should systemd be considered harmful ?

should systemd be considered harmful ?

[Alex Damian]

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Hello,

In release 216, systemd includes a caching nameserver, and full TTY stream
parsing. See details

http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/systemd-devel/2014-August/022295.html

I think the ever growing number of components in systemd will create
conflicts with the normal tools, like libresolv, used in traditional UNIX
systems.

I think the number of components shipped with and required by systemd is
pretty outside the scope for an init system.

I would argue that the monolithic systemd is not in line with the UNIX
philosophy of small tools that do one thing and do it well, and that it is
actually contra-productive to use it in embedded systems due to the large
number of dependencies needed to get it to run, as well as the difficulty
to debug when something goes amiss.

Can I get your opinions in the respect that systemd is a useful tool to
have in the Yocto Project ?


Cheers,
Alex

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Re: should systemd be considered harmful ?

[Diego Sueiro]

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Alex,

On Wed, Aug 20, 2014 at 2:53 PM, Alex Damian <alex.r.damian@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hello,
>
> In release 216, systemd includes a caching nameserver, and full TTY stream
> parsing. See details
>
> http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/systemd-devel/2014-August/022295.html
>
> I think the ever growing number of components in systemd will create
> conflicts with the normal tools, like libresolv, used in traditional UNIX
> systems.
>
> I think the number of components shipped with and required by systemd is
> pretty outside the scope for an init system.
>
> I would argue that the monolithic systemd is not in line with the UNIX
> philosophy of small tools that do one thing and do it well, and that it is
> actually contra-productive to use it in embedded systems due to the large
> number of dependencies needed to get it to run, as well as the difficulty
> to debug when something goes amiss.
>
> Can I get your opinions in the respect that systemd is a useful tool to
> have in the Yocto Project ?


I like systemd for embedded systems. The boot process is faster then
sysVinit and it's easy to create/manage services.
It should me nice if we can install "systemd-ecosystem" with some
granularity like we do with python, for example. But I don't know if it's
possible or not.


Regards,

--
*dS
Diego Sueiro

Administrador do Embarcados
www.embarcados.com.br
<http://www.embarcados.com.br/?utm_source=assinatura_diego&utm_medium=e-mail&utm_campaign=Assinatura%20Email%20Diego>

/*long live rock 'n roll*/

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Re: should systemd be considered harmful ?

[Paul Eggleton]

Hi Alex,

On Wednesday 20 August 2014 18:53:10 Alex Damian wrote:
> In release 216, systemd includes a caching nameserver, and full TTY stream
> parsing. See details
> 
> http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/systemd-devel/2014-August/022295.html
> 
> I think the ever growing number of components in systemd will create
> conflicts with the normal tools, like libresolv, used in traditional UNIX
> systems.
> 
> I think the number of components shipped with and required by systemd is
> pretty outside the scope for an init system.
> 
> I would argue that the monolithic systemd is not in line with the UNIX
> philosophy of small tools that do one thing and do it well, and that it is
> actually contra-productive to use it in embedded systems due to the large
> number of dependencies needed to get it to run, as well as the difficulty
> to debug when something goes amiss.
> 
> Can I get your opinions in the respect that systemd is a useful tool to
> have in the Yocto Project ?

One of the things that OpenEmbedded (and by extension, the Yocto Project) 
emphasises is flexibility. We support three packaging backends for example. It 
has to be this way - the systems we are targeting vary greatly in size, scope, 
and application. The OS produced by our build system may not always 
necessarily resemble a traditional Linux or even Unix system.

As far as init goes, for some devices, you can get by with sysvinit. Others 
can do with much less - e.g. a single sequential script for initialising the 
device and starting services. Others still need something more dynamic and 
robust, and those are the things systemd is designed to handle better. We need 
to cater for all of these, so we have little choice but to support systemd and 
do so properly. That does mean that the build system has to understand what 
functions systemd provides and where other software that might otherwise 
provide that functionality is not needed and thus should not be installed when 
systemd is being used.

I know a lot of people hold the view that systemd is rolling in too many 
functions that are already handled elsewhere, and it has seemed that way to me 
at times. It may be worth taking a look over this blog post if you haven't 
already though:

http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/the-biggest-myths

Cheers,
Paul

-- 

Paul Eggleton
Intel Open Source Technology Centre

Re: should systemd be considered harmful ?

[Diego Sueiro]

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Paul,

On Fri, Aug 22, 2014 at 8:00 AM, Paul Eggleton <
paul.eggleton@linux.intel.com> wrote:

> Hi Alex,
>
> On Wednesday 20 August 2014 18:53:10 Alex Damian wrote:
> > In release 216, systemd includes a caching nameserver, and full TTY
> stream
> > parsing. See details
> >
> >
> http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/systemd-devel/2014-August/022295.html
> >
> > I think the ever growing number of components in systemd will create
> > conflicts with the normal tools, like libresolv, used in traditional UNIX
> > systems.
> >
> > I think the number of components shipped with and required by systemd is
> > pretty outside the scope for an init system.
> >
> > I would argue that the monolithic systemd is not in line with the UNIX
> > philosophy of small tools that do one thing and do it well, and that it
> is
> > actually contra-productive to use it in embedded systems due to the large
> > number of dependencies needed to get it to run, as well as the difficulty
> > to debug when something goes amiss.
> >
> > Can I get your opinions in the respect that systemd is a useful tool to
> > have in the Yocto Project ?
>
> One of the things that OpenEmbedded (and by extension, the Yocto Project)
> emphasises is flexibility. We support three packaging backends for
> example. It
> has to be this way - the systems we are targeting vary greatly in size,
> scope,
> and application. The OS produced by our build system may not always
> necessarily resemble a traditional Linux or even Unix system.
>
> As far as init goes, for some devices, you can get by with sysvinit. Others
> can do with much less - e.g. a single sequential script for initialising
> the
> device and starting services. Others still need something more dynamic and
> robust, and those are the things systemd is designed to handle better. We
> need
> to cater for all of these, so we have little choice but to support systemd
> and
> do so properly. That does mean that the build system has to understand what
> functions systemd provides and where other software that might otherwise
> provide that functionality is not needed and thus should not be installed
> when
> systemd is being used.
>
> I know a lot of people hold the view that systemd is rolling in too many
> functions that are already handled elsewhere, and it has seemed that way
> to me
> at times. It may be worth taking a look over this blog post if you haven't
> already though:
>
> http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/the-biggest-myths
>

Thanks for the link. It's really helpful.


Regards,

--
*dS
Diego Sueiro

Administrador do Embarcados
www.embarcados.com.br
<http://www.embarcados.com.br/?utm_source=assinatura_diego&utm_medium=e-mail&utm_campaign=Assinatura%20Email%20Diego>

/*long live rock 'n roll*/

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