Who's Afraid of Systemd?
Now that systemd is uneventfully running the latest releases of major distributions like Debian, Fedora, and Ubuntu, you might imagine that opposition to it is melting away -- but you'd be wrong. Instead, the rumors are as common as ever. Devuan, the anti-systemd fork of Debian, is still trudging towards a release while making the same arguments as ever. Devuan's home page asks: Have you tried to opt-out of the systemd change in Debian and stay with sysvinit? You will quickly notice that "Debian offers no choice." Yet a search quickly unearths instructions for making an install image without systemd and for removing systemd from your system.
Nor does the claim that systemd violates the Unix design principles stand up under scrutiny. Systemd is actually a general name for a series of related, similarly structured commands. From this perspective, systemd conforms to the principle of one program doing a single function in much the same way as the Linux kernel or a command line shell does. It is a suite of programs, not a single monolithic one. Systemd may not be ideal, but systems continue to boot and function the way they are supposed to.
In fact, not only are the most common anti-systemd arguments easily discounted, but they are surrounded by a vagueness that raises suspicions. Wild claims are made without any attempt at substantiation. The result is an air of secrecy and danger that, however appealing and reminiscent of freedom-fighting that it might be, does nothing to justify the anti-systemd rhetoric or make it plausible. Devuan's mailing list mostly shows the same dozen or so posters, and has raised only 7934 Euros. Supporters sound as though they are doing more fear-mongering than constructive effort.
Nor does the claim that systemd violates the Unix design principles stand up under scrutiny. Systemd is actually a general name for a series of related, similarly structured commands. From this perspective, systemd conforms to the principle of one program doing a single function in much the same way as the Linux kernel or a command line shell does. It is a suite of programs, not a single monolithic one. Systemd may not be ideal, but systems continue to boot and function the way they are supposed to.
In fact, not only are the most common anti-systemd arguments easily discounted, but they are surrounded by a vagueness that raises suspicions. Wild claims are made without any attempt at substantiation. The result is an air of secrecy and danger that, however appealing and reminiscent of freedom-fighting that it might be, does nothing to justify the anti-systemd rhetoric or make it plausible. Devuan's mailing list mostly shows the same dozen or so posters, and has raised only 7934 Euros. Supporters sound as though they are doing more fear-mongering than constructive effort.
Fire up explorer. Where the f. is the address bar? oh at the bottom, OBVIOUSLY. I type the address, nothing happens. Not even an error. I check the address, it is correct.
I see a chrome icon. Let's try that.
Chrome doesn't like the certificate. Good chrome, sit, it's a f.in intranet, sit. Clicking through a couple dialogs sets things straight.
Enter proxmox web interface, click for the console... no java plugin available. Download? activate? well, those kind of plugins are not liked anymore, so they will be installable till version XYZ and later no way....
Chrome, damn you to hell, it's a f.in intranet!
Raised hand: "client, I need to install 200mb of java and 25 of firefox to click on a fucking link and have a fucking terminal window, or i have to spend between 2 and 120 mins on proxmox docs and setting up alternative access from win to the VM. Else I'd boot a live linux from usb, install whatever is needed if it's needed in RAM, and GTFO in 10 mins without touching one bit of your workstation HD. WHAT WILL IT BE?"
The client was already having convulsions at the thought of the java plugin popups returning in his life, so it was an easy sell.