# A guide for the perplexed : Results of Debian Referendum on Systemd



## ctaranotte (Dec 29, 2019)

Here we go

To me, they have come to realize that they over-invested in Systemd and they are no longer sure this is the way to go.

So as a result, they want to bury their confusion under a reassuring mountain of statistics, hedge their bet and keep all their options on the table.


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## SKull (Dec 30, 2019)

If only someone would've told them to reconsider systemd BEFORE they made the switch haphazardly.
Oh wait, thousands did...

'Explore other options...'
That's great. The world needs more linux distributions overloaded with the same GNU stuff.

Sorry for this sarcastic rant   
I just don't understand GNU.


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## Hakaba (Dec 30, 2019)

GNU is Not Understandable.


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## kpedersen (Dec 30, 2019)

GNU/Linux has always made a point of "GNU is Not Unix" and yet has always remained oddly UNIX-like.

I am glad Linux is finally moving away from UNIX and to its own systemd like OS. It is like we are finally seeing the slightly problematic child sod off, move out and make his own life so we can get back to ours XD

Hopefully we will finally see that it is the "UNIX philosophy" that works and not just simply how complex and cool the OS is.

We will need to brace ourselves for an influx of ex-Linux hipsters saying "But Linux has feature X, why doesn't the FreeBSD distro have that?"


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## Crivens (Dec 30, 2019)

SKull said:


> 'Explore other options...'
> That's great.


No. That is what She said.


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## Birdy (Dec 30, 2019)

kpedersen said:


> ... an influx of ex-Linux hipsters saying "But Linux has feature X, why doesn't the FreeBSD distro have that?"


Because of software diversity.


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## wolffnx (Dec 30, 2019)

it's a shame,debian was a great distro but they made their choise, and leaving a lot of users without the oportunity of at least 2 init systems ..so now ...bye bye debian..i found beastie


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## Hakaba (Dec 30, 2019)

For me, the "vote" and the exploitation of result are very strange...

Some option are exactly the same thing :


Option 3 "A: Support for multiple init systems is Important"
Option 6 "E: Support for multiple init systems is Required"
And 

Option 5 "H: Support portability, without blocking progress"
Option 7 "G: Support portability and multiple implementations"
And what append if we sum this options...


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## ralphbsz (Dec 30, 2019)

Hakaba said:


> GNU is Not Understandable.


Dear admins: This is one of the occasions where in the "thanks" button I would like to see one extra emoji: a laughing face. Because this post was funny.


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## CraigHB (Dec 31, 2019)

wolffnx said:


> it's a shame,debian was a great distro but they made their choise, and leaving a lot of users without the oportunity of at least 2 init systems ..so now ...bye bye debian..i found beastie



Same here, was a happy Debian user for a long time.  They took a turn from what I want in a system.  If they're trying to get away from being Unix-like that's what they seem to be doing.  For me I want a Unix system so FreeBSD is best for me.  Actually wish I had started with FreeBSD in the first place.

I think it's great if more people come to BSD, more development opportunities.  But yeah that's not good if they expect it to be something it is not and try to make it that way.


kpedersen said:


> It is like we are finally seeing the slightly problematic child sod off, move out and make his own life so we can get back to ours XD



Yeah but they're always going to keep a room open for him.


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## shepper (Dec 31, 2019)

Most of the financial support for systemd comes by way of IBM/RedHat.  Donation dependent Debian (my worst alliteration of the day) would need to be confident that the funds/expertise for an alternative could be counted on.

Edit:  spelling for the Grammar Nazi


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## cyberzeus (Mar 2, 2020)

These systemd hate parties are beyond hilarious.  Don't get me wrong, I don't think we need systemd on FreeBSD but it's not because systemd is a POS (which it's not), it's because we don't need it on FreeBSD.  Said differently the only criteria is the following: If it ain't broke, then don't F with it.


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## mark_j (Mar 2, 2020)

cyberzeus said:


> These systemd hate parties are beyond hilarious.  Don't get me wrong, I don't think we need systemd on FreeBSD but it's not because systemd is a POS (which it's not), it's because we don't need it on FreeBSD.  Said differently the only criteria is the following: If it ain't broke, then don't F with it.


Hilarity is joining here specifically to defend bloatware.

Oh, incidentally, there's never been any serious effort to introduce such a rat's nest like systemd, so you can sleep easy now knowing that. Someone tried a port or something, then apparently fell into a coma... 

Ps has systemd  stopped expanding yet, or is it still gobbling up user space? There's surely 100s more services, libraries and utilities it can re-write/re-invent? Will it ever finish? Of course not, because in linux-land when something becomes stable, it gets labelled as unmaintained and they all scream out that it's time for a new one and a full re-write.
Now that's hilarious.


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## mefizto (Mar 2, 2020)

Hi shepper,



shepper said:


> my worst alteration of the day



Sorry for the grammar Nazism , the term is "alliteration".

Kindest regards,

M


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## shkhln (Mar 2, 2020)

mark_j said:


> Ps has systemd  stopped expanding yet, or is it still gobbling up user space? There's surely 100s more services, libraries and utilities it can re-write/re-invent? Will it ever finish?



