
Knoppix 8.6 abandons systemd - mepian
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/knoppix-8-6-first-wide-public-release-to-abandon-systemd/
======
znpy
I see a lot of hate about systems and I used to loathe it too.

Then I took a course on systemd specifically and it opened my eyes, and now
I'm quite fond about it.

Systemd actually does ONE thing and does it well: it manages the system. It's
the missing layer between kernel space and user space. It has quirks and bugs
like all software, but I think it works very well, all things considered.

To those who say that it's complex and does a lot of things: it's complex
because it does a complex work.

~~~
hyperman1
I think you are missing the point: Something like systemd has a good reason to
exist. But the devil is in the creating team. We've seen pulseaudio, a good
system in theory, but an untrustworthy unstable system in practice. And if it
wont work, it is so complicated and non-transparent that you need a
specialist. Taking a step backward from Alsa is hard, and they managed to do
it.

Now that same team is messing with system critical stuff. We know from the
kernel command line debug debacle they rather see the world burn down than
admit they did something wrong. They are again creating a super-complicated
incomprehensible half- documented mess, that puts it tentacles everywhere. But
the stakes are a lot higher.

I am not saying they are incompetent. At a low level, the code works. But at a
high level, something is very wrong. Bugs can be fixed, but arrogant
architecture astronauts not listening to their users, messing with core
infrastructure, that's where systemd keeps failing.

~~~
nickik
The amount of features and stuff they add to systemd is seriously impressive.
They have bugs sometimes, but I have been running it in production for years
and years and never had a real issue. Its an incredibly stable system.
Sometimes a new version has a bug because systemd has to work in so many
context, those get fixed very quickly generally.

I would challange anybody, to introduce a totally new system layer on linux
with less issues.

And Pulse Audio was started by Pottering but he quickly moved on and since
then it literally has nothing to do with the people who work on systemd.
Blaiming him for the persistence of issues with Pulse is simply unfair and
would be done if he was not called Lennart Poettering.

~~~
mikekchar
I think Poettering deserved his fair share of the blame for the problems in
Pulse Audio. However, a guy writes an over ambitious project, has a lot of
problems, has problems with interfacing with users, etc, etc, etc. This is the
internet! Pick a random project an Github and you'll probably find similar
issues. The _real_ problem here was Red Hat -- and it was literally the same
problem with systemd. They tied it so closely with the rest Gnome that you
couldn't reasonably use Gnome without it. And since all of the distros were
essentially riding on Red Hat's tail, everybody got strong armed into using
this stuff before it was ready (to be fair, it was years and years and years
before Pulse was stable at all).

I am not a fan of Poettering's code or his attitude, but people have treated
him exceptionally badly. He's just doing his job. If these projects were
allowed to compete for mind share fairly there would be no problem. If Red Hat
had made sure that Gnome could work with alternatives then there would be no
problem. Pulse audio would have died a rightful death. Systemd? I suspect that
it would still have succeeded.

~~~
windexh8er
> The real problem here was Red Hat...

Agreed. This is Red Hat's mentality with a lot of it's product base.
Poettering and Dan Walsh come to mind with regard to the elitist attitude in
their respective corners. But just wait, this is going to get worse. Now that
IBM owns them they will push this agenda even harder. The new game is
controlling a majority of devs in well-known or strategic projects so the
overarching enterprise can push an agenda. I don't think we're seeing the
teeth quite yet, but give IBM a few years and my guess is it becomes very
obvious.

~~~
kasabali
> Poettering and Dan Walsh come to mind with regard to the elitist attitude in
> their respective corners

Don't forget Drapper

------
afranchuk
I am a bit surprised that they (seemingly? not clear in the article) went back
to sysv init rather than exploring other options. I assume they just wanted to
go back to something with which they were very familiar (and for which they
probably already had scripts). But after going to void linux, I've found runit
[1] to be an excellent init system. I was able to sit down and read the
documentation in under an hour and understand exactly how it works _and_ how
to add my own services (which is fairly trivial). The programs also seem very
thoughtfully developed, taking into account specific circumstances and
signals. I encourage others to take a look if you're interested; I believe a
number of modern distros have support for using it rather than systemd (I know
at least Arch does).

[1]: [http://smarden.org/runit/](http://smarden.org/runit/)

~~~
sverige
Knopper wrote his own init system called "knoppix-autoconfig" according to
DistroWatch. [0] That information is not included in the release notes,
though.

