dcacklam

Authored Comments

Systemd is 2 things:

(A) Desktop Linux 'tail' wagging the server/embedded 'Whole Dog', and (B) at least for the server and embedded world, an answer to a question not asked.

Essentially all of the 'features' of Systemd - from configuring services using Microsoft INI-formatted definition files, to lumping the whole of OS configuration into one singular program, are things that 'make sense' only in a desktop context....

The goal of faster arrival at the login prompt - the main justification for all of this - is similarly a 'Desktop thing'....

But... Desktop Linux (aside from ChromeOS) is irrelevant, and always will be...

This isn't what the hobbyist/evangelist community wants to hear, but it's the truth.

There was no need in a server environment to combine the resolver, the network configuration manager, the logger, the init-system, device-node-naming and an interprocess communication bus into one big inseparable blob....

Nor do any of those things improve how headless Linux servers operate... It's all change just for change's sake...

What it does do, is add complexity, chaos (boot is no longer done in series - but rather things start randomly in parallel), and attack surface.....

For what benefit? To sate Mr Pottering's bias for .ini file format over shell scripts, or a binary 'journal' over text based logfiles?

Fortunately, even RedHat hasnt gone whole-hog on the last one - logs still end up in /var/log....