Re: [gentoo-dev] udev-ng? (Was: Summary Council meeting Tuesday 13 November 2012)

[Greg KH]

On Sun, Nov 18, 2012 at 02:05:39AM -0500, Walter Dnes wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 17, 2012 at 07:29:22PM -0800, Greg KH wrote
>
> > But, along those lines, what is the goal of the fork?  What are you
> > trying to attempt to do with a fork of udev that could not be
> > accomplished by:
> >   - getting patches approved upstream
> > or:
> >   - keeping a simple set of patches outside of the upstream tree and
> >     applying them to each release
>
>   That approach would be viable if upstream were co-operative or gave a
> damn about anybody else.  They've broken people's sytems with the "new
> and improved" udev, and claimed that people's systems were already
> broken.  Kay Sievers got Linus angry enough to go on a rant.  See
> https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/10/3/484

Yes, I know all about the firmware issue with media drivers.  It's now
resolved and fixed, in two different ways (the kernel now loads firmware
directly, and on older kernels, udev has fixed the issue.)  So that's no
longer an issue for anyone.

>   In short, the systemd-udev people are hard to work with in general,
> and have a dislike for Gentoo.  Good luck with getting patches accepted
> by them.

The fact that Gentoo is alone in wanting to build udev, without systemd
dependencies being on the system, is something that if I were the
systemd maintainer, I would reject.  It's also a pretty simple set of
patches that Gentoo can keep around if it's really a serious issue for
people.

> > Oh, and if _anyone_ thinks that changing udev is going to "solve" the
> > "no separate /usr without an initrd" issue, I have a bridge I want to
> > sell them.
>
>   If udev-systemd merely broke a filesystem layout that functioned very
> well in linux for 2 decades, you would not be seeing this rebellion.

Note, a separate /usr has been broken for a while now, udev is just
pointing the issue out.  And again, if you want a separate /usr, just
use an initrd, the solution is simple.

> udev-systemd is also breaking media drivers.  The entire thread
> https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/10/2/194 gives an idea of just how badly Kay
> has screwed up udev. You participated in that thread.

Again, this is now resolved, no need to keep beating it :)

> How many people have read Siever's post?
> http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/systemd-devel/2012-July/006065.html
> > We promised to keep udev properly *running* as standalone, we never
> > told that it can be *build* standalone. And that still stands.
> >
> > We never claimed, that all the surrounding things like documentation
> > always fully match, if only udev is picked out of systemd.
> >
> > I would welcome if people stop reading that "promise" into the
> > announcement, it just wasn't written there.
>
>   You (the former udev maintainer) are saying that a standalone udev
> *WITHOUT SYSTEMD* will always be possible.  The current maintainer is
> saying that isn't necessarily true.  Who do you expect me to believe?

They are saying it as well.  It's Gentoo that is unique in wanting to
build it without the rest of the systemd package as well.  Two different
things here.

>   You also wrote...
>
> > And is something that small really worth ripping tons of code out of
> > a working udev, causing major regressions on people's boxes (and yes,
> > it is a regression to slow my boot time down and cause hundreds of
> > more processes to be spawned before booting is finished.)
>
>   Some people are finding firmware drivers not loading, and the cards
> not functioning.  Don't you consider that a regression?

Again, been a bug for 6 months, hit by very few people, now resolved,
not an issue.

> Seiver's response is basically the same as for people with separate
> /usr; telling them that they have to re-write their drivers to
> accomadate the "new and improved" udev.  And people whose drivers
> don't fail entirely now get a 60-second delay while udev times out
> before loading the firmware in another manner.  Those people have seen
> their bootup times increased by a full minute.  Do you not consider
> that a regression?

Again, now resolved, not an issue.

> > You need to have a real solid goal in place in order to be able to keep
> > this up in the long-run.  Otherwise you are going to burn yourself out,
> > and end up alienating a lot of people along the way.
>
>   Howsabout a standalone udev, with no dependancies on systemd, and it
> won't break people's systems?

If that is the goal, great, it would be wonderful if someone would say
that.  But from looking at the commits so far in the repo, it really
doesn't look like that is the goal.  Or if it is, it's getting there in
a very odd way.

thanks,

greg k-h