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: Bdale Garbee <bdale@gag.com>

Date: Thu, 02 Jan 2014 10:42:30 -0700

Message-id: <87ha9m2sc9.fsf@rover.gag.com>

Reply-to: Bdale Garbee <bdale@gag.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. Right. I've meant to post something before now, but after returning home from a family road trip over the holidays, I was hit by a nasty cold. Feeling a bit better today. I could spend a lot of time talking about what I learned from dealing with various init system and on-demand daemon launching approaches long before Linux even existed, but since I suspect that's better done over beers at places like Debconf than here, I'll simply summarize by saying that I've found sysvinit adequate but never satisfying. Clinging to it when there are superior options available would not make sense to me. There are things about OpenRC that I find really appealing, but I agree that it seems too immature to even evaluate well, and thus I don't think it is a credible alternative to be the default for Debian GNU/Linux. So I dove in and have spent quite a bit of time learning about and studying both systemd and upstart... both of which I've basically steered clear of in the past. I've done an *immense* amount of reading, talked to many people with both strong and weak opinions about both systems, and spent a modest amount of time working with the VMs that Steve so graciously provided us to learn what each system "feels like" in real use. I have not (yet) used either init system on any of the machines I personally admin. It's now clear to me that systemd is technically superior as an init system to upstart. I find the dependency approach easier to think about and work with, unit files seem quite easy to craft and read, I like the status reporting and logging tools, and I find myself agreeing more with Russ that with Ian about the best way to augment daemons that might benefit from it with a readiness protocol. It bothers me on some philosophical level that so much functionality that I'd like to keep conceptually separate from an init system is being pulled in to the systemd upstream. And as someone who has spent much of my professional career working with non-x86 systems and who has worked with many non-Linux kernels in different contexts, I've found the anti-portability rhetoric from Lennart, et al, particularly grating. But a long time ago, in a rec.crafts.metalworking post about teachers, a fellow named Fitch Williams wrote that "in any endeavour it is a fact that you have to succeed with the people who are willing to participate." This sentiment struck me as true enough that I added it to my quotes file, and it's one I'm often reminded of when working on Debian, where we are all volunteers who choose to be here and work on things that matter to us individually. I find it particularly relevant in the context of this init system discussion... because whether I "like it" or not, lots of really good work is being done by people who choose to associate themselves with the systemd project, much of which I agree is important to Debian. > FAOD I don't expect all the other TC members to read the whole > discussion, which is very extensive. Actually, I have. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Ian and Russ for their detailed and very thoughtful write-ups, and the various other contributors of technical input to the discussion these provoked. My opinions were formed independently, but reading through these threads really helped raise my confidence in those opinions. So, to summarize, I think systemd should be our choice for a new default init system for Debian GNU/Linux. Where I think we still need to focus attention is on how to manage the transition, and how to make *any* new init system default for Linux palatable for Debian's non-Linux ports. Bdale

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