The mass exodus if Slackware uses Systemd
 

Guys I know I am new to this forum but I first started using Linux in 1997 and I currently run slackware on a laptop. This is my second post on this forum and it is bound to be very controversial. I am putting this post here because it has to do with systemd (which is desktop orientated obviously not good for servers) and because I run slackware as a desktop on one of my laptops currently.

I read the interview with Patrick Volkerding, from 2012, on this forum and in it he basically said that Slackware might be forced to use systemd one day. If that happens I know I will migrate to FreeBSD or OpenBSD. I know this is a Linux forum but I personally think everyone that uses Slackware here should do the same. Actually, being a user of Linux since the 90s I have seen Linux go from being exclusively for Geeks to seeing a non-geek less Unix-like distros like Ubuntu take the lion share of Linux market and this is dismaying. You can see that the new users want something like Windows and don't care about Linux being Unix-like. We have seen young developers like Poettering cater to these people and sell out by programming stuff that breaks the Unix philosophy. The end result is modern distros that are not very flexible and *nix distros are supposed to be flexible all the way down like Slackware and the *BSDs.

Actually, in the 90s my first distro was redhat (hurricane) 5.0 and then I went to Debian. I also did alot of distro hopping. I did try Slackware but never stuck with it. Then around the year 2000 I switched over to FreeBSD and fell in love. However, sometime around 2006 or so I got a laptop and it wasn't a Thinkpad (so OpenBSD wouldn't run well on it and FreeBSD wasn't optimal for it. So I decided to install Slackware on it. My previous FreeBSD experience made me really appreciate slackware and made slackware easier for me to use than something like Ubuntu. That laptop's motherboard eventually fried and then I ran OpenBSD on a desktop for a while and then a windows laptop with putty and xforwarding through SSH to a FreeBSD server with SCSCI RAID. So I was running Windows with a seamlessly integrated FreeBSD environment I had samba setup too. Anyway, fast forward until today : I have a Thinkpad laptop with Slackware 14.1 on it. Now I must admit I prefer the *BSDs because they are more Unix-like but I'm running Slackware on my laptop instead of OpenBSD (which runs better on Thinkpads than FreeBSD) simply because I need USB support for Calibre for my Kobo Aura HD, because I need usb passthru on my virtual machines and because slackware's official packages plus slackbuilds has more packages than OpenBSD. The former two are the real reasons though. I simply don't have the time to code the usb stuff for OpenBSD right now. So basically I'm running Slackware because it is more suited for the desktop. Slackware is really the only Linux distro I will run because it is the most Unix-like and has BSD flat tree init boot scripts.


However, there are somethings I think Slackware users need to understand. This is not the 1990s anymore. Currently Slackware users have more in common with FreeBSD and OpenBSD users than they do with modern day users of distros like Ubuntu. Ubuntu is to Linux as MacOSX is to FreeBSD. Now, Systemd should be the writing on the wall for Slackware users to realize that the larger Linux community no longer gives a shit about Unix and its design philosphies. The *BSDs are still very much extremely Unix-like and if Slackware is forced start using Systemd I recommend every to start using FreeBSD, OpenBSD or DragonflyBSD exclusively and if you find they are rough around the edges for desktop then roll up your sleeves and start coding ! I know I will be doing that if that day comes upon us.

I respectfully disagree, sir, on a couple of points:

First, there's a slow-motion backlash reaction to systemd happening right now. It remains to be seen how it plays out, and could go any of a number of ways. See, for example, debianfork.

Second, several Slackware users have declared, in this forum, that if Patrick decides to adopt systemd, they will trust his judgement and continue using Slackware.

Some people would leave Slackware over systemd, but calling it an "exodus" seems a bit melodramatic.

My guess would be that, if Slackware adopts SystemD at some point in the future, the only place left to go to escape it by then will be a BSD.

I like dogs so I'd go Puppy.

Richard Stallman doesn't care about the UNIX philosophy either - so I find it odd that Poettering and co are getting all the flack for this. The GNU operating system was devised as a free operating system - UNIX was just what it was modeled on - they never really set out to emulate it or adhere to it's standards - it was always about the GPL and GNU philosophy (copyleft licencing). "GNU's Not UNIX" is probably a good enough hint, or you can read RMS' own statements on the matter. Or look no further: https://www.stallman.org/stallman-computing.html
The Linux kernel is more of a reimplementation of UNIX than GNU is, but Torvalds never said that he was a UNIX purist nor that the kernel was going to be targeted at such an OS.