The whole point of systemd is being an umbrella project for Lennart's projects. It's quite intentionally doesn't have any scope.


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## oops (Mar 2, 2020)

mark_j said:


> Oh, incidentally, there's never been any serious effort to introduce such a rat's nest like systemd, so you can sleep easy now knowing that. Someone tried a port or something, then apparently fell into a coma...


A few years ago there were several attempts at porting *launchD*. NeXTBSD was probably the most recent.

Porting *systemD* (or reimplementing features like *loginD)* makes more sense because software originating in Linux is often compatible with BSDs than software originating in macOS. For example, neither X11 (discouraged) nor Wayland (not ported) nor OpenGL (4.1 max, deprecated) nor Vulkan (Metal shim) are well supported on macOS.


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## 20-100-2fe (Mar 2, 2020)

Just by curiosity, what do you need from Linux that hasn't been ported to systemd yet?


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## eternal_noob (Mar 2, 2020)

shkhln said:


> The whole point of systemd is being an umbrella project for Lennart's projects.


I think it's Red Hat wanting to take over Linux. They even wanted to move dbus into the kernel (kdbus) but thankfully it got rejected.


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## 20-100-2fe (Mar 2, 2020)

freebsd_noob said:


> I think it's Red Hat wanting to take over Linux.



I don't know if it's really that, but there's something evil at work in the Linux world.

The vote at Debian was twisted from the start : though there are several init systems out there (e.g. runit, openrc and s6), the choice that has been given by Debian was between systemd only and systemd + SysV init. Other alternatives have never been mentioned, even upon request. And of course, in the 21st century, who would be willing to use SysV init any longer?

And in order to make sure no discussion would be possible, see what they've done from what was at the beginning a simple yes/no question: the voting process has been made completely surrealistic and the interpretation of the results absolutely opaque. Politicians would have a lot to learn from this vote!

In the past, Debian was proud of its values and was pushing forward its social contract. All of this is long gone with the wind.

Maybe Red Hat isn't plotting to take over Linux. Maybe it's just that the spirit that was blowing on the beginnings of the Linux adventure has vanished, leaving just dark egos and greedy merchants in the temple.


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## mark_j (Mar 2, 2020)

oops said:


> A few years ago there were several attempts at porting *launchD*. NeXTBSD was probably the most recent.
> 
> Porting *systemD* (or reimplementing features like *loginD)* makes more sense because software originating in Linux is often compatible with BSDs than software originating in macOS. For example, neither X11 (discouraged) nor Wayland (not ported) nor OpenGL (4.1 max, deprecated) nor Vulkan (Metal shim) are well supported on macOS.



Porting systemd makes NO SENSE. None. It's not compatible with ANY open standard, it's linux-centric, it's junk  and it does not benefit or enhance FreeBSD (or any non-linux based OS) in any way.


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## recluce (Mar 5, 2020)

If anybody tried to bring systemd to the Ports, it would be time to bring out the tar and the feathers....


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## Crivens (Mar 6, 2020)

I would more likely expect a blindfold and a ciggy...


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## mark_j (Mar 6, 2020)

Crivens said:


> I would more likely expect a blindfold and a ciggy...


As a follow on, the only country I know of off hand that executes civilians via firing squad is Indonesia.

They don't allow smoking; it's bad for your health!


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## Crivens (Mar 7, 2020)

mark_j said:


> As a follow on, the only country I know of off hand that executes civilians via firing squad is Indonesia.
> 
> They don't allow smoking; it's bad for your health!


There are worse ways to go (and many better ones). 

That said, the one who puts systemd up in ports will be a high contender for the balls of steel award. And he better wear asbestos underwear. Apart from that, huge respect for pulling that off and beating that code base into submission. But that would still not make me like it.


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## rootbert (Mar 7, 2020)

while I think a new, more modern init system would be worthwile we all know that the resources in FreeBSD are limited, so in that case they would better be spent on more important things (attracting more users with a proper ac wifi stack etc.). However I think we all agree we don't want systemd, at least not in the format/excess Linux is using it.


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## Hakaba (Mar 7, 2020)

rootbert said:


> while I think a new, more modern init system would be worthwile ...


As I understood, systemd is not only an init system.
But ok, if we need a better init system for FreeBSD the first step is to list goals.

The second step is publishing stable ABI to help the init system to be efficient.
Third party software have to respect this ABI to perform our goals.
This two step are not that hard.

The third step will be developing a tool that consume the ABI to improve rc.

As I use jails, the boot time is not a pain for me. But I probably can vote for some improvements if a real list appear.

Last point, systemd made too much things.
Maybe rc can launch a process with id=2 to resolve some pain point and this process launch id=3 and 4 and 5 to optimize something and so on.


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## shkhln (Mar 7, 2020)

I don't believe ABI means what you think it means.


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## xtremae (Mar 7, 2020)

Service files are usually scripts —not binaries— that are being parsed during runtime so, ABIs are probably not relevant in this context.


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## shkhln (Mar 7, 2020)

Too be precise, I didn't mean to shoot down the entire post, but it probably could be written more clearly.


