[ale] for all you systemd haters...

[Solomon Peachy]

On Fri, Feb 16, 2018 at 01:54:05PM -0500, Steve Litt via Ale wrote:
> It's pretty clear to me that his use of "Linux" was shorthand for
> GNU/Linux, which is a modern UNIX lookalike. The GNU part includes ls,
> tr, grep, cut, sort, and a whole bunch of other tools that "do one
> thing and do it well." 

Since you brought up GNU.. GNU's Not UNIX, and their respective 
underlying philosophies are generally orthogonal.

GNU isn't necessarily Linux, nor is Linux necessarily GNU either.

> The "do one thing and do it well" philosophy, when well implemented, has
> many positive outcomes:
> 
> * Easy interchangeability of parts.

....For functionally equivalent pieces, or the whole system falls apart.

> * Easy troubleshooting without relying on special tools custom made for
>   specific software.

I already have an extensive toolbox of special tools optimized for 
different tasks.  What's one more?  (None of them are "custom made" 
either)

> * Easy DIY.

I don't recall if I asked this before (or how you answered), but have 
you ever built a Linux distribution from source?  It's quite an 
undertaking, even today.

> * More modularity, especially with respect to encapsulation.

Generally a worthy goal, but all abstractions are ultimately leaky.

> The preceding list describes pre-systemd Unix/Linux, with contained
> exceptions such as KDE, Kmail, Gnome, and Unity, which can simply be
> excised from Linux (I removed all KDE programs and libraries in 2013).

I don't think it's fair to compare interactive GUI things with 
non-interative non-GUI things as they are designed for fundamentally 
different purposes.

But putting that aside, you can replace parts of systemd, you can 
ascertain state/status and troubleshoot more easily than with the old 
mess (since there are fewer moving parts requiring fewer tools to muck 
with it all), it's easier to build a supportable distro using systemd 
than without it (due to having to reimplement far fewer wheels), and 
finally, systemd is modular to a fault, with all interactions between 
components explitly defined.

> Now of course, some folks claim that systemd has all those features
> because it's "made of separate modules". Yeah, but in practice, those
> modules are very hard to remove, and almost impossible to use, alone,
> on non-systemd systems.

In practice, you can't go replacing bits of _any_ system willy-nilly 
without problems, because a system is more than the sum of its parts.  

(Case in point -- Just try and replace bash with csh, and see how much 
 joy ensues as you end up needing to rewrite all but the most trivial of 
 shell scripts.  Including those invoked via init..)

> So I think Liam was saying people who reject systemd are people who
> like concepts such as "do one thing and do it well", with all its
> positive outcomes.

You may be correct, but I'd still prefer to hear his reasoning.

IMO it's hard to argue that folks who have spent literally decades 
elbows-deep in Linux (both the kernel and various operating systems 
built on it) somehow don't "like" it.

 - Solomon
-- 
Solomon Peachy			       pizza at shaftnet dot org
Coconut Creek, FL                          ^^ (email/xmpp) ^^
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.
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