"Bloated" is an overused word on these forums. 4.2 MiB for the generic kernel (14.2's 4.4.276) isn't taking up too much space, but I'm sure it could be slimmed down by those who want to make the effort.
No, I haven't read "man capabilities", but I shall. Thanks.

Why not?. But this is more interesting for people with technical (rather than political) motivations.

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I've used FreeBSD in the distant past, and liked it okay, and a friend is a NetBSD developer who has made NetBSD sound like an enticing alternative too. I've often wished for something like SIGINFO in Linux, for example. I like to build similar features into my programming projects (both at work and at home) but having system-level support would be more broadly useful.

That having been said, I prefer Slackware, and hold *BSD as a second fallback option, in the unlikely contingency that Slackware ceases to be viable and nobody makes an enticing Slackware fork (to which I would contribute, to the best of my ability, as life allows).

It seems premature to worry about that too much. Slackware is pretty healthy (this overly long release cycle notwithstanding), and eudev has new maintainers. All in all, things are looking good.

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Good reads. When I grow up I wanna be a BSD user.

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Well maybe I am listening to the wrong people(?) (What UNIX Cost Us[(Benno Rice)), but I am inclined to agree with some of his assertions, particularly again with regards to the whole UNIX philosophy. I have just watched the entire video, I don't say you have to though, but to me what stood out was at around 29min into the video. "UNIX is suited for its time." Agree or don't with his assertions, but from what I took away from it, was that it only allows for a certain way of thinking and doing things, so to me it is like only thinking within the box. My other point or query is also to the saying "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Which again can hold true, but how long until whatever isn't broke, is stagnant?

We already see this in xorg, and competitors to try to replace it such as Wayland. With regards to systemd I don't see it any different at this point. Again, most just prefer the traditional init, ok fine go with it; but given the controversy at this point raises the question, does this mean no one should even bother trying something new, because what we have is fine, so there is no need to ever look at any other possible solutions?

I am now going out on a limb, and give a little more credit to Lennart at this point - after all he at least took it upon himself to try a different approach, wrote an entire init system, and also I am not looking at the outcome of systemd, what I am looking at - is he at least thought maybe there is a better way, but given the backlash - then I wonder also if anyone who has experience in software engineering, should they even bother bringing their own potential solutions to an issue? So...there is that.

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What about looking at it from this perspective: Are we changing for the sake of change, or do these changes bring true value? If they bring value, at what cost is it?

Are we complicating things by 500% to get 5% more functionality (which may not even be needed)?
I'd agree with you, except for the fact that the idea wasn't his... He "borrowed" the concept from Apple. And he didn't build it alone.

This article examines some of the technicalities and true motivations behind some of the design choices: https://www.unixsheikh.com/articles/...d-systemd.html. It's a good one. I'd highly recommend that you read it.

My apologies for potentially splitting hairs, but then lets look at another example: Before we had jet engines, we had planes that worked on essentially pistons/propellers. It worked for the time, nobody yet thought well - can't we do this another way and have it faster? So by your logic, was that a process of change for the sake of it? I mean what is wrong the piston engine? Lets just stay with that, same with cars - they were all piston engines until at some point something thought "hey, lets try something different to see if we can get better fuel efficiency and speed" - and then we got fuel injected engines, but it ain't broke don't fix it - so we should have stayed with piston engines.....?

I am well aware that Lennart "borrowed" ideas from Apple's launchd , that is not a secret - but ironically even one of the devs at Microsoft that came up with WindowsNT and gave his obvious opinions/dislike of UNIX DID also borrow some concepts from UNIX.

So then that leads to the question I asked earlier - is there nothing valid from systemd then? Nothing at all? Again some prefer traditional init, great, I legit have nothing against that.

With regards to that article - would things have been better of Lennart and his "co-conspirator" were independent then? I admit I skimmed most of it, but I will take more time to read it - but what also stood out to me is Fact 3, about systemd being a monolith - yea ok, and what is the Linux kernel itself at this point? Not saying just because Linux is already bloated, that should mean systemd gets a pass, as to me that is like throwing stones in glass houses. Yea systemd is bloated, but do you hold the same opinion on the kernel? If so, and you are a dev, ok - help make it more slimline.

Again I am not much of an ideologue these days. I have no problem using Slackware Linux on a desktop, and systemd Debian 11 on my notebook at this point. I just don't care, Debian11(non-free) happens to work just fine on it. As I also stated earlier, there is ideology, and there is practicality. You can choose to be the Stallman disciple and go 100% GNU/HURD , just let me know how that works out in the end.

Seat management. Some projects (like GNOME) have latched on to systemd's seat management features with both hands because it is bona fide better than anything that came before it.

(If you care about seat management at all, that is. I don't, but to some people it's important.)

Other than that, the only point of the exercise seems to be to re-implement everything in ways which make sense to Lennart, so as to avoid learning how POSIX and traditional solutions already work.

Even then I would not have a problem with systemd, but they have re-implemented it all so poorly that installing it would be a step backwards in capability, security and reliability.

Obviously as a Slackware user I care about such things. Do not want.

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You missed the point.

You're not making a valid comparison for several reasons. Firstly, jet engines are mechanically simpler than piston engines... they remove complication. Secondly, one could argue that due to their power and efficiency they led to a level of fundamental human progress which had not been seen in decades... So that begs the question: Why doesn't your car have one?
Yeah, so let me ask: does your Debian system do anything Slackware can't? Please provide details.

