4 ms·

Tbh, the installer was inevitable after systemd integrated a bootloader, crafted a paritioning scheme for autodiscovery, took over user and home directory manag

by mid-kid 3mo ago

Tbh, the installer was inevitable after systemd integrated a bootloader, crafted a paritioning scheme for autodiscovery, took over user and home directory management, and topped it off with an updater and "system extensions" layering system that some immutable distros are using. I'm not saying any of this is particularly bad but it's been very clear fot a while that systemd just wants to be an OS. With immutable systems the "distribution" part of it is reduced to a build system, and everything else can be provided by systemd and flatpak.

d_tr 3mo ago
Can't these features be toggled?
- mort96 3mo ago
  They're separate programs and system services which all more or less just do their own thing, just developed under the systemd umbrella. So it can't be "toggled", you can just not use the parts of systemd you don't want. But it's meant to work as a cohesive system when everything in systemd is used together. FWIW, I think it's great that someone is trying to make a coherent set of system services for Linux. Things tend to interoperate better when they're explicitly written to work together than when every component is meant to be hacked to work with arbitrary other services through shell script soup.
  - bayindirh 3mo ago
    It's great that the same someone has formed a company called Amutable which has the sole purpose of converting Linux to a locked-down immutable OS where the users doesn't have the key. Also it's interesting that a set of simple interfaces have worked for so long. Maybe they did something wrong that it didn't break? See: https://www.amutable.com https://www.amutable.com
    - gatlin 3mo ago
      Lennart Poettering will not rest until all software is completely unusable.
    - jeroenhd 3mo ago
      > converting Linux to a locked-down immutable OS That approach is part of why Valve has been able to ship Linux to general consumers. I don't know exactly why you'd go for amutable specifically, but not handing users the key is a huge benefit to any company-owned hardware out there.
      - bayindirh 3mo ago
        Having an immutable OS for some scenarios makes sense. However, I find waving the whole layer into systemd and kernel permanently, instead of having it as a layer which you can install and enable if you need so is a bit sinister. This enables the danger of locking out every Linux distribution out there, esp. with new IPC protocols, new image based installation methods, encryption and whatnot systemd brings in with all these modules. One day, Microsoft can disallow disabling of secure-boot for PC certification and stop signing 3rd party bootloaders. The rest will be fun.
        jeroenhd 3mo ago
        > instead of having it as a layer which you can install and enable if you need so is a bit sinister I don't really get it. If you don't want systemd, you can install your own OpenRC-based immutable OS. I don't know if that currently exists (Android does, I suppose? maybe ChromeOS?) but it's not like systemd is forbidding everyone from doing anything. The biggest difference between systemd and alternatives is that systemd builds out the architecture that makes things like building immutable distros easy. If you have a thousand different components, all with slightly different roles, the amount of coordination necessary to get everything to play nice together makes it near impossible to achieve the same things a coordinated system can achieve. I'm sure that if someone would build an alternative to systemd-sysext and prepare a prebuilt set of tooling and configuration that does what systemd does, there will be distros that will use them. Secure boot can be overridden by just adding your own keys. At worst, Microsoft will refuse to boot Windows because you added a key yourself. The exception is extra expensive, specially labeled Enterprime (TM) hardware built for Windows sysadmins and Microsoft tablets built for consumers, but I don't know why you'd buy either if you don't want to give MS that much control.
  - tym0 3mo ago
    Right, are any of the things mentioned in the GP really required if you only want this init? I know they've attached all these projects to the systemd brand because they thought it would beneficial but it's hard not to wonder if we could avoid all those discussions if the umbrella project was called something different...
    - mort96 3mo ago
      No, you can just run the systemd init system and not use any other systemd programs. I would probably run systemd-journald just because it's really nice to have a logging system which knows about the system services, but it's not required.
      - bonzini 3mo ago
        You probably also want to run udev, and logind comes close. Everything other than these four is absolutely optional.
mort96 3mo ago
The various Red Hat affiliated projects have so much more reason to call themselves the "OS" than GNU at this point. A Linux system with systemd for the init, systemd-networkd and NetworkManager for networking, GNOME for the desktop, systemd-boot for the bootloader, RPM/DNF as the package manager, etc. probably contains orders of magnitude more Red Hat code than GNU code even if the system uses glibc and GNU coreutils.
- benterix 3mo ago
  Suppose someone wants to play this game, what's the point? Not to mention the fact that Gnome, even though is not a GNU project, literally means GNU Network Object Model Environment.
s_ting765 3mo ago
Partition autodiscovery is pretty neat. I did my archlinux install with it using this guide[0]. I have never touched /etc/fstab and I have had zero to worry about corrupting a boot with wrong fstab entries. [0] https://walian.co.uk/arch-install-with-secure-boot-btrfs-tpm2-luks-encryption-unified-kernel-images.html https://walian.co.uk/arch-install-with-secure-boot-btrfs-tpm...
- nubinetwork 3mo ago
  Btrfs and zfs don't need an fstab at all, they manage their mountable filesystems internally.
  - s_ting765 3mo ago
    Sure. After you have located root and the boot partition which is what this addresses.
- simoncion 3mo ago
  My searches for "systemd partition autodiscovery" lead me to [0]. In the table labeled "Table 1. Partition Type GUIDs", we find this in the Explanation section for 'SD_GPT_HOME' The first partition with this type UUID on the same disk as the root partition is mounted to /home/. ...you can't spread your /home and / partitions on separate disks and use this? In fact, it looks like you can't use this autodetection unless all of the partitions of interest (including your /boot/) are on the same disk? Seriously? There's also no indication that this works with LVM... which is -if true- is extremely inconvenient. The document at [1] only mentions LVM in passing, and [2] is Poettering saying "Fuck off, I don't want to support doing this with LVM". Did I misread a document or fail to find a relevant one? If not, is this really limited to single-disk, "legacy" [3] configurations? [0] <https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/latest/systemd-gpt-auto-generator.html https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/latest/syst...> [1] <https://uapi-group.org/specifications/specs/discoverable_partitions_specification/ https://uapi-group.org/specifications/specs/discoverable_par...> [2] <https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/1727 https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/1727> [3] Yes, I'm considering any fixed-partition mechanism, whether MBR or GPT to be "legacy". The flexibility you get from LVM is sooooo nice.

