Re: [gentoo-user] The future of linux, and Gentoo specifically now

[wireless@tampabay.rr.com]

On 11/21/14 07:00, Rich Freeman wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 21, 2014 at 2:32 AM, Canek Peláez Valdés <caneko@gmail.com> wrote:
>> It's actually a great thing for a lot of use cases. But it doesn't
>> seem that Gentoo will change defaults soon, although systemd works
>> great with it.
>>
>
> My (personal) sense is that in the medium-term we may end up moving to
> not having any default at all, just as with bootloaders, kernels,
> syslog, crontab, mail, etc.  That is pretty-much the Gentoo way
> everywhere else when there are options.
>
> As you already pointed out, as long as somebody cares to maintain
> openrc and write init scripts for it, there will be support for it.
> Many init scripts and systemd units are contributed by outside users
> already, and policy is that maintainers cannot block them from being
> added to packages (though they do not have to write/maintain them
> personally).
>
> Gentoo doesn't really tend to exclude anything, and inclusion is a
> matter of whether somebody wants to put in the work.

> Rich

Very wall expressed and neutral. This is an "800 lb gorilla" that nobody
seems to be talking about; that is embedded linux. Embedded linux now 
accounts for at least 20 times the number of deployments of linux than
workstations and servers combined; some argue it is far more, others a 
bit less. Regardless, embedded linux is a force that is driving the 
semiconductor markets. There's not much margin on 32bit or less. etc etc.

The main point of embedded linux is take what Rich has articulated above
and multiply it by a billion. There is no such thing as standard 
embedded linux. If Systemd is successful, with very large embedded 
systems (dozens to hundreds of cores) then it has a future. If it
fails in that space, it may survive, but not likely. It will old serve
to isolate those distros that go down that path, exclusively, *imho*.

Regardless, the smaller, cheaper embedded linux crowd is very unlikely 
to ever embrace systemd. Why? Glad you asks. Thousands of reasons, but,
here are a few:  It is very common in embedded (anything) to run 
multiple and often different rtos (real time operating system) on 
different embedded systems products, often to circumvent licenses, 
royalties, duplication, security and a plethora of other reasons. 
Furthermore, many embedded systems run simultaneous codes on a single
core and systemd does not fit into that scheme of things, at all.


So, even if gentoo becomes stupid and decides to abandon openrc. Many 
folks will just move to embedded (gentoo) linux and play "follow the 
leaders" with bootstrapping there cores.

Rest easy as the devs fight this one out. I hope systemd survives
and prospers. I can tell you one area of massive failure and that is 
clustering/cloud computing. Sure the "big dogs" with big buck are 
claiming to use systemd, but they only roll out binary offerings. When 
others try to use one of the commercial brands of linux and build a 
cluster/cloud from the source-codes up, there are all sorts of problems.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.  Very strange, batman. Very strange.


What is going on, is wildly variant. YMMV. But, should I be a sporting 
man, my money is on the embedded folks deciding if something other than
systemd survives. Why do I bet on embedded folks? Easy. I personally 
know of dozens of folks that code in machine, assembler all the way 
through any language they choose. They routinely build entire systems, 
custom on a wide bit of processors. Only a few of those folks are 
necessary to keep alternatives to systemd alive, prosperous and clearly 
documented. There are most likely tens of thousands of the folks around 
the world. Do the math. Each time one of these experts build an embedded
(linux) system, it is usually optimized and so wonderful, that companies 
clone them in counts of thousands to millions of deployed
linux systems. The fact that the majority rare require human tinkering,
is both a testament to how well they run and the wisdon of these 
brilliant developers to keep the rank and file humanoids using winblows
and OXlooser operating systems.

A forking of the linux kernel would be the best thing to happen to 
opensource, in a very, very long time. The kernel development has become
a "good ole boys club" imho.

Embedded linux runs everywhere; so rest easy!


peace,
James