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Ubuntu 15.04 Released, First Version To Feature systemd

jones_supa writes: The final release of Ubuntu 15.04 is now available. A modest set of improvements are rolling out with this spring's Ubuntu. While this means the OS can't rival the heavy changelogs of releases past, the adage "don't fix what isn't broken" is clearly one 15.04 plays to. The headline change is systemd being featured first time in a stable Ubuntu release, which replaces the inhouse UpStart init system. The Unity desktop version 7.3 receives a handful of small refinements, most of which aim to either fix bugs or correct earlier missteps (for example, application menus can now be set to be always visible). The Linux version is 3.19.3 further patched by Canonical. As usual, the distro comes with fresh versions of various familiar applications.

33 of 494 comments (clear)

  1. SystemD added? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Then it's simple.

    "We changed everything."

    No wonder it was short.

    1. Re:SystemD added? by TWX · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I don't see how the summary's, 'don't fix what isn't broken,' statement applies in this case.

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    2. Re: SystemD added? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If I had mod points ...

      PERHAPS someone could define what was broken so badly in init that the whole lot was replaced. I so dearly would like to know.

    3. Re: SystemD added? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Danger: systemd marketing droid detected..only line of worth in the twaddle spouted is ;

      ..there are always other distributions available.

      To which you may also add, there are also other OSes available - you can directly thank the BS that is systemd for the fact that our management has migrated our servers from Debian to Win2k8..despite my pleading the case for Slackware and the *BSDs, so let me just congratulate you systemd zealots and say ;

      'fsck you, fsck you very much..'

    4. Re: SystemD added? by warrax_666 · · Score: 1, Insightful

      > Danger: systemd marketing droid detected

      Oh, fuck off. Seriously, just fuck off.

      (People are getting real value out of systemd vs. $whatever. It's fine if you don't perceive that value and you are free to articulate those concerns, but don't immediately accuse happy users of being shills, please.)

      --
      HAND.
    5. Re: SystemD added? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      What's there to report?

      The regression is that systemd is being used.

      The only fix is to remove systemd, and to revert back to the previous init system that worked.

    6. Re: SystemD added? by ZorinLynx · · Score: 4, Insightful

      A recent of example I had that made me dislike systemd was a prototype RHEL7 system here that has ZFS-on-Linux support installed on it.

      When you boot it up, there's around a 50/50 chance whether the ZFS filesystems will be mounted after boot. This is an inconsistency that, as a long time sysadmin, REALLY BOTHERS ME.

      Yes, I realize the root cause. ZFS has some dependency that is not starting before it. The dependency has to be declared in the appropriate service. However, with systemd we introduce the concept of "just because it came up correctly on this boot doesn't mean it will on the next one."

      And that is supremely frustrating. What if it weren't 50/50? What if the likelyhood it didn't come up was 1/100? Suddenly a routine reboot becomes a debugging mission, and I reboot again and it works. "Eh, must have been a transient problem." No it wasn't.

      With classic init you were fairly sure that the system's state was the same on every boot. Now it's a gamble. Good luck with that! This is why we're sticking with RHEL6 for the moment on production systems.

    7. Re: SystemD added? by hairyfeet · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Uhhhh...yeah dude? The post he is referring to used "compartmentalized", "intrinsic" and "homogeneous" in less than 3 sentences....normal folks and IT guys? yeah they don't talk like that. So the poster is either 1.- A shill, or 2.- Works in PR or marketing, because those guys DO talk like that.

      Frankly I was shocked he didn't roll out "synergy" but I think they wised onto it thanks to Dilbert ragging on it so many times.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    8. Re: SystemD added? by cdwiegand · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, it's NOT JUST A LAUNCHER. It's a logging daemon, a console input daemon, it's much, much more than just a launcher. So if for some reason (like power outage) your computer reboots, you can't just tail /var/log/* (or even specific logs, if you're familiar with your distro which most of us are). You have to use another computer to lookup some arcane command that's non-obvious (sorry, "tail /var/log/* IS obvious for anyone who has ever been a UNIX-world sysadmin), then you can proceed to fix the problem.

      Now, personally, I'm willing to try it out on my laptop for awhile, and maybe, just maybe, I will consider deploying this in servers, in like 6 months after daily use by myself and my alternate. Otherwise we'll keep using 14.10 for now.

