[m45t3r]

> i3 is great, until you try to do something simple like change the time zone for your desktop clock or add some wallpaper. I switched from Linux to Mac because I was too well acquainted with making symlinks to /usr/share/ somewhere just to change my clock when I traveled, and then figuring out just how few processes I had to restart so it would take effect.

Systemd makes using i3 so much easier. No more fiddling with consolekit and dbus just to get working external drives (logind solves the problem of local authentication), no more fiddling with symlinks to set time (timedatectl to the rescue).

> Unfortunately the Linux desktops were actually worse than the barebones window managers like i3: there was some sort of glibc bug that screwed up clock display on GNOME for at least a year. GNOME assumed glibc did it right, which was a reasonable assumption...but an incorrect one, but with i3 I could control this.

Gnome nowadays use timedatectl AFAIK to set time too. The last time I had a issue with setting date or time in Gnome was pre-systemd days.

While some people may not like systemd, I find tools like timedatectl, localectl and hostnamectl to be quite useful. They work much better than trying to write a shell script or parse something.

[massysett]

I quit desktop Linux right as systemd was taking hold. I used Debian but was thinking of switching to Arch for systemd alone. systemd is one of the best things to happen to Linux setups since X started configuring itself and since kernels got everything compiled in so you don't have to configure them. I do not understand the systemd hate. I think it's telling that the distributors--who actually have to do the work of maintaining init systems--have mostly switched to systemd while random vocal haters who do not have to keep the init system patched and working sit around and complain about systemd.

[aexis]

Most people hate systemd for the sake of hating something, or following the hate train. At least for me all my close encounters with it have been positive.

[vacri]

A lot of people don't like systemd because it heavily violates the unix principle of "do one thing and do it well". It replaces a lot of subsystems (eg: goodbye to all your old ways of looking at logs). Also, the primary developers have a poor attitude.

Systemd is relatively nice now, but the disdain for it wasn't just 'hate train'.

[m45t3r]

> Systemd is relatively nice now, but the disdain for it wasn't just 'hate train'.

No, it is mostly hate train. I only read one or two solid (technical) arguments against systemd. And no, no one of them is found in the regular systemd-hate sites.

> Also, the primary developers have a poor attitude.

I think the community have a worse attitude them the core developers, however this is mostly anectodal observation.

> eg: goodbye to all your old ways of looking at logs

systemd enable syslog.service

Here you go, all your old logs in the place you expect them.

[vacri]

> I only read one or two solid (technical) arguments against systemd. And no, no one of them is found in the regular systemd-hate sites.

There's an invisible pink unicorn who knows the winners of every horse race, but only I can see and hear her. Of course, I'm not going to tell you the winners; that's my secret!

Did you get onto the systemd stuff late? I got in midway along and found a few things that were iffy. One of the definite problems was the core developers' disdain for other people's use cases - even Torvalds said he was ambivalent about systemd itself, but the developers were pretty user-hostile and that was a problem.

> Here you go, all your old logs in the place you expect them.

Cool. In the same vein, do we have centralised logging in systemd yet? Or do we still have to run another syslog tool to ship them? Last I looked half a year ago, the consensus was still "ship them through rsyslog/syslog-ng", so you still have to run your old syslog in parallel. Only the IPU knows why they would make a new journaling system for a primarily-server OS, and keep kicking the "centralisation" can down the road.

Yes, the anti-syslog commentary went too far, but there were a lot of problems with it, especially before it had been battle-hardened. But whether or not you do or don't like systemd, you'd be crazy to say that it fits in with that unix principle I mentioned above.

[michaelmrose]

The fact that your machines haven't personally been broken doesn't mean its a good or a bad design