On 2019-02-12 Adam Thompson wrote:
From one of the FreeBSD developers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_AIw9bGogo
This is the updated version of his talk, and is more cogent and helpful than the first version, so just watch this one :-).
-Adam
P.S. I still don't agree with some of his fundamental assumptions, nor some of his conclusions, but some of what he says makes sense.
From the name I thought it would be a systemd-bashing. It's the
opposite. He's a hardcore systemd apologist. In fact, it's almost pure propaganda. His few "arguments" against systemd are strawmen and not really what most people are saying.
Most of his arguments (for and against) are incredibly superficial, fallacious, and could easily be destroyed had this talk instead been a debate.
Since this is not really the forum, I'll simply list 2 arguments this apologist used that particularly irked me:
1. The "right side of history" fallacy: that's not an argument for anything, ever. That's basically an attempt at peer pressure, "everyone is doing it", or that somehow resistance is futile so you might as well convert. That this argument is used in a computer con tech talk is rather pathetic.
2. The "Old farts and greybeards" argument: Oh no, the new generation is coming up and they won't like to do it the way the previous generation did it. We have to change because the people are changing. Get with the times or get left behind oldster. Oooh, "the world is changing"; scary!
With a system as old as UNIX, that is so ridiculous an argument it's not even funny. UNIX came around when the last of the greatest generation and start of the boomers were running things. As if the millennials are the first generation to grow up with UNIX already mature/old? No. The mid/late boomers and gen-Xers hit the university scene confronted with UNIX as it was basically since '69. Did Xers throw up their arms and demand complete rewrites/rethinks of UNIX because their version of old farts had created it so it must be passe? No, we hunkered down and learned the system and the history and said "ah, now I understand, cool".
The hubris of this guy to think that something is different about Lennart's generation that suddenly what was good enough for 40 years and multiple generations is now in need of change, partly due to the reason that "it's the wrong side of history" or "we have to account for the kids coming up today". The kids 10 or 20 or 30 years ago managed quite fine, but, nope, it's something magical about the kids precisely 40 years later that can't possibly stand to learn the "old ways".
The presenter really blew his chance to proffer some actual, good reasons for systemd. It's not all bad. Instead he focuses on points that have only a veneer of legitimacy and as such undermines his entire talk. (Oh ya, and he still has no idea what the "UNIX philosophy" is; no, it's not that it's one binary!)
I don't hate systemd. I use it on every system, and as a Fedora guy I've been forced into it for way longer than every other distro fan. However, systemd costs me at least 2-4 whole work days every year (for 8 years now) (unpaid since I'm self-employed) where I have to adapt my existing (and working perfectly) processes, scripts, templates, and system configs to support whatever it is that systemd has engulfed and digested that day. And at the end of the day(s) I'm left with something that, sure, works basically as it did before (or slightly worse), but never *better*. I can't think of a single thing that works better *for me or my customers* with systemd.
Except boot times, which I care not one iota about whether they are 1 minute (systemd) or 2 (upstart) or 3 (init), because they are servers and rarely rebooted. Not to mention, using "speed" as a main argument for any major software overhaul is pretty weak because next year's hardware will be twice as fast. I bet booting an old init system on a brand new Ryzen 7 with NVMe would be faster than systemd started on a Core2 Duo 8 years ago. (Sure, on laptops you have more of an argument, but I'm not doing laptops.)
So Lennart and the apologist have eaten several work-weeks of my time (again, unpaid) for no reason whatsoever (from my point of view). My favorite thing that endeared UNIX to me was it was almost always 2 steps forward, 0 steps back. With systemd the paradigm has changed into 3 steps back, then 3.0001 steps forward: on their schedule. If I wanted that, I'd have used Windows or Mac for the last 25 years instead of *NIX!
Next up from Lennart and gang are the eating of network config, dhcpd (D!!), and named. That is the ultimate tragedy of systemd. They didn't know when to stop (hint: it was a long time ago). More time wasted. Less choice. When *will* it end? When every daemon is rewritten inside systemd?? At this point, I wouldn't bet against it.
Final thought: he's a hardcore Free BSD guy? Perhaps he's pushing "systemd is awesome! resistance is futile!" as a way to destroy Linux to the benefit of Free BSD, so it can take overr zee werld! ;-) Methinks he should go back to his FreeBSD, and crying that Apple never gave his OS the launchd he so cherishes.