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The problem is that systemd is a piece of shit thats the problem is not about being unix like, philosophy, ideology or freedom, its not more advanced, i used it in Arch Linux, and i tested other inits in Gentoo i used Open-Rc, i changed it to runit and and i tested s6 (had to wrote the services), there are others inits too. About systemd i posted this in the past https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-1105854.html
Now systemd can work with musl, most musl based ("that musl thing" a user metioned) distros dont want systemd there and can work (a strange fork) in bsd too they dont want systemd like init there too.
Eudev is going to be mantained problem solved. In my opinion and only my opinion (i dont say we like someone here) the init here is fine and there s no need to change it.
Perhaps it would be better if the thread is closed.
http://ewontfix.com/14/ by the author of musl ("that musl thing")
http://judecnelson.blogspot.com/2014...fallacies.html
the author of s6 say this
systemd gets it wrong on all levels. It has a large developer base, so no really coherent vision (and the vision it has is technically inept, see below); its quality control is company-driven, with all the drawbacks that it has; and it has an insanely large scope and tries to enforce the use of its own interfaces for new software development, essentially proprietarizing the ecosystem, which is very much the opposite of bazaar.
Listing all the technical flaws of systemd is a lifetime's work; some people have pointed out the most glaring ones - there are a few links below. My point is that the "we will solve problems by doing more" approach chosen by the systemd developers is a newbie mistake, and the root cause of all those flaws; systemd is technically unsustainable.

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Eudev has new maintainers now according to Alien Bob.

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The car is fuel injected as I stated, but I why not just stay with a piston engine? So I guess what I am getting at, in the case of software engineering nobody should even bother to come up with something new? Well then why all the progress so far? Why aren't we just all on MULTICS then? Again I also stated there is a fine line between "if it ain't broke don't fix it" , and stagnation.

Currently , yes , I can GET a working X Session, whereas 14.2 , I just get a blackscreen no matter the WM/DE, which is probably going to obviously be fixed in 15. I haven't tried --Current, but to be honest I am only comfortable dicking around with --Current in a VM, and not on real hardware.


So I get the impression you might be a developer, and clearly probably a better programmer than I (I can't even understand pointers to save my life), so my question is this then - systemd is a complete piece of shit? No redeeming facets of it whatsoever? Nothing at all, just discard it? I won't be disappointed if you said yet, but then again it still begs the question, do we just discount anyone that might dare to try something else, and essentially only think within the box?


Again, I am running Slackware on a desktop, and Debian on a notebook - I don't care - is St. Stallman or the Linux Gods going to strike me down for this "heresy" ? Or am I correct that , in the end - it doesn't matter?

No, im not a developer, and my opinion doesnt matter, its a opinion of just 1 user.
i dont pray to Mr Stallman or to Red Hat, i use what i consider best for me, example for now Glibc (gnu) is faster and has better perfomance than musl (not gnu) or the others C standard library like uClibc, dietlibc, Bionic libc and there are others, i use glibc, pipewire is better designed than pulseaudio so i use pipewire although i installed ossv4 in another distro and worked fine (ossv4 work without alsa). i use grub in my pc and elilo in my laptop. you can even have a musl based system with a glibc chroot inside if you want. I have better hardware support in Linux than with Bsd so i use Linux, i used Freebsd and its a fantastic os.
i started with ubuntu, used Mint, Arch Linux, Artix linux, Funtoo,very little with Void, Gentoo, Exherbo, freebsd (bsd) until Slackware Gentoo was my primary os (i went from Funtoo to Gentoo when they choose not to support multilib) i came to Slackware because a) it doesnt have systemd b)i dont have to compile the hole system just compile what i want and Slackbuilds are very nice. i just like what i saw in Slackware, i gave Slackware 10/10 points its the best distro that i used (just my opinion and a matter of taste). systemd is systemd and i dont want it.

Fuel injected, yes, but the pistons are still what makes it go. Sure, we have developments like fuel injection, overhead valves, electronic ignition, crossflow heads, etc. But when you get down to brass tacks, the basic principle of a piston being pushed down by a controlled explosion and thereby turning a crank shaft is what moves your car forward... much the same as it has been for ~130 years... 130 years of development and the fundamentals have not changed at all. Why is that?
This is nothing to do with Slackware's init. If you have a hybrid Intel/NVidia GPU is most likely due to the nouveau driver being loaded at boot time. It can't handle hybrid GPUs and causes X to crash. You can fix it by blacklisting the nouveau driver. There's a package you can install to do this in /extra. After installing the package, you'll need to reboot.
Speaking for myself: I'm just an end user. One who likes to tinker. Removing "tinkerability" is something I don't like much. I'm a practical guy, and, much like you I value practicality over idealism. In fact, that's another reason I've stuck with Slackware over Debian. The last time I tried Debian, it wouldn't let me install Firefox because it was "non-free". When I asked about it in a Debian forum I was told to install the "freedom respecting" IceWeasel... What a joke!

Contrary to what you seem to think, I am happy to embrace change and the people who bring it where it is warranted. I am, however, against complication for complication's sake. If systemd remains a modular and removable part of the system, then I'm happy for it to keep doing whatever it's doing. But if it becomes an integral and unremovable piece then I'll likely jump ship.
I'm no fan of Stallman. I don't know why you seem to think I am.

I'll repeat what I said before: Use whatever works for you and be happy. You don't need to defend your choice.

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Exactly this.

Also, if systemd continues to absorb services and more software continues to depend on it, how much room will there be for innovation?

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