Re: [gentoo-amd64] Boycott Systemd

[Frank Peters <frank.peters@comcast.net>]

On Sun, 21 Sep 2014 20:45:17 -0400
Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:

> 
> You can create device nodes using mknod, and I'd be
> shocked if that ever went away.
>

But now certain static USB nodes, in particular those for
scanners, have been removed in favor of dynamic allocation
using udev or its equivalents.  When this happened I was
certainly shocked, and it could be the beginning of a trend.

>
> Just what is it that you actually
> need the kernel to do for you that you don't think will still be
> around in 20 years?  Linus is VERY conservative about removing system
> calls.
> 

There are things which are not system calls that could easily be
changed.  It is not too far fetched to consider a time if and when
systemd became so popular and entrenched that the kernel would be
hard-coded to pass control only to systemd and nothing else.

> 
> If the whole world moves to systemd the biggest problem you'll have is
> that you'll have to write your own service startup scripts, but from
> the sound of things you're doing that anyway.  Most of the services
> you probably run aren't linux-exclusive either, so while it seems
> likely that many will start reporting their status to systemd it seems
> unlikely that they will refuse to work without it.
> 

There are a growing number of applications that will no longer compile
without either dbus or udev.  In fact, even though I don't use them,
I had to install both eudev and dbus in order to be able to use certain
applications (I just substituted a symlink to /bin/true in place of
dbus-launch to keep that unnecessary daemon from starting).

I am not that familiar with systemd components, but it is not too
unrealistic to consider many more applications in the future making
at least some components mandatory.

It is obvious that the Linux of 10 years ago is no longer appealing
to many people and there will be mounting pressure to introduce changes
just for the sake of having changes.

If I have to adapt then I will certainly adapt, but it would be better
to keep current options.