[gentoo-user] Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[gentoo-user] Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Mick]

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I've seen gnome-base/gnome-common pulled in on more than one systems, all of 
which have USE="-gnome" set:

 # emerge -uaNDvt world

These are the packages that would be merged, in reverse order:

Calculating dependencies... done!
[nomerge       ] kde-apps/kdebase-meta-17.08.3:5::gentoo
[nomerge       ]  kde-plasma/plasma-meta-5.10.5:5::gentoo  USE="bluetooth 
display-manager handbook pam pulseaudio sddm wallpapers -grub -gtk -
networkmanager -plymouth -sdk"
[nomerge       ]   kde-plasma/powerdevil-5.10.5:5::gentoo  USE="consolekit 
handbook wireless -debug"
[nomerge       ]    kde-frameworks/solid-5.37.0:5/5.37::gentoo  USE="nls -
debug -doc {-test}"
[ebuild     U  ]     sys-fs/udisks-2.7.4:2::gentoo [2.1.8:2::gentoo] USE="acl 
gptfdisk introspection nls%* -cryptsetup -debug (-elogind) -lvm% (-selinux) -
systemd" 1,257 KiB
[ebuild  N     ]      sys-libs/libblockdev-2.14::gentoo  USE="crypt -bcache -
dmraid -doc -kbd -lvm {-test}" PYTHON_SINGLE_TARGET="python3_5 -python3_4 -
python3_6" PYTHON_TARGETS="python3_5 -python3_4 -python3_6" 268 KiB
[ebuild  N     ]       dev-libs/volume_key-0.3.9::gentoo  USE="{-test}" 
PYTHON_SINGLE_TARGET="python3_5 -python3_4 -python3_6" 
PYTHON_TARGETS="python3_5 -python3_4 -python3_6" 435 KiB
[ebuild  N     ]      gnome-base/gnome-common-3.18.0-r1:3::gentoo  
USE="autoconf-archive" 153 KiB
[nomerge       ] sys-libs/libblockdev-2.14::gentoo  USE="crypt -bcache -dmraid 
-doc -kbd -lvm {-test}" PYTHON_SINGLE_TARGET="python3_5 -python3_4 -python3_6" 
PYTHON_TARGETS="python3_5 -python3_4 -python3_6"
[ebuild  N     ]  dev-libs/libbytesize-1.2::gentoo  USE="-doc {-test}" 
PYTHON_SINGLE_TARGET="python3_5 -python2_7 -python3_4 -python3_6" 
PYTHON_TARGETS="python2_7 python3_5 -python3_4 -python3_6" 69 KiB

Total: 5 packages (1 upgrade, 4 new), Size of downloads: 2,180 KiB

All systems are on profile:  default/linux/amd64/17.0/desktop/plasma

Why is gnome-base/gnome-common needed?

-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Alexander Kapshuk]

On Sat, Dec 9, 2017 at 11:51 AM, Mick <michaelkintzios@gmail.com> wrote:
> I've seen gnome-base/gnome-common pulled in on more than one systems, all of
> which have USE="-gnome" set:
>
>  # emerge -uaNDvt world
>
> These are the packages that would be merged, in reverse order:
>
> Calculating dependencies... done!
> [nomerge       ] kde-apps/kdebase-meta-17.08.3:5::gentoo
> [nomerge       ]  kde-plasma/plasma-meta-5.10.5:5::gentoo  USE="bluetooth
> display-manager handbook pam pulseaudio sddm wallpapers -grub -gtk -
> networkmanager -plymouth -sdk"
> [nomerge       ]   kde-plasma/powerdevil-5.10.5:5::gentoo  USE="consolekit
> handbook wireless -debug"
> [nomerge       ]    kde-frameworks/solid-5.37.0:5/5.37::gentoo  USE="nls -
> debug -doc {-test}"
> [ebuild     U  ]     sys-fs/udisks-2.7.4:2::gentoo [2.1.8:2::gentoo] USE="acl
> gptfdisk introspection nls%* -cryptsetup -debug (-elogind) -lvm% (-selinux) -
> systemd" 1,257 KiB
> [ebuild  N     ]      sys-libs/libblockdev-2.14::gentoo  USE="crypt -bcache -
> dmraid -doc -kbd -lvm {-test}" PYTHON_SINGLE_TARGET="python3_5 -python3_4 -
> python3_6" PYTHON_TARGETS="python3_5 -python3_4 -python3_6" 268 KiB
> [ebuild  N     ]       dev-libs/volume_key-0.3.9::gentoo  USE="{-test}"
> PYTHON_SINGLE_TARGET="python3_5 -python3_4 -python3_6"
> PYTHON_TARGETS="python3_5 -python3_4 -python3_6" 435 KiB
> [ebuild  N     ]      gnome-base/gnome-common-3.18.0-r1:3::gentoo
> USE="autoconf-archive" 153 KiB
> [nomerge       ] sys-libs/libblockdev-2.14::gentoo  USE="crypt -bcache -dmraid
> -doc -kbd -lvm {-test}" PYTHON_SINGLE_TARGET="python3_5 -python3_4 -python3_6"
> PYTHON_TARGETS="python3_5 -python3_4 -python3_6"
> [ebuild  N     ]  dev-libs/libbytesize-1.2::gentoo  USE="-doc {-test}"
> PYTHON_SINGLE_TARGET="python3_5 -python2_7 -python3_4 -python3_6"
> PYTHON_TARGETS="python2_7 python3_5 -python3_4 -python3_6" 69 KiB
>
> Total: 5 packages (1 upgrade, 4 new), Size of downloads: 2,180 KiB
>
> All systems are on profile:  default/linux/amd64/17.0/desktop/plasma
>
> Why is gnome-base/gnome-common needed?
>
> --
> Regards,
> Mick

It's sys-fs/udisks that wants gnome-base/gnome-common.

Re: [gentoo-user] Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Alan McKinnon]

On 09/12/2017 11:51, Mick wrote:
> I've seen gnome-base/gnome-common pulled in on more than one systems, all of 
> which have USE="-gnome" set:
> 
>  # emerge -uaNDvt world
> 
> These are the packages that would be merged, in reverse order:
> 
> Calculating dependencies... done!
> [nomerge       ] kde-apps/kdebase-meta-17.08.3:5::gentoo
> [nomerge       ]  kde-plasma/plasma-meta-5.10.5:5::gentoo  USE="bluetooth 
> display-manager handbook pam pulseaudio sddm wallpapers -grub -gtk -
> networkmanager -plymouth -sdk"
> [nomerge       ]   kde-plasma/powerdevil-5.10.5:5::gentoo  USE="consolekit 
> handbook wireless -debug"
> [nomerge       ]    kde-frameworks/solid-5.37.0:5/5.37::gentoo  USE="nls -
> debug -doc {-test}"
> [ebuild     U  ]     sys-fs/udisks-2.7.4:2::gentoo [2.1.8:2::gentoo] USE="acl 
> gptfdisk introspection nls%* -cryptsetup -debug (-elogind) -lvm% (-selinux) -
> systemd" 1,257 KiB
> [ebuild  N     ]      sys-libs/libblockdev-2.14::gentoo  USE="crypt -bcache -
> dmraid -doc -kbd -lvm {-test}" PYTHON_SINGLE_TARGET="python3_5 -python3_4 -
> python3_6" PYTHON_TARGETS="python3_5 -python3_4 -python3_6" 268 KiB
> [ebuild  N     ]       dev-libs/volume_key-0.3.9::gentoo  USE="{-test}" 
> PYTHON_SINGLE_TARGET="python3_5 -python3_4 -python3_6" 
> PYTHON_TARGETS="python3_5 -python3_4 -python3_6" 435 KiB
> [ebuild  N     ]      gnome-base/gnome-common-3.18.0-r1:3::gentoo  
> USE="autoconf-archive" 153 KiB
> [nomerge       ] sys-libs/libblockdev-2.14::gentoo  USE="crypt -bcache -dmraid 
> -doc -kbd -lvm {-test}" PYTHON_SINGLE_TARGET="python3_5 -python3_4 -python3_6" 
> PYTHON_TARGETS="python3_5 -python3_4 -python3_6"
> [ebuild  N     ]  dev-libs/libbytesize-1.2::gentoo  USE="-doc {-test}" 
> PYTHON_SINGLE_TARGET="python3_5 -python2_7 -python3_4 -python3_6" 
> PYTHON_TARGETS="python2_7 python3_5 -python3_4 -python3_6" 69 KiB
> 
> Total: 5 packages (1 upgrade, 4 new), Size of downloads: 2,180 KiB
> 
> All systems are on profile:  default/linux/amd64/17.0/desktop/plasma
> 
> Why is gnome-base/gnome-common needed?
> 



Because sys-fs/udisks:2 depends on it.

It's NOT trying to install gnome, the package is gnome-common with this
description:

     Description:         Common files for development of Gnome packages

The list of installed files are:

$ equery files gnome-common
 * Searching for gnome-common ...
 * Contents of gnome-base/gnome-common-3.18.0-r1:
/usr
/usr/bin
/usr/bin/gnome-autogen.sh
/usr/share
/usr/share/aclocal
/usr/share/aclocal/gnome-code-coverage.m4
/usr/share/aclocal/gnome-common.m4
/usr/share/aclocal/gnome-compiler-flags.m4
/usr/share/doc
/usr/share/doc/gnome-common-3.18.0-r1
/usr/share/doc/gnome-common-3.18.0-r1/ChangeLog
/usr/share/doc/gnome-common-3.18.0-r1/README

All they are is 4 small .m4 files to do useful stuff to let packages
build, very much like a few needed includes. They just happen to be
generically useful and just happen to be written by someone in the Gnome
team, and just happen to have names starting with this sequence of
letters: gee enn oh emm ee



-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com

[gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 09/12/17 11:51, Mick wrote:
> I've seen gnome-base/gnome-common pulled in on more than one systems, all of
> which have USE="-gnome" set:
> 
>   # emerge -uaNDvt world
> 
> These are the packages that would be merged, in reverse order:
> [...]
> Calculating dependencies... done!
> [ebuild  N     ]      gnome-base/gnome-common-3.18.0-r1:3::gentoo
> USE="autoconf-archive" 153 KiB
> [...]
> 
> All systems are on profile:  default/linux/amd64/17.0/desktop/plasma
> 
> Why is gnome-base/gnome-common needed?

It's an extremely lightweight package. There seem to be some packages 
that need files from it. The package itself only installs these files:

   $ qlist gnome-common
   /usr/bin/gnome-autogen.sh
   /usr/share/aclocal/gnome-common.m4
   /usr/share/aclocal/gnome-compiler-flags.m4
   /usr/share/aclocal/gnome-code-coverage.m4
   /usr/share/doc/gnome-common-3.18.0-r1/ChangeLog.bz2
   /usr/share/doc/gnome-common-3.18.0-r1/README.bz2

So basically it only copies some small text files to /usr. It doesn't 
build anything.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Mick]

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On Saturday, 9 December 2017 10:34:32 GMT Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
> On 09/12/17 11:51, Mick wrote:
> > I've seen gnome-base/gnome-common pulled in on more than one systems, all
> > of> 
> > which have USE="-gnome" set:
> >   # emerge -uaNDvt world
> > 
> > These are the packages that would be merged, in reverse order:
> > [...]
> > Calculating dependencies... done!
> > [ebuild  N     ]      gnome-base/gnome-common-3.18.0-r1:3::gentoo
> > USE="autoconf-archive" 153 KiB
> > [...]
> > 
> > All systems are on profile:  default/linux/amd64/17.0/desktop/plasma
> > 
> > Why is gnome-base/gnome-common needed?
> 
> It's an extremely lightweight package. There seem to be some packages
> that need files from it. The package itself only installs these files:
> 
>    $ qlist gnome-common
>    /usr/bin/gnome-autogen.sh
>    /usr/share/aclocal/gnome-common.m4
>    /usr/share/aclocal/gnome-compiler-flags.m4
>    /usr/share/aclocal/gnome-code-coverage.m4
>    /usr/share/doc/gnome-common-3.18.0-r1/ChangeLog.bz2
>    /usr/share/doc/gnome-common-3.18.0-r1/README.bz2
> 
> So basically it only copies some small text files to /usr. It doesn't
> build anything.

Thank you all for detailed and clear replies.  You'd forgive me for being (a 
little) paranoid about Poettering's fingers getting anywhere near my systems.  
:-p

-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Jorge Almeida]

On Sat, Dec 9, 2017 at 10:45 AM, Mick <michaelkintzios@gmail.com> wrote:


>
> Thank you all for detailed and clear replies.  You'd forgive me for being (a
> little) paranoid about Poettering's fingers getting anywhere near my systems.
> :-p
>
Are you sure you need udisks? And policykit? I'm guessing you have
some default USE variables which if removed would contribute to a
cleaner system. I just checked the documentation about udisks in the
freedesktop site. I didn't manage to understand why it would be useful
(my fault, probably) but I understood enough to decide I wouldn't want
such stuff in my system.

(Of course, the aforementioned fingers are exceedingly sticky. We all
have to live with udev, after all...)

Regards

Jorge Almeida

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Peter Humphrey]

On Saturday, 9 December 2017 12:00:12 GMT Jorge Almeida wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 9, 2017 at 10:45 AM, Mick <michaelkintzios@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Thank you all for detailed and clear replies.  You'd forgive me for
> > being (a little) paranoid about Poettering's fingers getting anywhere
> > near my systems.> 
> > :-p
> 
> Are you sure you need udisks? And policykit?

I'm pretty sure Mick runs KDE, which requires both of those.

-- 
Regards,
Peter.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[R0b0t1]

On Sat, Dec 9, 2017 at 5:36 PM, Peter Humphrey <peter@prh.myzen.co.uk> wrote:
> On Saturday, 9 December 2017 12:00:12 GMT Jorge Almeida wrote:
>> On Sat, Dec 9, 2017 at 10:45 AM, Mick <michaelkintzios@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Thank you all for detailed and clear replies.  You'd forgive me for
>> > being (a little) paranoid about Poettering's fingers getting anywhere
>> > near my systems.>
>> > :-p
>>
>> Are you sure you need udisks? And policykit?
>
> I'm pretty sure Mick runs KDE, which requires both of those.
>

Eventually emerging @world will just pull in the entirety of the
Gentoo package repository, and we won't have to worry about what is or
isn't necessary.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Mick]

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On Sunday, 10 December 2017 06:12:07 GMT R0b0t1 wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 9, 2017 at 5:36 PM, Peter Humphrey <peter@prh.myzen.co.uk> 
wrote:
> > On Saturday, 9 December 2017 12:00:12 GMT Jorge Almeida wrote:

> >> Are you sure you need udisks? And policykit?
> > 
> > I'm pretty sure Mick runs KDE, which requires both of those.
> 
> Eventually emerging @world will just pull in the entirety of the
> Gentoo package repository, and we won't have to worry about what is or
> isn't necessary.

Yes, I run the plasma profile.  Also I understand the udisks package is 
necessary to allow mounting disks by clicking on the GUI.

-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Jorge Almeida]

On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 6:12 AM, R0b0t1 <r030t1@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 9, 2017 at 5:36 PM, Peter Humphrey <peter@prh.myzen.co.uk> wrote:
>> On Saturday, 9 December 2017 12:00:12 GMT Jorge Almeida wrote:
>>> On Sat, Dec 9, 2017 at 10:45 AM, Mick <michaelkintzios@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> > Thank you all for detailed and clear replies.  You'd forgive me for
>>> > being (a little) paranoid about Poettering's fingers getting anywhere
>>> > near my systems.>
>>> > :-p
>>>
>>> Are you sure you need udisks? And policykit?
>>
>> I'm pretty sure Mick runs KDE, which requires both of those.
>>
>
> Eventually emerging @world will just pull in the entirety of the
> Gentoo package repository, and we won't have to worry about what is or
> isn't necessary.
>
Not that I would object much to have gnome-common if I needed it (I
don't), but it is a bit
shocking that installing kde stuff pulls gnome stuff. After all,
they're supposed to be alternative worldviews, er, desktop
environments. Maybe the relevant people should stop and think whether
unbridled complexity is a good idea?

(Of course, this is not a Gentoo-specific issue.)