      --
      . Define sqrt(x) as something really evil like (x / rand()), and bury it deep. Watch your coworkers go nuts.
    9. Re: SystemD added? by cdwiegand · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No, because you would have already fixed the /etc/init.d/zfs file. And then you'd move on with your life, instead of googling "systemd dependancies editor" and going from there..

      --
      . Define sqrt(x) as something really evil like (x / rand()), and bury it deep. Watch your coworkers go nuts.
  2. Upstart or Systemd? by Viol8 · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Its like asking whether you'd preferred to be mauled by a rottweiler or a pitbull.

    Both are just change for changes sake and neither bring much new to the table. Sure the scripts for init could get messy but they worked, everyone was familliar with them and if no major issues have cropped up since 1991 (or 1970 for unix) then its a fair bet its a reliable sub system.

    But no , the "Not Invented Here" meme popped up its ugly head again and some know it alls decided they could reinvent the wheel better. Well so far the jury is still out on that.

    1. Re:Upstart or Systemd? by nabsltd · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And the RedHat decision was motivated by...?

      Money

      The more opaque and difficult you make the system, the more likely people will pay for support.

  3. systemd, eh? by serviscope_minor · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Systemd, eh? I predict that this thread will be filled with sensible and rational comments.

    Personally, I'm not a fan. It's overly complex to the point of being nearly undebuggable which makes it much harder to fix than the older system. Frankly it's also written by Pottering and given the awful experience I've had in the past and still sometimes have with PulseAudio, I don't really trust it. It's fine to have PA crap itself and require a restart (well, kind of annoying in the middle of watching TV, but survivable). I rather hope he's written systemd somewhat better.

    I know the distribution makers like it because packaging stuff is easier, but the end user experience (the end user being me) is IME inferior. But I care about debuggability, hackability and simplicity over having a very heavily intetegrated desktop "experience".

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
    1. Re:systemd, eh? by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I'm still amazed that anyone still falls for the Dice-sanctioned systemd-related trolling at this point. Everyone seems to have made up their minds, and the debates have long since ended. Systemd won, and anyone who doesn't like it has to go looking for alternatives.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    2. Re:systemd, eh? by MSG · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The rise of systemd occurred in a top-down manner, which is the exact opposite of how traditional open source software gains acceptance and widespread usage

      Do you think Free Software was historically a democracy in which everyone voted and a team of developers slavishly set to work, granting their every wish?

      No. Free Software systems were developed by people who needed the features that they wrote. Or wrote the features that they needed. Same thing. However you phrase it, the people who did the work made the decisions about what work was done.

      And who is implementing systemd? The people doing the work. People who are willing to do the work to maintain a system which uses a different init will have a system with a different init. It's as simple as that. Slackware is such a system.

    3. Re:systemd, eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "Systemd "won" because of the choices of distibution maintainers, not the choices of linux users or the linux ecosystem. The rise of systemd occurred in a top-down manner, which is the exact opposite of how traditional open source software gains acceptance and widespread usage."

      Truth.

      Systemd/Fedora used "embrace & extend" tactic that Microsoft became so known for. Your average distribution has a suprisingly small amount of people whose job is to integrate packages into a cohesive whole and ship it out. Systemd/Fedora put them in a position where they either adopt everything they want, or fork & develop/maintain a growing number of packages -- all while not living up to their lipservice.

      e.g., first it was udev, which is pretty important if you use removable media. Sure, you could build systemd and then only use the udev binary, but then that started getting harder. Then Poettering even started lobbying things like GIMP of all things to depend on systemd. Now, if you want to use Gnome3 -- or even ship it for your users -- it depends on logind, etc. It was pretty brutal and effective, all while they could go "you're getting this for free, you don't have to use it!"

      Mark my AC words: we're heading for a corporate endgame where the GPL is run-around due to systemd. It's the goal of pushing kdbus into the kernel as well as sucking in everything from dns to a time server into systemd. Their corporate clients have the issue of shipping proprietary software & the LGPL on linux, but if it's just communicating with all the libraries as a service, well....

  4. Re:systemd rules!!! by Viol8 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "We've adopted it on an increasingly large scale and we are seeing the rewards already."

    List them. And be specific - no vague handwaving waffle please.