[0] [https://distrowatch.com/index-
mobile.php?distribution=knoppi...](https://distrowatch.com/index-
mobile.php?distribution=knoppix&release=all&month=all&year=2019)

~~~
duncaen
Not really.

From this German article[0]:

> Knoppix' Startvorgang läuft nach wie vor per Sys-V-Init mit wenigen Bash-
> Skripten, welche die Systemdienste effizient sequenziell oder parallel
> starten.

> Knoppix' boot sequence still uses Sys-V-Ini, with some bash scripts which
> start the system services efficiently sequential or in parallel.

So it has still all the downsides of sysvinit, except that might start sevices
in a more efficient order or some in parallel.

[0]: [https://www.golem.de/news/live-linux-knoppix-8-0-bringt-
mode...](https://www.golem.de/news/live-linux-knoppix-8-0-bringt-moderne-
technik-fuer-neue-hardware-1703-126811-3.html)

------
Arbalest
As a write once read many system, the abandonment of systemd isn't a big deal
I suspect. You don't write to the system area and expect it to persist, and so
making modifications to the init system basically isn't going to happen. The
modularity doesn't really make as much of an impact then. So any backlash from
unhappy users who can't install xyz with one click and have init work
properly, not a big deal. Anyone who uses something more complex like an
overlay system with it likely has more of an interest in the internals anyway,
particularly given the nicheness and age of the distribution.

------
tejohnso
> If you want to start your own services at startup, you do not need to create
> any systemd units, but simply enter them in the text file /etc/rc.local,
> which contains explanatory examples.

Okay, but doesn't that remove a lot of functionality that is available with
systemd units? In this whole systemd debate, I've never seen a really clear
outline of how much complexity systemd covers, and whether the older
alternatives were actually simpler or not. Granted, I haven't looked very
hard. I use systemd with Arch and have no known issues with it.

------
tdewitt
The fact that we're still having _this_ conversation, after after a decade
since being released and years after mass adoption, should say a lot. I can't
think of any other software I have to use on a daily basis that gets so much
heat, every time it comes up. One can make all the arguments for it they want
but the continued public comtempt means something.

~~~
izacus
> One can make all the arguments for it they want but the continued public
> comtempt means something.

It means that Linux community is full of people that refuse to give up on
their gripes even after years. Those also tend to be the people who refuse to
understand that "the old way" might not be the best way to do something and
also fail to produce a viable alternative.

Linux audio was not usable for end users until PulseAudio stabilised. Init
based on scripts was a trash fire. And yet, although SystemD and PulseAudio
aren't perfect, noone managed to produce anything comparable except pages and
pages and pages of whining.

These people need to let it go. This toxicity is unhealthy and it's just damn
software.

~~~
delfinom
The inability to let is why we also have an insane number of distros that
continue to fragment Linux. While diversity of ideas is good, it kills user
adoption by anything other than techies.

~~~
giancarlostoro
On the other hand it indirectly educates people as to how modular a Linux
distribution can be.

------
iikoolpp
Been using systemd since whenever it became the default on Arch. I love it. It
just works and I've never had any problems with it. I'd rather use it over any
arcane bash-based system any day.

------
tony
Has anyone here used knoppix (or any other dedicated Live CD) recently?

In the early 2000's, distros didn't have live environments bundled. All debian
used to have was a TUI installer and that's it. Ubuntu 4.10+ introduced a live
sessions.

From 2004-now driver support and hardware detection has gotten much better.
There are live session CD's that include "nonfree" drivers that further
improve hardware support. You can pop in most popular distros and easily
connect to WiFi and mount drives, often just as easily as knoppix did.

This complaint about systemd isn't a user-related, but the perspective of the
live cd creator. Maybe it's true systemd doesn't help that case, but would
systemd get in the way of a live cd user though? They're likely not going to
be adding/removing/starting/stopping services, setting up users/groups, or
anything else that'd be done in a permanent environment.

------
reacharavindh
I wish voidlinux gained more attention from the community and got adapted to
serious production stuff. It has all the good elements on paper except the
maturity and user base.

~~~
AndrewDavis
What are the benefits of void in production compared to Alpine?

~~~
duncaen
If production is servers, then alpine is the better choice as it provides
stable releases. Void Linux is a nice desktop system and you can run it on
single servers you personally take care of. But I would rather not use it at
scale for servers as updating rolling release can always lead to issues and
not updating will leave security issues unfixed.

The one benefit would probably providing a glibc version if you require it.

(I'm a Void Linux contributor.)

------
einpoklum
Good - but I wish that change would have been coordinated with Devuan instead
of duplicating the effort.

And by the way - if you're doing something Debian-based - make it Devuan-
based, it's pretty straightforward.
[http://www.devuan.org/](http://www.devuan.org/)

~~~
johnr2
>if you're doing something Debian-based - make it Devuan-based, it's pretty
straightforward.

It's also pretty straightforward to switch Debian systems back to sysvinit.

~~~
einpoklum
No, actually it isn't straightforward. There a lot of artificial dependencies
that you can't break. I mean, conceptually it's not difficult, but in practice
it is.

See also:
[https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/433346/34868](https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/433346/34868)

~~~
johnr2
>There a lot of artificial dependencies that you can't break.

You still need libsystemd0 which is a compatibility library. It's actually
unfortunately named, as it isn't part of systemd itself.

I've been using sysvinit on my Debian workstations since systemd became the
default. It takes me about 5 minutes to switch a new system over (admittedly I
don't use Gnome or KDE). The stackexchange thread you linked is out of date
and switching is getting easier. I recommend following the debian-init-
diversity mailing list for further info.

------
mobilio
systemd is good for desktop and server systems.

But i was seeing that in Embedding Linux or IoT distributions that doesn't
make sense since they're run on limited resources.

