I am not the author.
The reason why systemd has become so prevalent is not that it has been accepted by the community. It’s that it has manpower. It is backed up by open source software companies that can provide much more manpower than developers like myself working on free software on their own time.
TLDR
But also it has been accepted by the “community”, by and large.
I mean, what is his point? We should have worse software because then the devs are volunteers?
Is Linux now supposed to work like early Olympics?
Explain how other init systems are necessarily worse than systemd
SystemD is not an init system. It provides that functionality, but processes have more life cycle steps than just initialize.
When you accept that, you realise that you cannot compare them.
SystemD provides functionality that they don’t. Of course those that refuse to consider this will just claim it’s bloat. To some DE’s are bloat.
Systemd is no longer just an init system, but the project began with Poettering’s dislike of other init systems. I use systemd and I do not like its performance (too slow in some cases).
The tragedy is that being an end-user, it is ridiculously hard to replace systemd on “regular” distros. Admittedly, Debian can be moved back to sysVinit without backbreaking work, but the fact is that distros don’t seem to have any intention of providing choice, making applications assume that systemd exists wherever they will be installed. That is the complaint I have against the Linux community
There is Alpine and Void Linux which are commonly known of. Plus more: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Linux_distributions_without_systemd
Most distros independently decided that SystemD was superior. They had a choice and they chose. Distros are often maintained by volunteers in their free time. Same with software that depends on it. Expecting them to provide poor irrelevant choices is not how open source works. You’re passing on your backbreaking work onto other people. If you want another option, you give your time to make it happen.
Two questions:
- do you admit that, comparing only its functionalities as an init system, systemd provides no benefits over alternatives?
- what non-init functionalities does systemd provide, which are necessary and beats competition from other software that provides those features?
Sure, the alternative init systems don’t provide non init functionalities, but other software probably does.
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no. Processes have a life cycle other than init. Fire and forget with bash scripts is backwards.
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I am no expert on this and could not do this answer justice. A quick search will provide a better and more detailed answer. That is if you are willing to consider that SystemD provides benefits. The way you wrote your question gives me vibes that you do not want to, so this debate would be fruitless.
If you’re genuinely curious Benno Rice has a great talk on SystemD: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=o_AIw9bGogo&pp=2AHFBpACAQ%3D%3D
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Not how I understood it. Rather, there are alternatives that have potential to be better than systemd, but systemd has the unfair advantage of receiving the funding and manpower.
If alternatives had equal manpower, they may have had better success than systemd.
Yeah. I like systemd. This guy is just bitter and adverse to change.
That’s the real reason honestly.
I would go as far to say that it has been embraced
Sure but that is most open source programs. It is not the hacker doing it in their spare time. The majority of open source devs are working for a company getting paid to program it. People have to eat.
Uh, no. Not the majority. Not by a long shot.
And that it is better on many levels