  5. Re:systemd rules!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    One more requirement: explain how to debug/trace exactly what systemd is doing without recompiling systemd and adding specific printf() statements everywhere.

    Because that's what's missing from systemd at the moment.

  6. Re: systemd rules!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    sounds made up. well I've switched to openbsd and I can tell you I haven't looked back. it is rock solid and the security stuff they have built in is darn impressive. as far as I'm concerned systemd=high complexity=high chance of serious exploits

  7. Contradictory summary? by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 5, Insightful

    the adage "don't fix what isn't broken" is clearly one 15.04 plays to.

    Uh huh...

    systemd [...] replaces the inhouse UpStart init system.

    Hmm.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  8. Re:Unity next by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Gnome Shell is no better than Unity. Both are unusable user interfaces. Shame on those self-appoint user interface experts (more like non-experts) for taking a dump on its existing users.

    Long live Ubuntu MATE! Ubuntu MATE has made Linux actually enjoyable to use again.

  9. Ubuntu vs Mint by Sir_Eptishous · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In the last year and a half I have tried several different Linux desktops to run on a small form factor Dell pc connected to my TV via HDMI.
    I settled on Ubuntu for a variety of reasons and was reasonably pleased with it.
    However, after a few weeks things started to go wrong.
    Errors, lockups and other things cropped up that started to really get old.
    I read forum posts, blogs, "kb" articles to fix the various issues I had with Ubuntu.

    Eventually I wiped it and reloaded it, and the same sorts of problems came back.

    I was ready to install Windows when I read someone mention Linux Mint.
    So I gave that a try.

    Like a cool spring breeze on a warm afternoon, Linux Mint was refreshing and met all my needs without problems.

    To this day I wonder why Mint works so well when Ubuntu Desktop was such a POS.

    --
    We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
  10. systemd is a bad joke by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 5, Insightful

    if I had mod points, I'd mod you as troll.

    its not the 'basement dwellers' - those guys have zero experience in unix, given that they are alive less than 20 years, usually, and they know only what they've learned during the obama years and not much before that.

    the rest of us who have used and managed unix since the 80's have to dump WHAT WORKED WELL and move to some new shit that clearly has issues, does not fit in or belong very well and is being forced on us.

    see, the value of a craftsman is in his knowledge and experience of his tools. some people spend decades learning how to use their tools and work in their trade and the time shows; experience is worth having and paying for!

    what happened now: some newbie decided the old way was not good enough and decided to change it all out, for no good reason at all (I have not yet seen a good reason to reinvent a wheel that has been working for longer than most of you have been ALIVE). faster startup is not a reason; this isn't a media player and linux still does not startup in 3 seconds or less, so what's the point of 'faster startup' when its really not fast enough to justify this forklift upgrade of sorts?

    basically, the linux distros have been 'google-fucked'. I use that term to mean that some young snotnose didn't have anything better to do with his time and decided to royally break things and redo them, just because he thought it was a 'good idea'. but clearly didn't think it all the way thru and just wanted it because he just wanted it! typical google style; break things and trash all the old history of how things WERE done because, well, we just CANT LEAVE WORKING THINGS ALONE!

    --

    --
    "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    1. Re:systemd is a bad joke by squiggleslash · · Score: 3, Insightful

      the rest of us who have used and managed unix since the 80's have to dump WHAT WORKED WELL and move to some new shit that clearly has issues, does not fit in or belong very well and is being forced on us.

      SystemD replaces components that Ubuntu already replaced long ago. The question here for the Ubuntu team was:

      1. Do they keep LaunchD, when it offers few, if any, advantages over SystemD, and they're the only people using it and thus they have to maintain it, and Ubuntu stays non-standard.
      2. Do they switch back to "init" because it used to be the standard, and it kinda works, except it's kind of convoluted and a huge source of problems, which is why LaunchD was written in the first place.
      3. Do they look at what everyone else is switching to (ie SystemD), see if it does the same job as LaunchD just as effectively, and switch to it?

