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Ask Slashdot: Can You Say Something Nice About Systemd?

Posted by samzenpus on from the use-your-words dept.

ewhac writes: "I'm probably going to deeply deeply regret this, but every time a story appears here mentioning systemd, a 700-comment thread of back-and-forth bickering breaks out which is about as informative as an old Bud Light commercial, and I don't really learn anything new about the subject. My gut reaction to systemd is (currently) a negative one, and it's very easy to find screeds decrying systemd on the net. However, said screeds haven't been enough to prevent its adoption by several distros, which leads me to suspect that maybe there's something worthwhile there that I haven't discovered yet. So I thought it might be instructive to turn the question around and ask the membership about what makes systemd good. However, before you stab at the "Post" button, there are some rules...

Bias Disclosure: I currently dislike systemd because — without diving very deeply into the documentation, mind — it looks and feels like a poorly-described, gigantic mess I know nothing about that seeks to replace other poorly-described, smaller messes which I know a little bit about. So you will be arguing in that environment."

Nice Things About systemd Rules:
  1. Post each new Nice Thing as a new post, not as a reply to another post. This will let visitors skim the base level of comments for things that interest them, rather than have to dive through a fractally expanding tree of comments looking for things to support/oppose. It will also make it easier to follow the next rule:
  2. Avoid duplication; read the entire base-level of comments before adding a new Nice Thing. Someone may already have mentioned your Nice Thing. Add your support/opposition to that Nice Thing there, rather than as a new post.
  3. Only one concrete Nice Thing about systemd per base-level post. Keep the post focused on a single Nice Thing systemd does. If you know of multiple distinct things, write multiple distinct posts.
  4. Describe the Nice Thing in some detail. Don't assume, for example, that merely saying "Supports Linux cgroups" will be immediately persuasive.
  5. Describe how the Nice Thing is better than existing, less controversial solutions. systemd is allegedly better at some things than sysvinit or upstart or inetd. Why? Why is the Nice Thing possible in systemd, and impossible (or extremely difficult) with anything else? (In some cases, the Nice Thing will be a completely new thing that's never existed before; describe why it's good thing.)

We will assume out of the gate that systemd boots your system faster than ${SOMETHING_ELSE}, so no points for bringing that up. Bonus points are awarded for:

  • Personal Experience. "I actually did this," counts for way more than, "The docs claim you can do this."
  • Working Examples. Corollary to the above — if you did a Nice Thing with systemd, consider also posting the code/script/service file you wrote to accomplish it.
  • Links to Supporting Documentation. If you leveraged a Nice Thing, furnish a link to the docs you used that describe the Nice Thing and its usage.

5 of 928 comments (clear)

  1. Rules for posting? by randm.ca · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    I hope Bennett doesn't see this and start including rules for how we're allowed to reply to his posts...

  2. "Rules" for posting? by geminidomino · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Seriously? I know, the whole "slashdot is dying" trope has been going on... well, basically since they changed the name from "Chips & Dips", but fucking A, how does this shit even get posted, Samzenpus? Do you just WANT to watch this putz get completely eviscerated with text-based rapiers?

    ewhac, keep this bullshit on tumblr where it belongs, k?

  3. Where do you think you are? by CRCulver · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Nice Things About systemd Rules:

    What the fuck, you think you can set rules for discussion on Slashdot? Like on any Slashdot post, this is going to evolve into a free-for-all. Even requests for interview questions tend to have a lot of posts that aren't interview questions. With a topic as polemic as systemd, half of the top-level posts aren't going to be what you are looking for. Damn, son, I think you came to the wrong site.

    And I am aware that my post pointing this out may be moderated as flamebait or off-topic, but it's still going to be a top-level post.

  4. Clippy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    I like that Clippy pops up while I am booting to help me with any system issues I encounter.

  5. Actually by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Systemd is about ethics in games journalism.