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## kpedersen (Mar 7, 2020)

Nothing that a s/ABI/API/g cant fix 

As for startup speed, servers rarely need to restart, laptops use suspend. Not sure there is a use-case for "fast startup" these days.

Is it just me but I also notice FreeBSD as it is now starts up faster than an Android phone? And consumers seem to like those cretinous pieces of crap.

From what I can see, systemd is only really existing for one thing, hooking up the underlying system to GUIs like RedHat's Gnome in a consistent and uniform manner. And it achieves (somewhat) the task using glorified .ini files. You cannot do this with shell scripts. In this day and age you can not really market a product without a GUI either.

Unfortunately going the other way and using systemd in a purely CLI environment, something feels missing. You are losing a lot of power in the replacement commands. Possibly what is lost is effectively what we know as "Unix-like".


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## Beastie7 (Mar 7, 2020)

Red Hat is just trying to curate (or re-invent, poorly) all low level interfaces into one single entity; a 'base' system, if you will. Albeit being done poorly. As long the GNU / Linux dichotomy exists this will never work in an efficient and cohesive matter. GNU and Linux will never be developed under the same house. Systemd from it's inception was meant to be overbearing, far more than an init system. Lennert knows this.. it's smart, but his (and his kins) execution sucks.


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## ralphbsz (Mar 7, 2020)

kpedersen said:


> As for startup speed, servers rarely need to restart, laptops use suspend. Not sure there is a use-case for "fast startup" these days.


I've written it before, perhaps in a different thread. Even for servers, startup speed *CAN* matter, it doesn't always. From a "total percentage outage" point of view, the startup makes little difference: if a server is rebooted once every 3 months, then the difference between a 10 second and a 10 minute bootup is just 0.01% of uptime. But in many environments uptime is not important, downtime is. And that difference is also the difference between 6 nines and 4-1/2 nines. If you're trying to sell a computing service with 5 nines of availability (not uncommon), that is a HUGE effect. In particular if you need to double the number of servers to get to your desired availability (by having an active/standby setup), that difference could quickly escalate to a factor 2 of hardware cost. Now take that factor of 2 and apply it at the scale of a large data center (which can easily cost 10^9 $), and we're talking real money. Note: In reality, availability is a combination of many factors, including power (to get to anything above 3-4 nines you need batteries and generators) and software. And often boot time is not dominated by the init system, but by the BIOS. But on the other hand, many servers get rebooted regularly. I know that some cloud providers reboot every machine once every week or two, because today's operating systems all have a little bit of leakage (some more, some less); at that point, the difference between 10s and 10m of boot time becomes more relevant. So in the real world, the answer is really complicated, but "fast startup" is still a relevant factor.



> ... an Android phone? And consumers seem to like those cretinous pieces of crap.


A: Do I care what consumers like or do? No.
B: Many consumers don't have a real choice; they can either get Android, or spend significantly more for iOS, which doesn't boot that much faster.


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## kpedersen (Mar 7, 2020)

Surely I cannot see a server that boots in 1 second or 15 making any real difference in yearly downtime. The fact that it had to reboot is pretty much the "damage" done.



ralphbsz said:


> A: Do I care what consumers like or do? No.



I guess what I was saying is that consumers are governing the direction of Linux more and more these days. Since they do not care about startup speed from the fact that Android seems fairly successful, we can project that systemd's improved startup speed is less important to them and in no way should be a deciding factor on why our init system needs improvement.



ralphbsz said:


> significantly more for iOS, which doesn't boot that much faster.



I couldn't comment. I have never booted an iOS device. I don't even think I have touched one before haha.


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## 20-100-2fe (Mar 7, 2020)

Excuse my ignorance, but I don't understand why FreeBSD should need another init system.
The current one seems simple and pretty well documented.
What kind of issues do you have with it?


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## mark_j (Mar 7, 2020)

I often hear that, but I'm wary of the need to have a 'modern' init system. Why? Just so it can be called modern?
I will preempt your possible response of 'parallel startup' to say on a lot of our servers with raid cards the longest time for the entire power cycle time is taken up in uefi/bios boot and the actual freebsd boot is quick. Mind you we avoid booting servers like avoiding the chinese flu (aka novel coronavirus)... 

I understand systemd/linux needs a faster boot because of all the guff it loads and they're more focused on the embedded market; neither of these apply to freebsd.


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## mark_j (Mar 7, 2020)

kpedersen said:


> Surely I cannot see a server that boots in 1 second or 15 making any real difference in yearly downtime. The fact that it had to reboot is pretty much the "damage" done.



For stand alone servers this is true but it is even more relevant for servers running virtual hosts. We have servers that have not been rebooted for years. Other servers have only had down time for maintenance/repair and then who cares how fast they boot up? Umm, yes, we've had the server down for 3 hours to replace RAM, run tests, prep it, etc but now we fret about 20 seconds lost at boot? I don't think so.

I can only assume the driving force for systemd/linux is fast initial boot for laptops (but as you stated, once booted, you generally sleep/wake them) and embedded devices. Either that or linux servers require frequent rebooting?!?!


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## 20-100-2fe (Mar 8, 2020)

What I understand from various contributions on this forum is that the concern is with VM instances at cloud operators, not with bare metal, nor embedded systems.

