Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

> Turning Linux into Windows by replicating svchost.exe shouldn't be applauded by the Linux community. ... We've got Linux's PID 1 (for most distros) controlled by a MS employee, who replicated Windows' svchost.exe. And people are all excited?

systemd was pretty consciously patterned after launchd, not svchost. The goal was, and for good reasons, to make Linux behave like a more integrated Unix-like that already existed: MacOS.

Benno Rice has an excellent presentation on systemd that's worth watching through to the end; unlike most of the table-pounding (and "it's just svchost.exe!!" is exactly that), he provides what I think is a pretty fair--and, interestingly to me, a BSD-grounded--view as to where systemd is strong and is weak. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_AIw9bGogo




The thing is, I own a mac, and I've never had to touch launchd.

I've hit severe systemd bugs on 100% of the linux desktop installs I've set up in the last 5-10 years. (examples: "x/wayland session management is broken", "uncached DNS takes 10 seconds to resolve", "this service is masked, and none of the force-unmask paths work", "omg lol no more logs for you", and so on).

The fact that pid 1 can even be involved in those sorts of userspace bugs shows how broken the architecture is.


> (examples: "x/wayland session management is broken", "uncached DNS takes 10 seconds to resolve", "this service is masked, and none of the force-unmask paths work", "omg lol no more logs for you", and so on).

I used to be release manager for a Linux distro. Mostly, such issues were integration problem and not a systemd problem. In some cases that I worked on, the integration wasnt well-thought, or it was done in some amateurish way which needed actually some extra hours of professional software development to make it "production ready". Unfortunately part of the process of working with open source.


This is one of the downsides of systemd from a community perspective--it's not that it doesn't work; it largely has, and has consistently, for most people and most distros who've adopted it pretty much since the jump! But the bonkers level of partisan poo-flinging by folks who will not simply go off to Devuan or whatever has inculcated an automatic assumption that a system built by some of the most talented folks working in the Linux space simply has to be broken whenever they have a problem.

By being ambitious, systemd brought it on itself, but it's frustrating because the conversations don't go anywhere and don't matter.


They aren't. You have no idea how init systems work. I've no idea what kind of broken thinking leads you to believe anything you've written.

What exactly do you think is running with pid 1 and what do you think that means?


Oh, Linux on desktop year yet to come- hopefully this will save you ton of efforts and time.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: