Re: [gentoo-dev] Changing order of default virtual/udev provider

[Alex McWhirter]

On 02/08/2016 07:07 PM, Rich Freeman wrote:
>
> Sure, but if you've already picked which one you want as your default
> at install time, then you won't have one pulled in as a default.  If a
> package does pull in the virtual and you didn't want it installed at
> boot, chances are the package won't work anyway, or the dependency
> probably shouldn't be there.
>
> But, if we want to change the default it sounds like the main criteria are:
> * lots of distros using it by default
> * feature parity with udev
> * encouraged by its upstream as installed
>
> Sounds like systemd is the obvious default.  :)
>
> Oh wait, I left one out:
> * being an in-house fork
>
> Well, I suppose I could just git clone systemd from a month ago and
> occasionally cherry-pick commits from upstream and stick that in the
> tree.  Maybe I'll rename systemd-nspawn back to nspawn to add some
> distinctiveness.  Then we can say that we're eating our own dogfood.
>
> And this is why I think it is better to sidestep these sorts of
> debates and just stick the instructions in the handbook.  I don't
> really care which is listed first - heck, we still don't have dracut
> in there and I don't get why anybody would install a system without
> that.  (Another weekend project to do, along with integrating and
> simplifying the systemd install instructions...)
>

I think the real issue here is maintaining the "freedom of choice"
Gentoo typically strives to offer. If upstream makes udev something that
cannot be installed without the rest of systemd (which from the sound of
things is very likely) you suddenly have a large userbase who are going
to be forced to go full systemd or migrate to something like eudev. When
this happens we either need to make systemd default over openrc, or make
eudev default over udev. Either way i think we need a better way of
letting the user decide which path they want to chose at install time.

As far as upstream support for eudev goes, consider that we are
currently breaking out udev for use with openrc. There may still be
loose support for this now, but when udev is not longer able to be
separated from systemd it's guaranteed that support for this kind of
configuration will be dropped.

So with that being said, I'm all for making eudev default as the only
other option would be making systemd default which is a completely
different discussion. One or the other will likely have to happen at
some point.