[arch-general] Arch Linux and systemd

[C Anthony Risinger]

On Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 2:57 AM, Geoff <capsthorne at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> On Thu, 16 Aug 2012 16:22:56 -0500
> Myra Nelson <myra.nelson at hughes.net> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> I agree.  I have read all the current threads and the few words which struck me
> with greatest force were in a post from Marti Raudsepp, where he said that an
> advantage of systemd is "... less fragmentation between Linux distribution".  I
> have been full time on linux for nearly 13 years now, with the most recent five
> of those on Arch, and for me one of the principal attractions of the OS has
> always been fragmentation between distributions.  The recent changes to Arch
> (and I dare say other distros which I do not monitor), all seem to me to point
> in the direction of drab ecumenism - eventually "One distro to rule them
> all ...."  Sooner or later Arch will be distinguished only by its excellent
> rolling release model and the wonderful pacman.  Perhaps all this was
> inevitable.  I do not intend anything I say as a criticism of the devs - it is
> their distro and they are entitled to do what they choose with it. But it does
> make me sad.

the boot process isn't really that interesting (once you
know/understand it anyway ... if not i encourage you to explor ;-) --
every distro pretty much does it the same way, but pointlessly
independent, thus resulting in annoying differences that are
completely irrelevant to begin with.

no flexibility is lost by moving to systemd, and really, much more
gained: wider userbase, wider testbase, simple units to write, simple
units to read, loosely coupled ordering, implicit dependencies, Grand
Unified logging capabilities, and of course, much better
speed/reliability/robustness.

take the (unanimous?) sentiments exhibiting by our developers -- and
*many* developers elsewhere, in a great variety of capacities/niches
-- as a sign of the good things to come. i fully expect 99%+ will have
little trouble adjusting, and 98% will at that time agree it was
clearly the right choice.

initiatives like this are not removing choice -- they are
consolidating the common bits so developers can get back to writing
the interesting next-gen stuff instead of spinning wheels or putting
out fires.

like most things in life, balance is key to good health.

-- 

C Anthony