On 2013-08-19 08:35, Alan McKinnon wrote: > sysvinit, like X11, needs a massive overhaul and a sprint clean.
Yes, an overhaul is always welcome. But most people criticising these systems (and other systems) just say that they are bad without pointing out what is bad. How can you fix something without knowing what's bad? To me the problem with sysvinit (and X11) seems mostly to be a philosophical one. Some people say: "this doesn't work the way I want it to - therefore it's crap!". While others (like me) say: "I have no problem with this - it works fine!". >From a technical standpoint, does sysvinit fulfill the technical requirements (i.e. the "specification")? I honestly don't know, I just think/assume it does since we've been using it for, what, 30 years or so (SVR1 was released in January 1983 acc. to [1]) and I've never had any problems with it. Does the "specification" need to be updated? I'm sure it does but to throw out everything and start from scratch is not the way I would go (unless it's technically required because of some fundamental issue - and I disagree with people thinking there's a fundamental issue here). Now, some people who thinks the computer should sing and dance to them (seems to me mostly the Gnome crowd) while booting, I can understand that sysvinit may not fit their "philosophy". I am not one of them. Basically I want the computer to do as little as possible, i.e. not waste one cycle unless _absolutely_ necessary; _all_ compute power should be available to me and me only for whatever purpose I see fit. The computer is a tool, a hammer if you will and I don't want a hammer with built-in radio, a fan to cool you down, a radiator to warm you up or a tv screen (or whatever). Of course, computers being so complex these days (I started out with a Commodore PET in the late 70ies), there has to be compromises. And I think that sysvinit with it's init scripts (i.e. OpenRC) is a good compromise because I don't care about boot time (as mentioned in another mail most of the time is spent in BIOS/UEFI anyway). Having said that I wouldn't mind if we refined sysvinit/OpenRC carefully, getting rid of bugs (even though I've never encountered any), refining the "blueprints/specification" so that it fits the customers wishes (within reason). Basically what I'm trying to say is: The "technical" arguments that have been brought forward pro/con sysvinit(+OpenRC)/systemd I think is bogus. It is just a philosophical disagreement between parties having different goals, which I'm not sure can be fully satisfied by either side. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIX_System_V Best regards Peter K