What I don't really understand is why people posting here focus on systemd, whereas it is NOT the only init system out there.
Void Linux uses runit and it boots impressively fast, faster than the other distributions I've tried.
GhostBSD uses OpenRC.
The de-facto monopoly of systemd in the Linux world has political roots, not technical.
FreeBSD not being a Linux distribution, there is no reason to invite Linux politics in our technical choices.
Furthermore, the problem with systemd is not with its init system functionality, but with the fact that it controls everything else, often in unexpected and undesired ways, impacting the source code of applications and making them less portable - if still portable at all.

If FreeBSD really needed to change its init system, choosing or developing another one would require to clearly state the strengths and weaknesses of the current solution so as to improve it in a consistent way.

This is why I've asked my question in the post above. I'm interested in the light experienced people could shed on the strengths and weaknesses of FreeBSD's current init system.

Apparently, as mark_j outlined, parallel startup is one of its weaknesses. From what I've seen browsing rc.d, it could be solved with some refactoring.

Are there any other problems besides this one?


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## kpedersen (Mar 8, 2020)

20-100-2fe said:


> Are there any other problems besides this one?



An important one is compatibility with FOSS software originally developed for Linux.

I imagine if systemd does completely take over FOSS developer mindset, we will see a systemd shim within FreeBSD ports at the very least (a couple already exist).

The other init systems to me aren't worth really discussing or looking into until at least a couple of distros share the same system. Otherwise we could be looking into how RISCOS or Windows 3.1 starts its services.


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## 20-100-2fe (Mar 8, 2020)

kpedersen said:


> An important one is compatibility with FOSS software originally developed for Linux.



If this is really so important, then there is no future for FreeBSD: after changing the init system, you'll realize FreeBSD's kernel is another important obstacle to using software originally developed for Linux. So are its base utilities, too different from their Linux equivalents.

So why use FreeBSD? Why not just do the opposite - a much easier way, i.e. to port the BSD features you'd miss to Linux?

Being different from the masses has never been easy.
Stopping being different has a name: dying.


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## mark_j (Mar 9, 2020)

20-100-2fe said:


> What I understand from various contributions on this forum is that the concern is with VM instances at cloud operators, not with bare metal, nor embedded systems.



As far as an init system is concerned?
As I stated speed isn't everything. If cloud operators are rebooting their servers every day to prevent OS memory leaks then they should be seeking a new OS or becoming competent in discovering those said leaks.




20-100-2fe said:


> What I don't really understand is why people posting here focus on systemd, whereas it is NOT the only init system out there.



(Apart from it's the subject of this topic? )
And the fact is it's not an init system either. It's more than that. That's its problem. Forgetting all the extra parts it has engulfed as it meanders into userland and subsumes GNU, its init system is a horrible design hanging everything off PID 1.



20-100-2fe said:


> Void Linux uses runit and it boots impressively fast, faster than the other distributions I've tried.
> GhostBSD uses OpenRC.
> The de-facto monopoly of systemd in the Linux world has political roots, not technical.



And that's just great. Let them keep it there. It would seem almost incomprehensible that any BSD would consider any aspect of systemd to be a worthwhile thing to copy. As I stated earlier, it's deliberately designed to be non-portable and Linux-centric. That was a great decision by its designers because it makes it less likely some poor sod would attempt to port it. Look at a previous committer, Beno Rice's love affair with it. If he had his way it would be under development in FreeBSD. Oh, the inhumanity!

Redhat obviously wants to control the narrative of Linux userland. It can't control the kernel, so systemd is its chance to dictate how things work. It's perfectly understandable from their business perspective. It just amazes me how dumb the average Linux fan of systemd is because they can't see this as being a negative. The average fan spouts about the pre-systemd init systems being full of shell scripts etc and yet most of them would have never written an init shell script in their lives. They'd support systemd even if it was a front for the Taliban.  




20-100-2fe said:


> FreeBSD not being a Linux distribution, there is no reason to invite Linux politics in our technical choices.
> Furthermore, the problem with systemd is not with its init system functionality, but with the fact that it controls everything else, often in unexpected and undesired ways, impacting the source code of applications and making them less portable - if still portable at all.



I freely admit I know less and less about it as I have no interest in it (apart from not wanting it in BSDs). However, I did try it early on and was aghast at its demands for you to change how you program daemons. How it handles system logging. How it handles core dumps. How it handles init services and just waits for minutes for a problem to resolve. How it defaults to not allowing users to leave a process running after logout. It's basically the mantra of "we know best, so change your ways or get out!" (For Star Trek fans: I AM BORG!)



20-100-2fe said:


> If FreeBSD really needed to change its init system, choosing or developing another one would require to clearly state the strengths and weaknesses of the current solution so as to improve it in a consistent way.
> 
> This is why I've asked my question in the post above. I'm interested in the light experienced people could shed on the strengths and weaknesses of FreeBSD's current init system.
> 
> ...



Of course you would have to illustrate the current pitfalls of the rc system and how to design around it. But, there's ports and other utilities to give you things like parallel startup. Why complicate something just to "modernize" it? Manpower is obviously an important issue. I'm not sure some Google Summer of Code project could solve it...

