[ale] Systemd daemon take overs

[Solomon Peachy]

On Tue, May 19, 2020 at 07:42:26PM -0400, DJ-Pfulio via Ale wrote:
> * mount (the fstab!)

There's not much point in trying to mount network filesystems before the 
network is up.  And there are daemons that shouldn't be started before 
all filesystems are mounted -- and stuff that needs to be stopped 
cleanly should a given filesystem go away.

So there are some legitimate arguments for systemd keeping on top of 
filesytems.  Personally I've found that quite handy over the years, 
especially in the light of networked or external storage that randomly 
flakes out.

(Incidentally, I think Fedora's been using systemd to handle /etc/fstab 
 since their first systemd-based release, something like 8 years ago!)

> * automount / autofs

Only for mount points in fstab that are explicitly marked as 
automountable by systemd.  (Anectdotally I've found systemd's automount 
handling to be far more robust than autofs.  But that's not saying much..)

> * ntpd ---> timesyncd.conf

Blame your distro for changing its defaults.

(Fedora doesn't do this; it defaults to chronyd and ntpd remains available)

> * resolvconf --> resolved.conf
 
Blame your distro for changing how it does things.

(Fedora doesn't do this as of F32, but intends to default to using it
 in the F33 workstation spin only)

> Modifying the fstab and running mount -a isn't enough anymore.  We have
> to run  .... 

Um, if this doesn't work, there's something broken with your distro or 
the fstab entries themselves)

(Just tested it now, in fact... Fedora 31 and 32 both work fine with mount -a)

> But the automount for USB storage is a little flaky, IME.  Plus the

automounting USB sticks isn't something systemd typically handles; 
instead the hotplug events go through udev+udisks rules customized by 
the distro and/or desktop environment.  (And I might add udev+udisks has 
been handling things this way well before sytstemd came along..)

> fstab lines get crazy-long because the systemd guys always prefer
> verbose config options.

... so don't use them?

> Let's not forget PulseAudio.  Every week, seems I'm fighting with pulse
> over something.

Since we're talking anectdotes, it's been literally years since I last 
had a pulseaudio-related problem, not that I had many to begin with. 

Indeed, thanks to this working from home thing, on a daily basis I take 
advantage of features that simply aren't available in the absense of 
PulseAudio -- switching audio devices on the fly for both output 
(desktop speakers, headphones, bluetooth) and input (webcam, headset).

> What other things has systemd taken over that I've missed?

These changes, and other system-level things, tend to be documented in 
your distro's release notes.  You may want to pay more attention to them 
before upgrading or installing newer versions..

 - Solomon
-- 
Solomon Peachy			      pizza at shaftnet dot org (email&xmpp)
                                      @pizza:shaftnet dot org   (matrix)
High Springs, FL                      speachy (freenode)
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