by mid-kid 3mo ago

d_tr 3mo ago

Can't these features be toggled?

mort96 3mo ago
They're separate programs and system services which all more or less just do their own thing, just developed under the systemd umbrella. So it can't be "toggled", you can just not use the parts of systemd you don't want. But it's meant to work as a cohesive system when everything in systemd is used together. FWIW, I think it's great that someone is trying to make a coherent set of system services for Linux. Things tend to interoperate better when they're explicitly written to work together than when every component is meant to be hacked to work with arbitrary other services through shell script soup.
- bayindirh 3mo ago
  It's great that the same someone has formed a company called Amutable which has the sole purpose of converting Linux to a locked-down immutable OS where the users doesn't have the key. Also it's interesting that a set of simple interfaces have worked for so long. Maybe they did something wrong that it didn't break? See: https://www.amutable.com https://www.amutable.com
  - gatlin 3mo ago
    Lennart Poettering will not rest until all software is completely unusable.
  - jeroenhd 3mo ago
    > converting Linux to a locked-down immutable OS That approach is part of why Valve has been able to ship Linux to general consumers. I don't know exactly why you'd go for amutable specifically, but not handing users the key is a huge benefit to any company-owned hardware out there.
    - bayindirh 3mo ago
      Having an immutable OS for some scenarios makes sense. However, I find waving the whole layer into systemd and kernel permanently, instead of having it as a layer which you can install and enable if you need so is a bit sinister. This enables the danger of locking out every Linux distribution out there, esp. with new IPC protocols, new image based installation methods, encryption and whatnot systemd brings in with all these modules. One day, Microsoft can disallow disabling of secure-boot for PC certification and stop signing 3rd party bootloaders. The rest will be fun.
      - jeroenhd 3mo ago
        > instead of having it as a layer which you can install and enable if you need so is a bit sinister I don't really get it. If you don't want systemd, you can install your own OpenRC-based immutable OS. I don't know if that currently exists (Android does, I suppose? maybe ChromeOS?) but it's not like systemd is forbidding everyone from doing anything. The biggest difference between systemd and alternatives is that systemd builds out the architecture that makes things like building immutable distros easy. If you have a thousand different components, all with slightly different roles, the amount of coordination necessary to get everything to play nice together makes it near impossible to achieve the same things a coordinated system can achieve. I'm sure that if someone would build an alternative to systemd-sysext and prepare a prebuilt set of tooling and configuration that does what systemd does, there will be distros that will use them. Secure boot can be overridden by just adding your own keys. At worst, Microsoft will refuse to boot Windows because you added a key yourself. The exception is extra expensive, specially labeled Enterprime (TM) hardware built for Windows sysadmins and Microsoft tablets built for consumers, but I don't know why you'd buy either if you don't want to give MS that much control.
- tym0 3mo ago
  Right, are any of the things mentioned in the GP really required if you only want this init? I know they've attached all these projects to the systemd brand because they thought it would beneficial but it's hard not to wonder if we could avoid all those discussions if the umbrella project was called something different...
  - mort96 3mo ago
    No, you can just run the systemd init system and not use any other systemd programs. I would probably run systemd-journald just because it's really nice to have a logging system which knows about the system services, but it's not required.
    - bonzini 3mo ago
      You probably also want to run udev, and logind comes close. Everything other than these four is absolutely optional.

