[einpoklum]

systemd is indeed the bane of Linux, and a pain in the ass for a lot of FOSS. Once the main distributions made it mandatory to install (not just the default, but mandatory) - we've started to see this sort of bifrucation of a lot more FOSS away from being standard-based and multi-platform to being Linux-specific.

That said - I think a rule-of-thumb one can follow is that any inclusion of a file with a directory prefix, especially `<sys/whatever>`, needs a guarantee-of-availability in your build configuration phase, e.g. CMake `find_package()`, or or at least `check_include_file()` and such. That way, you might be more likely to fail to build, but at least you'll be telling the user "I expect these things to be present".

[jeltz]

No, systemd is not the bane of Linux. What existed before it was much worse. Upstart was a totally broken mess and almost all sysv init scripts contained several bugs.

I don't like systemd but it is a lesser evil.

[einpoklum]

systemd is not an init system; it _contains_ an init system. It is a huge swatch of the whole userspace of a Linux system up to shell or GUI sessions - and having an init system was just an excuse; and in fact, the systemd point brought up in the linked article is unrelated to init systems.

There are quite a few init systems: The venerable sysvinit, runit, s6, openrc and others. You don't like upstart? Ok, choose another one, there are many. Here is a comparison table by the Gentoo folks:

https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Comparison_of_init_systems

As for the claim of "almost all sysvinit scripts contained several bugs" - that's both hyperbole and false. Plus, you seem to be implying that systemd has not been troubled by bugs, which of course it has (and that does not disqualify it; the fundamental design and organizational nature as a project are the disqualifiers).

[cestith]

The systemd init system is quite the Trojan horse, though. I prefer it greatly to SystemV init. Most of the rest of systemd varies from unremarkable to problematic in my opinion.

One bright spot is systemd-networkd allows one to change quite a few things about interfaces in the way server automation platforms expect to work without doing a network restart. The workaround otherwise on, say, CentOS was always to write the new config file used by future restarts, also run CLI commands to update things in memory, and be sure to tell the service not to trigger a restart on the config file(s) changing. Otherwise if you’re doing something like streaming UDP video your own automation can become a reliability issue.

[anthk]

Upstart? These Ubuntu-centric kids will never learn. OpenRC works fine there.

Meanwhile people still have issues on turning off their machines.

[matheusmoreira]

Nope. Systemd is pretty great. It's pretty well designed, fully featured, very easy to use and quite nice program against. And it's GPL licensed free software.

Systemd bothers people because it's not "the Unix way". In other words, it's not some painful lowest common denominator POSIX nonsense. That's a feature, not a bug. POSIX is garbage and restricting oneself to it is pure masochism.

Every unixlike deviates from POSIX and for good reason. That includes the BSDs, but somehow I don't see people complaining endlessly about all the nifty exclusive features they keep accumulating for themselves. Why is it that only Linux gets singled out?

[avadodin]

Your binary spaghetti monstrosity, our carefully designed literate API.

Wait.

[matheusmoreira]

Systemd is farther into the "carefully designed" territory than POSIX will ever be. Never forget who gave us signals and locales.

[account42]

The definition of a strawman.

[defrost]

It's like flogging a straw herring in the foot.

[matheusmoreira]

Not at all.

The point was that using systemd is somehow "mandated". It's not, people chose systemd because it's actually better and made life easier compared to some POSIX nonsense.

The point was that this non-existent "mandate" caused a "bifurcation" from "standards-based" software to Linux-specific. If anything is being "mandated" here, it's the POSIX compliance. Nobody is obligated to follow this like it's some sort of religion. The standard is garbage and should be forgotten.

The point was that systemd was "the bane" of FLOSS. Systemd is itself FLOSS, it's literally GPL'd. And pretty good FLOSS at that. It's just not "standards compliant" which makes it heretical or something. Total nonsense.

There are no "strawmen" here. Just downvote silently if you disagree and don't want to argue.

[einpoklum]

> It's not

If you're using RedHat or Debian and most of their derivative distributions, it is.

> people chose systemd because it's actually better

No, they did not. Most people did not choose systemd, their Linux distributions did.

RedHat chose their own system for their own distributions; on Debian, a controvertial process foisted it onto the distribution using gaslit rhetoric; and I don't know much about the process elswehre.

> The point was

That was not the point.

> It's just not "standards compliant"

This is the straw man you've created. Neither my post nor most critique of systemd regards "standards compliance".

[matheusmoreira]

> If you're using RedHat or Debian and most of their derivative distributions, it is.

Use a better distribution.

Arch Linux has entire wiki pages dedicated to alternative init systems. Anyone can download, install and use OpenRC or whatever they want if they really care enough. People actually took the time to document the process.

Linux is whatever you make of it. There is nothing stopping you from installing whatever you want. I could write an init today and start using it immediately. I don't need anybody's permission to do it.

> Most people did not choose systemd, their Linux distributions did.

By "people" I meant the people who make and maintain the distributions. They're the ones who actually choose what to ship in their projects. Users either accept it, look elsewhere or take on the maintenance burden unto themselves.

No doubt they chose systemd because it made their lives monumentally easier. Maintaining my own computer with systemd is pretty much painless. I don't even remember what it was like before.

> Neither my post nor most critique of systemd regards "standards compliance".

> we've started to see this sort of bifrucation of a lot more FOSS away from being standard-based and multi-platform to being Linux-specific.

No idea what "standard" you're referring to if not POSIX.