Ask Slashdot: Can You Say Something Nice About Systemd?

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.

Comments

Rules for posting?

[randm.ca]

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

"Rules" for posting?

[geminidomino]

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?

Where do you think you are?

[CRCulver]

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.

Clippy

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Actually

[Anonymous Coward]

Systemd is about ethics in games journalism.

My mom always said...

[msauve]

If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all...

Re:What Does Systemd Mean to Me?

[Barsteward]

"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"

now isn't that just the reason for most of the vitriol.. making judgments without any research/evidence to back up your rationale, sort of like being a troll.

Come back when you've done the research and can back up your bias with evidence, thats the only way people can come to a reasoned decision about anything

Say something nice about Obama

[slashdice]

Barack Obama makes George W Bush and Jimmy Carter look better. The same applies to systemd, for some reason.

Nice things

[mysidia]

So I thought it might be instructive to turn the question around and ask the membership about what makes SysVInit or Upstart good.

There, fixed it for you.

Post each new Nice Thing as a new post, not as a reply to another post.

CHECK.

Nice thing about SysV Init: It is simple, just works, and the project adheres to the unix philosophy. There is no NTP client software in the package, there is no DHCP client software in the package, there are rarely updates to the SysVInit or Upstart projects themselves, and updating doesn't require a reboot.

Only one concrete Nice Thing about SysVInit/Upstart per base-level post.

CHECK

So much better than mine...

[s.petry]

I was just going to quote Patches O'Hoolihan an say "You're about as useful as a poopy flavored lollipop."

Then I was going to ask if anyone else was concerned with this obvious brainwashing attempt for a pro systemd mindset? Between that, and all of the previous "You have to have it to be cool" and "all the cool guys are going to run it" arguments for systemd I'm going to start testing and auditing source code this weekend.