On Thu, Aug 9, 2012 at 12:00 PM, Wyatt Epp <wyatt....@gmail.com> wrote: > On Thu, Aug 9, 2012 at 11:25 AM, Rich Freeman <ri...@gentoo.org> wrote: >> ...have an init as PID=1 that does >> nothing but launch systemd and keep it propped up until it gets a >> signal from systemd. However, that could have issues I'm just not >> thinking of. > > I'm not the maintainer, but this method does seem to work pretty well > for OpenRC and our old friend baselayout-1 (so, the last decade or so, > as I understand it).
Yes, but OpenRC basically just launches processes and considers itself done with them. Systemd is a bit more like a shepherd, looking after things for their entire lifecycle. When you use openrc to stop a process it just runs a script which is responsible for cleaning up. If you stop a systemd service it can try nicely first, but if any descendant of the service is left running it will be cleaned up with a vengeance. If a process is supposed to be running and stops, systemd can restart it (which makes it more like init - which restarts anything in inittab if it dies). Systemd isn't a like-for-like replacement for traditional inits. It aims to be much more, so this is a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison. Again, I'm not sure that it HAS to work the way it does, but I wouldn't dismiss their design simply because it is different. Also again, if curious I'd probably ask on their own list, assuming it hasn't already been answered there. Rich