Neither Stallman nor Torvalds have come out and criticised systemd, in fact Torvalds seems ok with it:

http://www.itwire.com/business-it-ne...ons-on-systemd

If you want a free *nix-like OS just stick with a free *nix-like OS (e.g. *BSD, openindiana, etc), not something which resembles it as you will only find disappointment. A lot of operating systems could be said to be "UNIX", *nix or UNIX-like, including Mac OS.

I really don't see the sense in advising Slackware users to just switch to *BSD.

I've been experimenting with FreeBSD since versions 6.x. There's much to be said for FreeBSD: great documentation, great community... unfortunately there's always the same showstopper factor with hardware support. My daily job consists in migrating all sorts of hardware from Windows to Linux, which includes configuring very recent laptops, exotic printer-scanners, crappy video cards or no-name webcams, and unfortunately, FreeBSD will choke on some of these things... where Slackware is just perfect.

Besides all that, I trust Patrick Volkerding to make sound decisions, and if this means shipping systemd in the future, well, so be it.

Maybe I'll try PC-BSD but this has a very low priority in my TODO list.

Should Slackware ship systemd as a whole, that won't be in the upcoming release, so I'm not in a hurry, and anyway I'd (fairly, IMO) give it a go if/when that happens before making a decision to move or not.

Also, if Pat is driven to adopt it, that could pretty well be because systemd will have become a dependency of all or almost all desktops that can fit in Slackware. If that occurs, who knows if a *BSD will be itself able to ship a decent desktop without systemd? That's not that I be a desktop user myself (I run fluxbox) but take that as an example.

In short, I keep a wait and see attitude.

[OT]IMO, the mission of LP in developing systemd at Red Hat is to gather a bigger market share of the desktop users for his employer. And if I'm true he's doing a pretty good job in that direction so far.[/OT]

Whilst I strongly disagree with the way systemd has been pushed, there are a great many other things I like about Slackware. Init is not a make or break issue for me, nor do I really believe that it is for the majority of users. I can't see why we should sacrifice everything great about Slackware just to avoid systemd.

Who here selected Slackware purely because of its init? I'm not saying it wasn't a factor for some people but I doubt it was in the primary selection criteria for most.

I strongly believe that most Slackware users are pragmatic enough to realise the same and also to appreciate that if Slackware adopts systemd it will most likely be because nothing else is viable anymore in Linux land.

So no, I doubt there will be a mass exodus from Slackware if the day ever comes that systemd is the default.

On the plus side, if systemd does appear in Slackware and those who can't tolerate it run a mile, at least the systemd threads will die and we can get on with discussing more interesting stuff. If there is one thing I hate more than systemd, it is all the mind numbingly stupid threads about it that currently infect this forum. Particularly when most of the posts just rehash the same issues to death and rarely result in anything constructive.

Not Black Lab?

Anyway, I don't think I'd be part of the mass exodus, but I'd welcome a good reason to experience a BSD (which I haven't done yet).

I'm not so sure about that. Contrary to other enterprise class distributions like Suse Linux Enterprise or Ubuntu LTS, Red Hat has never been interested by the desktop market.

Well, I'm pretty anti-systemd and can't stand its creator, but I don't think I'll be dumping Slackware if and/or when it's adopted. Like ruario says, there's more to Slackware than its init. Of course, there's more to systemd than init too, a complete makeover of Linux if the Cabal get their way. If...if...if. Nobody's sure what's going to happen, so I'm not making any definite plans.

Ok, well, welcome back to LQ (and I hope you will stay, because we need a diversity of coherent opinions like yours), but, uhhh... if you were here regularly you would know that we've already had so many systemd conversations that there's really nothing new to be said. Anyone who's ever read a Slackware vs. systemd thread should probably skip the rest of this post...

But now it's almost 2015 and Slackware-next still has not yet been forced to use systemd. If today's -current becomes slackware-14.2 and is released in 2015, then we will all still have a supported non-systemd Slackware Linux in 2020.

And that's why my personal threat level is currently set to DON'T PANIC.

Well, with respect, in that hypothetical eventuality you would be free to do whatever the heck you liked. I personally think that I would also be free to do whatever the heck I liked.

Well I'm on FreeBSD forums and this is typical FreeBSD user attitude there: OMG!!! 7 Linux users have registered here in last 2 months, there's a mass exodus of Linux users to FreeBSD!!! One guy there even went on to claim that some former Linux gamers were converting to FreeBSD...I mean WTF!
I like FreeBSD but leaving Slackware because of systemd sounds naive.

Regards.

I stopped reading here. You should learn more about systemd before participating in some mass exodus.

Till now?