[arch-general] changing default target to multi-user when no X - any benefit?
Guys, After fresh install and rebuild of an Arch server with systemd, would it make any difference to change the systemd default target to multi-user? There is no X, so I'm not sure what difference, if any, it would make, or if it is simply semantics at that point. Looking, all I have under systemd/system is multi-user.target.wants and getty.target.wants. Does having the systemd default target set to graphical in this case do anything that wouldn't be done if the default were changed to multi-user? Here it just looks like the old case where you have 'id:5:initdefault:' in inittab, but no X, so the system just looks for some gui displaymanager to load, doesn't find it, and drops to console. The wiki [[Systemd#Change_current_target]] discussed changing the default, but does not explain what is being done besides changing a symlink to /etc/systemd/system/default.target. Being new to systemd on Arch, I just want to make sure I am not biting myself by leaving the default as graphical when in fact I'm just booting into multi-user. What say the experts? -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.
On Sun, Dec 1, 2013 at 5:10 AM, David C. Rankin < drankinatty@suddenlinkmail.com> wrote:
Guys,
After fresh install and rebuild of an Arch server with systemd, would it make any difference to change the systemd default target to multi-user? There is no X, so I'm not sure what difference, if any, it would make, or if it is simply semantics at that point. Looking, all I have under systemd/system is multi-user.target.wants and getty.target.wants. Does having the systemd default target set to graphical in this case do anything that wouldn't be done if the default were changed to multi-user?
Here it just looks like the old case where you have 'id:5:initdefault:' in inittab, but no X, so the system just looks for some gui displaymanager to load, doesn't find it, and drops to console. The wiki [[Systemd#Change_current_target]] discussed changing the default, but does not explain what is being done besides changing a symlink to /etc/systemd/system/default.target. Being new to systemd on Arch, I just want to make sure I am not biting myself by leaving the default as graphical when in fact I'm just booting into multi-user. What say the experts?
-- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.
Hi! I'm in no way an expert in systemd, but I've been using it for some time now. To see what graphical.target is bringing up, you can run the following command: $ systemctl show graphical.target --property=Wants Which in my system give the following list (pretty printed): display-manager.service systemd-readahead-replay.service systemd-readahead-collect.service colord.service accounts-daemon.service gdm.service upower.service rtkit-daemon.service Of these, "display-manager" does not exist (!), "colord" and "gdm" are pretty obviously graphical stuff; "upower" and "rtkit-daemon" are possibly useful outside of X, but reasonably disabled by default; "accounts-daemon" is mostly useless in any system, IMHO. And the "systemd-readahead-*" services are bound to whatever the "default.target" is (WantedBy=default.target) although systemctl reports it as WantedBy graphical.target (my default is graphical, of course!). So just run through your graphical.target dependencies and see if you will miss something. If you do, you can drop a symlink into /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants and you will have it for free. HTH -- Rodrigo
On 12/01/2013 04:14 PM, Rodrigo Rivas wrote:
To see what graphical.target is bringing up, you can run the following command:
$ systemctl show graphical.target --property=Wants
Ah hah, got it! [20:19 phoinix:/etc/netctl] # systemctl show graphical.target --property=Wants Wants=display-manager.service So it is behaving exactly like the old init where you were booting to runlevel 5 but have no display-manager present. All of the work on this server is being done by the multi-user target and all the graphical target is doing is attempting to start the dm which isn't present. So bottom line in my case, there is no need to change the default target, graphical isn't attempting to start anything unwanted and the missing dm just means I get dumped to multi-user anyway. Thanks Rodrigo, the "show graphical.target --property=Wants" helped. I found the graphical.service file in /usr/lib/systemd/system/ that contains the Wants=display-manager.service systemd is starting to make sense. There is just a lot more typing involved to get what you want out of it ;-) alias sc='systemctl' alias scn='systemctl --no-pager' alias jc='journalctl' alias jcn='journalctl --no-pager' -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.
participants (2)
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David C. Rankin
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Rodrigo Rivas