this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2025
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Not sure why the downvotes on this? Systemd is bloated and known to present security risks. Don't see why looking at alternatives wouldn't be seen as positive growth.
I didn't downvote myself, but did consider it.
For one, it felt a bit out of place; Fedora isn't defined by systemd, nor Red Hat or IBM. One clear example would be how Fedora has chosen to stick with Btrfs; contrary to Red Hat's demands. Don't get me wrong, I don't deny any partnership or whatsoever. But it's not like Fedora's community has no agency.
Secondly, corsicanguppy's comment seems to imply that Fedora only sticks to systemd out of some obligation towards IBM/RedHat or something. As if the overwhelming majority of distros don't default to systemd.
Thirdly, Poettering works for M$ now. Sure. But systemd remains a Linux project. And quite a good one at that. Even if the likes of dinit and s6 are starting to offer some healthy competition, it's undeniable that systemd continues to have the advantage in terms of received man-hours (in development) and adoption. I hope that Fedora eventually gives others the chance to shine. But outright ditching systemd without a perfect replacement is just foolish.
The bloat argument has absolutely no weight as long it's not properly defined. One's bloat is the other's sane default and vice versa. Please, if you're engaging in good faith, come up with a definition by which the likes of dinit and/or s6 are not bloated while systemd is. Please be complete and rigorous in your assessment.
If you're referring to what's addressed in Madaidan's article, you should not forget that Whonix -the very distro Madaidan used to be a security researcher at- employed systemd to enhance security. And while one might say a lot about Poettering, one simply can't deny that they've got a sound understanding of good security standards and how to implement them. It's therefore unsurprising that both Kicksecure and secureblue (i.e. Linux' finest when it comes to hardened distros) heavily rely on systemd for their bidding.
At least we can agree on this 😉.
Ah, I get what you mean now by inflammatory statements (after a thorough reread) and why there may have been downvotes from that. Though interestingly, I didn't feel my comment was very inflammatory and it got downvoted too. 😅
I was looking at it more from just a standpoint of systemd itself, and honestly, just looking at it from the standpoint that fedora and rhel can tend to be industry leaders for change. Honestly, if RHEL and Ubuntu together made some sort of meaningful change from a system perspective, I think we would see that move downstream.
As far as my use of the term bloated, I'm looking at it strictly from a standpoint for the amount of code that goes into the system. The more code you have, the more entries for security risks. I'm not saying that there's anything that's particularly better out there right now, but I think we should always be looking for alternatives regardless of what your views are for the people that created the code. KISS philosophy, basically. That and being open to change to avoid stagnation.
Actually, it wasn't me that said that 😅. I do find it in jrgd's reply, though.
For the record, I also didn't downvote your comment 😜. Though, looking at how well-received my previous reply has been, I can't ignore the possibility that peeps that agreed with what I said also chose to downvote your comment.
Sorry, I don't think I completely understood you here.
I absolutely agree with you that Fedora and Red Hat are very effective agents of change. So yes, if they would get behind an alternative for systemd, then that would definitely get traction.
Has something like this ever happened in the past? I can't recollect a collaboration of sorts between these two entities. If anything, they seem to be at odds with eachother: Mir vs Wayland, Snap vs Flatpak and even Upstart vs systemd. Though, at least so far, Red Hat holds an impressive winning track record.
Absolutely. But, and this is my inner-systemd-skeptic talking, systemd is ridiculously intertwined with the current Linux landscape and often times new updates even show a glimpse of how much more intermingling we'll get in the future. I hope we'll eventually get something to systemd like what PipeWire has been to PulseAudio. That's why development into alternatives like dinit and s6 is of utmost importance.
Suckless it is 😜. It's a fine definition. Thank you for that. But, I got to ask, where is the line drawn? Like, the Linux kernel, by virtue of being monolithic, has to be bloated as well. Right? So, if that's the case, is somehow the kernel's bloat okay while bloat is unaccepted for the system and service manager? If so, why? I'm genuinely curious.
Sure~ish. Deep discussion. I'm fine with giving this to ya.
I suppose some peeps will enjoy themselves with what's out there. Do you happen to use an alternative on a daily-basis?
Wholeheartedly agree 😊.
Systemd is both in a lot more large distros than just Fedora, RHEL and has limited viable alternatives (OpenRC as a partial replacement, no others I can think of that come close). While it has its issues particularly with the extra bundled services of mixed quality, SystemD is generally a flexible and suitable option for service management on Linux.
Not to mention how inflammatory the parent comment is.