Re: [gentoo-user] Re: gigabyte mobo latency

[Rich Freeman]

On Sun, Oct 19, 2014 at 4:40 PM, James <wireless@×××××××××××.com> wrote:
> Rich Freeman <rich0 <at> gentoo.org> writes:
>
> Rich, embedded is my background. I'm more of an EE
> over the years. so YES, to me it is very important to
> understand hardware and the firmwares that allow all
> of the OO-gui stuffage that exists (and is wonderfull).

Again, I wasn't bashing anybody for having a desire to understand
cgroups.  I just didn't want to suggest that it was necessary to have
this knowledge to actually use systemd.

Of course, if you're in an unusual niche (embedded, clusters, etc)
then systemd is going to be less mature, and since you're blazing a
trail the additional knowledge certainly wouldn't hurt.  And of course
you don't have to use systemd to benefit from cgroups.

>
> You have an idealized view of what is going on in the cluster code spaces.
> (systemd issue abound aplenty). Folks are  just loading binaries on top
> of binaries and look for salvation via config files.

You certainly have more firsthand perspective there than I do.
Systemd has plenty of issues in any configuration - it is very new,
and VERY susceptible to race conditions with its dependencies.  When
you run it on a box that provides core services (dhcp, dns, nfs, etc)
as well as consuming those same services you can run into a lot of
unspecified dependencies.  For example, systemd tends to assume that
if the network is up, DNS is up, but that doesn't work so well for
your DNS server.

None of these are insurmountable design issues, they just point to the
immaturity of the project.

But, like many here that aspect of systemd doesn't really scare me off much.

> If the systemd devs and perveyors feel pressure to make systemd a
> superior technology; what's wrong with that? I like the promise
> of systemd; I *hate* the way it has been jammed down on everyone.

Well, certainly on Gentoo it hasn't been jammed on anybody per-se.
About the closest to that in Gentoo has been the fact that they took
over udev maintenance, but that is an upstream issue (and nobody can
prevent anybody from forking it/etc).  Within Gentoo there was some
controversy when some package maintainers wanted to prevent others
from adding systemd units to their packages, and from that standpoint
there is a policy that forces maintainers to stay out of the way if
somebody else wants to do the work to adapt a package for systemd (or
for openrc for that matter).

Most other distros only support a single init, and for whatever reason
they've decided to switch.  That is really their business, but it is
hard to say that anybody is forcing anybody to do anything.  Gnome is
obviously a factor, but again nobody HAS to use Gnome, and it is a bit
like complaining about having to have Java installed in order to play
minecraft or use some features in openoffice (granted, Java isn't
/quite/ as invasive though sometimes it feels that way).

> I think once Lennart moves on to something else (as many have pondered)
> systemd will become more attractive.   In my youth, I did not understand
> 'good manners' and lennart epitomizes some episodes in my tempetuous youth I
> regret.

Welcome to the FOSS community, where principle and idealism trumps
relationships every day.  In the end we tolerate contributors because
they contribute.  We could always choose to not use their stuff, but
for the most part we're too lazy to re-implement everything.  With
FOSS people only have power over you if you give it to them, but not
giving it to them comes with a price.

> Older folks just murmur under their breath that this snot_nosed_kid
> should have been bitch_slapped by that idiot Linus. He failure to
> reign in that looser cannot be white_washed by anyone; so let's just
> let this go.......

Just what would you have Linus do?  Other than criticize publicly,
there isn't much Linus can do about systemd, since he maintains the
kernel and systemd isn't part of the kernel.  Linus has about as much
power to change systemd as anybody does.

Again, with FOSS YOU choose who gets the power, since you choose what
software you use.  If you run xfce then there is nothing the gnome
developers can do to touch you.  Now, if all the xfce maintainers get
bored and quit you're stuck, but that is true of anything in FOSS.
You get what you pay for.  :)

--
Rich