Do you want to monitor an init service to re-start it should it fail? There's a port for that (or write a shell script if you're able). Sun wrote all this back 20 years ago in their SMF. They weren't trying to be compatible with other OS's. Same goes for systemd.

Then, as can been seen by observing systemd developers, scope creep engulfs the process as you try and solve more and more problems you've just created with your last great 'enhancement'. It's why systemd will never stop expanding into userland and kernel. Who knows, in ten years time, the linux fraternity might be asking how they can unwind themselves from this systemd mess.


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## Phishfry (Mar 9, 2020)

Slightly off topic but relevant:
I was surprised to fire up a Devuan ASCii installer and saw that they allow choice at the installer now between SysV and OpenRC.
That is pretty sweet. Personally I am against any change to our startup system.
Devuan is in a unique spot where they are trying to bring user choice to startup systems and systemd refuseniks.


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## Atarian (Mar 9, 2020)

I'm more than happy with SysV on Slackware. It boots the system and nothing more. Why do you need a webserver in your init system? Why do you need a huge monolith that does everything? It's against the Unix way, which is to have many small programs that do a specific job and interoperate.

Saying that, I've been using FreeBSD more and more because it's less resource intensive and more sane.


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## mark_j (Mar 9, 2020)

Atarian said:


> I'm more than happy with SysV on Slackware. It boots the system and nothing more. Why do you need a webserver in your init system? Why do you need a huge monolith that does everything? It's against the Unix way, which is to have many small programs that do a specific job and interoperate.
> 
> Saying that, I've been using FreeBSD more and more because it's less resource intensive and more sane.


A webserver in the init? You're kidding?


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## kpedersen (Mar 9, 2020)

mark_j said:


> A webserver in the init? You're kidding?



It is *so* convenient, because now I can poll dependencies for my init startup script by polling a RESTful API. 

Check out this beauty!


```
while true; do
  RES=`curl "http://localhost:1/running_services" | grep network`
  RC=$?

  if [ $RC = 0 ]; then
    continue;
  fi

  if [ "$RES" = "network: running" ]; then
    break;
  fi
done

dhclient &
# I can't go on. It is too daft XD
```



Phishfry said:


> I was surprised to fire up a Devuan ASCii installer and saw that they allow choice at the installer now between SysV and OpenRC.



I am all up for choice but I find something like this a little too much choice. In many ways adding a new init system instantly adds quite a lot of development burdon on the package maintainers.

So not having a choice in the init system is better IMO. But only if they make the *right* choice... which isn't systemd XD


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## mark_j (Mar 9, 2020)

kpedersen said:


> It is *so* convenient, because now I can poll dependencies for my init startup script by polling a RESTful API.
> 
> Check out this beauty!
> 
> ...



LOL. Yet another example of scope creep. Provide a solution to a non-existent problem, which then requires a solution to the problem it just created.
Meanwhile rcorder plods along with REQUIRE:
And works.


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## Crivens (Mar 10, 2020)

Atarian said:


> It's against the Unix way, which is to have many small programs that do a specific job and interoperate.


Was it somehow unclear? _*G*nu is *N*ot *U*nix._

And that webserver really takes the cake. Who greenlighted that manure? Qi-yah!


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## Truupe (Mar 11, 2020)

Phishfry said:


> Slightly off topic but relevant:
> I was surprised to fire up a Devuan ASCii installer and saw that they allow choice at the installer now between SysV and OpenRC.
> That is pretty sweet. Personally I am against any change to our startup system.
> Devuan is in a unique spot where they are trying to bring user choice to startup systems and systemd refuseniks.



That choice seems to be a new feature of Ascii 2.1 installer as it wasn't in 2.0.


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## Phishfry (Mar 11, 2020)

Exactly. I understand kpedersen 's point about package maintainers now having to account for two startup daemons.


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## garry (Mar 11, 2020)

Phishfry said:


> I was surprised to fire up a Devuan ASCii installer and saw that they allow choice at the installer now between SysV and OpenRC.
> That is pretty sweet.



It is sweet.  I ran for some time the Beowulf pre-release of Devuan with OpenRC.  It was a _very_ fast boot and totally reliable (I've also run the corresponding Debian Buster release and it was not totally reliable.  For one thing I ran into the infamous hang at reboot time (that hang would be death to a server which could be left doing absolutely nothing for an indefinite number of minutes of deadtime).  Of course systemd stupidities like the old problem of being unable to switch from X into a console (!) get fixed -- and replaced by other stupidities.  I've also used OpenRC on FreeBSD via TrueOS and it is quite pleasant.  OpenRC good.  systemd _very_ bad.  (OK it works _great_ for most users most of the time and completely _f**ks_ some of the users some of the time).


