
Systemd Brand - Reventlov
http://brand.systemd.io/
======
JohnFen
> The log of OS components successfully starting up, as indicated by the green
> [ OK ], is what many people already identify systemd with. This made it a
> natural choice to derive our visual identity from.

That's an interesting comment, since the green [ OK ] was in use for bootup
messages long before systemd was a thing. Nothing about it says "systemd" to
me.

~~~
jolmg
The comment is true for me, though. When I see a linux machine boot up and
display a series of aligned [ OK ]s on the left-hand side, I know instantly
that it's using systemd. I don't remember seeing [ OK ] with sysvinit, or at
least not as uniformly.

~~~
JohnFen
> I know instantly that it's using systemd.

Except you don't know really know that. It is objectively true that such usage
was around for a long time before systemd in some major distros. I was seeing
it at least 10 years ago, and I still see it on my systems that don't use
systemd.

~~~
jolmg
Well, I could be reasonably sure that it was, at least before I learned today
that there were other init systems that also displayed their output like that.
So, the statement:

> the green [ OK ], is what many people already identify systemd with

is true for people like me that were not familiar with those other systems.

For example, most probably use Ubuntu (and probably only Ubuntu), and as far
as I know it didn't display those [ OK ] until after it adopted systemd. So,
at least there's a very large portion of users that never saw those [ OK ]
until systemd came along.

If I remember right, it was the same case with Archlinux, which is where I was
first exposed to systemd.

Imagine, the biggest news in your distro is the migration to systemd and the
first and most obvious change you notice is that the boot process has all
these neat [ OK ]s instead of random text. I think it's to be expected that
people would identify systemd with that.

~~~
baked_ziti
I guess you're right, your experience is universal. SystemD really IS where
that comes from.

~~~
jolmg
What do you mean? I thought we all agreed that it wasn't.

------
atonse
I too don't get the systemd hate.

I like systemd precisely because the components are nicely integrated with
each other. It seems like what we would design after learning the lessons of
the last 15-20 years of how to manage a linux/unix machine.

I would assume more programmer types would like that the redundant
"intelligence" that was placed in every init script is now gone, and replaced
by a common core that allows you to declaratively say what's different about
your daemon (or mount, timer, etc). I've also read that systemd has smart
defaults, which is a great thing overall over init scripts.

I don't know if this is true, but I would also guess that it makes learning
for newer people easier, since you have a similar paradigm and set of tools
for your services, mounts, timers, etc.

It's consistent, which is great if you don't want to learn 20 different ways
of doing things.

But then again, I also love the ideas from MS PowerShell and wish we had
something like that in the *nix world, so we could pipe objects around rather
than having to work with text and use awk, sed, cut, print, and all those
things to keep legacy workflows around from decades ago. So maybe I'm just
weird :)

~~~
MereInterest
When the default became breaking of screen, tmux, emacs --daemon, nohup, etc,
I started disliking systemd. That the major distributions have overridden that
default does not excuse systemd from having made that default.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11797075](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11797075)

------
jasoneckert
After reading "Savaged by Systemd" by M.W.Lucas, I need this logo to get the
visuals out of my head (link here for those that are curious:
[https://www.amazon.com/Savaged-Systemd-Erotic-Unix-
Encounter...](https://www.amazon.com/Savaged-Systemd-Erotic-Unix-Encounter-
ebook/dp/B075DYXZW1))

------
jolmg
I wonder what drove the need for a logo/brand. Maybe it's to make it more
noticeable that it's not written "SystemD".

------
artonge
Can someone share the reasons why systemd generate so much hate ?

I seems to me that it is quite useful and easy to use.

~~~
caiocaiocaio
Building a Linux distro was like playing with Lego: the pieces were very
interchangeable (in practice there were difficulties, but usually ones that
were fun and rewarding to resolve; "fun and rewarding" is the exact opposite
of SystemD).

SystemD also fails quietly or with useless errors and makes problems hard to
diagnose - so a bug not directly caused by SystemD looks like it comes from
SystemD because SystemD slime is on everything - is extremely poorly-
documented, extremely over-engineered, and subject to rapid change due to the
moodiness and instability of the OverPoetter.

~~~
luckycharms810
I will say on the flip side - Going from cron jobs to Systemd timers has been
super helpful. You can use journalctl to track the output and find pesky
issues like difference in shell, missing environment variables, file
permission issues.

------
fwxwi
In case you ever doubted the systemd team suffers from delusions of grandeur.

~~~
mgbmtl
Really? Like most projects, they have a logo. What's wrong with that?

~~~
fwxwi
A logo, a palette of colours, a typography, brand guidelines... all for an
init system for Linux. They think they are fucking Coca Cola.

If you don't think that's just insane... well I'm just getting old I guess.

~~~
calcifer
An init system is just one of many, many projects under the systemd umbrella.

Perhaps you should learn more about a project before launching into criticism?

~~~
fwxwi
Ah that is true. That reminds me that they should only be an init system and
not Cthulhu.