Jorge

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Mart Raudsepp]

On P, 2017-12-10 at 08:56 +0000, Jorge Almeida wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 6:12 AM, R0b0t1 <r030t1@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Sat, Dec 9, 2017 at 5:36 PM, Peter Humphrey <peter@prh.myzen.co.
> > uk> wrote:
> > > On Saturday, 9 December 2017 12:00:12 GMT Jorge Almeida wrote:
> > > > On Sat, Dec 9, 2017 at 10:45 AM, Mick <michaelkintzios@gmail.co
> > > > m> wrote:
> > > > > Thank you all for detailed and clear replies.  You'd forgive
> > > > > me for
> > > > > being (a little) paranoid about Poettering's fingers getting
> > > > > anywhere
> > > > > near my systems.>
> > > > > :-p
> > > > 
> > > > Are you sure you need udisks? And policykit?
> > > 
> > > I'm pretty sure Mick runs KDE, which requires both of those.
> > > 
> > 
> > Eventually emerging @world will just pull in the entirety of the
> > Gentoo package repository, and we won't have to worry about what is
> > or
> > isn't necessary.
> > 
> Not that I would object much to have gnome-common if I needed it (I
> don't), but it is a bit
> shocking that installing kde stuff pulls gnome stuff. After all,
> they're supposed to be alternative worldviews, er, desktop
> environments. Maybe the relevant people should stop and think whether
> unbridled complexity is a good idea?

So you are suggesting that each desktop environment must NIH
everything?

Want an auto-mounter and disk monitor and more for a modern desktop
experience - reimplement udisks.
Want a secure permissions handling framework for the desktop -
reimplement polkit.
Want a user account service handler for desktop logins - reimplement
accountsservice.
Want color profiles handling for monitors and co, and other associated
stuff - reimplement colord.
And so on.

That's all "GNOME stuff" by your definition, with GNOME Foundation
members being the project leaders or starters.

Meanwhile gnome-common is just a package for m4 macros for the older
autotools using world, and is deprecated in favor of autoconf-archive,
which had the good things of gnome-common integrated into it. Please
remove that package too, if you want to NIH.


People, this is open source. Stop advocating NIH and make use of the
benefits of open source and let the people actually doing stuff
collaborate on things and re-use/share projects as they see fit, for
less time waste and more making GNU/Linux (desktops) great over the
proprietary others.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Alan McKinnon]

On 10/12/2017 13:55, Mart Raudsepp wrote:
> On P, 2017-12-10 at 08:56 +0000, Jorge Almeida wrote:
>> On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 6:12 AM, R0b0t1 <r030t1@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Sat, Dec 9, 2017 at 5:36 PM, Peter Humphrey <peter@prh.myzen.co.
>>> uk> wrote:
>>>> On Saturday, 9 December 2017 12:00:12 GMT Jorge Almeida wrote:
>>>>> On Sat, Dec 9, 2017 at 10:45 AM, Mick <michaelkintzios@gmail.co
>>>>> m> wrote:
>>>>>> Thank you all for detailed and clear replies.  You'd forgive
>>>>>> me for
>>>>>> being (a little) paranoid about Poettering's fingers getting
>>>>>> anywhere
>>>>>> near my systems.>
>>>>>> :-p
>>>>>
>>>>> Are you sure you need udisks? And policykit?
>>>>
>>>> I'm pretty sure Mick runs KDE, which requires both of those.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Eventually emerging @world will just pull in the entirety of the
>>> Gentoo package repository, and we won't have to worry about what is
>>> or
>>> isn't necessary.
>>>
>> Not that I would object much to have gnome-common if I needed it (I
>> don't), but it is a bit
>> shocking that installing kde stuff pulls gnome stuff. After all,
>> they're supposed to be alternative worldviews, er, desktop
>> environments. Maybe the relevant people should stop and think whether
>> unbridled complexity is a good idea?
> 
> So you are suggesting that each desktop environment must NIH
> everything?
> 
> Want an auto-mounter and disk monitor and more for a modern desktop
> experience - reimplement udisks.
> Want a secure permissions handling framework for the desktop -
> reimplement polkit.
> Want a user account service handler for desktop logins - reimplement
> accountsservice.
> Want color profiles handling for monitors and co, and other associated
> stuff - reimplement colord.
> And so on.
> 
> That's all "GNOME stuff" by your definition, with GNOME Foundation
> members being the project leaders or starters.
> 
> Meanwhile gnome-common is just a package for m4 macros for the older
> autotools using world, and is deprecated in favor of autoconf-archive,
> which had the good things of gnome-common integrated into it. Please
> remove that package too, if you want to NIH.
> 
> 
> People, this is open source. Stop advocating NIH and make use of the
> benefits of open source and let the people actually doing stuff
> collaborate on things and re-use/share projects as they see fit, for
> less time waste and more making GNU/Linux (desktops) great over the
> proprietary others.
> 
> 

Let's say we renamed the package:

s/gnome-common/useful-build-stuffs/g

No other change, just a package rename. And suddenly this entire thread
never ever happens at all.

People, you all need to step back, sleep on it, and knock off the
knee-jerking. It is 4 useful m4 files, utterly dwarfed by any package
you can mention that installs even a single man page.

-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[karl]

Jorge Almedia:n
...
> (Of course, the aforementioned fingers are exceedingly sticky. We all
> have to live with udev, after all...)

No, we don't have to, this is gentoo after all. You can still use a
static dev if you wish even if some packages do insists on udev even
though some of thoose dependancies are bogus.

Regards,
/Karl Hammar

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Aspö Data
Lilla Aspö 148
S-742 94 Östhammar
Sweden
+46 173 140 57

[gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Ian Zimmerman]

On 2017-12-09 12:00, Jorge Almeida wrote:

> Are you sure you need udisks? And policykit? I'm guessing you have
> some default USE variables which if removed would contribute to a
> cleaner system. I just checked the documentation about udisks in the
> freedesktop site. I didn't manage to understand why it would be useful
> (my fault, probably) but I understood enough to decide I wouldn't want
> such stuff in my system.

AFAIK there are 2 main reasons for udisks:

1. automounting everything that moves, and even things that do not move.
   By automounting I mean fully automatic mounting, ie. without any
   click or other user action.  Leaving aside the desirability of this,
   it can be mostly replaced by a set of udev rules, even though udev
   authors frown of such usage.

2. tracking media availability of optical drives, which maddeningly do
   not provide any interrupt-driven way to do that.  In spite of my
   advancing age I can still remember when I insert a disc into my
   drive, so if I don't need 1. above I don't need this either.

Ergo, I avoid udisks.

-- 
Please don't Cc: me privately on mailing lists and Usenet,
if you also post the followup to the list or newsgroup.
To reply privately _only_ on Usenet, fetch the TXT record for the domain.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Jorge Almeida]

On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 1:01 PM, Ian Zimmerman <itz@very.loosely.org> wrote:
> On 2017-12-09 12:00, Jorge Almeida wrote:
>
>> Are you sure you need udisks? And policykit? I'm guessing you have
>> some default USE variables which if removed would contribute to a
>> cleaner system. I just checked the documentation about udisks in the
>> freedesktop site. I didn't manage to understand why it would be useful
>> (my fault, probably) but I understood enough to decide I wouldn't want
>> such stuff in my system.
>
> AFAIK there are 2 main reasons for udisks:
>
> 1. automounting everything that moves, and even things that do not move.
>    By automounting I mean fully automatic mounting, ie. without any
>    click or other user action.  Leaving aside the desirability of this,
>    it can be mostly replaced by a set of udev rules, even though udev
>    authors frown of such usage.
>
> 2. tracking media availability of optical drives, which maddeningly do
>    not provide any interrupt-driven way to do that.  In spite of my
>    advancing age I can still remember when I insert a disc into my
>    drive, so if I don't need 1. above I don't need this either.
>
> Ergo, I avoid udisks.
>
Yes, it seems appropriate for Windows refugees and linuxers suffering
from Apple-envy. When I said I didn't understand why it would be
useful, I meant that the documentation in the site is all but clear
about the goodness of its product. Lots of freedesktop/dbus
mumbo-jumbo, though.

Regards

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Canek Peláez Valdés]

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On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 3:55 PM, Jorge Almeida <jjalmeida@gmail.com> wrote:
[...]
> Yes, it seems appropriate for Windows refugees and linuxers suffering
> from Apple-envy. When I said I didn't understand why it would be
> useful, I meant that the documentation in the site is all but clear
> about the goodness of its product. Lots of freedesktop/dbus
> mumbo-jumbo, though.

The documentation for udisks is not intended for end-users; it's intended
for developers that whish to use its benefits for their projects, GNOME and
KDE included. When used right (which implies a good integration done by the
distro), the software depending on it just works™, which makes
documentation for the end user program also redundant. You just don't
notice udisks, it's quietly running in the background doing its thing
without taking either much disk space, memory, nor CPU usage. For the
*general case*, its benefits outweigh the almost negligible amount of
resources it consumes (BTW, build time of udisks in Gentoo is about 21
seconds).

Up to a point, the same can be said about systemd; although many of its
programs can be and are used by end users, most of it is for distro
builders, programmers and administrators. And having a couple of Gentoo
boxes running Apache doesn't make anyone an administrator, BTW.

That's why most of Gentoo systemd users (and we are *a lot*; Gentoo has
great systemd support with several Gentoo devs collaborating with the
project) usually just ignore this kind of threads. Most of the time is a
lot of people which don't use it badmouthing a really cool piece of
technology that has been adopted by all large (and heavily used) Linux
distributions because the people that understand its technical merits
realize that, for the *general case*, its benefits outweigh whatever costs
(in many cases imaginary) it may have. And besides, for us it just works™,
quietly running in the background.

Just my two cents. I will not answer any reply to my little contribution to
this thread; but of course don't hesitate to explain to me why I'm
completely wrong, or a Lennart fanboi, or that I don't know what I'm
talking about. I just will not partake in such a joyful and enlightening
"discussion" (sadly the same conclusion I have arrived for the lasts few
years regarding this mailing list).

Enjoy your echo chamber.

Regards.
--
Dr. Canek Peláez Valdés
Profesor de Carrera Asociado C
Departamento de Matemáticas
Facultad de Ciencias
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

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[gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Ian Zimmerman]

On 2017-12-10 21:31, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:

> You just don't notice udisks, it's quietly running in the background
> doing its thing without taking either much disk space, memory, nor CPU
> usage.

I know Dr. Valdés will not respond but maybe someone else will, as this
is a factual question.

Last time I met udisks in person, it polled all drives on the system
every second.  Has that changed?

-- 
Please don't Cc: me privately on mailing lists and Usenet,
if you also post the followup to the list or newsgroup.
To reply privately _only_ on Usenet, fetch the TXT record for the domain.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Mike Gilbert]

On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 11:37 PM, Ian Zimmerman <itz@very.loosely.org> wrote:
> On 2017-12-10 21:31, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:
>
>> You just don't notice udisks, it's quietly running in the background
>> doing its thing without taking either much disk space, memory, nor CPU
>> usage.
>
> I know Dr. Valdés will not respond but maybe someone else will, as this
> is a factual question.
>
> Last time I met udisks in person, it polled all drives on the system
> every second.  Has that changed?

udisksd does not appear to poll devices. It waits for device change
events to be sent over a netlink socket from udev. udev waits for
events to be sent from the kernel.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[R0b0t1]

Against my better judgement,

On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 9:31 PM, Canek Peláez Valdés <caneko@gmail.com> wrote:
> Up to a point, the same can be said about systemd; although many of its
> programs can be and are used by end users, most of it is for distro
> builders, programmers and administrators. And having a couple of Gentoo
> boxes running Apache doesn't make anyone an administrator, BTW.
>

I have met Gentoo users who maintain, for fun, far more complex and
capable systems than some system administrators who are paid for their
work. There is no reason you are any more credible than a random
mailing list user.

> That's why most of Gentoo systemd users (and we are *a lot*; Gentoo has
> great systemd support with several Gentoo devs collaborating with the
> project) usually just ignore this kind of threads. Most of the time is a lot
> of people which don't use it badmouthing a really cool piece of technology
> that has been adopted by all large (and heavily used) Linux distributions
> because the people that understand its technical merits realize that, for
> the *general case*, its benefits outweigh whatever costs (in many cases
> imaginary) it may have. And besides, for us it just works™, quietly running
> in the background.
>

If you are saying this then you are choosing to ignore the technical
arguments against systemd. You can claim you don't care and that is
fine, but you've ignored what people are talking about and have
injected your opinion into the discussion with a false air of
superiority.

The complaints in this thread may be a little extreme, but ultimately
I agree these closely connected binary systems are not easily
maintainable and are opaque to users.

Cheers,
     R0b0t1

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Corbin]

On 12/10/2017 11:31 PM, R0b0t1 wrote:
> Against my better judgement,
>
> On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 9:31 PM, Canek Peláez Valdés <caneko@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Up to a point, the same can be said about systemd; although many of its
>> programs can be and are used by end users, most of it is for distro
>> builders, programmers and administrators. And having a couple of Gentoo
>> boxes running Apache doesn't make anyone an administrator, BTW.
>>
> I have met Gentoo users who maintain, for fun, far more complex and
> capable systems than some system administrators who are paid for their
> work. There is no reason you are any more credible than a random
> mailing list user.
>
>> That's why most of Gentoo systemd users (and we are *a lot*; Gentoo has
>> great systemd support with several Gentoo devs collaborating with the
>> project) usually just ignore this kind of threads. Most of the time is a lot
>> of people which don't use it badmouthing a really cool piece of technology
>> that has been adopted by all large (and heavily used) Linux distributions
>> because the people that understand its technical merits realize that, for
>> the *general case*, its benefits outweigh whatever costs (in many cases
>> imaginary) it may have. And besides, for us it just works™, quietly running
>> in the background.
>>
> If you are saying this then you are choosing to ignore the technical
> arguments against systemd. You can claim you don't care and that is
> fine, but you've ignored what people are talking about and have
> injected your opinion into the discussion with a false air of
> superiority.
>
> The complaints in this thread may be a little extreme, but ultimately
> I agree these closely connected binary systems are not easily
> maintainable and are opaque to users.
>
> Cheers,
>      R0b0t1
>
@R0b0t1

Agreed.

The phase "single point of failure" comes to mind.

In the past I have been forced to reload systems using "systemd" because
I was unable to figure out how to fix "systemd" init problems.

If the system uses ( SysV, OpenRC, BSD / Slackware ) type init, it is
not a major problem to fix.

Corbin

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Jorge Almeida]

On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 7:31 PM, Canek Peláez Valdés <caneko@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 3:55 PM, Jorge Almeida <jjalmeida@gmail.com> wrote:
> [...]

Documentation not for "end-users", "just works" stuff, users should
not stress their little heads, we Drs. know best? I rest my case:
Windows/Apple.

>

> And having a couple of Gentoo
> boxes running Apache doesn't make anyone an administrator, BTW.

Agreed. And an academic title per se doesn't make anyone's personal
opinions relevant. I'm not an administrator, just an end-user. I do
end-use supervision, since a long time ago. It was not invented by the
author of systemd, it was not invented by the authors of launchd.
End-users who choose to use linux do it for a reason. It is possible
to learn stuff and to really *administrate* one's computers when using
a OS that is not of the "we-know-best" kind.

>

>
> Just my two cents. I will not answer any reply to my little contribution to
> this thread;

Good. I can't remember any intervention from you that I would miss. Of
course, I wouldn't dream of telling people how they should think, nor
would I deny anyone the right to be an activist.

>
> Enjoy your echo chamber.

Thank you for your contribution, Dr. Yes, we know you're a Dr. We know
it because:

a) You told us so, some time ago. (Yes, we were all very happy for you.)

b) About the same time, you replaced the arrogant little picture of
[part of] your face (in the gmail window) by a more standard one.

Regards,

Jorge Almeida


> --
> Dr. Canek Peláez Valdés
> Profesor de Carrera Asociado C

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Mick]

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On Monday, 11 December 2017 11:59:03 GMT Jorge Almeida wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 7:31 PM, Canek Peláez Valdés <caneko@gmail.com> 
wrote:

> > Just my two cents. I will not answer any reply to my little contribution
> > to
> > this thread;
> 
> Good. I can't remember any intervention from you that I would miss. Of
> course, I wouldn't dream of telling people how they should think, nor
> would I deny anyone the right to be an activist.
> 
> > Enjoy your echo chamber.
> 
> Thank you for your contribution, Dr. Yes, we know you're a Dr. We know
> it because:

Crikey!  I didn't expect my question to trigger yet another thread of 'systemd 
Vs freedom of choice (non-systemd)' arguments.  Dr. Canek has been an advocate 
of systemd for years now and has posted his views on this topic more than 
once.  He has tried hard to make gentoo users see the light in the superiority 
of systemd and put his arguments across.  He has also done a lot of 
development work to establish systemd in Gentoo.  His views are somewhat 
parochial - only those who (can) code have an influence if not a right to 
determine the direction of travel - I paraphrase of course.  There is truth in 
this and anyone can recognise that money can buy developer hours and direct 
their development effort.

