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Is Modern Linux Becoming Too Complex?
An anonymous reader writes: Debian developer John Goerzen asks whether Linux has become so complex that it has lost some of its defining characteristics. "I used to be able to say Linux was clean, logical, well put-together, and organized. I can’t really say this anymore. Users and groups are not really determinitive for permissions, now that we have things like polkit running around. (Yes, by the way, I am a member of plugdev.) Error messages are unhelpful (WHY was I not authorized?) and logs are nowhere to be found. Traditionally, one could twiddle who could mount devices via /etc/fstab lines and perhaps some sudo rules. Granted, you had to know where to look, but when you did, it was simple; only two pieces to fit together. I've even spent time figuring out where to look and STILL have no idea what to do."
I was reading through the article's comments and saw this thread of discussion. Well, it's hard to call it a thread of discussion because John apparently put an end to it right away. The first comment in that thread is totally right though. It is systemd and Gnome 3 that are causing so many of these problems with Linux today. I don't use Debian, but I do use another distro that switched to systemd, and it is in fact the problem here. My workstation doesn't work anywhere as well as it did a couple of years ago, before systemd got installed. So when somebody blames systemd for these kinds of problems, that person is totally correct. I don't get why John would censor the discussion like that. I also don't get why he'd label somebody who points out the real problem as being a 'troll'. John needs to admit that the real problem here is not the people who are against systemd. These people are actually the ones who are right, and who have the solution to John's problems! The comment I linked to says 'Systemd needs to be removed from Debian immediately.', and that's totally right. But I think we need to expand it to 'Systemd needs to be removed from all Linux distros immediately.' If we want Linux to be usable again, systemd does need to go. It's just as simple as that. Censoring any and all discussion of the real problem here, systemd, sure isn't going to get these problems resolved any quicker!