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## Truupe (Mar 12, 2020)

garry said:


> It is sweet.  I ran for some time the Beowulf pre-release of Devuan with OpenRC.  It was a _very_ fast boot and totally reliable (I've also run the corresponding Debian Buster release and it was not totally reliable.  For one thing I ran into the infamous hang at reboot time (that hang would be death to a server which could be left doing absolutely nothing for an indefinite number of minutes of deadtime).  Of course systemd stupidities like the old problem of being unable to switch from X into a console (!) get fixed -- and replaced by other stupidities.  I've also used OpenRC on FreeBSD via TrueOS and it is quite pleasant.  OpenRC good.  systemd _very_ bad.  (OK it works _great_ for most users most of the time and completely _f**ks_ some of the users some of the time).



Devuan has been my personal and professional distro of choice since 1.0 was released.  But my concern for the future of linux has motivated me to return to Free/Open/NetBSD in a more serious way...specifically using the "need" for a secondary backup server platform as my excuse to load FreeBSD w/ ZFS and tinker around with it.  Migrating from RHEL 6 to Devuan 2.0 on our company servers is nearly complete, but should Devuan's future be compromised by Debian's foolishness, I need an escape plan.


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## kpedersen (Mar 12, 2020)

Truupe said:


> but should Devuan's future be compromised by Debian's foolishness, I need an escape plan.



When confronted with Linux, Devuan would definitely be my choice, but what you stated sounds like a good plan. I know many people say (quite correctly) that the BSD projects have much less man power than Linux. However this small number is still considerably larger than an individual distro that will have to fight systemd almost entirely alone.

I also wonder if developers will provide more care to port to FreeBSD as an entire operating system compared to what they see as a niche individual distro with an unknown init system. Time will tell. That said, I think the entire Linux community reverting back to Devuan is a potential outcome too (in which case we would be at the "forefront of OSS technology" again as a bonus ).


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## jiaxing (Mar 14, 2020)

kpedersen said:


> When confronted with Linux, Devuan would definitely be my choice, but what you stated sounds like a good plan.* I know many people say (quite correctly) that the BSD projects have much less man power than Linux. However this small number is still considerably larger than an individual distro that will have to fight systemd almost entirely alone.*
> 
> I also wonder if developers will provide more care to port to FreeBSD as an entire operating system compared to what they see as a niche individual distro with an unknown init system. Time will tell. That said, I think the entire Linux community reverting back to Devuan is a potential outcome too (in which case we would be at the "forefront of OSS technology" again as a bonus ).


I'm 100% agree!

When people said they are lacking man power to do something, the fact is they mean they *just don't care* and if you desperately want it *just do it yourselves* and they are very willingly to merge your pull request. The later part I'm unsure. Because they know individual users with no CS knowledge like us will never have the ability to do such a job so their speech here is just to speech. If someone come up with a ready to use patch they will said that they don't have the man power needed to merge the patch and everything still stagnant as before.

Lack of man power is a magic spell. And it worked very well. No one could blame you if you cast this spell to their faces. This spell will shut up any voice concerning the need to do something useful.

p/s: Finally they know the need for a better Wifi support, but we will have to carefully watching if it really happens. I will not move my desktop system to FreeBSD anytime soon in the near future and just stick with Debian 10.


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## kpedersen (Mar 14, 2020)

jiaxing said:


> When people said they are lacking man power to do something, the fact is they mean they *just don't care* and if you desperately want it *just do it yourselves* and they are very willingly to merge your pull request.



Exactly. I contribute to a few open-source projects but I just don't care enough about Linux these days. I am sure many members of these forums are in the same position.

I am also pretty sure skeptics of systemd will just migrate to FreeBSD rather than use a more niche distro. (Though, I don't think that is particularly healthy for FreeBSD or its communities in all fairness)


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## jiaxing (Mar 14, 2020)

kpedersen said:


> Exactly. I contribute to a few open-source projects but I just don't care enough about Linux these days. I am sure many members of these forums are in the same position.
> 
> *I am also pretty sure skeptics of systemd will just migrate to FreeBSD rather than use a more niche distro.* (Though, I don't think that is particularly healthy for FreeBSD or its communities in all fairness)


This is somewhat conspiracy. I will not move to FreeBSD because FreeBSD's Wifi support sucks. I will not make the move just because I hate systemd. I'm not willing to give up my network speed. I have to pay the same bill every months, why I have to use an inferior product? (No, I don't mean FreeBSD as an OS is inferior, but it Wifi stack is obviously inferior to Linux). I'm the kind of people will not let ideology to affect my decision. With or without systemd, my Debian 10 still fast and smooth, my commonly used applications still there and worked fine. The most sensible move for me is to Devuan, if systemd really messed my system (that it doesn't, currently), not FreeBSD. FreeBSD is something to keep inside VirtualBox or online VPS, not something to use on a laptop or even, desktop.


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## shkhln (Mar 14, 2020)

jiaxing said:


> FreeBSD is something to keep inside VirtualBox or online VPS, not something to use on a laptop or even, desktop.