The facts remain that RHL and their employees have shaped the Linux eco-system 
to suit their business interests;  spinning predictably and reliably thousands 
of identical VMs in data centres.  The MSWindows monolithic stack architecture 
is something they wanted/needed and this is what they developed.

The fact also remains that binary distros and other development projects 
decided to gravitate towards major development areas (cloud and embedded 
computing) where commercial interest and development demand has been greater.  
Lack of devs and maintainers especially for smaller distros means they decided 
to ride on the back of systemd and minimise their own development load.  Linux 
exists on the desktop too, but this represents a really small percentage of PC 
users.  Linux desktop users on Gentoo systems is an even smaller number and I 
am guessing of an increasingly advanced age demographic.

I am grateful that Gentoo has retained openrc and provides a choice for those 
of us who would prefer to not use systemd.  I use systemd on a couple of 
systems out of necessity/convenience, but I would not like it on my PC 
systems.  If I wanted this opaque Just Works™ philosophy I would have stayed 
with MSWindows or AppleMac, both of which I have used for years and frustrated 
me to hell - well MSWindows definitely does.  However, for the majority of the 
population these OS remain the best suited choice.  So, I think we should live 
& let live, but as gentoo users at least try to influence gentoo to retain a 
freedom of choice most binary distros have walked away from.

Just my 2c's.
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[mad.scientist.at.large]

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mad.scientist.at.large (a good madscientist)
--


11. Dec 2017 05:39 by michaelkintzios@gmail.com:


> On Monday, 11 December 2017 11:59:03 GMT Jorge Almeida wrote:
>> On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 7:31 PM, Canek Peláez Valdés <>> caneko@gmail.com>> > 
> wrote:
>
>> > Just my two cents. I will not answer any reply to my little contribution
>> > to
>> > this thread;
>>
>> Good. I can't remember any intervention from you that I would miss. Of
>> course, I wouldn't dream of telling people how they should think, nor
>> would I deny anyone the right to be an activist.
>>
>> > Enjoy your echo chamber.
>>
>> Thank you for your contribution, Dr. Yes, we know you're a Dr. We know
>> it because:
>
> Crikey!  I didn't expect my question to trigger yet another thread of 'systemd 
> Vs freedom of choice (non-systemd)' arguments.  Dr. Canek has been an advocate 
> of systemd for years now and has posted his views on this topic more than 
> once.  He has tried hard to make gentoo users see the light in the superiority 
> of systemd and put his arguments across.  He has also done a lot of 
> development work to establish systemd in Gentoo.  His views are somewhat 
> parochial - only those who (can) code have an influence if not a right to 
> determine the direction of travel - I paraphrase of course.  There is truth in 
> this and anyone can recognise that money can buy developer hours and direct 
> their development effort.
>
> The facts remain that RHL and their employees have shaped the Linux eco-system 
> to suit their business interests;  spinning predictably and reliably thousands 
> of identical VMs in data centres.  The MSWindows monolithic stack architecture 
> is something they wanted/needed and this is what they developed.
>
> <snip>
> Just my 2c's.
> -- 
> Regards,
> Mick




interestingly, RH (and Centos) have both dumped systemd and gone to another system (I don't remember which one).  In fact they've done so retroactively on earlier versions.  Of course the continuing take over of linux by commercial interest is distorting development goals (time spent trying to destandardize/create new standards, make it harder to install and maintain, and new tools they don't have to give away).  





It's really sad that people accepted an open source license and built a business for decades, and now   are now doing their best to keep free users out, way out of the loop (to the extent they can without technically violated the license).  It's really sad because these companies are all making good money (which is fine) but like many of the rich (not all) they want more $$ and are willing to be rather dishonorable about it.  It's a bad time for linux in many ways.  Personally, like Linus himself, I'm looking for the next free os.  





Do to it's long history and many, many donated hours,  design by  groups, and resulting complexity it's very hard to fix some of the incorrect/suboptimal decisions that are deep down, and most developers want to work on something new (not old and complicated like securing X).  Don't get me wrong, I love linux, but I'll also be learning bsd and looking for such a project.  Operating systems are big clumsy beast that require an incredible amount of work to realize and then maintain, but some are still willing to do such work for free/fun (I hope to know enough to help in a couple of years, I'm good at programing but i'll need to do better/more correct work consistent with good style and design and learn a lot about real/ideal operating systems and the inevitable trade offs).




Then there are the promoters of questionable tech/implementations, many as dishonest and childish as some of our politicians, and like many politicians it's become more of a sales game, with people making up data, lying, and generally disrespecting their' users.  A strategy that can work for awhile, until they've converted their' good reputation into a fast buck (most of the big companies are doing it, triplite for example, once commercial grade and well respected, but now sellers of sub-consumer grade gear).  





And for embeded applications systemd is nothing but a liability, forcing dev tools and a server onto a router etc. just opens up new vulnerabilities for basicly nothing (other than a graphical interface server that very limited).   The main thing i love about linux is choice, you can use the cool edgy stuff that's still buggy or the more stable or both depending on your' mood and goal.  Your mileage will vary.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Richard Bradfield]

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On Mon, 11 Dec 2017, at 13:22, mad.scientist.at.large@tutanota.com wrote:> interestingly, RH (and Centos) have both dumped systemd and gone to
> another system (I don't remember which one).  In fact they've done so
> retroactively on earlier versions.  Of course the continuing take over
> of linux by commercial interest is distorting development goals (time
> spent trying to destandardize/create new standards, make it harder to
> install and maintain, and new tools they don't have to give away).
Have you got a source on that? I haven't read any news about RH
switching to yet another init system.
I think they're fairly well wedded to Systemd, for better or for worse.
--
Richard


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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[mad.scientist.at.large]

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I've been using centos on one machine and checked.  When it was there it showed up in the process manager.  just checked system monitor ,it's using /sbin/init, manual for init on that machine says "upstart".  man entry also says "init is event-based init daemon"..."this is different to dependency based init daemons",  systemd is of course dependency based, unless i'm terribly confused, in which case it's time for gentoo or debian on all my boxes. (yes, i use desktops almost exclusively).  

i like big screens (multiple), proper keyboards, and a mouse or trackball.)  I have a smart phone, too tiny screen, too tiny keyboard, and in this case somewhat damaged code.  Besides, it's hard to put a 3TB drive in a phone, currently.  Now when i get a brain jack one day and can run coprocessors etc. maybe  (not one of the first!) .  Other than desktops i have a couple lap tops, great when you need portable and exercise .

mad.scientist.at.large (a good madscientist)
--


11. Dec 2017 06:30 by bradfier@fstab.me:


> On Mon, 11 Dec 2017, at 13:22, > mad.scientist.at.large@tutanota.com>  wrote:
>
>> interestingly, RH (and Centos) have both dumped systemd and gone to another system (I don't remember which one).  In fact they've done so retroactively on earlier versions.  Of course the continuing take over of linux by commercial interest is distorting development goals (time spent trying to destandardize/create new standards, make it harder to install and maintain, and new tools they don't have to give away).  
>>
>
> Have you got a source on that? I haven't read any news about RH switching to yet another init system.
>
> I think they're fairly well wedded to Systemd, for better or for worse.
> --
> Richard
>
>

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[mad.scientist.at.large]

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detail, the machine with centos is running 6.9, systemd was in V7+ i'll have to check that.  systemd was i believe in the later versions of V6.  I will check, it's been a hell of a year with many frustrations and my memory of V7 might be wrong, i'll be installing the latest centos later today so i'll check (i'll check before i install if possible).  I do remember this change, unless the stress had me severely confused, which might have happened, it was bad enough that i had a massive heart attack and didn't even know that was the problem, it's something of a miracle that i'm still here (badly blocked arteries, and apparently i tried to get off the table!).  Thankfully my heart has recovered completely, i'm a tough old bird.

mad.scientist.at.large (a good madscientist)
--


11. Dec 2017 06:48 by mad.scientist.at.large@tutanota.com:


>     I've been using centos on one machine and checked.  When it was there it showed up in the process manager.  just checked system monitor ,it's using /sbin/init, manual for init on that machine says "upstart".  man entry also says "init is event-based init daemon"..."this is different to dependency based init daemons",  systemd is of course dependency based, unless i'm terribly confused, in which case it's time for gentoo or debian on all my boxes. (yes, i use desktops almost exclusively).  
>
> i like big screens (multiple), proper keyboards, and a mouse or trackball.)  I have a smart phone, too tiny screen, too tiny keyboard, and in this case somewhat damaged code.  Besides, it's hard to put a 3TB drive in a phone, currently.  Now when i get a brain jack one day and can run coprocessors etc. maybe  (not one of the first!) .  Other than desktops i have a couple lap tops, great when you need portable and exercise .
>
> mad.scientist.at.large (a good madscientist)
> --
>
>
> 11. Dec 2017 06:30 by > bradfier@fstab.me> :
>
>
>> On Mon, 11 Dec 2017, at 13:22, >> mad.scientist.at.large@tutanota.com>>  wrote:
>>
>>> interestingly, RH (and Centos) have both dumped systemd and gone to another system (I don't remember which one).  In fact they've done so retroactively on earlier versions.  Of course the continuing take over of linux by commercial interest is distorting development goals (time spent trying to destandardize/create new standards, make it harder to install and maintain, and new tools they don't have to give away).  
>>>
>>
>> Have you got a source on that? I haven't read any news about RH switching to yet another init system.
>>
>> I think they're fairly well wedded to Systemd, for better or for worse.
>> --
>> Richard
>>
>>

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[mad.scientist.at.large]

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Apologies, systemd is in centos/RHEL starting with V7.  I just checked, somewhere in the last few months i misinterpreted something drastically, i was sure systemd was gone, sadly it's not.  Guess i'll be installing etc. today, Centos 6.9 can't run the newest firefox due to a dependency that can't be satisfied in V6.9.  I know i had 7.4 installed and had problems, somehow i missed the systemd incorporation.  I guess init systems is a good place to start some deeper learning.  Guess i made this years mistake ;)  .

mad.scientist.at.large (a good madscientist)
--


11. Dec 2017 07:04 by mad.scientist.at.large@tutanota.com:


>     detail, the machine with centos is running 6.9, systemd was in V7+ i'll have to check that.  systemd was i believe in the later versions of V6.  I will check, it's been a hell of a year with many frustrations and my memory of V7 might be wrong, i'll be installing the latest centos later today so i'll check (i'll check before i install if possible).  I do remember this change, unless the stress had me severely confused, which might have happened, it was bad enough that i had a massive heart attack and didn't even know that was the problem, it's something of a miracle that i'm still here (badly blocked arteries, and apparently i tried to get off the table!).  Thankfully my heart has recovered completely, i'm a tough old bird.
>
> mad.scientist.at.large (a good madscientist)
> --
>
>
> 11. Dec 2017 06:48 by > mad.scientist.at.large@tutanota.com> :
>
>
>>     I've been using centos on one machine and checked.  When it was there it showed up in the process manager.  just checked system monitor ,it's using /sbin/init, manual for init on that machine says "upstart".  man entry also says "init is event-based init daemon"..."this is different to dependency based init daemons",  systemd is of course dependency based, unless i'm terribly confused, in which case it's time for gentoo or debian on all my boxes. (yes, i use desktops almost exclusively).  
>>
>> i like big screens (multiple), proper keyboards, and a mouse or trackball.)  I have a smart phone, too tiny screen, too tiny keyboard, and in this case somewhat damaged code.  Besides, it's hard to put a 3TB drive in a phone, currently.  Now when i get a brain jack one day and can run coprocessors etc. maybe  (not one of the first!) .  Other than desktops i have a couple lap tops, great when you need portable and exercise .
>>
>> mad.scientist.at.large (a good madscientist)
>> --
>>
>>
>> 11. Dec 2017 06:30 by >> bradfier@fstab.me>> :
>>
>>
>>> On Mon, 11 Dec 2017, at 13:22, >>> mad.scientist.at.large@tutanota.com>>>  wrote:
>>>
>>>> interestingly, RH (and Centos) have both dumped systemd and gone to another system (I don't remember which one).  In fact they've done so retroactively on earlier versions.  Of course the continuing take over of linux by commercial interest is distorting development goals (time spent trying to destandardize/create new standards, make it harder to install and maintain, and new tools they don't have to give away).  
>>>>
>>>
>>> Have you got a source on that? I haven't read any news about RH switching to yet another init system.
>>>
>>> I think they're fairly well wedded to Systemd, for better or for worse.
>>> --
>>> Richard
>>>
>>>

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Kai Peter]

On 2017-12-11 13:39, Mick wrote:
> On Monday, 11 December 2017 11:59:03 GMT Jorge Almeida wrote:
>> On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 7:31 PM, Canek Peláez Valdés 
>> <caneko@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
>> > Just my two cents. I will not answer any reply to my little contribution
>> > to
>> > this thread;
>> 
>> Good. I can't remember any intervention from you that I would miss. Of
>> course, I wouldn't dream of telling people how they should think, nor
>> would I deny anyone the right to be an activist.
>> 
>> > Enjoy your echo chamber.
>> 
>> Thank you for your contribution, Dr. Yes, we know you're a Dr. We know
>> it because:
> 
> Crikey!  I didn't expect my question to trigger yet another thread of 
> 'systemd
> Vs freedom of choice (non-systemd)' arguments.  Dr. Canek has been an 
> advocate
This is the nature of a mailing list ... ;-)

> of systemd for years now and has posted his views on this topic more 
> than
> once.  He has tried hard to make gentoo users see the light in the 
> superiority
> of systemd and put his arguments across.  He has also done a lot of
> development work to establish systemd in Gentoo.  His views are 
> somewhat
> parochial - only those who (can) code have an influence if not a right 
> to
> determine the direction of travel - I paraphrase of course.  There is 
> truth in
> this and anyone can recognise that money can buy developer hours and 
> direct
> their development effort.
> 
> The facts remain that RHL and their employees have shaped the Linux 
> eco-system
> to suit their business interests;  spinning predictably and reliably 
> thousands
> of identical VMs in data centres.  The MSWindows monolithic stack 
> architecture
> is something they wanted/needed and this is what they developed.
> 
> The fact also remains that binary distros and other development 
> projects
> decided to gravitate towards major development areas (cloud and 
> embedded
> computing) where commercial interest and development demand has been 
> greater.
> Lack of devs and maintainers especially for smaller distros means they 
> decided
> to ride on the back of systemd and minimise their own development load. 
>  Linux
IMHO there isn't a lack of devs and/or maintainers. To me the issue is 
that they doesn't work as good together as they should. To less 
compromises. To many forks. Thus, unfortunately, leads into more market 
fragmentation. It is good to have a choice, but it is not good to have a 
lot - to many - choices. And this is not limited to init systems.

> exists on the desktop too, but this represents a really small 
> percentage of PC
> users.  Linux desktop users on Gentoo systems is an even smaller number 
> and I
> am guessing of an increasingly advanced age demographic.
> 
> I am grateful that Gentoo has retained openrc and provides a choice for 
> those
> of us who would prefer to not use systemd.  I use systemd on a couple 
> of
> systems out of necessity/convenience, but I would not like it on my PC
> systems.  If I wanted this opaque Just Works™ philosophy I would have 
> stayed
> with MSWindows or AppleMac, both of which I have used for years and 
> frustrated
> me to hell - well MSWindows definitely does.  However, for the majority 
> of the
> population these OS remain the best suited choice.  So, I think we 
> should live
> & let live, but as gentoo users at least try to influence gentoo to 
> retain a
> freedom of choice most binary distros have walked away from.
> 
> Just my 2c's.
+1 in general ;-), even if I'm pretty sure some people will interpret 
something different.

-- 
Sent with eQmail-1.10

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[allan gottlieb]

On Mon, Dec 11 2017, Jorge Almeida wrote:

> On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 7:31 PM, Canek Peláez Valdés <caneko@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Just my two cents. I will not answer any reply to my little contribution to
>> this thread;
>
> Good. I can't remember any intervention from you that I would miss.

That makes one of us.

As a gnome user I needed to use systemd when gnome-3 came about.  While
I have nothing useful to say pro or con about systemd, I strongly
believe Canek has contributed a number of helpful comments to this
group.

allan

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Alan McKinnon]

On 13/12/2017 01:23, allan gottlieb wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 11 2017, Jorge Almeida wrote:
> 
>> On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 7:31 PM, Canek Peláez Valdés <caneko@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Just my two cents. I will not answer any reply to my little contribution to
>>> this thread;
>>
>> Good. I can't remember any intervention from you that I would miss.
> 
> That makes one of us.
> 
> As a gnome user I needed to use systemd when gnome-3 came about.  While
> I have nothing useful to say pro or con about systemd, I strongly
> believe Canek has contributed a number of helpful comments to this
> group.