mort96 3mo ago

The various Red Hat affiliated projects have so much more reason to call themselves the "OS" than GNU at this point. A Linux system with systemd for the init, systemd-networkd and NetworkManager for networking, GNOME for the desktop, systemd-boot for the bootloader, RPM/DNF as the package manager, etc. probably contains orders of magnitude more Red Hat code than GNU code even if the system uses glibc and GNU coreutils.

benterix 3mo ago
Suppose someone wants to play this game, what's the point? Not to mention the fact that Gnome, even though is not a GNU project, literally means GNU Network Object Model Environment.

s_ting765 3mo ago

Partition autodiscovery is pretty neat. I did my archlinux install with it using this guide[0]. I have never touched /etc/fstab and I have had zero to worry about corrupting a boot with wrong fstab entries. [0] https://walian.co.uk/arch-install-with-secure-boot-btrfs-tpm2-luks-encryption-unified-kernel-images.html https://walian.co.uk/arch-install-with-secure-boot-btrfs-tpm...

nubinetwork 3mo ago
Btrfs and zfs don't need an fstab at all, they manage their mountable filesystems internally.
- s_ting765 3mo ago
  Sure. After you have located root and the boot partition which is what this addresses.
simoncion 3mo ago
My searches for "systemd partition autodiscovery" lead me to [0]. In the table labeled "Table 1. Partition Type GUIDs", we find this in the Explanation section for 'SD_GPT_HOME' The first partition with this type UUID on the same disk as the root partition is mounted to /home/. ...you can't spread your /home and / partitions on separate disks and use this? In fact, it looks like you can't use this autodetection unless all of the partitions of interest (including your /boot/) are on the same disk? Seriously? There's also no indication that this works with LVM... which is -if true- is extremely inconvenient. The document at [1] only mentions LVM in passing, and [2] is Poettering saying "Fuck off, I don't want to support doing this with LVM". Did I misread a document or fail to find a relevant one? If not, is this really limited to single-disk, "legacy" [3] configurations? [0] <https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/latest/systemd-gpt-auto-generator.html https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/latest/syst...> [1] <https://uapi-group.org/specifications/specs/discoverable_partitions_specification/ https://uapi-group.org/specifications/specs/discoverable_par...> [2] <https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/1727 https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/1727> [3] Yes, I'm considering any fixed-partition mechanism, whether MBR or GPT to be "legacy". The flexibility you get from LVM is sooooo nice.