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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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No, it's not bad.
tbh, I've always like Apple's launchd.
Getting a "control center" for your init, with user groups, modularity, memory limits and queryable status/control is great. (Sometime people forget how painful init scripts can be...)
The only problem I see is the tendency to cram everything into systemd.
I absolutely agree with you, but not quite on the las point. SystemD is modular, right? I can still pick and choose something else for tasks that SystemD handles. Also, it might be a good idea anyways to centralize some common tools for distros and devote developer ressources somewhere more specific and necessary.
It'll always be an open field of software stacks to choose from, but having one big, featureful and solid base stack for most usecases seems like a win to me. It's all completely FOSS anyway, it's not like we are risking a vendor lock-in here.
It often feels like people only complain about things because they are not used to them
I'm honestly a big fan. Systemd-init has tons of options like run targets, sandbox options, users you want things to run as, etc. System-oomd has tons of qol stuff for desktop users to help with stutter and responsiveness. I am also kind of excited for UKI that systemd-boot is set to support.
Boot speed was the original selling point :-) after decades of using Linux and avoiding systemd (Slackware) I tried my first systemd a year and a half ago or so. It's unobtrusive but my needs are basic right now. It has been so widely adopted now that arguing about it is basically pointless.
On the other hand we shouldn't forget it's basic flaw: it violates the fundamental principles of Linux. By which I mean write programs that do one thing and do them really well, KISS, maintain POSIX compliance, etc. If systemd was only an init system it would be really awesome. But bit by bit it absorbed functionality and now is a behemoth that runs all of this under a single PID unless that's changed. And PID1 to boot (pun intended).
Tbh it's been a long time since I stopped worrying or even thinking about it since it's kind of like complaining about the weather at this point, it having been so quickly and widely adopted. If they have somehow addressed the design flaw I pointed out above I'd love to know.
I make plymouth do the verbose mode because it's cool and hacker-y. Also I like when it says "failed" and I know what failed. For a few weeks I kept having to manually start firewalld and I never would have known otherwise, update seems to have fixed that though.
Tbf, I really only have experience with fedora and thus systemd, so, I like it but I "don't know what I'm missing" in a sense.
Rest assured, you aren't missing much. The System V init system that systemd replaced was awful. It was slow, it was complicated, and it broke very easily. Some graybeard types love it for some unfathomable reason, but I'm not exactly young any more myself, and I don't miss it in the slightest.
Not against systemd (although it’s bad and needs replacing), just against pottering.
Why do people keep insisting on capitalizing it wrong? It's systemd, all lowercase. Never has it been Systemd, and never has it been SystemD.
Proper nouns should never start with a lowercase letter
- Is the current SystemD rant derived from years ago (while they’ve improved a lot)?
No it's almost always been derived from people's behinds.
- Should Linux community rant about bigger problems such as Wayland related things not ready for current needs of normies?
Yes.
Systemd is spectacular in many ways. Every modern OS has a process management system that can handle dependencies, schedule, manage restarts via policy and a lot more. Systemd is pretty sophisticated on that front. I've been able to get it to manage countless services in many environments with great success and few lines of code.
The problem of systemd is that it hasn't been just a replacement of init as they initially claimed, and now deny they ever did. Things like Mono, Gnome and systemd are bad for the ecosystem long term.
An init done by constructive people wouldn't be a problem at all.
I kinda love it actually. I work in systems automation (Ansible) and having a consistent interface to manage services, create service files for new apps etc is great. I'd hate to be writing init scripts all the time.
And I just discovered systemd-creds which is easy to use and great for storing secrets (API keys, SSL private keys, etc) on a host (using TPM or private tmp space available only to root and the process started by the service file) and making them available.
The traditional init systems suited me just fine, i saw no need to change them. If they were so bad, then they could've been fixed or replaced.
The migration to systemd felt forced. Debian surprised everyone with the change. Also systemd's development is/was backed by corporate Red Hat, their lead developer wasn't exactly loved either and is now working for Microsoft. Of course Canonical's Ubuntu adopted it as well. Overall feels like Windows' svchost.exe, hence people accusing it of vendor lock-in.
It's not just an init system, it's way waaay more. It's supposed to be modular, but good luck keeping only its PID1 in a distro that supports systemd. It breaks the "do one thing right" approach and, in practice, does take away choice which pisses me off.
I had been using Debian since Woody, but that make me change to Gentoo on my desktop which, to me, took the best path: they default to OpenRC but you're free to use systemd if you want to. That's choice. For servers i now prefer Slackware and the laptop runs Devuan whenever i boot it up.
To be fair systemd hasn't shown its ugly face in the Ubuntu VMs i'm forced to use at work.
YMMV. If you're happy with it, fine. This, of course, is only my opinion.
It would be fine if it kept to system init rather than growing like a cancerous tumor.
Its not as bad as people say, though from a philosophical perspective I disagree with it. It's probably not good for a single init system to be THE init system, either. If philosophy is a driver for you, I'd definitely recommend trying another init system. If you just want your computer to work, stop worrying and learn to love systemd
I can't like it bc its complicated.
I am on Guix works great with shepherd.