Yes, this.

Some historical correctnesses about Canek:

- He has been here for years
- He has contributed here for years
- He supports systemd and has offered more help and explanation about
systemd to it's users on this list than any other single person, bar none
- He has never, not once, slagged off SysV Init, OpenRC or any other
init system, ot the creators or the users
- He has never posted rude or inflamatory comments about anyone arguing
against him
- He has never resorted to ad-hominem and never posted any knee jerk
opinions about any other poster wrt their stance on init systems

If we look at the reverse we see a very different picture, and it's
right here in this very thread. To the poster who rudely commented about
Canek being a professor and that doesn't make him right and that he is
one voice, step back pal and take a very long hard look at what you
said. Yes, it doesn't make him right. Also doesn't make him wrong. His
posts and the content are what make him right or wrong. There truly are
fan bois on this list, but Canek is not one of them. It's the
systemd-haters and Poeterring-haters who are being fan bois, painting
all detractors with the same brush.

Frankly, I'm amazed Canek is still here considering the amount of abuse
he takes from this list. He must have thick skin or maybe dealing with
detractors is a crucial part of academic training. I myself would have
rage quitted a long time ago but he is still here.

A good healthy dose of manners like your Mama taught you is in short
supply around here right now.


-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Wed, 13 Dec 2017 10:06:29 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:

> Some historical correctnesses about Canek:
> 
> - He has been here for years
> - He has contributed here for years
> - He supports systemd and has offered more help and explanation about
> systemd to it's users on this list than any other single person, bar
> none
> - He has never, not once, slagged off SysV Init, OpenRC or any other
> init system, ot the creators or the users
> - He has never posted rude or inflamatory comments about anyone arguing
> against him
> - He has never resorted to ad-hominem and never posted any knee jerk
> opinions about any other poster wrt their stance on init systems
> 
> If we look at the reverse we see a very different picture, and it's
> right here in this very thread. To the poster who rudely commented about
> Canek being a professor and that doesn't make him right and that he is
> one voice, step back pal and take a very long hard look at what you
> said. Yes, it doesn't make him right. Also doesn't make him wrong. His
> posts and the content are what make him right or wrong. There truly are
> fan bois on this list, but Canek is not one of them. It's the
> systemd-haters and Poeterring-haters who are being fan bois, painting
> all detractors with the same brush.

+1

It was Canek's rational explanations about systemd that made me
interested enough to try it, and I'm glad I did. He made good technical
arguments in favour of it whereas most of the arguments against it are
either based on Lennartphobia or false fact gained from other systemd
haters.

I also see the position as somewhat different with Gentoo, because openrc
is so much better than the other "traditional" systems out there, in fact
it shares some of the benefits of systemd. As a result, I run a mixture
of both systems. I prefer systemd now, but not enough to go through the
hassle of switching over an already working system. That wouldn't be the
case if those other systems weren't running openrc.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Irritable? Who the bloody hell are you calling irritable?

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Marc Joliet]

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Am Mittwoch, 13. Dezember 2017, 12:04:03 CET schrieb Neil Bothwick:
> On Wed, 13 Dec 2017 10:06:29 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > Some historical correctnesses about Canek:
> > 
> > - He has been here for years
> > - He has contributed here for years
> > - He supports systemd and has offered more help and explanation about
> > systemd to it's users on this list than any other single person, bar
> > none
> > - He has never, not once, slagged off SysV Init, OpenRC or any other
> > init system, ot the creators or the users
> > - He has never posted rude or inflamatory comments about anyone arguing
> > against him
> > - He has never resorted to ad-hominem and never posted any knee jerk
> > opinions about any other poster wrt their stance on init systems
> > 
> > If we look at the reverse we see a very different picture, and it's
> > right here in this very thread. To the poster who rudely commented about
> > Canek being a professor and that doesn't make him right and that he is
> > one voice, step back pal and take a very long hard look at what you
> > said. Yes, it doesn't make him right. Also doesn't make him wrong. His
> > posts and the content are what make him right or wrong. There truly are
> > fan bois on this list, but Canek is not one of them. It's the
> > systemd-haters and Poeterring-haters who are being fan bois, painting
> > all detractors with the same brush.
> 
> +1
> 
> It was Canek's rational explanations about systemd that made me
> interested enough to try it, and I'm glad I did. He made good technical
> arguments in favour of it whereas most of the arguments against it are
> either based on Lennartphobia or false fact gained from other systemd
> haters.

+1 to both Alan and Neil.

> I also see the position as somewhat different with Gentoo, because openrc
> is so much better than the other "traditional" systems out there, in fact
> it shares some of the benefits of systemd. As a result, I run a mixture
> of both systems. I prefer systemd now, but not enough to go through the
> hassle of switching over an already working system. That wouldn't be the
> case if those other systems weren't running openrc.

That echoes my own sentiment pretty well.  OpenRC is one reason I stayed with 
Gentoo, because it seemed better to me than the way other distros did things 
(well, better than Suse, at least, which was the other distro I tried way back 
then).

However, now I default to systemd, because for me it's even better than 
OpenRC.  Plus, I don't have so many systems that I couldn't migrate them all 
:-) .

-- 
Marc Joliet
--
"People who think they know everything really annoy those of us who know we
don't" - Bjarne Stroustrup

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Dale]

Marc Joliet wrote:
> Am Mittwoch, 13. Dezember 2017, 12:04:03 CET schrieb Neil Bothwick:
>> On Wed, 13 Dec 2017 10:06:29 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:
>>> Some historical correctnesses about Canek:
>>>
>>> - He has been here for years
>>> - He has contributed here for years
>>> - He supports systemd and has offered more help and explanation about
>>> systemd to it's users on this list than any other single person, bar
>>> none
>>> - He has never, not once, slagged off SysV Init, OpenRC or any other
>>> init system, ot the creators or the users
>>> - He has never posted rude or inflamatory comments about anyone arguing
>>> against him
>>> - He has never resorted to ad-hominem and never posted any knee jerk
>>> opinions about any other poster wrt their stance on init systems
>>>
>>> If we look at the reverse we see a very different picture, and it's
>>> right here in this very thread. To the poster who rudely commented about
>>> Canek being a professor and that doesn't make him right and that he is
>>> one voice, step back pal and take a very long hard look at what you
>>> said. Yes, it doesn't make him right. Also doesn't make him wrong. His
>>> posts and the content are what make him right or wrong. There truly are
>>> fan bois on this list, but Canek is not one of them. It's the
>>> systemd-haters and Poeterring-haters who are being fan bois, painting
>>> all detractors with the same brush.
>> +1
>>
>> It was Canek's rational explanations about systemd that made me
>> interested enough to try it, and I'm glad I did. He made good technical
>> arguments in favour of it whereas most of the arguments against it are
>> either based on Lennartphobia or false fact gained from other systemd
>> haters.
> +1 to both Alan and Neil.
>
>> I also see the position as somewhat different with Gentoo, because openrc
>> is so much better than the other "traditional" systems out there, in fact
>> it shares some of the benefits of systemd. As a result, I run a mixture
>> of both systems. I prefer systemd now, but not enough to go through the
>> hassle of switching over an already working system. That wouldn't be the
>> case if those other systems weren't running openrc.
> That echoes my own sentiment pretty well.  OpenRC is one reason I stayed with 
> Gentoo, because it seemed better to me than the way other distros did things 
> (well, better than Suse, at least, which was the other distro I tried way back 
> then).
>
> However, now I default to systemd, because for me it's even better than 
> OpenRC.  Plus, I don't have so many systems that I couldn't migrate them all 
> :-) .
>


And yet Canek is the only person on this mailing list to EVER get on my
blacklist for his posts.  That was years ago.  To this day, I don't get
any of his messages or read anything quoted from him.  Even the troll
who had his own script, kept griping about Gentoo and its update process
and refused to listen to anyone didn't make it to the blacklist level. 
Eventually, some comrel member or something booted them off the list. 

I have to say, -1 for me.  He managed to join a extremely exclusive club
with me.  He sits on a blacklist that no one else ever managed to get on. 

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[J. Roeleveld]

On Wednesday, December 13, 2017 9:06:29 AM CET Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On 13/12/2017 01:23, allan gottlieb wrote:
> > On Mon, Dec 11 2017, Jorge Almeida wrote:
> >> On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 7:31 PM, Canek Peláez Valdés <caneko@gmail.com> 
wrote:
> >>> Just my two cents. I will not answer any reply to my little contribution
> >>> to
> >>> this thread;
> >> 
> >> Good. I can't remember any intervention from you that I would miss.
> > 
> > That makes one of us.
> > 
> > As a gnome user I needed to use systemd when gnome-3 came about.  While
> > I have nothing useful to say pro or con about systemd, I strongly
> > believe Canek has contributed a number of helpful comments to this
> > group.
> 
> Yes, this.
> 
> Some historical correctnesses about Canek:
> 
> - He has been here for years
> - He has contributed here for years
> - He supports systemd and has offered more help and explanation about
> systemd to it's users on this list than any other single person, bar none
> - He has never, not once, slagged off SysV Init, OpenRC or any other
> init system, ot the creators or the users
> - He has never posted rude or inflamatory comments about anyone arguing
> against him
> - He has never resorted to ad-hominem and never posted any knee jerk
> opinions about any other poster wrt their stance on init systems

+1
I may not agree with Canek on all things:
- I do dislike systemd, especially on Centos where disabling services doesn't 
always work past a reboot
- Users who can't write code also have a right to be heard and their wishes 
should still be honestly considered

But the conversations have always been civil. And information from him has 
always been helpful. He is one of the few people on this list whose comments I 
read and who I do miss when there isn't something for a while.

> If we look at the reverse we see a very different picture, and it's
> right here in this very thread. To the poster who rudely commented about
> Canek being a professor and that doesn't make him right and that he is
> one voice, step back pal and take a very long hard look at what you
> said. Yes, it doesn't make him right. Also doesn't make him wrong. His
> posts and the content are what make him right or wrong. There truly are
> fan bois on this list, but Canek is not one of them. It's the
> systemd-haters and Poeterring-haters who are being fan bois, painting
> all detractors with the same brush.

Canek bases his "being a fan of systemd" on what he needs and wants from a 
computer. For him, systemd fits that requirement perfectly.

> Frankly, I'm amazed Canek is still here considering the amount of abuse
> he takes from this list. He must have thick skin or maybe dealing with
> detractors is a crucial part of academic training. I myself would have
> rage quitted a long time ago but he is still here.
> 
> A good healthy dose of manners like your Mama taught you is in short
> supply around here right now.

+1 (again)

[gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Kai Krakow]

Am Thu, 14 Dec 2017 08:54:59 +0100 schrieb J. Roeleveld:

>> Some historical correctnesses about Canek:
>> 
>> - He has been here for years - He has contributed here for years - He
>> supports systemd and has offered more help and explanation about
>> systemd to it's users on this list than any other single person, bar
>> none - He has never, not once, slagged off SysV Init, OpenRC or any
>> other init system, ot the creators or the users - He has never posted
>> rude or inflamatory comments about anyone arguing against him - He has
>> never resorted to ad-hominem and never posted any knee jerk opinions
>> about any other poster wrt their stance on init systems
> 
> +1 I may not agree with Canek on all things:
> - I do dislike systemd, especially on Centos where disabling services
> doesn't always work past a reboot

Well, I think you're falling the pitfall expecting "disable" makes a unit 
unstartable. That is not the case. Disabling a unit only removes it from 
the list of units starting on your own intent. It can still be pulled it 
as a (required) dependency.

If you really want it never being started, you need to mask the unit. 
It's then no longer visible to the dependency resolver as if it were not 
installed at all.

The verbs disable and enable are arguably a bit misleading, while the 
verbs mask and unmask are not really obvious. But if you think of it, it 
actually makes sense. If you "rc-update del" a service, you wouldn't 
prevent it from being started neither, just because OpenRC is still able 
to pull it in as a dependency.

So it's actually not an argument for why you'd dislike systemd. ;-)


-- 
Regards,
Kai

Replies to list-only preferred.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[J. Roeleveld]

On Friday, December 15, 2017 4:05:41 AM CET Kai Krakow wrote:
> Am Thu, 14 Dec 2017 08:54:59 +0100 schrieb J. Roeleveld:
> >> Some historical correctnesses about Canek:
> >> 
> >> - He has been here for years - He has contributed here for years - He
> >> supports systemd and has offered more help and explanation about
> >> systemd to it's users on this list than any other single person, bar
> >> none - He has never, not once, slagged off SysV Init, OpenRC or any
> >> other init system, ot the creators or the users - He has never posted
> >> rude or inflamatory comments about anyone arguing against him - He has
> >> never resorted to ad-hominem and never posted any knee jerk opinions
> >> about any other poster wrt their stance on init systems
> > 
> > +1 I may not agree with Canek on all things:
> > - I do dislike systemd, especially on Centos where disabling services
> > doesn't always work past a reboot
> 
> Well, I think you're falling the pitfall expecting "disable" makes a unit
> unstartable. That is not the case. Disabling a unit only removes it from
> the list of units starting on your own intent. It can still be pulled it
> as a (required) dependency.

Makes sense

> If you really want it never being started, you need to mask the unit.
> It's then no longer visible to the dependency resolver as if it were not
> installed at all.

This is not listed anywhere easy to find in google.

> The verbs disable and enable are arguably a bit misleading, while the
> verbs mask and unmask are not really obvious. But if you think of it, it
> actually makes sense.

Actually, it doesn't. But lets not discuss naming conventions. A lot of tools 
have ones where I fail to see the logic.
It's a shame that option is not easily findable. And not knowing it exists, 
means checking man-pages and googling for them doesn't happen either.

> If you "rc-update del" a service, you wouldn't
> prevent it from being started neither, just because OpenRC is still able
> to pull it in as a dependency.

True, except with OpenRC, all the config is located together. Not mostly in /
usr/.... somewhere with overrides in /etc/...
I dislike all tools that split their config in this way.

> So it's actually not an argument for why you'd dislike systemd. ;-)

The lack of easily findable documentation on how to stop a service from 
starting, even as a dependency, is a reason. (not singularly against systemd).
Systemd, however, has an alternative.

--
Joost

[gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Kai Krakow]

Am Fri, 15 Dec 2017 07:38:01 +0100 schrieb J. Roeleveld:

> On Friday, December 15, 2017 4:05:41 AM CET Kai Krakow wrote:
>> Am Thu, 14 Dec 2017 08:54:59 +0100 schrieb J. Roeleveld:
>> >> Some historical correctnesses about Canek:
>> >> 
>> >> - He has been here for years - He has contributed here for years -
>> >> He supports systemd and has offered more help and explanation about
>> >> systemd to it's users on this list than any other single person, bar
>> >> none - He has never, not once, slagged off SysV Init, OpenRC or any
>> >> other init system, ot the creators or the users - He has never
>> >> posted rude or inflamatory comments about anyone arguing against him
>> >> - He has never resorted to ad-hominem and never posted any knee jerk
>> >> opinions about any other poster wrt their stance on init systems
>> > 
>> > +1 I may not agree with Canek on all things:
>> > - I do dislike systemd, especially on Centos where disabling services
>> > doesn't always work past a reboot
>> 
>> Well, I think you're falling the pitfall expecting "disable" makes a
>> unit unstartable. That is not the case. Disabling a unit only removes
>> it from the list of units starting on your own intent. It can still be
>> pulled it as a (required) dependency.
> 
> Makes sense
> 
>> If you really want it never being started, you need to mask the unit.
>> It's then no longer visible to the dependency resolver as if it were
>> not installed at all.
> 
> This is not listed anywhere easy to find in google.
> 
>> The verbs disable and enable are arguably a bit misleading, while the
>> verbs mask and unmask are not really obvious. But if you think of it,
>> it actually makes sense.
> 
> Actually, it doesn't. But lets not discuss naming conventions. A lot of
> tools have ones where I fail to see the logic.
> It's a shame that option is not easily findable. And not knowing it
> exists, means checking man-pages and googling for them doesn't happen
> either.
> 
>> If you "rc-update del" a service, you wouldn't prevent it from being
>> started neither, just because OpenRC is still able to pull it in as a
>> dependency.
> 
> True, except with OpenRC, all the config is located together. Not mostly
> in / usr/.... somewhere with overrides in /etc/...
> I dislike all tools that split their config in this way.
> 
>> So it's actually not an argument for why you'd dislike systemd. ;-)
> 
> The lack of easily findable documentation on how to stop a service from
> starting, even as a dependency, is a reason. (not singularly against
> systemd).
> Systemd, however, has an alternative.

