this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2023
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Linux
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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linux is also about choice, so it doesn't matter if something is bad for you. you can use a different alternative or even make/fork one.
This is the first top-level comment that hints at the main criticism against systemd. systemd is increasingly difficult to replace as time goes on. I like and use systemd because it has a fast boot, but I wish the project was developed in a more modular way that had choice built-in. It is instead developed as the way that everyone should systemd instead of alternatives. This philosophy gets in the way of distributions that want to provide alternatives (Devuan, Gentoo, Parabola, etc.). Some of the sysadmins I work with closely use Devuan and follow development. I hear the patch set around bypassing systemd grows in size and complexity each year which is worrisome for choice.
Well, no, and that's the whole problem; Systemd removed choice, and it was designed to do so. That is why there is so much anger. It is bad software design, by design. It flies in the face of the core linux principles, all in the name of homogenising the linux ecosystem, and you know exactly which big corporations benefit from that.
The simple fact is: today, if I want to run a mainstream distro without Systemd, I cannot. Its cancerous tentacles run so deep that decoupling it from a mainstream distro, and keeping it decoupled, is a full time job.
Instead I have no choice but to run a smaller, less featured, less secure and less funded alternative.
Full credit to Devuan, MxLinux, Artix, and the other united underdogs.
Fuck you Redhat/IBM and your proxy evil-doer Lennart.
Lets be perfectly honest. The reason systemd is so popular is because the init script based predecessors were so bad in so many ways. Not only did you have to reimplement the same things over and over in every script, the behaviour of your script also depended on environment variables in your environment while you started a service and other things that leaked into the script.
Would an init system have to do as much as systemd does to fix those issues? No. Are the existing alternatives really, really bad? Yes.