Conrad,
Thanks for amazing explanation!
Greetings,
Ruben
On Sun, Mar 2, 2014 at 5:30 AM, <y...@marupa.net> wrote:
> On Saturday, March 01, 2014 04:30:00 PM Andrew Merenbach wrote:
> > On 03/01/2014 15:43, y...@marupa.net wrote:
> > > On Sunday, March 02, 2014 12:00:41 AM Volker Birk wrote:
> > >> That makes some hope for the BSD world again. The good thing about
> Free
> > >> Software is the alternatives.
> > >
> > > Indeed. Though I think you vastly overestimate how many people even
> think
> > > this is a bad change. A highly vocal minority at worst.
> > >
> > > Have fun using BSD, which continues to have a dwindling user base, for
> > > purely political reasons because you actually buy into conspiracy
> > > theories about what Lennart Poettering does in his free time.
> >
> > Hi Conrad,
> >
> > I started using Debian six months ago and FreeBSD two months ago. I
> > appreciate what I see as positive traits of both, including the
> > welcoming communities, and when I read an assertion like this I feel as
> > though some supporting documentation might be helpful. Without it it
> > sounds to me like exactly the sort of F.U.D. that respondents in this
> > thread are trying to dispel.
> >
> > With regard to conspiracy accusations, I think one concern involves the
> > deviation here from someone's take on the UNIX philosophy. Precepts 4
> > ("Choose portability over efficiency") and 7 ("Use shell scripts to
> > increase leverage and portability") in particular sound to me like
> > exactly the sort of assertions upon which reasonable people might
> > disagree with regard to systemd:
> >
> >
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy#Mike_Gancarz:_The_UNIX_Philosop
> > hy
> >
> > Pick other precepts that [[ your most loved/hated software of choice ]]
> > [[ gets right/wrong ]] and that [[ this or that alternative system with
> > more/less traction ]] [[ gets wrong/right ]].
> >
> > Of course some will argue as to how applicable the "UNIX philosophy" is
> > to Linux and I could understand that.
> >
> > I don't have feelings for or against systemd because I don't know enough
> > to say and in absence of that I'd rather avoid succumbing to F.U.D. ;-)
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Andrew
>
> I definitely respect your position here. I'll be respectful in turn.
>
> The UNIX Philosophy is a great collection of ideas of what a UNIX/UNIX-like
> system should be like. On paper. In practice it makes large assumptions
> that
> sadly do not hold up to how *nix works today.
>
> Probably its biggest flaw is the assumption they are all created equal and
> that
> shell scripts are easy to write, test, and debug and that they will always
> work. Sadly, this is far from the reality and this is why initscripts are
> largely deprecated in the UNIX world today, if not outright superceded.
>
> For example, initscripts are so VERY not portable. I am sorry to say this,
> but
> it is true. In theory they should be, as you state, according the UNIX
> Philosophy they should be. But here comes the problem of that philosophy
> assuming every UNIX/UNIX-like works the same and has the same tools.
>
> In a VM, you should try copying a Debian initscript into another SysV-using
> Linux distribution. It doesn't work. Portable initscripts just don't
> happen.
> Would be nice, but they don't.
>
> There's another big part of the UNIX Philosophy that initscripts don't
> really
> meet the standard for, and it is that of simplicity. Simplcity is probably
> the
> most important focus of the UNIX Philosophy.
>
> Open an initscript. Now open a typical systemd init file. See the
> difference?
> This is a Very Good Thing. For one, it's straightforward. Instead of a lot
> of
> imperative knowledge on how we should go about starting a daemon/service,
> we
> have declarative knowledge of what the service is, what it needs, and what
> type of service it is. Systemd takes that configuration and does only what
> it
> needs for that service. Concurrently. Faster, more reliable startup occurs.
>
> Another reason this is good is notice how much time you'd have to take to
> figure out what, exactly, the initscript is doing. Is it starting the
> daemon
> yet? Or is it still laying the framework? Why is it doing things that way?
>
> While in unit files you may wonder what one option is, it's a quick man
> page
> away, but initscripts willr equire good documented code and a reasonable
> skill
> at reading the language.
>
> Let's go over the fact it's a nightmare to debug initscripts and they still
> frequently hit failures such as losing control of their associated daemon.
> That's bad.
>
> Systemd basically fixes some problems and also adds a few features I think
> Linux has been in desperate need for: Concurrent dependency launch,
> reliable
> process control, the journal, the udev merge makes sure that things
> services
> need are available when they need them. It also provides ways to track the
> states of all your units and even look into why they failed. Sadly,
> initscripts usually chuck all errors into /dev/null, which isn't helpful.
>
> Oh, as for portability, the way systemd works means unit files are pretty
> much
> guaranteed to work no matter where they run provided of course their
> associated software exists. Can't expect Apache to launch if Apache's not
> installed. The only exceptions are probably in cases where a unit might
> call a
> script or something that presumes a specific configuration.
>
> Long-winded explanations aside: Systemd provides a unified userspace
> foundation. Makes for easier daemon startup, device management,
> maintenence,
> and configuration that all works together. It's a very effective system
> manager.
>
> Conrad
>
>
> --
> To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-security-requ...@lists.debian.org
> with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact
> listmas...@lists.debian.org
> Archive: https://lists.debian.org/1418580.eFXLhOJKDB@twilight
>
>
