[Semibug] SystemD is literally the kitchen sink of Linux ; Linux starting to feel more and more alien as the years go on

[Ron / BCLUG]

Steve Litt wrote on 2023-12-06 23:42:

> Systemd [...] It's an obvious attempt at vendor lock-in.

Vendor lock-in feels like a weird argument to make when all the major
Linux vendors were looking for a new init system (i.e. Canonical
developed Upstart, which Debian considered adopting).

RedHat and their arch competitor Canonical both settled on systemd. So
did OpenSUSE. Pretty much all the vendors...


So, all the major vendors settled on systemd, but it's vendor lock-in?
I just don't get it.


And, it *is* open-source:

https://github.com/systemd/systemd



Interestingly, and I did not know this, Debian nudged Canonical towards
systemd:

> In turn, after the Debian project decided to adopt systemd on a 
> future release in 2014, Mark Shuttleworth announced that Ubuntu
> would begin plans to migrate to systemd itself to maintain
> consistency with upstream.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upstart_(software)

Indeed, Upstart almost "won" the init system battle (from link above):

> In Fedora 9, Upstart replaced sysvinit, however, systemd replaced 
> Upstart in the Fedora 15 release.[15][16]
> 
> Red Hat includes Upstart in their Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 
> release.[17] As a result, it is also used by RHEL 6 variants such as
>  CentOS, Scientific Linux, and Oracle Linux. For RHEL 7, systemd is 
> used instead.[18][19]
> 
> openSUSE included Upstart in version 11.3 Milestone 4, but not as 
> default.[20] systemd replaced Upstart, as the default init system in
>  openSUSE 12.1.[21]



So, utterly dominating the init system distros choose does raise the
question, "why"?

Since vendor lock-in makes no sense in light of *all* the vendors using
it, and *all* the vendors seeking a better init system, maybe systemd
solves some actual, real-world problems.



> It's outrageously difficult to rip out systemd and replace it with 
> another init system

Why even bother trying to rip it out when one can just use some BSD flavour?



I've been putting off watching this video, but now I'm really glad I
did, it's great:

> The Tragedy of systemd
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_AIw9bGogo

Answers a lot of questions, like "why?"

Compares systemd with launchd, etc.

It's a talk presented by this guy:

> Benno Rice has been using FreeBSD since 1995 and has been a
> committer since 2000 when he started the PowerPC port. Since then he
> has worked in a variety of areas and for a number of FreeBSD-using
> companies. He has also served on the Core Team and presented on
> FreeBSD-related topics at several conferences.
> 
> https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/absolute-freebsd-3rd/9781492069430/xhtml/technical.xhtml