• Damage@feddit.it
    6·
    5 days ago

    Ok so I’m just my own system administrator, yet I like systemd because I remember how much less… reliable the former alternatives were on my computers.

    BUT. I dislike having to learn more commands just to read my logs, and systemd timers are awfully complicated when I just needed what cronjobs already did.

    • Amon@lemmy.worldOP
      1·
      5 days ago

      Yeah but you can use journalctl on literally everything from binaries to units to cron jobs with the same interface. You don’t need to find the log file just punch it into journalctl

    • corsicanguppy@lemmy.caEnglish
      12·
      5 days ago

      Ok so I’m just my own system administrator

      I manage what people call Large Enterprise. As my side gig, I manage Small Offices / Branch Offices.

      I remember how much less… reliable the former alternatives were on my computers.

      Remember that systemd is also used on massive server farms that need consistent fast reboots during recovery from vary occasional mishap. These things have all but a stopwatch running.

      My god, is systemd ever a piece of crap. Coupled with ‘consistent[ha!] naming’ it’s the single most likely thing to cause a field engineer to scream into the partially-lit datacenter in abject rage and hate. Even more if they remember how fucking sysVinit actually delivered on the promise. Even more if they still remember how well inittab Just Worked.

      I read starry-eyed lennartophiles praising the reliability and ease of use and I wonder whether they didn’t know the basics of systemd, or just don’t understand the problems plaguing servers now. Like apple fans, screeching at non-apple users, I worry this lack of understanding causes a very biased approach where issues with apple/systemd are “just impossible to solve” where android/runit issues are “obvious indications why they’re broken systems and should be avoided; and also you’re old if you like them.”

      BUT. I dislike having to learn more commands just to read my logs,

      You signed up for this.

      and systemd timers are awfully complicated when I just needed what cronjobs already did.

      You signed up for this.

      It’s like those shitty cable bundles where you want HBO Max but also have to buy 4 channels of Golf, 2 of only Nascar-based Reality shows, and one that just shows Real World marathons, over and over; and also have to pay for all 8 .

      THE UNIX PHILOSOPHY is to not over-reach the designed purpose. It allows for combinations of tools based on what’s more reliable/current/compatible at the current moment and keeps tools concise. Having things move over to timers from cron or xkcd/927 logging because Lennart and Kay couldn’t be bothered to understand and work with what’s existing, and deciding to replace everything by this growing blob of monolithic dreck, is bad for a reason that’s been proved in the past. And those who are too lazy to read history will elect fascists. or something.

      • Lumiluz@slrpnk.netEnglish
        1·
        5 days ago

        So, I don’t know as much as you do, but I’m wondering; if it’s that bad, why did it ever get popular? It’s not like people who write/program/maintain/deploy Linux aren’t usually very knowledgeable. They’re usually experts and computer scientists. It seems to me, at least, if it’s that bad, it would have never been adopted so widely? Is Systemd pulling a Microsoft and bribing people or something?

  • FrostyCaveman@lemm.ee
    3·
    5 days ago

    Coming from software development, the systemd controversy is starting to feel more familiar as I learn more of it.

    It really reminds me of what happens sometimes in backend web systems development when an overly complicated framework takes over a programming language community. Getting anything done no longer becomes about using the tools to interact with HTTP, or the language runtime (if relevant), or anything else absolutely essential to the task at hand - it’s about learning the framework itself and its peculiarities, its specific abstractions and semantics wrapping real concepts.

    An example is Spring Framework. One does not simply write a little bit of code to cache something in memory at the place one needs it, no! One must use a ProxyFactoryBean to apply a CachingInterceptor, in the bean configuration XML of course! (Of course being Java, you have the extra layer of indirection and fakery as the Java community is/was full of people obsessed with shoving everything possible into a design pattern for cred.)

    One does not simply read a systemd log file using cat, nor filter with grep. One must use journalctl with its specific arguments to filter by specific things. Because the logs are binary or something. I feel like I’m not learning Linux/UNIX anymore, I’m learning systemd.

    I do like systemd’s unit system, with its whole dependency graph for reaching certain targets, etc. However, given the nigh ubiquity of systemd, I’ve not really had much of a chance to learn any alternatives, so it seems I must simply get used to it regardless.

  • Hugin@lemmy.world
    1·
    5 days ago

    So yeah the bird was me. But back in the day there was linux with a bunch of config files and windows with the registry.

    It could be a pain to deal with config files but it was nowhere near as bad a dealing with the gigantic mess that was the windows registry. So someone trying to move linux away from one of the things that made it better then windows to a windows like system seemed like a horrible idea.

    Combine that with the main systemd guy coming off as a bit of a jerk online and the resistance is understandable.