Maybe it's a point of how you view and understand the underlying 
workings. For me, it was quite obvious that "disable" wouldn't stop a 
unit from starting at all. There's also socket activation, and if a 
socket can still pull in the unit, systemd actually tells you that it can 
be pulled in and you need to disable the socket unit, too.

After all, systemd is meant to automate most of the stuff, thus units are 
pulled in by udev or statically enabled units as needed. If you want to 
disable (and possibly break) some part of functionality, you have to 
pretend it's not there, thus "mask" it from visibility of the dependency 
system. That's also well documented in the man pages and blog articles by 
Lennart - which btw I've read _before_ deploying systemd.

I guess the bigger problem here is transitioning from the old, static, 
non plug-and-play init systems to some new style as systemd provides it. 
Old thinking no longer applies, you have to relearn from scratch. It's 
like driving a car from the 70s and then a modern one: The modern one may 
have extras like breaking assistant, traction control, etc... And when 
this first kicks in, it may come at a surprise. But hey, it's not that 
bad and maybe there are even buttons to disable such functionality - at 
your own risk.

But I agree with you that at first glance it is missing some overview: 
You cannot just look at /etc/systemd to see the full picture. There may 
be vendor enabled units which you don't see there. But "systemd status 
unit-file" will tell you. Actually, I like the fact that installing a 
piece of software also enabled the service I expect to be installed and 
working then. The problem here is more on the distribution side where 
dependencies of packages may pull in packages with services you'd never 
need - just for a small runtime dependency. And I can agree with you that 
it breaks the principle of least surprise then. But it really should be 
fixed by the packagers, not by systemd. Systemd is just the messenger 
here which provides the function of vendor presets.

But, yes, if systemd was installed as part of a distribution upgrade, 
without giving you the chance to read the docs, many things will come at 
a surprise, and there's an overwhelming lot of changes and different and 
unexpected behavior. But is that really systemd's fault?


-- 
Regards,
Kai

Replies to list-only preferred.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Fri, 15 Dec 2017 07:38:01 +0100, J. Roeleveld wrote:

> > If you "rc-update del" a service, you wouldn't
> > prevent it from being started neither, just because OpenRC is still
> > able to pull it in as a dependency.  
> 
> True, except with OpenRC, all the config is located together. Not
> mostly in / usr/.... somewhere with overrides in /etc/...
> I dislike all tools that split their config in this way.

Conversely, I prefer it. The package defaults should be set in /usr, /etc
is for customisation. xorg works the same way with settings
in /etc/overriding those it /usr. It saves cluttering up /etc with tons
of default settings.

However, with both openrc and systemd you don't need to trawl the
filesystems to find the settings, using the provided tools, rc-update and
systemctl in this case, is both preferred and simpler.

One of the benefits, IMO, of systemd, is that it brings a consistency to
operations. In many cases the systemd tools do the same as their
non-systemd equivalents, but they follow a consistent style guide. Of
course, this means that they may work differently to the way you are used
to and there is definitely a learning curve in switching to systemd. I
also didn't discover mask/unmask for a while, only finding it when I was
looking for something else in a man page. Running a mixture of systemd and
openrc boxes, I more often find myself doing thing wrong on the openrc
boxes these days and missing systemd features.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy.

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[gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Ian Zimmerman]

On 2017-12-13 10:06, Alan McKinnon wrote:

> A good healthy dose of manners like your Mama taught you is in short
> supply around here right now.

The worst insults are stated without any foul language.  Indeed, I'll
say that in general "insulting" is an attribute of ideas, not of words.

Some of the time, at least, people who resort to swearing do so in
reaction to such soft-spoken insults. (Equally on all sides of all
issues).

I'll try not to feed this monster thread any longer, I promise.

-- 
Please don't Cc: me privately on mailing lists and Usenet,
if you also post the followup to the list or newsgroup.
To reply privately _only_ on Usenet, fetch the TXT record for the domain.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Peter Humphrey]

On Thursday, 14 December 2017 16:03:19 GMT Ian Zimmerman wrote:

> I'll try not to feed this monster thread any longer, I promise.

Ah, but will you succeed?    :)

-- 
Regards,
Peter.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[R0b0t1]

On Thu, Dec 14, 2017 at 6:35 PM, Peter Humphrey <peter@prh.myzen.co.uk> wrote:
> On Thursday, 14 December 2017 16:03:19 GMT Ian Zimmerman wrote:
>
>> I'll try not to feed this monster thread any longer, I promise.
>
> Ah, but will you succeed?    :)
>

List, in my weakness, I felt compelled to make the 77th post, as seven
is a holy number indeed.

Cheers,
     R0b0t1

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Marc Joliet]

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Am Freitag, 15. Dezember 2017, 02:12:08 CET schrieb R0b0t1:
> On Thu, Dec 14, 2017 at 6:35 PM, Peter Humphrey <peter@prh.myzen.co.uk> 
wrote:
> > On Thursday, 14 December 2017 16:03:19 GMT Ian Zimmerman wrote:
> >> I'll try not to feed this monster thread any longer, I promise.
> > 
> > Ah, but will you succeed?    :)
> 
> List, in my weakness, I felt compelled to make the 77th post, as seven
> is a holy number indeed.
> 
> Cheers,
>      R0b0t1

Hah, and *right* before I sent my own monster mail, too!  So it seems I'm poor 
number 78... (and 79 now, too, I guess)

Greetings
-- 
Marc Joliet
--
"People who think they know everything really annoy those of us who know we
don't" - Bjarne Stroustrup

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[J. Roeleveld]

On Friday, December 15, 2017 2:25:29 AM CET Marc Joliet wrote:
> Am Freitag, 15. Dezember 2017, 02:12:08 CET schrieb R0b0t1:
> > On Thu, Dec 14, 2017 at 6:35 PM, Peter Humphrey <peter@prh.myzen.co.uk>
> 
> wrote:
> > > On Thursday, 14 December 2017 16:03:19 GMT Ian Zimmerman wrote:
> > >> I'll try not to feed this monster thread any longer, I promise.
> > > 
> > > Ah, but will you succeed?    :)
> > 
> > List, in my weakness, I felt compelled to make the 77th post, as seven
> > is a holy number indeed.

7 doesn't have any holes, so it can't be holy...

> > Cheers,
> > 
> >      R0b0t1
> 
> Hah, and *right* before I sent my own monster mail, too!  So it seems I'm
> poor number 78... (and 79 now, too, I guess)

8 and 9 do have holes...
you made a holy number :)

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Taiidan]

On 12/09/2017 05:45 AM, Mick wrote:
> On Saturday, 9 December 2017 10:34:32 GMT Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
>> On 09/12/17 11:51, Mick wrote:
>>> I've seen gnome-base/gnome-common pulled in on more than one systems, all
>>> of>
>>> which have USE="-gnome" set:
>>>    # emerge -uaNDvt world
>>>
>>> These are the packages that would be merged, in reverse order:
>>> [...]
>>> Calculating dependencies... done!
>>> [ebuild  N     ]      gnome-base/gnome-common-3.18.0-r1:3::gentoo
>>> USE="autoconf-archive" 153 KiB
>>> [...]
>>>
>>> All systems are on profile:  default/linux/amd64/17.0/desktop/plasma
>>>
>>> Why is gnome-base/gnome-common needed?
>> It's an extremely lightweight package. There seem to be some packages
>> that need files from it. The package itself only installs these files:
>>
>>     $ qlist gnome-common
>>     /usr/bin/gnome-autogen.sh
>>     /usr/share/aclocal/gnome-common.m4
>>     /usr/share/aclocal/gnome-compiler-flags.m4
>>     /usr/share/aclocal/gnome-code-coverage.m4
>>     /usr/share/doc/gnome-common-3.18.0-r1/ChangeLog.bz2
>>     /usr/share/doc/gnome-common-3.18.0-r1/README.bz2
>>
>> So basically it only copies some small text files to /usr. It doesn't
>> build anything.
> Thank you all for detailed and clear replies.  You'd forgive me for being (a
> little) paranoid about Poettering's fingers getting anywhere near my systems.
> :-p
>
For now, only a few text files - tomorrow - many more.

You give poettering an inch he will take hundred miles.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Alan McKinnon]

On 09/12/2017 14:04, Taiidan@gmx.com wrote:
> On 12/09/2017 05:45 AM, Mick wrote:
>> On Saturday, 9 December 2017 10:34:32 GMT Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
>>> On 09/12/17 11:51, Mick wrote:
>>>> I've seen gnome-base/gnome-common pulled in on more than one
>>>> systems, all
>>>> of>
>>>> which have USE="-gnome" set:
>>>>    # emerge -uaNDvt world
>>>>
>>>> These are the packages that would be merged, in reverse order:
>>>> [...]
>>>> Calculating dependencies... done!
>>>> [ebuild  N     ]      gnome-base/gnome-common-3.18.0-r1:3::gentoo
>>>> USE="autoconf-archive" 153 KiB
>>>> [...]
>>>>
>>>> All systems are on profile:  default/linux/amd64/17.0/desktop/plasma
>>>>
>>>> Why is gnome-base/gnome-common needed?
>>> It's an extremely lightweight package. There seem to be some packages
>>> that need files from it. The package itself only installs these files:
>>>
>>>     $ qlist gnome-common
>>>     /usr/bin/gnome-autogen.sh
>>>     /usr/share/aclocal/gnome-common.m4
>>>     /usr/share/aclocal/gnome-compiler-flags.m4
>>>     /usr/share/aclocal/gnome-code-coverage.m4
>>>     /usr/share/doc/gnome-common-3.18.0-r1/ChangeLog.bz2
>>>     /usr/share/doc/gnome-common-3.18.0-r1/README.bz2
>>>
>>> So basically it only copies some small text files to /usr. It doesn't
>>> build anything.
>> Thank you all for detailed and clear replies.  You'd forgive me for
>> being (a
>> little) paranoid about Poettering's fingers getting anywhere near my
>> systems.
>> :-p
>>
> For now, only a few text files - tomorrow - many more.
> 
> You give poettering an inch he will take hundred miles.
> 


Why are you laying this at Poettering's door?

To the best of my knowledge, he is not behind udisks{,2} or
gnome-common, so why include him here?

I'm all in favour of Lennart-bashing, but let's keep the bashing to what
he's responsible for.

-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Wols Lists]

On 09/12/17 12:08, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> I'm all in favour of Lennart-bashing, but let's keep the bashing to what
> he's responsible for.

<flame suit on>

As far as I can tell, the most egregious thing he's responsible for is
for wanting a well-designed system that works!

Face it, linux is a hodge-podge of things thrown together, and held
together with baling wire and sealing wax. Lennart doesn't want a system
where a small failure in one place cascades and brings down a load of
stuff elsewhere.

Granted he's not necessarily the most politic of people, and has ruffled
a lot of feathers, but I'd much rather a system he's cleaned up, than a
system where everything hangs together on a knife-edge.

Cheers,
Wol

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hello, Wols

On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 09:55:45 +0000, Wols Lists wrote:
> On 09/12/17 12:08, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > I'm all in favour of Lennart-bashing, but let's keep the bashing to what
> > he's responsible for.

> <flame suit on>

<flamethrower on>

> As far as I can tell, the most egregious thing he's responsible for is
> for wanting a well-designed system that works!

No, he's done far worse than that.

> Face it, linux is a hodge-podge of things thrown together, and held
> together with baling wire and sealing wax.

It's a hodge-podge, yes, but held together with robust protocols.

> Lennart doesn't want a system where a small failure in one place
> cascades and brings down a load of stuff elsewhere.

Neither do I, and neither does anybody.  GNU/Linux is not like that, and
never has been.  It has traditionally been a massive pain to set up,
though, something which has improved dramatically over the last ten or
twenty years.

> Granted he's not necessarily the most politic of people, and has ruffled
> a lot of feathers, but I'd much rather a system he's cleaned up, than a
> system where everything hangs together on a knife-edge.

His motivation seems to be ego.  To force everybody to use his software.
He did this by, amongst other things, abusing the trust placed in him to
maintain udev.  Early on he abandoned support for udev for everybody but
users of his new init system, systemd, in an attempt (sadly successful)
to force "everybody" into using systemd.

I've no idea how good systemd is.  It's not been through the normal
process of choice and selection that other successful packages have.  It
was forced on people.  But being forced to have a binary system log,
being forced (so I have heard) to have an http server running, ....,
doesn't make it an attractive package for me.

> Cheers,
> Wol

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Wols Lists]

On 10/12/17 10:13, Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> I've no idea how good systemd is.  It's not been through the normal
> process of choice and selection that other successful packages have.  It
> was forced on people.  But being forced to have a binary system log,
> being forced (so I have heard) to have an http server running, ....,
> doesn't make it an attractive package for me.

Oddly enough, although the details are different, that passage I've
quoted pretty accurately describes how I feel about Gnome ... :-)

Cheers,
Wol

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Walter Dnes]

On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 09:02:24PM +0000, Wols Lists wrote
> On 10/12/17 10:13, Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> > I've no idea how good systemd is.  It's not been through the normal
> > process of choice and selection that other successful packages have.
> > It was forced on people.  But being forced to have a binary system log,
> > being forced (so I have heard) to have an http server running, ....,
> > doesn't make it an attractive package for me.
> 
> Oddly enough, although the details are different, that passage I've
> quoted pretty accurately describes how I feel about Gnome ... :-)

  I can't find it right now on Google, but I vaguely remember that
Lennart asked the Gnome people to make systemd a hard dependancy.  Not
much later logind, which is required by Gnome, picks up systemd as a
hard dependancy.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Tom H]

On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 6:08 PM, Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org> wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 09:02:24PM +0000, Wols Lists wrote
>> On 10/12/17 10:13, Alan Mackenzie wrote:
>>>
>>> I've no idea how good systemd is. It's not been through the normal
>>> process of choice and selection that other successful packages have.
>>> It was forced on people. But being forced to have a binary system log,
>>> being forced (so I have heard) to have an http server running, ....,
>>> doesn't make it an attractive package for me.
>>
>> Oddly enough, although the details are different, that passage I've
>> quoted pretty accurately describes how I feel about Gnome ... :-)
>
> I can't find it right now on Google, but I vaguely remember that
> Lennart asked the Gnome people to make systemd a hard dependancy. Not
> much later logind, which is required by Gnome, picks up systemd as a
> hard dependancy.

It was in 2011. The rationale was to use hostnamectl and localectl via
the gnome gui apps that set the hostname and locale and to replace
consolekit with logind for gdm and gnome-session. (Ubuntu showed with
upstart and systemd-shim that you could do all three with a different
init system.)

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Wol's lists]

On 10/12/17 23:08, Walter Dnes wrote:
>> Oddly enough, although the details are different, that passage I've
>> quoted pretty accurately describes how I feel about Gnome ...:-)

>    I can't find it right now on Google, but I vaguely remember that
> Lennart asked the Gnome people to make systemd a hard dependancy.  Not
> much later logind, which is required by Gnome, picks up systemd as a
> hard dependancy.

Imho that's no problem. If a higher level has a hard dependency on a 
lower level, that's no surprise. And why should I care if someone else's 
desktop pulls in any particular low-level plumbing. :-)

BUT! If my choice of low-level plumbing (systemd) pulls in a desktop I 
don't want that is a BIG PROBLEM. If I'm running headless, I don't even 
WANT a desktop !!! I more and more get the feeling that linux is 
standardising on the Gnome desktop, which I really just DO NOT get on with.

Cheers,
Wol

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Peter Humphrey]

On Monday, 11 December 2017 19:20:24 GMT Wol's lists wrote:

> I more and more get the feeling that linux is standardising on the Gnome
> desktop, which I really just DO NOT get on with.

Nor I. it's second only to M$ in its arrogance.

-- 
Regards,
Peter.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Mon, 11 Dec 2017 23:24:48 +0000, Peter Humphrey wrote:

> > I more and more get the feeling that linux is standardising on the
> > Gnome desktop, which I really just DO NOT get on with.  
> 
> Nor I. it's second only to M$ in its arrogance.

I have three gnome packages installed on this KDE box. One is the tiny
package that started this thread, and is GNOME only in name, the other
two are dependencies of XFCE, which I also have installed.

I see no GNOME takeover, beyond the fact that many distros are choosing
GNOME as their default desktop.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

If at first you don't suceed, try the switch marked "Power"

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Peter Humphrey]

On Tuesday, 12 December 2017 10:34:27 GMT Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Mon, 11 Dec 2017 23:24:48 +0000, Peter Humphrey wrote:
> > > I more and more get the feeling that linux is standardising on the
> > > Gnome desktop, which I really just DO NOT get on with.
> > 
> > Nor I. it's second only to M$ in its arrogance.
> 
> I have three gnome packages installed on this KDE box. One is the tiny
> package that started this thread, and is GNOME only in name, the other
> two are dependencies of XFCE, which I also have installed.
> 
> I see no GNOME takeover, beyond the fact that many distros are choosing
> GNOME as their default desktop.

I didn't suggest it's taking over the world, just that it deliberately hides 
all useful configuration data from the user, just to save the devs from 
having to explain themselves.We know what you need better than you do, so 
just be a good boy and take your medicine.

Just like M$.

-- 
Regards,
Peter.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Wed, 13 Dec 2017 01:11:23 +0000, Peter Humphrey wrote:

> On Tuesday, 12 December 2017 10:34:27 GMT Neil Bothwick wrote:
> > On Mon, 11 Dec 2017 23:24:48 +0000, Peter Humphrey wrote:  
> > > > I more and more get the feeling that linux is standardising on the
> > > > Gnome desktop, which I really just DO NOT get on with.  
> > > 
> > > Nor I. it's second only to M$ in its arrogance.  
> > 
> > I have three gnome packages installed on this KDE box. One is the tiny
> > package that started this thread, and is GNOME only in name, the other
> > two are dependencies of XFCE, which I also have installed.
> > 
> > I see no GNOME takeover, beyond the fact that many distros are
> > choosing GNOME as their default desktop.  
> 
> I didn't suggest it's taking over the world, just that it deliberately
> hides all useful configuration data from the user, just to save the
> devs from having to explain themselves.We know what you need better
> than you do, so just be a good boy and take your medicine.
> 
> Just like M$.
> 
There I agree with you. With dconf they've even got a registry.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

OK Scotty, NOW!  Detonate and energize!  I mean.......

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Walter Dnes]

On Tue, Dec 12, 2017 at 10:34:27AM +0000, Neil Bothwick wrote

> I have three gnome packages installed on this KDE box. One is the
> tiny package that started this thread, and is GNOME only in name,
> the other two are dependencies of XFCE, which I also have installed.
> 
> I see no GNOME takeover, beyond the fact that many distros are
> choosing GNOME as their default desktop.

  My big hate is the ever-growing dependancy list of gtk.  Yes I know
that it's *NOT* supposed to mean "Gnome Tool Kit", but it seems to be
just that.  I run ICEWM window manager, but also use gnumeric and
abiword which require gtk+.  Over the past few years I've seen various
new hard-coded dependancies crop up when doing...

emerge -pv --changed-use --deep --update @world

adwaita-icon-theme, gtk-engines-adwaita, atk, dbus, harfbuzz,
introspection, libepoxy, etc, etc, etc.  How long before pulseaudio and
systemd show up as hard-coded dependancies?

  I'm old enough to remember a time when people switched to linux
because it ran fast on older machines that couldn't run the latest
Windows.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications

[gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Ian Zimmerman]

On 2017-12-13 12:52, Walter Dnes wrote:

>   My big hate is the ever-growing dependancy list of gtk.

Which is one of the big reasons why I masked gtk3.  Sadly I don't know
how much longer I can keep that, as at least one favorite program of
mine now requires it.

-- 
Please don't Cc: me privately on mailing lists and Usenet,
if you also post the followup to the list or newsgroup.
To reply privately _only_ on Usenet, fetch the TXT record for the domain.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[mad.scientist.at.large]

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It's a problem because it's a manufactured dependency rather than one that is necessary or would usually happen, and again systemd gives you no choice, no control.  It was done to inflate a fragile ego in some one who should perhaps feel some shame over some of his responses to legitimate bugs, security and otherwise.  

seriously, the people making decisions on gnome have fallen into the "one best way trap", much like coca cola did with new coke and discontinuing one of the most successful products world wide.   why, because "most"  people preferred new coke over the traditional flavor.  what they didn't consider was that many people preferred the classic coke, particularly at restaurants, in fact it cost coca cola many of their' restaurant chain clients who switched to pepsi.  

That's what happens when you assume that one size fits all, that one solution is optimal for all situations, and again there's a tremendous level of arrogance and disrespect for the community and the paying customer base in particular.  It's a form of the big company problem, small companies that act like large companies never become large companies, the mega corporations would not exist if they weren't doing it right at one time, but they tend  to be lazy and sloppy, political etc. as they become larger.   If i wanted that I'd use winblows.

And why oh why would you want software on your' system that you don't use?  again one obvious example is embedded systems where all resources tend to be scarce.  And just having code installed creates vulnerabilities and increases the chances that part of the system will conflict with another part.

The input validation issue is a great example of careless coding in a security critical piece of code, specifically that anyone with access of any kind can DOS with a one liner, though it sometimes has to have a loop because this bug is not deterministic, i.e. there's a great deal of randomness to it (i assume and hope this has been fixed, properly).

Dependency based init systems may indeed be the way to go, but the way systemd is doing things is like  a catalog of bad programing practices and bad project administration.  Add to this the way systemd's involvement in everything is increasing tremendously the number of bugs in the code.  It is well understood that complexity decreases reliability.  Beause of this, during peace time, approximately one third of our best jet fighters have a broken system waiting to be repaired, not always a critical system, but considering the importance of reliability of jet fighters, and the tremendous money spent maintaining them it's very impressive to know that 2/3 is the best you can count on, under easy conditions.

Proclaiming the emperors new clothes are fantastically beautiful only proves one to be a fool.

"It just doesn't workk" (tm).  "bail on the bloatware"(tm).  Any one can repeat silly slogans that have no real bearing on anything.  Oh, and of course there's the either or thinking being implied, and the assumption that there aren't other solutions which may well be far more optimal for the average user.  like all sciences and arts computer hardware and software ideals are in flux all the time with genuinely ingenious ideas popping up everywhere that completely obsolete other methods in some or all cases.

mad.scientist.at.large (a good madscientist)
--


11. Dec 2017 12:20 by antlists@youngman.org.uk:


> On 10/12/17 23:08, Walter Dnes wrote:
>>> Oddly enough, although the details are different, that passage I've
>>> quoted pretty accurately describes how I feel about Gnome ...:-)
>>    I can't find it right now on Google, but I vaguely remember that
>> Lennart asked the Gnome people to make systemd a hard dependancy.  Not
>> much later logind, which is required by Gnome, picks up systemd as a
>> hard dependancy.
>
> Imho that's no problem. If a higher level has a hard dependency on a lower level, that's no surprise. And why should I care if someone else's desktop pulls in any particular low-level plumbing. :-)
>
> BUT! If my choice of low-level plumbing (systemd) pulls in a desktop I don't want that is a BIG PROBLEM. If I'm running headless, I don't even WANT a desktop !!! I more and more get the feeling that linux is standardising on the Gnome desktop, which I really just DO NOT get on with.
>
> Cheers,
> Wol

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Sun, 10 Dec 2017 10:13:30 +0000, Alan Mackenzie wrote:

> I've no idea how good systemd is.  It's not been through the normal
> process of choice and selection that other successful packages have.  It
> was forced on people.  But being forced to have a binary system log,
> being forced (so I have heard) to have an http server running, ....,

This may come as a surprise to some, but some things you hear on
t'internet are not true...

For example, the http server is there to allow access to logs from
another machine without needing to grant SSH access. It is not enabled by
default.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Stop tagline theft! Copyright your tagline (c)

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hello, Neil.

On Mon, Dec 11, 2017 at 18:56:15 +0000, Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Sun, 10 Dec 2017 10:13:30 +0000, Alan Mackenzie wrote:

> > I've no idea how good systemd is.  It's not been through the normal
> > process of choice and selection that other successful packages have.  It
> > was forced on people.  But being forced to have a binary system log,
> > being forced (so I have heard) to have an http server running, ....,

> This may come as a surprise to some, but some things you hear on
> t'internet are not true...

:-)

> For example, the http server is there to allow access to logs from
> another machine without needing to grant SSH access. It is not enabled by
> default.

OK.  But it's still there taking up RAM, and (more importantly) makes a
systemd system a broader target for attacks.  Whether a system has an
http server (or, for that matter, an SSH server), for whatever purpose,
should be for the system administrator to decide.  I suspect this isn't
the case for systemd's http server.

In any case, I don't want an http server on my system: I have no http to
serve.  I installed sshd as one of the first things on my new system, to
facilitate the transfer of files to it (and, probably, reading logs from
it remotely).

I don't want a binary logging daemon either: that means having to learn
a special purpose utility to be able to read its logs, and, in general,
not being able to read that log from a remote machine.

There are likely other inflexibilities about systemd that I don't want
either.  That's one reason why I'm sticking with openrc.  The politics
of it is another.

> -- 
> Neil Bothwick

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Tom H]

On Mon, Dec 11, 2017 at 4:03 PM, Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 11, 2017 at 18:56:15 +0000, Neil Bothwick wrote:


>> This may come as a surprise to some, but some things you hear on
>> t'internet are not true...
>>
>> For example, the http server is there to allow access to logs from
>> another machine without needing to grant SSH access. It is not enabled by
>> default.
>
> OK. But it's still there taking up RAM, and (more importantly) makes a
> systemd system a broader target for attacks. Whether a system has an
> http server (or, for that matter, an SSH server), for whatever purpose,
> should be for the system administrator to decide. I suspect this isn't
> the case for systemd's http server.
>
> In any case, I don't want an http server on my system: I have no http to
> serve. I installed sshd as one of the first things on my new system, to
> facilitate the transfer of files to it (and, probably, reading logs from
> it remotely).

I don't use systemd on Gentoo but I assume that there's a USE flag for
the http server, because, in binary distributions, this http server's
in a standalone package - "systemd-journal-remote" on Ubuntu and
"systemd-journal-gateway" on RHEL and clones.


> I don't want a binary logging daemon either: that means having to learn
> a special purpose utility to be able to read its logs, and, in general,
> not being able to read that log from a remote machine.

You can set "Storage=none" and "ForwardToSyslog=yes" in
"/etc/systemd/journald.conf", install and enable rsyslog and you won't
have binary logs when running systemd.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Mon, 11 Dec 2017 21:03:21 +0000, Alan Mackenzie wrote:

> OK.  But it's still there taking up RAM, and (more importantly) makes a
> systemd system a broader target for attacks.  Whether a system has an
> http server (or, for that matter, an SSH server), for whatever purpose,
> should be for the system administrator to decide.  I suspect this isn't
> the case for systemd's http server.

You're guessing again. The HTTP server doesn't run by default (very
little on systemd does). On Gentoo, it's not even built by default, but
don't let a brief look at the USE flags in eix get in the way of a good
argument!

> In any case, I don't want an http server on my system: I have no http to
> serve.

Then don't install one, I didn't.

> I installed sshd as one of the first things on my new system, to
> facilitate the transfer of files to it (and, probably, reading logs from
> it remotely).

The thing with using SSH to read logs is that it presents a much larger
attack vector when you only want to allow a user to read remote logs.

> I don't want a binary logging daemon either: that means having to learn
> a special purpose utility to be able to read its logs, and, in general,
> not being able to read that log from a remote machine.

"journalctl" is just the same as "less /var/log/messages" so here's not
much to learn unless you want to use the search features. Reading the log
from a remote machine is easy, using either SSH or HTTP, whichever you
prefer. My one complaint about the systemd journal is that there is not,
AFAIK, a standalone reader. If I want to boot from a live CD, I can only
read the logs if it is a systemd live CD, or I chroot into the original
system. Unless someone knows different...


-- 
Neil Bothwick

OPERATOR ERROR: Nyah, Nyah, Nyah, Nyah, Nyah!

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Tom H]

On Mon, Dec 11, 2017 at 5:29 PM, Neil Bothwick <neil@digimed.co.uk> wrote:
>
> "journalctl" is just the same as "less /var/log/messages" so here's
> not much to learn unless you want to use the search features. Reading
> the log from a remote machine is easy, using either SSH or HTTP,
> whichever you prefer. My one complaint about the systemd journal is
> that there is not, AFAIK, a standalone reader. If I want to boot from
> a live CD, I can only read the logs if it is a systemd live CD, or I
> chroot into the original system. Unless someone knows different...

In an emergency, "strings system.journal | grep MESSAGE= | less" is useful.

It's too bad that there isn't a standalone journal reader but the
systemd developers live in a systemd world and assume that others live
in the same world. Anyway, a live CD of a systemd-based distribution's
always easy to retrieve and use.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Wols Lists]

On 11/12/17 22:29, Neil Bothwick wrote:
>> I don't want a binary logging daemon either: that means having to learn
>> > a special purpose utility to be able to read its logs, and, in general,
>> > not being able to read that log from a remote machine.

> "journalctl" is just the same as "less /var/log/messages" so here's not
> much to learn unless you want to use the search features. Reading the log
> from a remote machine is easy, using either SSH or HTTP, whichever you
> prefer. My one complaint about the systemd journal is that there is not,
> AFAIK, a standalone reader. If I want to boot from a live CD, I can only
> read the logs if it is a systemd live CD, or I chroot into the original
> system. Unless someone knows different...

If the log isn't binary, what is it? Plain text? Well, I certainly can't
read it just by looking at the disk surface!

Yes, I know I'm being facetious, but there's no such thing as plain text
on a computer. And I'm well aware of five or six or more binary text
encodings - from the folowing list I think about the only one I haven't
used is EBCDIC ...

Okay, I said EBCDIC.
Then there's ASCII - is that parity off? parity on? parity set?
Then there's lines separated by <CRLF> - or is that <LF>? or is that <LF
with optional trailing NULL>?
And that's just the versions I know of and have met ...

There's no such thing as "plain text", as anybody using samba or ftp
between different types of system will testify to their cost with
trashed and broken files that screwed up in transfer ... :-)

Cheers,
Wol

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Arve Barsnes]

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On 12 December 2017 at 12:11, Wols Lists <antlists@youngman.org.uk> wrote:

> Then there's ASCII - is that parity off? parity on? parity set?
> Then there's lines separated by <CRLF> - or is that <LF>? or is that <LF
> with optional trailing NULL>?
> And that's just the versions I know of and have met ...
>
> There's no such thing as "plain text", as anybody using samba or ftp
> between different types of system will testify to their cost with
> trashed and broken files that screwed up in transfer ... :-)
>
> Difference being that almost every single editor you could think up
transparently reads all of those without you having to think about it.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[J García]

2017-12-11 15:03 GMT-06:00 Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>:
> OK.  But it's still there taking up RAM, and (more importantly) makes a
> systemd system a broader target for attacks.  Whether a system has an
> http server (or, for that matter, an SSH server), for whatever purpose,
> should be for the system administrator to decide.  I suspect this isn't
> the case for systemd's http server.
>
 Too much suspicion, too much assumtions,
$ equery  -N u systemd  | grep http
 - - http       : Enable embedded HTTP server in journald

$ grep -C 2 http $PORTDIR/sys-apps/systemd/systemd-235-r1.ebuild

42:    http? (
43:        >=net-libs/libmicrohttpd-0.9.33:0=
44-        ssl? ( >=net-libs/gnutls-3.1.4:0= )
45-    )


42:    http? (
43:        >=net-libs/libmicrohttpd-0.9.33:0=
44-        ssl? ( >=net-libs/gnutls-3.1.4:0= )
45-    )

I prefer certainty, don't you?

It is actually more useful to check the software, than lose your time
with so many words on this list.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Tue, 12 Dec 2017 01:01:29 -0600, J García wrote:

> It is actually more useful to check the software, than lose your time
> with so many words on this list.

Spoilsport!


-- 
Neil Bothwick

I cna ytpe 300 wrods pre mniuet!!!

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hello.

On Tue, Dec 12, 2017 at 01:01:29 -0600, J García wrote:
> 2017-12-11 15:03 GMT-06:00 Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>:
> > OK.  But it's still there taking up RAM, and (more importantly) makes a
> > systemd system a broader target for attacks.  Whether a system has an
> > http server (or, for that matter, an SSH server), for whatever purpose,
> > should be for the system administrator to decide.  I suspect this isn't
> > the case for systemd's http server.

>  Too much suspicion, too much assumtions,

One doesn't get by in contemporary life without them.  My suspicion,
founded on the content of a normally reliable mailing list (this one) is
that systemd would (i) build into my system much that I don't want to
use; (ii) would force me into using some of that stuff.  openrc doesn't
have these attributes.

