Linux distros without systemd

Re:Linux distros without systemd by eropple on Monday May 20, 2019 @11:48AM (#19961622)

I agree with your logical consistency, but I'm curious: is D-Bus sufficiently specified that one could write an alternative to it? That is, is it a hard dependency or is it itself an interface? I'm not nearly sufficiently experienced with desktop Linux application development to know. ;)

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Re:Linux distros without systemd by vetinari on Monday May 20, 2019 @12:03PM (#19961806)

Yes, DBUS is specified [1]. There are multiple implementations shipping (dbus reference implementation and dbus-broker), as well as several different client libraries.

As dbus user, or application, you just need some client library. As an operating system, you also need a daemon running, which is routing the messages among all the clients.

[1] - https://dbus.freedesktop.org/doc/dbus-specification.html

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Re:Linux distros without systemd by eropple on Monday May 20, 2019 @12:30PM (#19962106)

So it is--and, in reading, it looks like systemd actually ships their own sd-bus client. Huh. TIL. Thanks.

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Re:Linux distros without systemd by m4rtink on Monday May 20, 2019 @06:13PM (#19965825)

IIRC at least part of the reason for sd-bus is the need for using D-Bus between parts of systemd during early boot when "normal" D-Bus is not yet up and running.

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Re:Linux distros without systemd by asveikau on Monday May 20, 2019 @12:05PM (#19961821)

I'm not a huge fan, but dbus at least runs on FreeBSD and others.

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Re:Linux distros without systemd by AsyncAwait on Monday May 20, 2019 @03:37PM (#19964207)

FreeBSD developers are actually looking at something like systemd themselves. The fact that systemd itself doesn't run on it is just the consequence of POSIX being inadequate for its implementation, since it relies on a bunch of Linux specific features, like cgroups etc.

I am personally in the camp that doesn't mind that, Linux users should get the best possible software given their system capabilities, not the lowest common denominator one just for the sake of it. (Free)BSD developers are also not looking to make sure their stuff works with Linux, which I think it's a valid approach.

GNOME itself does exist on the BSDs, by the way knocking down the argument of systemd being a hard dependency of GNOME along the way.

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Re:Linux distros without systemd by asveikau on Monday May 20, 2019 @04:09PM (#19964598)

> FreeBSD developers are actually looking at something like systemd themselves

If this claim were true it still is beside the point of my comment, that systemd itself has a "Linux only, and we don't care" approach, and dbus for the moment is not that.

> GNOME itself does exist on the BSDs

Yes the ports tree is a wonderful place for those things to sit for those who are interested and for a larger portion to not bother installing them. I don't know how many patches they applied to get it working or what the cost and effect of those patches may be over time.

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Re:Linux distros without systemd by Crinus on Tuesday May 21, 2019 @07:53AM (#19969257)

Yeah it is. It is a bit complex, but it has a spec that should allow for independent implementations (AFAIK KDE has its own, for example).

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