~~~
SahAssar
Well, systemd is great for responding to events (like devices and networks
going up/down) so it seems like a good fit for embedded/IoT. If anything it'd
be bad for servers since those are (usually) basically a couple of services
and daemons brought up at boot and not changed during runtime, with a few
interfaces that never change.

Systemd is not that heavy to run when configured correctly (which is what the
distro should do).

~~~
mobilio
Well - Debian with systemd consume ~90MB ram. Debian w/o systemd consume ~40MB
ram.

Device have 256MB.

------
doiwin
Everything I know about systemd is bad.

When I want to write a script that runs on startup, I expect that I can just
put (or link) it in some directory where the scripts are that get started on
startup. Or that there is one main script that calls all scripts that are
intended to be startet on startup.

I do _not_ want to write a "service" that has some "only run once and then
discard" flag or whatever.

When I want to look at logs, I want to use the tools I like. less, grep, tail
etc. I do _not_ want to dabble with some binary format and its tooling.

When I want to start or stop a service, I want to call a script that does
that. A script which I can look at and see what it does. Like
/etc/init.d/apache2. I do _not_ want to execute some magic command like
"service apache start" which I have to guess or look up and which gives me no
clue about what it does.

~~~
eythian
That's just saying "I want things to be the way I first learnt them and don't
want them to change."

This is fine, but you do have to accept that things are going to move on
without you.

~~~
doiwin
By that logic, no mistakes can ever be criticized.

I explained, why systemd is a step in the wrong direction in mutiple ways.
That has nothing to do with habbits.

~~~
Shish2k
> I explained, why systemd is a step in the wrong direction

I see a bunch of "I want X", but I don't see any "why"

~~~
madez
But there have been reasons given. They want to use standard tools to deal
with the log. They want to see the scripts that manage the system and poke
around in it, which has the implicit reason to learn about the system and
being able to easily modify it.

~~~
madhadron
> They want to use standard tools to deal with the log.

I have a little sympathy for this one as an old habit if you don't know any
better. It's also an extremely inefficient way to work with logs. If you've
used a system like Splunk seriously, the idea of going back and grepping
through logs on a host with the shell is just frustrating.

> They want to see the scripts that manage the system and poke around in it,
> which has the implicit reason to learn about the system and being able to
> easily modify it.

I have no sympathy for this one. Scripts are a terrible place to define
policy. They are nigh impossible to audit. They are brittle. They multiply
complexity by making everything a special case. They make integration of
different parts of the system nearly impossible.

------
didip
I have grown accustomed to systemd by now, however... is journalctl really
needed?

~~~
tdewitt
It's needed as an argument to justify additional scope creep.

------
gridlockd
Has anyone used Knoppix lately? It has so much pointless junk in it, I do not
see the argument against systemd.

------
cik
I wish systemd would just die a fiery death. Every two years I replace my
environment - by design, to force growth. I've been doing this on Linux since
1993. In my most recent go-around, I hunted for a Unix distribution that could
meet my needs, and played with: Void, Solus, Manjaro, Fedora, Tumbleweed,
TridentBSD, and GhostBSD. Heck were there docker support on *BSD I'd be back
there happily for the first time since 2001.

SystemD needs to die because it violates Unix principles, not because of it's
new key combinations. Unix is built on the notion that everything is a file,
and that purpose built binaries make sense. SystemD breaks the latter -
meaning it's now significantly more work to do the same things when it comes
to log investigation, service analysis, and related events.

Perhaps the worst part is the extension of a subsystem for service
initialization to everything other than that. The folks at suckless
([https://suckless.org/sucks/systemd/](https://suckless.org/sucks/systemd/))
did the argument significantly more justice than I ever could.

------
Svoka
I did a small ask around the room in the office, no one heard about Knoppix.
Good for them, I guess.

~~~
mepian
It's okay to flaunt your ignorance if you can claim that your peers are
ignorant as well, I guess. Knoppix was one of the first, if not the first,
popular live CD distributions.

~~~
nickserv
The other day at the office, I was the only one that had heard of, let alone
used, Slackware. I am also the oldest in the team, this is probably no
coincidence.

~~~
interfixus
I have worked at more than one place where I was the only one who had heard of
Linux. I skip paraphrasing the 'let alone used' part, for of course everyone
was using it in their routers and phones and proverbial toasters.

It is my clear impression that many Windows users would be hard pressed to
explain what 'Windows' is and does.

~~~
salawat
Oh God. I've embarked on a project to try to relearn how Windows works again,
and I'm actually having a terrifying time of it.

I"m starting to realize where so many holes in my understanding exist, and
abhor how for so long I was just content to accept most things in Windows just
happened.

Then I started actually digging into log files and various software distro's
and tried to connect all the dots.

Long story short, nothing scares me more now than a computer program that I
can't explain why it's doing what it's doing. SystemD falls into that trap for
me. It may just be a case of sitting down and reverse engineering it until it
clicks, but until then, I'd rather not trust anything important to it.