      They chose 3. I'd chose 3 too. There's nothing wrong with SystemD, it's just the developers have no PR skills, and some old Unix people are harking back to a past that was never actually that great to begin with. SysV init sucked. It didn't sendmail.cf suck, but it definitely CNEWS sucked. Complicated, over-burdened by shell scripts and hacks to try to keep it going. SystemD isn't perfect, but it's undeniably an improvement.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    2. Re:systemd is a bad joke by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The people that know the difference between AT&T and BSD flavors, especially after the 4.4 Tahoe lawsuit know that you don't just add stuff for politics's sake. For example, Sendmail took a ton of revisions before it was secure.

      And we are all going to relearn this lesson with systemd, with one large code blob running as root (breaking the philosophy from decades of UNIX state that you run stuff as root as little as possible), so this means one large remote root exploit waiting to happen... and all it takes is a weakness on the ports systemd listens to.

      So, production systems now have this major chunk of nascent code that is going to be a bonanza for the blackhats. All we have is to cross fingers and hope that the systemd coders at least paid lip service to security... but if something as mature as OpenSSL can fall, it only is a matter of time before systemd gets hit and hit hard, since AFAIK, there are no experts familiar with secure/defensive programming coding systemd.

      Oh well. Oracle Solaris can be easily moved to, and it isn't open source... but it has stood the test of time when it comes to security.

    3. Re:systemd is a bad joke by Uecker · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think the big deal is how decisions are made: In the past, somebody would write a new software and people who liked or needed it would start to migrate to it. Then later it may become the default, but other software would still continue to work and be supported for a long time. Nowadays, a decision is made somewhere and changes are pushed to users who do not want it, while support for alternatives is dropped quickly. So in the end, I think it is a question of software freedom in a very real and practical sense.

  11. Re:systemd rules!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    > journalctl -f

    Which simply does not help. systemd doesn't usually save stderr so the journal is more often than not useless for troubleshooting. If you had actually used systemd, you'd realize those guys don't grok UNIX. They simply don't get it. They don't understand why stderr is so important. Instead, they just toss it away. If you had actually used systemd, instead of just trolling, you'd realize why it is fundamentally broken.

  12. Re: systemd rules!!! by jcdr · · Score: 1, Insightful

    systemd service files are far less complex that the stack of init scripts need on top of system V init. The status and reporting is incomparably better than anything before it.

  13. Re:Unity next by jonnyj · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I've been using Unity for a few years and I like it...

    Me, too. And my wife, my kids, my father, my mother in law. But most people who enjoy using Ubuntu aren't the kind of people who post on /. But power users who need advanced features not offered by Unity are presumably also sufficiently sophisticated, knowledgeable and competent to effortlessly install an alternative desktop.

    Problem solved. Simpletons like me and my family can use the dumbed-down nursery-school, colour-by-numbers default desktop interface. Clever, technical people can type a few commands starting with 'sudo apt-get install'. I don't get why everyone isn't happy?

  14. Re:systemd rules!!! by MSG · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Also, look at the journal using "journalctl -u named" to see that the output doesn't log the expected error "named: unknown option '--'". It is not logged

    I don't know what to tell you, AC. You're wrong. I test every "example" of systemd problems that ACs post in this thread and they're all wrong. systemd logs daemon stderr to both the journal and to the syslog messages file.

  15. Managability by arth1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Services are easily manageable.

    A bunch of us who actually manage systems tend to disagree.
    Hundreds of DOS ini files, having to compile things instead of just modding a script, and not being able to step through a startup or shutdown process is not what we all consider easily manageable.

    If it really were easily manageable, it would not have caught so much flak.

    Sometimes you're the octopus, sometimes you're the girl.

  16. Re:systemd rules!!! by Gr8Apes · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You didn't use systemd either : it has step by step execution, debug option which is very verbose, emergency shell, debug shell (on vt9), all of this off the top of my head.

    Oh my, I want to step through 3000 steps manually before I get to my program of interest, and I also want to see 1000 lines of spurious crap for things I don't care about.

    Besides, systemd is not based on Unix, ... that's why portability of systemd to other Unix was thrown away.

    That sound you hear is a collective sigh of relief mingled with drives spinning up as new downloads of various Unix flavors start in earnest.

    --
    The cesspool just got a check and balance.
  17. Re: Unity next by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    One Debian unstable breakage due to systemd is understandable.

    Two Debian unstable breakages due to systemd is disgraceful.

    A Debian unstable installation that will likely not boot properly after each update due to systemd, month after month, is unacceptable.