[qwertyuiop924]

I mean, it would be more secure than the current one. But that's not saying much.

Fun fact: systemd now has an entire command devoted to setting locale, something tyically done through simple text files.

Lennart, just stop writing executables that do almost nothing. Despite what you may thing, we don't all have infinite disk space.

[witty_username]

$ du -h --apparent-size /lib/systemd/systemd-localed 336K /lib/systemd/systemd-localed

Not much, you could fit a thousand copies of this in 336 MB.

[qwertyuiop924]

But it's still an entirely pointless 336K. I could use that to store:

-197 copies of nethack

-10% of DarkPlaces

-36% of GCC

-44% of ZSH

-30 copies of CPython (just the executable, of course: that's all you counted)

-10% of ZSNES

-1.36 copies of XScreenSaver

-42% of Teeworlds

All of these are more valuable uses of my precious disk space, because all of them actually do something: They actually give me capabilities I previously didn't have.

[nickpsecurity]

GCC and CPython are great illustrations of what Im talking about. Others are good. Also, Oberon System base with kernel, files, editor, viewer, etc is around 116KB per Wirth's paper on FPGA implementation.

So, you get a whole OS with some utilities in between 1/3 and 1/2 of SystemD binary. Also worth noting Oberon includes safety checks, too. ;)

[qwertyuiop924]

Oberon might be worth checking out. I've heard neat stuff.

However, from what I've seen, it's a bit too verbose for my tastes (the language, not the OS).

[nickpsecurity]

Honestly, I found the tradeoffs of it to be the most interesting. It hits an interesting balance of readable, safe, fast compile, and fast runtime. Includes some OOP and concurrency foundations while barely changing the language. Whole platform can fit in one book. You could theoretically understand whole thing and reimplement in language of your choosing. Was esp good when hardware was weaker and more diverse. Also better starting language than C in education as it can be easy at first with difficulty gradually increased with intro of unsafe constructs. Finally, it's seeing some uptake in embedded with Astrobe IDE.

So, that's a quick review. The main one you'll find is older system where A2 Bluebottle is latest. Runs fast, too.

[qwertyuiop924]

Neat.

Yeah, it does look really cool, just verbose. And you say it's easy to implement....

Maybe I can get it running on my gameboy?

I kid. Sort of.

[witty_username]

> -30 copies of CPython (just the executable, of course: that's all you counted)

I checked with ldd; it doesn't have any other systemd dependencies as far as I can see.

I'm saying relative to disk space today which is on the magnitude of hundreds of gigabytes; the disk usage is not a concern.

[qwertyuiop924]

To my knowledge, CPython is the only piece of software on that list that has its own shared libraries.

And yes, disk usage is a concern. Because those kilobytes add up fast, and I've only got so much space.

And finally, the point isn't merely that it takes up disk: the point is that it's worthless. The old solution to that problem, having init set locale on boot from a config file, worked fine. I don't mind disk use that much. But I do mind pointless software.

All code has bugs: to minimize bugs, write less code.

[nickpsecurity]

In comparison, the QNX demo disc had a whole graphical OS in 1.44MB that was more robust than that one file. Seems to be some efficiency or architectural issues in there. ;)

[qwertyuiop924]

Given, QNX never really caught on in the wider field of computing AFAIK. This may lend credence to the Godot team's theory that public visibility is based upon how big you are (https://godotengine.org/article/godot-aims-mainstream).

[nickpsecurity]

I was talking complexity vs size. Gabriel's Worse is Better already tells you that growth has more to do with network effects and marketing than technical correctness. QNX lacked them for desktop or server use but did well in embedded. Almost had a mobile shot but Blackberry blew it totally with marketing plan.

EDIT: Read Godot. That was hilarious but I kept seeing too much reality in it.

[qwertyuiop924]

Of course. My post was less about how QNX's lack of popularity subverts your point (it doesn't), and more about setting up that punchline.

There's quite a bit of reality in the article, but not quite enough to depress me. Maybe you've seen more of this sort of thing than I have.

[nickpsecurity]

Ahh gotcha. Far as other thing, have you seen the Web and enterprise BS getting lots of adoption since big names tried them out? And the drift to incomprehensible frameworks with huge dependencies that one can barely maintain with similar security problems and a tiny fraction of efficiency of C++? And now more of them as SaaS? Just thinking there's lots of that bullshit in the article going on in real life. It's that or legacy SAP, Oracle, COBOL, MFC BS. Competing BS exists but sanity gets rarer and rarer.

[digi_owl]

> Gabriel's Worse is Better already tells you that growth has more to do with network effects and marketing than technical correctness.

Something that can readily be observed in action with systemd.

[qwertyuiop924]

...Exactly. It sure as heck didn't get into distros on technical merit, because it has none.

[digi_owl]

Why license an OS when you can grab it for free (beer)?

[nickpsecurity]

Had less attack surface (microkernel), isolated failures, easier to upgrade, and could be self-healing within one node. Important to some people. They kept paying for it until numbers justified RIM buying it for its potential. ;)

[qwertyuiop924]

Indeed. It's one of the Microkernel architecture's (semi-rare) success stories. It goes to show that yes, Microkernels are complicated, and hard, but if you pull it off there are real benefits.