Re:If it's not practical to redistribute, it's not free soft...
by creshal on Tuesday November 24, 2015 @03:27AM
(#10619724)
> Systemd replaces a lot more of the system than other init systems - for example, it has it's own journal format, and also has it's own time tools.
From my own experience, migrating machines from sysvinit to systemd is trivial. Systemd does not need all those optional bits and is happy to work with syslog, ntpd, cron, etc. pp., can pass through sysvinit init files, and so on. If you actually use it instead of relying on fudy reports, it's a breeze to work with.
Recompiling half my desktop, and then recompiling all userspace programs using any of the involved libraries, is much more invasive compared to that.
Another approach is looking at what you have to do when building a system from scratch: Here, systemd's "modification needs" are obviously close to zero (because the system is built around it, you can use journald/timesyncd/etc. from start, or set up rsyslog/ntpd interoperability for systemd). Userland software might, at most, need unit files to use them. Desktop environments et. al. work without dedicated logind support or anything. Unity, however, still requires me to scrape together patches out of Canonical forks of various programs and libraries to get it to work. It's still massively invasive and requires far, far too much effort.
From my own experience, migrating machines from sysvinit to systemd is trivial. Systemd does not need all those optional bits and is happy to work with syslog, ntpd, cron, etc. pp., can pass through sysvinit init files, and so on. If you actually use it instead of relying on fudy reports, it's a breeze to work with.
Recompiling half my desktop, and then recompiling all userspace programs using any of the involved libraries, is much more invasive compared to that.
Another approach is looking at what you have to do when building a system from scratch: Here, systemd's "modification needs" are obviously close to zero (because the system is built around it, you can use journald/timesyncd/etc. from start, or set up rsyslog/ntpd interoperability for systemd). Userland software might, at most, need unit files to use them. Desktop environments et. al. work without dedicated logind support or anything. Unity, however, still requires me to scrape together patches out of Canonical forks of various programs and libraries to get it to work. It's still massively invasive and requires far, far too much effort.