[arch-general] want to try systemd but need some advice

[Matthew Monaco]

On 09/29/2012 03:29 PM, Fons Adriaensen wrote:
> On Sat, Sep 29, 2012 at 10:59:45PM +0200, Rodrigo Rivas wrote:
>  
>> Well, you can disable the registering of systemd-logind sessions by
>> deleting the lines with "pam_systemd.so" from the files /etc/pam.d/*. Not
>> sure if that will be enough, or even wise.
>> And now that you are into it, you could delete also the
>> "pam_ck_connector.so" lines and see if it makes a difference.
> 
> Thanks for the advice, but so far I have not installed anything,
> and I will only do so if and when I'm convinced that I will be
> able to configure the system as I want it. Which is nothing 
> special since it has been working exactly like that for the past
> few years and with absolutley minimal reconfiguration effort from
> my side. And also because it's not a toy but something I depend
> on for my income.
> 
> I'm perfectly prepared to put some effort into migrating to
> systemd, but I'm not prepared to 'fight' it in order to get
> what I want. If systemd is half as superior as it is claimed
> to be, then some manpage, or wiki, or an experienced user
> should be able to tell me what to do, without ifs and maybes.
> So far that is not the case, but I hope for the best.
> 
> 
> Ciao,
> 

Your login sessions from the display manager, virtual terminal, and ssh will all
be very similar (if not identical) if you have the same settings in
/etc/pam.d/{<DM>,login,sshd}. Btw, it seems like you're more concerned with
logind than systemd, and pam_systemd.so would probably be better named
pam_logind.so. That said, all of this seat an session management that
consolekit, and now logind are doing, imo, makes these different logins more
homogeneous because it explicitly defines concepts like session and seat.

If you're willing to put in some time, then why don't you install simple system
to a VM and make sure everything works as you expected? Alternatively, all of
this work that Tom Gunderson (and others) have done recently allows you to
switch between initscripts and systemd at boot time =)

Systemd is superior to sysvinit in its design (my opinion). It also does a lot
(maybe not so unixy, but lets see where this goes). However, it is still very
young so it's difficult to get a lot of answers on google (google always
spellchecks systemd->system...), find the correct manpage, find mini-howtos,
etc. But hang in there, its functionality and presentation are being polished
continuously.

Along those lines, you're going to get a lot of ifs and maybes because the
behavior is still in flux. This is in part do to upstream being very open to
input from other projects.