higher priority. That's it.
Dlackware only touches the surface of what is needed to implement systemd into Slackware.
Is it at all likely that Crux would drop their own bsd styled init scripts in favor of systemd in the core? There seems to be no indication that this has even been discussed beyond an old mailing list post from 2012 which is now missing.
Also how would it be easier to start over from scratch and port systemd to crux than it would be to complete dlackware? What is missing from dlackware? From its own documentation it seems to be at least enough to build gnome3.
I know I marked this thread "solved" but that isn't license for "anything goes". I encourage people to still contribute experiences but also emphatically asked that mere "rooting and ranting" be excluded. Please cease unless you have some actual experience or specific knowledge to convey. With all due respect, the above is nothing but a rant with no substance and no value to anyone. Systemd is not the equivalent of heroin. People are free to choose it or not choose it with no pain, no blatant loss or gain.
That was a good analogy and one in various forms has been used for a long time for many scenarios. Yes, it is like heroin, tyrants, or any situation where a person has adjusted and has grown comfortable with that which harms them, and I say this from observing hard drug addicts for years.
That is the analogy the person is making, That people do not see a problem with systemd, say it works fine for me, because it provides my basic needs, but that is not the issue.
You have a habit of demeaning people' s experiences as ranting and other nonsense when you do not like what they say. You are actually are being more intolerant than the ones against systemd and just be honest and say you do not want to hear anything bad about system, FUD or truth, and will shout them down.
Yes, but those "who want to avoid it" are few and they barely pay, if they even pay...
At the end of day, is there a market for the "systemd free" solutions?
The single reason for the lack of a frenetic development of "separate components" which now forms this systemd is that no one pays for this development.
Devuan is done by a multi-million dollar non-profit that also provides other services. I donated to them a few times over 15 years ago when I was on dial-up and running a webserver on the desktop (dyndns). So there is people paying.
Here's an annoying case I've just got involved in (but I think I'm already out of my depth!). The OP, a newbie who strikes me as an intelligent and cooperative person, is running Debian and can't boot after an update and an emergency fsck. The kernel panics. The panic message is "Attempted to kill init", so clearly systemd was found and launched successfully but then crashed for some reason. If the disk couldn't be read because of filesystem corruption, he would have had that other message about init not being found.
We have established that the crash occurred before the journal could be written out, so no information is available from there. A fsck carried out from the live installation image found nothing untoward on the disk.
Now if that had been a sysvinit distro, he could simply boot into a shell and test out the scripts and find out if there was a blockage somewhere. That's certainly what I would do in Slackware or LFS. But what the heck do you do if systemd crashes?
I have come across this on Debian (SteamOS) with an external hard drive. Something similar too on Crux on the same external. I think it is my external does not have a fully standard compliant controller or missing something but irrelevant. The offset is an error in looking for the filesystem, the fs may be fine but it expect to look for / at a location (offset) and cannot find and since it cannot find / the kernel says good-bye and systemd says me too. In short what the controller or hd or fs is reporting where the / starts is wrong. Has he installed a Linux on this machine before? Does he have a BIOS or UEFI? If it is a few years old it may be better to boot in legacy mode.
This is another real world experience with systemd and is bringing back old crap that had been fixed years ago. I used to refurbish surplus government computers ( when still modem dip switches ) and some BIOSes would do the same kind of thing. Except they would drop seeing the IDE controller. This is not the case, but it an old problem that was solved for many years that has reappeared and I seem to remember this case JakeJake ran into before with systemd not finding a / that an fschk or chroot mount has no problem seeing.
I just finished another CRUX installation and that reminded me of this statement. Actually CRUX is a "cyber-luddite's" distribution, not Slackware. Slackware users want the latest Plasma, but without systemd. They resemble more a bunch of "grumpy old men" than "cyber-luddites"
Cheers
I fail to see how it is "cyber-luddite" in comparison too Slackware. I' am guessing but I would bet that most long term Slackware users can do the install and maintenance of CRUX as easy as they do in Slackware. Only two skills one has to transfer from using Slackware too CRUX - changing how to start daemons which is exactly like FreeBSD a couple of minutes to figure out, and ports which is almost exactly like FreeBSD so a couple of more minutes, and a few minor details anybody comfortable with Slackware will have no problems learning and applying in a few minutes.
Slackware installs on my external ssd, CRUX doesn' t. Therefore Slackware would be a smarter system and smart people use smart systems. I say that light hearted btw for some humour.
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