Bug#727708: init system discussion status

To: Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk>, 727708@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Bug#727708: init system discussion status

From: Keith Packard <keithp@keithp.com>

Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 09:59:14 -0800

Message-id: <86ob3b24gd.fsf@miki.keithp.com>

Reply-to: Keith Packard <keithp@keithp.com>, 727708@bugs.debian.org

In-reply-to: <21189.27847.402838.833211@chiark.greenend.org.uk>

References: <21189.27847.402838.833211@chiark.greenend.org.uk>

Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk> writes: > Andreas, Bdale, Don, Keith: please let us know what you're thinking, > and what more information/discussion would be useful. As the newest TC member, I hope to emulate my learned colleagues and try to keep the discussion moving in a positive direction. First off, my personal interest and experience with init has been limited; starting off my Unix life doing system administration on a PDP-11 running V7 and then 2.7 BSD, and then rapidly escaping into desktop system software development has never made me comfortable with our current sysvinit-based systems. I suspect I've spent more time in the last six months exploring this space than I did in the previous 32 years of Unix experience... As with any core system component, I believe we need to find a solution which best meets the following goals: 1) Technical excellence. 2) Support for the whole Debian community. 3) Sharing with other Linux communities. Sometimes it is possible to find a single solution which is obviously the best in all of these areas, but in this case, we will need to compromise -- none of the proposed solutions ranks number one in all three areas. Because of the central nature of pid 1, and influenced by experiences like that expressed by Marc Merlin, I believe that Debian will need to support multiple init systems going forward, even on Linux. However, on Linux, I believe that the vast majority of Debian users would be best served by encouraging them to use systemd by making that the default. systemd is being developed by a broad cross-distribution community who are solving long-standing technical issues with how subsystems are managed within the Linux environment. Yes, there are technical issues with using systemd in a Debian environment, but I don't see any of them as significant blockers, and only by contributing our expertise can we expect them to be resolved in the best way. In contrast, upstart has a developer community limited to Canonical employees and others who are able and willing to sign the onerous CLA associated with that software. I believe as a result, upstart development has flagged and now lags far behind systemd in several key areas. I would like to encourage the OpenRC community to continue working on their most excellent system though; I feel like it has a great place as a simpler and more portable system for use in environments like that described by Marc Merlin in his LCA talk discussed here recently, as well as in non-Linux environments. Thanks to Ian, Russ and Bdale for offering their opinions on this matter, it's certainly helped focus my thoughts on the one or two key points that matter most to me. And, thanks to Steve for creating a couple of virtual hosts for me to play with both upstart and systemd. -- keith.packard@intel.com

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