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## wolffnx (Mar 14, 2020)

jiaxing said:


> *FreeBSD is something to keep inside VirtualBox or online VPS, not something to use on a laptop or even, desktop.*



let me now why please


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## wolffnx (Mar 14, 2020)

*FreeBSD is something to keep inside VirtualBox or online VPS, not something to use on a laptop or even, desktop*

let me now why please
i'had to add...now that you mention "pay bills every month" , when systemd(maybe) gets non-free and
the linux users will have to pay a license...where you go?
there will be a market around this in the future,when they dominate the dependencies of the last version packages(like gnome) and they NEED systemd to work...the options not be many


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## mark_j (Mar 14, 2020)

jiaxing said:


> This is somewhat conspiracy. I will not move to FreeBSD because FreeBSD's Wifi support sucks. I will not make the move just because I hate systemd. I'm not willing to give up my network speed. I have to pay the same bill every months, why I have to use an inferior product? (No, I don't mean FreeBSD as an OS is inferior, but it Wifi stack is obviously inferior to Linux). I'm the kind of people will not let ideology to affect my decision. With or without systemd, my Debian 10 still fast and smooth, my commonly used applications still there and worked fine. The most sensible move for me is to Devuan, if systemd really messed my system (that it doesn't, currently), not FreeBSD. FreeBSD is something to keep inside VirtualBox or online VPS, not something to use on a laptop or even, desktop.



I don't believe anyone's forcing you to use FreeBSD, are they?

FreeBSD is less of a desktop experience than Linux, that's true. Just as Linux is less of a desktop experience compared to Windows or even MacOS.

Your point is therefore valid and there's no reason for you using it on a desktop if you compromise on WiFi quality. 

FreeBSD is aimed at servers, it's GUI desktop environment has always been an after-thought. Why would it even attempt to match what Linux and all the thousands of developers that contribute to it can do. I mean, Linux people (and companies) are working on the 802.11ax standard and FreeBSD hasn't even got 802.11ac working correctly. That's no slight on the developers, it's just pure economics; not enough manpower.

Because of this, FreeBSD is compromised in some areas. It's not therefore all things to all people. I accept that, you accept that and we can all stop comparing which one's better; Linux or FreeBSD. Use what suits you. 

PS. If you want 100% coverage of all WiFi cards, then your only choice is Windows.


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## wolffnx (Mar 14, 2020)

sorry...double post


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## kpedersen (Mar 14, 2020)

jiaxing said:


> With or without systemd, my Debian 10 still fast and smooth, my commonly used applications still there and worked fine.



And that is fine. I am sure you are very happy with your current setup and that is why you are on a forums of a completely different operating system.

Just like Bluetooth, the latest WiFi gizmos are a consumer affair and there is more to computing than that. Debian is great. I use it (more or less) on my Raspberry Pi. Works well.

I agree with mark_j : If this kind of hardware is the most important thing to you; then you will find more success with Windows than you will even Linux (at least for another 5 years).


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## aragats (Mar 14, 2020)

jiaxing said:


> I will not move my desktop system to FreeBSD anytime soon in the near future and just stick with Debian 10


You put things upside down: at the first place why you WOULD LIKE to use FreeBSD as your desktop OS? If you're happy with Debian and MS Windows, why this question even bothers you?

I do use FreeBSD in both scenarios: as servers and as desktops for many years. I find the desktop use is really useful and advantageous at my workplace although I have to deal with embedded Linux as a part of my job.


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## obsigna (Mar 14, 2020)

aragats said:


> You put things upside down: at the first place why you WOULD LIKE to use FreeBSD as your desktop OS? If you're happy with Debian and MS Windows, why this question even bothers you?
> ...


The actual and at the same time easier to answer question is: _„Why you WOULD LIKE US not to use FreeBSD as our desktop OS?“_ Answer: _„Because he wants to make his problems ours, by dragging us into his Linux/Windows hell.“_


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## 20-100-2fe (Mar 14, 2020)

jiaxing said:


> Lack of man power is a magic spell. And it worked very well. No one could blame you if you cast this spell to their faces. This spell will shut up any voice concerning the need to do something useful.



Definitely, no!

I've been a developer for 30+ years, I know the job - which is usually your daytime job.
On open source projects, "lack of manpower" means "lack of paid, full-time manpower".
When you've spent 8-9 hours on your daytime job, plus 2-3 hours commuting, you deserve some rest and, if possible, some leisure other than coding.


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## PMc (Mar 14, 2020)

mark_j said:


> FreeBSD is less of a desktop experience than Linux, that's true. Just as Linux is less of a desktop experience compared to Windows or even MacOS.



When I want an experience, I usually do something different than run a computer.


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## Beastie7 (Mar 15, 2020)

I think this defeatist attitude about the inadequacies of FreeBSD isn't healthy for newcomers or the existing community. Telling someone to use X operating system for Y feature doesn't really help in fostering the growth of usage or aspects of the platform. I'd be best if these concerns be brought up with the Foundation, than complaining here at forums or to the developers.

I wish the Foundation would do a better job of assessing the needs of it's users (including non-developers) or lack of features to cultivate more wide spread usage. Maybe even throw a poll up, and pay a developer a years (or something) salary to develop X feature, etc.


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## mark_j (Mar 15, 2020)

It is not a defeatist attitude, it's realism. If people think FreeBSD will run on alll devices then they're sadly mistaken.
Why hide its inadequacies? Linux has many inadequacies vs Windows. It's just dealing with the reality of it being a more niche operating system with limited manpower and money. 