> $ equery  -N u systemd  | grep http
>  - - http       : Enable embedded HTTP server in journald

> $ grep -C 2 http $PORTDIR/sys-apps/systemd/systemd-235-r1.ebuild

> 42:    http? (
> 43:        >=net-libs/libmicrohttpd-0.9.33:0=
> 44-        ssl? ( >=net-libs/gnutls-3.1.4:0= )
> 45-    )


> 42:    http? (
> 43:        >=net-libs/libmicrohttpd-0.9.33:0=
> 44-        ssl? ( >=net-libs/gnutls-3.1.4:0= )
> 45-    )

> I prefer certainty, don't you?

If certainty were free of costs, or even cheap, then yes.

> It is actually more useful to check the software, than lose your time
> with so many words on this list.

No, it would take far too much time and effort to check out the
software, particularly for something I have no use for.

You seem to know systemd reasonably well - maybe you've got it
installed and you're using it.  Please tell me whether my suspicion
above (that systemd builds stuff into the system that is likely to be
superfluous to a user, and possibly forces its use on its users) is well
founded.

Thanks!

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Tue, 12 Dec 2017 18:55:15 +0000, Alan Mackenzie wrote:

> You seem to know systemd reasonably well - maybe you've got it
> installed and you're using it.  Please tell me whether my suspicion
> above (that systemd builds stuff into the system that is likely to be
> superfluous to a user, and possibly forces its use on its users) is well
> founded.

Of course it does, any collection of utilities is bound to include stuff
you don't need. This includes systemd as well as the likes of coreutils
and util-linux. The number of programs that you are forced to use after
installation is exactly zero, although most people that install systemd
do so because they want to use at least part of it, and are happy using
the parts they want. For example, I'm happy with systemd's network
management and time sync tools so I use them. I find systemd timers
unnecessarily complex for my needs so I stick with cron for that.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Top Oxymorons Number 38: Government organization

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Wols Lists]

On 12/12/17 18:55, Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> You seem to know systemd reasonably well - maybe you've got it
> installed and you're using it.  Please tell me whether my suspicion
> above (that systemd builds stuff into the system that is likely to be
> superfluous to a user, and possibly forces its use on its users) is well
> founded.

If you want to "check things out", it's a lot easier to check out an
*init system built on systemd* than one built on SysVInit. Dunno about
OpenRC.

Yes, systemd itself is a lot bigger than init itself. Yes, systemd plus
service files is smaller (MUCH smaller) than the equivalent init plus
scripts.

The other big "problem" that many people moan about is that systemd
takes over things like system time, system name, cron, etc etc etc. But
having dealt with a whole variety of linux and unix systems, it's nice
to know that systemd has standardised where the host name is stored.
It's nice to know that how to set system time is standard across
distros. Cron? Well the whole point of systemd is to start services as
required, and cron merely starts services as required where "as
required" is defined by time, so why not merge the two?

The big problem, as I see it, with systemd is that if the boot fails for
any reason it dumps you into a rescue shell. I prefer the old behaviour
of dumping you into a running system with broken services. But given the
choice I'd much rather have neither! :-)

On my SuSE (systemd) laptop, I have a bunch of problems, of which
systemd is minor. The network won't resume properly after suspend
(nothing to do with systemd afaict), the video driver is broken and I
suspect that is what drives system load over 6 (on a dual-core system)
so response time is measured in minutes. The screen itself stops working
at random. All that I suspect is down to a broken i915 or whatever it is
Intel driver (which has a bad rep in the kernel - a nightmare seeing as
it seems to be the default Intel laptop video setup :-( etc etc.

The two big problems I really can lay at systemd's feet is that the boot
occasionally fails and says "dumping you into plymouth console" but
doesn't - this goes away with a reboot ... hey reboots aren't supposed
to fix problems in linux!, and Windows has this infuriating habit of
ignoring my command to shutdown, instead suspending to disk. As my
Windows partitions automount in linux, this causes the mount to fail,
and systemd won't boot the system. So I spend/waste half an hour trying
to force Windows to shut down properly!

Cheers,
Wol

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Tue, 12 Dec 2017 20:11:47 +0000, Wols Lists wrote:

> The two big problems I really can lay at systemd's feet is that the boot
> occasionally fails and says "dumping you into plymouth console" but
> doesn't - this goes away with a reboot ... hey reboots aren't supposed
> to fix problems in linux!,

Isn't that the initramfs rather than systemd?

> and Windows has this infuriating habit of
> ignoring my command to shutdown, instead suspending to disk. As my
> Windows partitions automount in linux, this causes the mount to fail,
> and systemd won't boot the system. So I spend/waste half an hour trying
> to force Windows to shut down properly!

Can't you change this with fstab settings. I see a similar behaviour when
trying t mount NFS shares that aren't there, but it gives up trying after
90s and gets on with booting the computer.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Sure, we just route the main sensor through Data's cat.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Wols Lists]

On 13/12/17 00:02, Neil Bothwick wrote:
>> and Windows has this infuriating habit of
>> > ignoring my command to shutdown, instead suspending to disk. As my
>> > Windows partitions automount in linux, this causes the mount to fail,
>> > and systemd won't boot the system. So I spend/waste half an hour trying
>> > to force Windows to shut down properly!

> Can't you change this with fstab settings. I see a similar behaviour when
> trying t mount NFS shares that aren't there, but it gives up trying after
> 90s and gets on with booting the computer.

I've tried ...

Systemd and mounting anything other than local linux hard drives gives
me a migraine ...

Yes I *should* be able to tell it to just forget about drives it can't
mount while booting. Yes I *should* be able to tell it to just forget
about drives it can't access while shutting down. Yes I *should* be able
to tell it to do what I want, but it seems that no matter what I tell
it, it randomly refuses to boot or shut down because of a hiccup with a
Windows or network mount :-(

And worse, every fix for one problem simply causes a different problem!

Cheers,
Wol

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Alon Bar-Lev]

I use autofs and very happy.
I do not need udisks at all, while it is mandatory dependency of solid.
I remember old discussion in which kde developer did not understand
the concept of optional for this slot.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Wed, 13 Dec 2017 14:01:38 +0000, Wols Lists wrote:

> > Can't you change this with fstab settings. I see a similar behaviour
> > when trying t mount NFS shares that aren't there, but it gives up
> > trying after 90s and gets on with booting the computer.  
> 
> I've tried ...
> 
> Systemd and mounting anything other than local linux hard drives gives
> me a migraine ...
> 
> Yes I *should* be able to tell it to just forget about drives it can't
> mount while booting. Yes I *should* be able to tell it to just forget
> about drives it can't access while shutting down. Yes I *should* be able
> to tell it to do what I want, but it seems that no matter what I tell
> it, it randomly refuses to boot or shut down because of a hiccup with a
> Windows or network mount :-(

Have you tried adding x-systemd.mount-timeout= and/or nofail to the
options in fstab? See man systemd.mount.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

If Microsoft made cars:
"The airbag system would ask "are you sure?" before deploying."

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Wols Lists]

On 13/12/17 15:17, Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Wed, 13 Dec 2017 14:01:38 +0000, Wols Lists wrote:
> 
>>> Can't you change this with fstab settings. I see a similar behaviour
>>> when trying t mount NFS shares that aren't there, but it gives up
>>> trying after 90s and gets on with booting the computer.  
>>
>> I've tried ...
>>
>> Systemd and mounting anything other than local linux hard drives gives
>> me a migraine ...
>>
>> Yes I *should* be able to tell it to just forget about drives it can't
>> mount while booting. Yes I *should* be able to tell it to just forget
>> about drives it can't access while shutting down. Yes I *should* be able
>> to tell it to do what I want, but it seems that no matter what I tell
>> it, it randomly refuses to boot or shut down because of a hiccup with a
>> Windows or network mount :-(
> 
> Have you tried adding x-systemd.mount-timeout= and/or nofail to the
> options in fstab? See man systemd.mount.
> 
> 
Quite likely. And ditched thanks to the guaranteed hang on shutdown as a
result, I think.

Every "fix" causes a different problem elsewhere, ime :-(

Cheers,
Wol

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Marc Joliet]

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Am Sonntag, 10. Dezember 2017, 11:13:30 CET schrieb Alan Mackenzie:
> Hello, Wols
> 
> On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 09:55:45 +0000, Wols Lists wrote:
[...]
> > Lennart doesn't want a system where a small failure in one place
> > cascades and brings down a load of stuff elsewhere.
> 
> Neither do I, and neither does anybody.  GNU/Linux is not like that, and
> never has been.

Except where it has, of course.  (Seriously, you can't completely avoid 
breakage when different, independent groups are responsible for different 
components of a complex, intertwined system.)

> It has traditionally been a massive pain to set up,
> though, something which has improved dramatically over the last ten or
> twenty years.

I agree with this, though.

> > Granted he's not necessarily the most politic of people, and has ruffled
> > a lot of feathers, but I'd much rather a system he's cleaned up, than a
> > system where everything hangs together on a knife-edge.
> 
> His motivation seems to be ego.  To force everybody to use his software.
> He did this by, amongst other things, abusing the trust placed in him to
> maintain udev.  Early on he abandoned support for udev for everybody but
> users of his new init system, systemd, in an attempt (sadly successful)
> to force "everybody" into using systemd.

Of course, the previous maintainer of udev fully supported whatever changes 
were made, so you're painting a false picture of a potential different 
history.

> I've no idea how good systemd is.  It's not been through the normal
> process of choice and selection that other successful packages have.  It
> was forced on people.  But being forced to have a binary system log,
> being forced (so I have heard) to have an http server running, ....,
> doesn't make it an attractive package for me.

*All* of this is "so I have heard".  What happened to researching stuff as the 
better alternative to speaking out of your ass?

Speaking for myself, I *switched to* systemd fully on my own, and definitely 
do *not* regret it.  I can't speak for all distros, but all of the ones I know 
of switched willingly, because for them (as for me), systemd was the better 
choice.  You're not against choice, are you ;-) ?

> > Cheers,
> > Wol

Greetings
-- 
Marc Joliet
--
"People who think they know everything really annoy those of us who know we
don't" - Bjarne Stroustrup

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Wed, 13 Dec 2017 12:34:03 +0100, Marc Joliet wrote:

> > I've no idea how good systemd is.  It's not been through the normal
> > process of choice and selection that other successful packages have.

What process was that? The one where distro maintainers decide what to
include in *their* distros? Isn't that how all packages, including
systemd, make it into a distro. Debian even had a public debate and vote
on it. You seem to be implying that systemd got into those distros by
some stealth process, maybe a trojan or even osmosis?

> > It was forced on people.

Nothing has been forced on anyone because no one is forced to accept the
distro maintainers chosen defaults.

> > But being forced to have a binary system
> > log, being forced (so I have heard) to have an http server
> > running, ...., doesn't make it an attractive package for me.  
> 
> *All* of this is "so I have heard".  What happened to researching stuff
> as the better alternative to speaking out of your ass?

The systemd debate is different in that instead of fanboys that ignore
the facts, the loudest arguers are a hate club that make up their own
"facts".

I'm amazed that all those developers at Debian, Red Hat, Arch and other
distros ignored all these facts when they are normally so technically
astute. Still, what to experienced developers know when compared to
mailing list and forum posters...


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Sir! Romulan warbird decloaki\xBB\xAE\xF5\xF7\xFC\xC1 NO CARRIER

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hello, Marc.

On Wed, Dec 13, 2017 at 12:34:03 +0100, Marc Joliet wrote:
> Am Sonntag, 10. Dezember 2017, 11:13:30 CET schrieb Alan Mackenzie:

> > On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 09:55:45 +0000, Wols Lists wrote:

[ .... ]

> > > Granted he's not necessarily the most politic of people, and has ruffled
> > > a lot of feathers, but I'd much rather a system he's cleaned up, than a
> > > system where everything hangs together on a knife-edge.

> > His motivation seems to be ego.  To force everybody to use his software.
> > He did this by, amongst other things, abusing the trust placed in him to
> > maintain udev.  Early on he abandoned support for udev for everybody but
> > users of his new init system, systemd, in an attempt (sadly successful)
> > to force "everybody" into using systemd.

> Of course, the previous maintainer of udev fully supported whatever changes 
> were made, so you're painting a false picture of a potential different 
> history.

Previous maintainers have little, if any, influence on the direction
taken by their successors.

> > I've no idea how good systemd is.  It's not been through the normal
> > process of choice and selection that other successful packages have.  It
> > was forced on people.  But being forced to have a binary system log,
> > being forced (so I have heard) to have an http server running, ....,
> > doesn't make it an attractive package for me.

> *All* of this is "so I have heard".  What happened to researching stuff as the 
> better alternative to speaking out of your ass?

What have I done to deserve this abusive style of repartee?  I have never
doled this out to anybody on this list in the past, and have no intention
of doing so in the future.

Yes, there are a lot of "so I have heard"s in my posts.  Asking people on
this list to confirm or refute things is a form of research, and a lot
more efficient than many other ones.

There are several tens of thousands of packages in Gentoo, and I lack the
time personally to investigate each one.  Asking people who already use
them and post on this list is a normal thing to do.  Answering questions
about packages one oneself uses is the flip side of that coin.

> Speaking for myself, I *switched to* systemd fully on my own, and definitely 
> do *not* regret it.

This is a fair enough thing to say, but it is lacking any technical
detail.  Most posts on this list praising systemd are similarly lacking
in such detail, leaving people like me depending on the vague "so I have
heard"s we pick up.

> I can't speak for all distros, but all of the ones I know of switched
> willingly, because for them (as for me), systemd was the better choice.

And it had nothing to do with the withdrawal of support for udev, an
essential component of PC GNU/Linux systems, for every init system but
systemd, did it?  Or is that what you mean by "the better choice"?

> You're not against choice, are you ;-) ?

Indeed not, which is why I've found the actions of the originator of
systemd so regrettable.  He attempted to remove the choice of init
system.  The maintainers of gnome did the same.  I regret these actions
and more.

I use Gentoo, partly because here I have a deal of choice.

My choices are not merely technical but also political.  GNU/Linux
originated for political reasons, laudable ones, including giving end
users choice.  systemd also originated for political reasons, less
laudable, including reducing users' choice.

> > > Cheers,
> > > Wol

> Greetings
> -- 
> Marc Joliet
> --
> "People who think they know everything really annoy those of us who know we
> don't" - Bjarne Stroustrup

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Kai Peter]

On 2017-12-13 20:37, Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> 
> What have I done to deserve this abusive style of repartee?  I have 
> never
You did post your opinion which doesn't fit with others.

> I use Gentoo, partly because here I have a deal of choice.
Isn't it better to say you have partly a choice? ;-)

-- 
Sent with eQmail-1.10

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Marc Joliet]

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Am Mittwoch, 13. Dezember 2017, 20:37:47 CET schrieb Alan Mackenzie:
> > > I've no idea how good systemd is.  It's not been through the normal
> > > process of choice and selection that other successful packages have.  It
> > > was forced on people.  But being forced to have a binary system log,
> > > being forced (so I have heard) to have an http server running, ....,
> > > doesn't make it an attractive package for me.
> > 
> > *All* of this is "so I have heard".  What happened to researching stuff as
> > the better alternative to speaking out of your ass?
> 
> What have I done to deserve this abusive style of repartee?  I have never
> doled this out to anybody on this list in the past, and have no intention
> of doing so in the future.

You're right, you received the brunt of my built up aggression from this 
thread.  I'm sorry for that.

> Yes, there are a lot of "so I have heard"s in my posts.  Asking people on
> this list to confirm or refute things is a form of research, and a lot
> more efficient than many other ones.
> 
> There are several tens of thousands of packages in Gentoo, and I lack the
> time personally to investigate each one.  Asking people who already use
> them and post on this list is a normal thing to do.  Answering questions
> about packages one oneself uses is the flip side of that coin.

Except that you're not exactly asking questions, now are you?  You asked Neil 
one, but only after a longer to and fro.  If you *had* actually started out 
asking questions, as opposed to spouting hearsay and then even literally 
saying that you couldn't be bothered to research systemd yourself, my response 
would have been drastically different.  Remember that everybody is here on 
their own time, and not everybody wants to spend it responding to questions 
that can easily be answered by reading documentation.  I'm already wasting 
oodles of time writing this as is.

If you *really* are interested, there is a longer thread on gentoo-amd64 where 
I wrote about my experience switching to systemd [0] (keep in mind, however, 
that a bunch of it is outdated by now, such as how I manage networking and 
backups).  It could be interesting especially since it's mostly about actually 
solving problems.

I could list specific features of systemd that I like and make use of (such as 
socket activation, autofs integration, user units, nspawn, or the journal), 
but thinking about it, it's a "more than the sum of its parts" kind of deal.  
Managing a system with systemd is just overall pleasant for me.