Friendly reminder that they managed to infiltrate all distros by creating a
hard dependency from GNOME to systemd, which they could only pull off because
both projects belong to the same corporation.

~~~
calcifer
> infiltrate all distros

> hard dependency from GNOME to systemd

> both projects belong to the same corporation

It is honestly impressive how you've managed to fit three different factually
incorrect statements in a single sentence. Kudos.

~~~
fwxwi
GNOME and systemd are funded almost completely by Red Hat and their biggest
contributors are full-time Red Hat employees.

GNOME does not run at all without systemd.

Even the biggest Linux distros, like Gentoo, struggle to create a patchset to
modify GNOME so it does not require systemd; every new version of GNOME takes
months to reach Gentoo stable. Most distros have bent the knee and switched to
systemd because they had no other option, as GNOME is the most used Linux
desktop so they kinda call the shots.

~~~
SahAssar
If the changes are so bad and the maintainers are ignoring proper concerns why
not use one of the forks?

------
tannhaeuser
Oh? I thought they went with Lennax [1].

[1]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21151433](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21151433)

------
tenebrisalietum
It's probably dangerous to wear a systemd T-shirt in some places. You also
probably don't want to have a systemd bumper car sticker in those same places
either.

~~~
capableweb
Hopefully all those rabid programmers who'd start fights with each other over
a t-shirt about a suite of software, have moved to SF already so the rest of
the world don't have to deal with that.

~~~
umanwizard
Plenty of places in the world still where people will start fights over soccer
team colors...

------
TazeTSchnitzel
No kernel patch to replace Tux with the systemd logo?

~~~
JackRabbitSlim
I had some time and for some reason it made me want to go see how boot images
were actually done in the build system so...

[https://pastebin.com/Ewe3UurF](https://pastebin.com/Ewe3UurF)

not tested or proofed, must provide own logo_mark_beast.ppm of the logo

------
phendrenad2
A precursor to Systemd spawning a commercial entity? Will we soon see Systemd
Premium and Systemd Community editions?

------
sorenjan
How do your pronounce it?

~~~
Spivak
“system dee” like “collect dee” or “ess ess aitch dee”

~~~
sorenjan
That's what I thought, but why not write it as SystemD or system-d then?

~~~
jolmg
Because it follows the tradition of suffixing daemon executables with "d",
like httpd or sshd.

[https://freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/#spelling](https://freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/#spelling)

------
caiocaiocaio
What a waste of graphic design.

~~~
sergiomattei
What's the problem with it? It's minimal and displays an element iconic to
their boot logs. It's just a logo.

You can like it or hate it, it's design. It's bound to be subjective. But why
is it "a waste of graphic design"?

On a side note, this kind of unhelpful/non-constructive feedback isn't welcome
on HN.

~~~
caiocaiocaio
I think it's great graphic design, wasted on a project that doesn't need
branding or identity, and certainly doesn't need any more publicity than it
already has. That logo could have been used on something that brought joy into
people's lives.

~~~
SahAssar
For some people systemd "brought joy" into their lives.

~~~
caiocaiocaio
Segregation brought joy into some people's lives. I'm sure Stalin was quite
happy about engineering the famine in the Ukraine. Every great human-created
disaster was pleasing to someone. There are inevitably people who enjoy
conflict, destruction, and tragedy. I mean that this logo is a waste of
graphic design in the sense that the SS uniform is one of the finest examples
of uniform design ever made, but wasted on an organization that would have
been better off never existing.

~~~
SahAssar
Are you seriously comparing systemd with some of the worst crimes against
humanity ever?

If so please look in the mirror. If not serious and just jokingly, please
consider how you got to a place where you thought that was a rational and
decent thing to do.

------
brian_herman__
It should be instead

A stop job is running for Session c2 of user ... (9min 30s)

------
dogecoinbase
Oh hey, if I make a user named [⬤◀], its services will automatically be
started as root. What a handy feature.

------
sneak
[https://twitter.com/hintjens/status/528278007417696256](https://twitter.com/hintjens/status/528278007417696256)

~~~
capableweb
Following that link, I also came across
[https://twitter.com/hintjens/status/783254242052206592](https://twitter.com/hintjens/status/783254242052206592)

"I'm choosing euthanasia etd 1pm." @12:35 PM · Oct 4, 2016

From Wikipedia: Pieter Hintjens (3 December 1962 – 4 October 2016) was a
Belgian software developer

It's his choice, and I support it if that's what he really wanted, but it's
still really creepy to see.

~~~
rabidrat
He was in a lot of pain and wanted to die on his own terms. He was an advocate
for dying with dignity, and his last message was to help normalize euthanasia.
The creepiness you feel is your impetus to work through your feelings about
death and come to terms with it, to admire his incredible clarity and mental
ease without having to couch it in "it's his choice" terms. I thought at the
time it was a touching piece of humanity and I am grateful he was bold enough
to express it.

~~~
capableweb
Maybe I wasn't clear enough in my first message. I absolutely support the same
thing and I don't mean creepy in a bad way. Maybe eerie is a better word for
what I feel about public messages before passing away. I have no problem with
voluntary eutanasia

