systemd vs sysvinit
Posted by RandomXUsr@reddit | linuxadmin | View on Reddit | 11 comments
This is not meant to trigger anyone or Start a flame war.
Wondering if anyone runs sysv style init on your prod or home systems?
I realize moat major distros have moved to systemd, but wondering whether there's a benefit going old school and how much time does systemd save you on setup, given any project.
Interested to see if anyone has used both and what are your thoughts at this point?
Ok_Passage_4185@reddit
While systemd has had its little hurdles (unstable DNS in some configurations comes to mind), nothing about systemd is as bad as trying to wrangle a dozen bash scripts, juggling root/setuid permissions, and finding every service to be a bespoke monstrosity of pulling in libraries and writing control files (like PID files) to wherever they felt like it.
Systemd is the calm ocean. SysVInit was chaos.
Single-Position-4194@reddit
Good thread, must admit I'm not very knowledgeable about the subject and have signed in to read up on it.
symcbean@reddit
Used both for a long time. SysVinit has its limitations but its nice and simple. Systemd is horrendously complex and bloated - and its backward compatibility is poor to middling. For starting up processes.....yes fine. The problems are in everything else - the log handling, session initiation / management not to mention yet another mandatory access control system. There are lots of nicer solutions than systemd which don't break stuff - upstart, openrc spring to mind. You want extended process management? Try djb's daemontools.
For those who don't know how to implement control groups and parallel start up with sysVinit, maybe you're in the wrong job?
RedSnt@reddit
I don't work in IT, but I did find this thread because I was curious if one can do parallel startup with sysvinit. Someone suggested
startup boot &but that left me in the TTY :|Do you know where I should look for answers?
RedSnt@reddit
I'm pretty new to linux, only used it since January, and I chose MX Linux which is based on SysVinit because it was the fastest during live image boot. And it didn't lose speed when I installed it on my machine.
So it feels incongruous for me to hear SystemD supposedly being faster because it launches services in parallel. Is the performance of SystemD just worse when booting in a live image environment compared to a proper install? Is it because MX Linux is very lightweight that it boots so fast? Do you even notice when booting from an nvme SSD these days? Who knows. But I leave a lot up to my ignorance here, I didn't live through years or decades of pre-SystemD days where it might've been a lot slower until parallel service loading became a thing.
zfsbest@reddit
I run MX, antix and Devuan to get away from systemd.
Cultural-Stranger-56@reddit
and how it feels to use a bugged init system?
Cultural-Stranger-56@reddit
for example mx linux swears to god that sysvinit is the go to init, but imho thats full bs. I've used their distro, sysvinit just totally s*cks. Basic stuffs like, I logged out of xfce session, and logged back, and the system couldn't call for elevated permissions because i wasn't existing based by the log files lmao, and guess what, I couldn't even shut down my pc, except going into the terminal and do a sudo poweroff...
Switched it to systemd, and all worked like a charm.
Surprise - surprise.
So yepp, systemd > sysvinit, like 1000000000x times! Never again sysvinit (nor mx)
-quakeguy-@reddit
Systemd is an alright init system. It’s just a pretty shit dns resolver, logger, session manager, rocket surgeon and kitchen sink it wants to be.
gargravarr2112@reddit
This exactly. If it would have stayed as a process manager and not try to usurp the entire OS, I might have liked it more, but I've had so many problems with the DNS resolver that I hate it on servers. At home, I run Devuan with classic sysvinit - I followed the fork from Debian Jessie and it continues to do the job well for my servers. At work, we phased out the last of the RHEL 6 machines in 2020 so we're all on RHEL 7 now. I don't have to deal with it a huge amount, but at least I get paid for it when I do.
On end-user machines, it's acceptable because they're rebooted a lot more often than servers (my laptops run Ubuntu).
theBlunt0ne@reddit
I run everything on Devuan - servers, desktops, laptops and I would run my cellphones on it too if I could. Bliss