[ And I never again have to deal with the state of a service being misreported 
by OpenRC because a daemons PID file has the wrong PID in it, or with stopping 
a service not actually stopping it, both of which I had experienced multiple 
times. ]

[0] https://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-amd64/message/
58c67218a203b84318d52a39c3c67f73

Greetings
-- 
Marc Joliet
--
"People who think they know everything really annoy those of us who know we
don't" - Bjarne Stroustrup

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[gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Ian Zimmerman]

On 2017-12-14 11:57, Marc Joliet wrote:

> I could list specific features of systemd that I like and make use of
> (such as socket activation, autofs integration, user units, nspawn, or
> the journal), but thinking about it, it's a "more than the sum of its
> parts" kind of deal.  Managing a system with systemd is just overall
> pleasant for me.

I am probably not the only one who would still dearly like such a
detailed list, from someone I don't see as biased to start with.  I
understand this is a drain on your time, so I'll understand if you
decline.

This is also equally directed at Neil, who also posted a similar
abbreviated list of features.

-- 
Please don't Cc: me privately on mailing lists and Usenet,
if you also post the followup to the list or newsgroup.
To reply privately _only_ on Usenet, fetch the TXT record for the domain.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Marc Joliet]

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Am Donnerstag, 14. Dezember 2017, 16:52:59 CET schrieb Ian Zimmerman:
> On 2017-12-14 11:57, Marc Joliet wrote:
> > I could list specific features of systemd that I like and make use of
> > (such as socket activation, autofs integration, user units, nspawn, or
> > the journal), but thinking about it, it's a "more than the sum of its
> > parts" kind of deal.  Managing a system with systemd is just overall
> > pleasant for me.
> 
> I am probably not the only one who would still dearly like such a
> detailed list, from someone I don't see as biased to start with.  I
> understand this is a drain on your time, so I'll understand if you
> decline.

I don't mind per se, but whether I'm inclined to do so depends on the attitude of who's asking.  If I'm asked politely the way you did then I don't mind at all, in fact it can be quite pleasant :) (and it also serves to refresh my memory).

Before I begin, to avoid making this sound all rainbows and glitter, I will mention one thing that annoys me about systemd:  regressions.  None of them have been horrible, and I think I was only ever hit by 2 or 3 over the course of by now several years, but they're still annoying.  The one I'm currently waiting on is the systemd-run bug when both cgroup V1 and V2 trees are mounted.  I could work around it (by deactivating cgroup V2 support or some such), but I don't miss systemd-run so much that I could be bothered to.  Regardless, I wish upstream would handle them better.

Also, this is just my perspective as a hobbyist (although I've used systemd in a professional context).  I could recommend some presentations that provide a different perspective (e.g., by a company that uses systemd in IP cameras, where the cgroups based resource management features of systemd came in very handy).  There's also a presentation by Klaus Knopper of Knoppix fame that is overall more negative, but still mostly fair -- though IMHO not completely -- and as I recall one of the better criticisms I've seen.  His perspective is that of somebody trying to provide a Linux OS for computers destined for poorer countries, where he has to deal with less capable hardware (i.e., no SSDs, booting from CD/DVD).

(Also also, sorry in advance for the wall of text, this kind of, uh, spun out of control.  Sorry also to Ian and Peter for continuing to feed the monster thread ;-) .)

Alright, so here's what I can think of now, starting off with what I listed above and then continuing with anything else I can remember.  This includes more or less verbose descriptions of what the features bring to the table, including specifically how they help *me*.

1.) Socket activation sounds like a detail, but it has several positive side effects.  It can make dependency specifications unnecessary, thus making unit files simpler, and it increases the number of services that can start in parallel.  It also enables on-demand services á la (x)inetd, only generalised for all system services (I use SSH this way by only enabling the socket unit).  You can't use systemd without using this feature, something's bound to use it.

This is the main reason systemd can boot so fast (on flash storage, at least).  That may not be important to some people, but it is to me (and embedded projects).

2.) Autofs integration via automount units allows dynamic mounting (and optionally unmounting) of file systems, which I use on my desktop to asynchronously mount my data dump (a 2x1TB btrfs RAID1).  To be honest, I mostly did this to speed up boot time (I think I mention timings in the Email thread I referenced), but it also makes boot-up finish independent of mount failures.  On my home server (an old Mac Mini) I use it for a USB drive for the same reasons (although boot time isn't so important there).

[ Just to be clear: autofs is a Linux kernel feature, systemd just exposes it in an easy to use way.  That is, BTW, a theme with systemd. ]

3.) Personally I find user units (systemd units that run as your user) super practical.  There is a system location for them, but you can place your own in your home directory under ~/.config/systemd/user/ and have them start when you log in.  If you configure your user session -- which is basically a systemd instance running as your user -- as "lingering", you can have persistent user services that run as long as your computer is on (strictly speaking, for as long as your user session is active).  For example, my desktop looks like this:

> % systemctl --user list-units -t service -t timer -a
>   UNIT                      LOAD      ACTIVE   SUB     DESCRIPTION                                            
>   ctags.service             loaded    inactive dead    Regenerate ctags files                                 
>   gpg-agent.service         loaded    active   running Start gpg-agent (with SSH support)                     
>   mpd.service               loaded    active   running Music Player Daemon                                    
>   newsboat.service          loaded    inactive dead    Run newsboat -x reload                                 
> ● syncthing-inotify.service not-found inactive dead    syncthing-inotify.service                              
>   syncthing.service         loaded    active   running Syncthing - Open Source Continuous File Synchronization
>   ctags.timer               loaded    active   waiting Regenerate ctags files (timer)                         
>   newsboat.timer            loaded    active   waiting Run newsboat -x reload (timer)                         
>
> LOAD   = Reflects whether the unit definition was properly loaded.
> ACTIVE = The high-level unit activation state, i.e. generalization of SUB.
> SUB    = The low-level unit activation state, values depend on unit type.
>
> 8 loaded units listed.
> To show all installed unit files use 'systemctl list-unit-files'.

So I run MPD, gpg-agent, and syncthing continuously, while ctags and newsboat are executed on a schedule via timers (a cron-like feature, see point 6 below), hence their low-level activation state "dead".

Oh, and all units' output gets collected in the journal (see point 5 below), which doesn't work with the alternatives (e.g., ~/.xprofile, which I used to use).

4.) I use nspawn occasionally for running a Gentoo amd64 container for testing asciidoc (I wound up proxy maintaining it).  It's kind of a chroot on steroids, hence you can use it in place of chroot, but you can also do things like run containers as services (i.e., there's such a thing as an nspawn unit), but I don't use that feature.  Just as an example, the container I use is configured like this:

% cat /etc/systemd/nspawn/gentoo-amd64-systemd.nspawn 
[Files]
BindReadOnly=/home/marcec/projects/gentoo/:/home/marcec/gentoo/
BindReadOnly=/usr/portage/distfiles/:/usr/portage/ro_distfiles/
TemporaryFileSystem=/var/tmp/portage/

(I bet you never heard of ro_distfiles!  I learned about it while setting up the container (look up PORTAGE_RO_DISTDIRS in make.conf(5)).)

So this is pretty much like docker, which makes sense, since they use the same underlying Linux kernel features.  Systemd simply enables the treatment of containers as services (including the ability to connect to a systemd instance running inside a container, in the event that the container uses systemd as its service manager).

5.) The journal is another element of systemd that one could write a lot about.  My usage is mostly limited to inspecting the state of a service ("systemctl status <unit>" includes the last 10 lines of log output by default) and looking for stuff in a specific time range.  However, it has a few advantages over classic syslog implementations:

- By default it captures all stdout and stderr of service units, so you can't miss anything.
- It groups all log output of a service, regardless of how many processes it consists of, i.e., you can't miss anything (I'm thinking of naive greps here).
- While you can just use grep (and I sometimes do), it's often better to use the builtin search functionality, e.g., you can output journal entries corresponding to a specific kernel device (not useful to me, personally, but illustrates that there are a lot of filters you can use).
- As the prior point illustrates, journal entries consist of a *lot* of metadata, whereas with syslog, you have a quasi-structured text file that contains less information.
- It helps unclutter /var/log/ ;-) .
- Probably more that I can't think of right now.

If you don't care for it, you can also turn off persistent journal storage and run a syslog daemon instead, or in parallel (you can't completely turn off the journal, though, as it is still required for capturing stdout and stderr).

6.) I also happen to like timers a lot, because I can forego a cron daemon, and I happen to like the "systemctl list-timers" output very much.  But really, you can just keep using cron, it's not a world shattering feature for me.  It does have the advantage of allowing dependencies to other units, though, since timer units are units like anything else in systemd.  This can be really powerful, since, e.g., devices and mount points have corresponding unit types.

Actually, the main advantage of using timer units for me is that I can put them in git and synchronise them across different computers, which I couldn't really do with cron, because crontabs live somewhere in /var/ (right? Or was that only the root crontab?).  Also, since timers trigger service units, their output goes to the journal, too.

7.) Use of ACLs.  This is just a detail, but I like that my user looks like this:

% id
uid=1000(marcec) gid=100(users) Gruppen=100(users),10(wheel),35(games),1019(realtime)

So I'm left with wheel (used by sudo), games (which will go away with time, what with the games eclass being deprecated), and realtime, which doesn't deal with device access anyway.

The point is, I don't need to add myself to the right groups to gain access to certain devices, because systemd adds the right ACLs to the right device nodes once you log in (this is one of the jobs of logind, BTW), e.g.:

% getfacl  /dev/snd/seq 
getfacl: Removing leading '/' from absolute path names
# file: dev/snd/seq
# owner: root
# group: audio
user::rw-
user:marcec:rw-
group::rw-
mask::rw-
other::---

This is specifically to support multi-user systems, where the current active user gets access to required devices, but I like not having to bother with adding myself to the right groups most of the time.  Of course, there are situations in which it still makes sense to add yourself to a specific device group.  For example, on my home server my user is still part of the "audio" group, because otherwise I would never be granted the proper ACLs since there's no persistent login session.  That would be a problem for pulseaudio, and hence for MPD.

ACLs are also used for users' persistent journal storage, i.e., you can read your user's journal entries via "journalctl --user" and "--user-unit", but not the system journal.

8.) Nothing super important, but I like how you can see an overview of the differences between the default configuration files and your own overrides with systemd-delta:

> % systemd-delta
> [OVERRIDDEN] /etc/tmpfiles.d/tmp.conf → /usr/lib/tmpfiles.d/tmp.conf
> 
> --- /usr/lib/tmpfiles.d/tmp.conf        2017-12-05 17:11:28.999238832 +0100
> +++ /etc/tmpfiles.d/tmp.conf    2016-03-10 23:39:49.343619664 +0100
> @@ -8,15 +8,12 @@
> 
>  # See tmpfiles.d(5) for details
>  
>  # Clear tmp directories separately, to make them easier to override
> 
> -q /tmp 1777 root root
> -q /var/tmp 1777 root root
> +# undo the Gentoo patch 226-noclean-tmp.patch
> +v /tmp 1777 root root 10d
> +v /var/tmp 1777 root root 30d
> 
>  # Exclude namespace mountpoints created with PrivateTmp=yes
>  x /tmp/systemd-private-%b-*
>  X /tmp/systemd-private-%b-*/tmp
>  x /var/tmp/systemd-private-%b-*
>  X /var/tmp/systemd-private-%b-*/tmp
> 
> -
> -# Remove top-level private temporary directories on each boot
> -R! /tmp/systemd-private-*
> -R! /var/tmp/systemd-private-*
>
> [EXTENDED]   /usr/lib/systemd/system/irqbalance.service → /etc/systemd/system/irqbalance.service.d/override.conf
> [EXTENDED]   /etc/systemd/system/portage-sync.service → /etc/systemd/system/portage-sync.service.d/network.conf
> [EXTENDED]   /usr/lib/systemd/system/chronyd.service → /etc/systemd/system/chronyd.service.d/arguments.conf
> [EXTENDED]   /usr/lib/systemd/system/btrbk.service → /etc/systemd/system/btrbk.service.d/deps.conf
> [EXTENDED]   /usr/lib/systemd/system/cpupower-frequency-set.service → /etc/systemd/system/cpupower-frequency-set.service.d/00gentoo.conf
> [EXTENDED]   /usr/lib/systemd/system/btrbk.timer → /etc/systemd/system/btrbk.timer.d/schedule.conf
> 
> 7 overridden configuration files found.

Aha, so this tells me that I need to update my tmp.conf override.

Oh, also you can override parts of system unit files by creating appropriate *.conf files in <unit>.d/ directories.

9.) systemd-tmpfiles provides a unified way of creating users, groups, directories, etc. required by the system in some way (it also has a cleanup feature like app-admin/tmpwatch).  This makes more sense when you realise that these files are (also) supposed to be provided by upstream projects, just like unit files.  So you end up with one canonical definition of what directories, users, etc. a project requires at run-time.  This is a feature that makes software developer's lives easier.  It's also useful for containers and stateless systems, though.

(OpenRC gained support for this via sys-apps/opentmpfiles.)

10.) One last thing: btrfs integration.  If the underlying file system is btrfs, systemd will make use of subvolumes (the "v" and "V" specifiers in tmpfiles files) and qgroups ("q" and "Q"), and will exploit its copy-on-write semantics, e.g., when working with containers (which docker does, too, I believe).  The former two are nice to have and can help with snapshotting, the latter simply saves space.

11.) No, sorry, *one* more thing: generators.  These are programs that generate systemd units at run-time, which is, e.g., used by sys-apps/gentoo-systemd-integration for generating service units from the files in /etc/local.d/, or by systemd for generating mount units from fstab, or (my favourite) by sys-process/systemd-cron for generating timer units from files in /etc/cron.*/.

OK, I'm done now.

I hope that the "integrated toolkit" nature of systemd came across here, since that's pretty much what systemd is: a toolkit for managing Linux systems, to which belongs a service manager (init system), system logger, periodic job execution, and various other bits and piece that often enough supplement each other to yield a system that is, in my view, more than the sum of its parts.

> This is also equally directed at Neil, who also posted a similar
> abbreviated list of features.

I'm curious about what he, and others in general, would say, too.  I can imagine some people who might have a more differentiated opinion.

HTH
-- 
Marc Joliet
--
"People who think they know everything really annoy those of us who know we
don't" - Bjarne Stroustrup

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Wols Lists]

On 15/12/17 01:16, Marc Joliet wrote:
> [ Just to be clear: autofs is a Linux kernel feature, systemd just exposes it in an easy to use way.  That is, BTW, a theme with systemd. ]

Likewise, cgroups. I believe Lennart is regularly "blamed" for this, but
it's been in the kernel a looonngg time, long before systemd. Just not
with any easy way of using it.

Cheers,
Wol

[gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 10/12/17 11:55, Wols Lists wrote:
> On 09/12/17 12:08, Alan McKinnon wrote:
>> I'm all in favour of Lennart-bashing, but let's keep the bashing to what
>> he's responsible for.
> 
> <flame suit on>
> 
> As far as I can tell, the most egregious thing he's responsible for is
> for wanting a well-designed system that works!
> 
> Face it, linux is a hodge-podge of things thrown together, and held
> together with baling wire and sealing wax. Lennart doesn't want a system
> where a small failure in one place cascades and brings down a load of
> stuff elsewhere.
> 
> Granted he's not necessarily the most politic of people, and has ruffled
> a lot of feathers, but I'd much rather a system he's cleaned up, than a
> system where everything hangs together on a knife-edge.

I feel like I'm the only one who doesn't care :-P

This is me:

"Seems like KDE and Gnome prefer/recommend or require systemd. OK. 
Install that instead. I don't actually care what it does or how it works."

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Jorge Almeida]

On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 9:55 AM, Wols Lists <antlists@youngman.org.uk> wrote:
> On 09/12/17 12:08, Alan McKinnon wrote:
>> I'm all in favour of Lennart-bashing, but let's keep the bashing to what
>> he's responsible for.
>
> <flame suit on>
>
> As far as I can tell, the most egregious thing he's responsible for is
> for wanting a well-designed system that works!
>
> Face it, linux is a hodge-podge of things thrown together, and held
> together with baling wire and sealing wax. Lennart doesn't want a system
> where a small failure in one place cascades and brings down a load of
> stuff elsewhere.
>
<sarcasm>
And, of course, a system of his doing will not have a single point of
failure. At all, at all. And it is well-designed, to boot.
</sarcasm>
Why not get rid of all the bazaar stuff altogether? They could just
fork linux. Minus the name, of course. I could suggest a name, but
won't. But maybe it is more appealing to grab something that is
already there? Not to mention that it is way more friendly to the
interests of a certain corporation.
Regards