If you don't openly state what FreeBSD supports but rather pretend it does everything (out of the box) you run the risk of deceiving people. While systemd/linux is not for novices, FreeBSD is not for systemd/linux distro hoppers either.

I do agree with your views on the foundation. It seems extremely remote from its userbase (the plebs shall I say) but obviously listens to netflix et al. When presenting in Australia to the linux .conf, Goodkin gives the spiel about FreeBSD and how she listens to the community. All I can say to that is actions speak louder than words.

Perhaps a 'feedback to the foundation' forum is required?









						Supporting an open source operating system: a Q&A with the FreeBSD Foundation
					

FreeBSD has continued to evolve thanks to its large community of developers




					www.techradar.com


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## shkhln (Mar 16, 2020)

__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1237834490778615810_View: https://twitter.com/freebsdfndation/status/1237834490778615810_


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## mark_j (Mar 16, 2020)

shkhln said:


> __ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1237834490778615810_View: https://twitter.com/freebsdfndation/status/1237834490778615810_



What's that about? Twitter is blocked at our firewall (that and faceplant, instaglam etc...)
I guess I could open my phone...


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## shkhln (Mar 16, 2020)

http://archive.li/QhAgC


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## mark_j (Mar 16, 2020)

Ah right. Maybe it would help to put more than just a link in?
Anyway, yes, Deb Goodkin announced development of that in the Quarterly statement (I think). It's probably overdue for laptop users wanting a decent speed. Now, it's *when *rather than *if*.


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## shkhln (Mar 16, 2020)

mark_j said:


> Ah right. Maybe it would help to put more than just a link in?



Preview fetching/embedding makes this a bit redundant for other users. Complaint noted, though.


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## Beastie7 (Mar 16, 2020)

mark_j said:


> It is not a defeatist attitude, it's realism. If people think FreeBSD will run on alll devices then they're sadly mistaken.
> Why hide its inadequacies? Linux has many inadequacies vs Windows. It's just dealing with the reality of it being a more niche operating system with limited manpower and money.
> 
> If you don't openly state what FreeBSD supports but rather pretend it does everything (out of the box) you run the risk of deceiving people. While systemd/linux is not for novices, FreeBSD is not for systemd/linux distro hoppers either.



You've misunderstood my point. My entire premise is to be more positive and productive about its shortcomings, than deterring users away from the platform by preserving the status quo. Which isn't conducive to making FreeBSD more useful. Saying "Oh well, we don't have it. Go use X platform" is far less encouraging than bringing the issue up to someone who could possibly make things happen. Hence my statement about the Foundation.


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## mark_j (Mar 16, 2020)

Beastie7 said:


> You've misunderstood my point. My entire premise is to be more positive and productive about its shortcomings, than deterring users away from the platform by preserving the status quo. Which isn't conducive to making FreeBSD more useful. Saying "Oh well, we don't have it. Go use X platform" is far less encouraging than bringing the issue up to someone who could possibly make things happen. Hence my statement about the Foundation.


Accepted, but then where's the avenue for such enhancements? Where's the feedback from users to the foundation or core or whoever is responsible for the direction at any given moment? Without it, we just note the shortcomings and wait and wait and wait....

Equally, what I'm saying is that, for example, 802.11ac is not functional (or partly). There's no sugar coating it. If you want an OS that supports it fully and without drop-outs then FreeBSD is not the one. Whether there's a fix in the pipeline doesn't affect the reality of the moment, does it?


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## Beastie7 (Mar 16, 2020)

All great questions. I wonder where the motive came from for the Foundation to initiate their 11ac efforts. I think some kind of feature planning and priority survey could be propped up with a list of things users would care about for a certain use case. For example, for the desktop a survey could enlist things we feel are needed, and which ever is most selected or selected by priority; resources could be allocated to developing for it. The same for servers, embedded, etc. It appears to me that things are either developed on the whims of the committers or the Foundations donors. This is fine, but I feel there are more users who're interested in FreeBSD as a desktop than what we think appears to be.


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## garry (Mar 16, 2020)

jiaxing said:


> .....I'm the kind of people will not let ideology to affect my decision.....


Your decision to use Debian or Devuan is perfectly reasonable, but those who are using FreeBSD (I primarily run OpenBSD) do not do so because of any "ideology" -- it is an engineering decision and requires a careful understanding of what one is trying to achieve with "the system", the economic/time cost of each option and the functionality gained by each option.  It is hard to face tradeoffs like this but we are all optimizing for the stuff that matters most to us.  Facing the tradeoffs realistically is tough and demanding but it sure as hell is not simply a matter of ideology.  I don't know what "operating system" ideology could even mean.  I guess I missed the chapter on Ideology.


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## Atarian (Mar 17, 2020)

Crivens said:


> Was it somehow unclear? _*G*nu is *N*ot *U*nix._
> 
> Come on, man. GNU was designed as a drop-in replacement for Unix and you know it. The acronym refers to the license and the GPL not the design philosophy.
> 
> ...


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## Phishfry (Mar 17, 2020)

mark_j said:


> where's the avenue for such enhancements?


I always leave a 'wish list' when I contribute to the FreeBSD foundation.
They are the people who fund most of our enhancements.


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