I have seen so many times that systemd is insecure, bloated, etc. So i wonder ¿does it worth to switch to another init system?
I mean, is systemd giving YOU problems? If not, don’t switch just because other people complain about it
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I didn’t use Linux two decades ago (I started on a systemd distro a few years ago), and the init system I use (runit on Void) is both simple to use and boots faster than any systemd-based distro I used; which is what I personally care about. I never used any “advanced” features of systemd other than timers and user services, and these have many alternatives.
I think systemd is fine, and has generally proven itself as reliable, but that doesn’t mean the current alternatives have no merit.
Keep systemd. People can cry all they like but it’s the best init system we have right now. Unless you want to start building a better one, i guess.
If you have to ask, no.
I say this as someone who doesn’t use systemd. There’s not much benefit to it. It’s cool to do if you’re an enthusiast or experimentalist, but from a practical stand point, systemd is most practical.
I use gentoo with openRC btw.
The biggest benefit would be to learn more about how unix systems work from the ground up. I’d say if you’ve had no problems ever with systemd then just stick to it. My linux usage predates systemd (by a lot) and I just want options kept open so I’m never forced onto it against my will.
Basically, if you do not see any reason to switch from systemd then you should not. The thing with systemd is that it is really big and complicated. If you just use defaults of your distro systemd works just fine, but if you want to (or have to) change something fundamental, then dealing with this monstrosity becomes a bit of pain. You basically end with the situation where you are in a war with your own PC. After some time of this, dealing with an init system that does exactly what you tell it to do feels refreshing. There is also the part, where some init systems (sysVinit and runit) boot faster then others (openRC and systemd), but it is not that significant. I use runit BTW. With my setup I spend much less time dealing with runit then I used to with systemd. That being said I still miss some of systemd features.
What distro do you use with runnit?
Void Linux
I, personally, use Void Linux, which is a ‘flagship’ runit distro. But if you want a bigger package repository, then devuan is also a good choice.
Too shit to fail.
Systemd vs anything else is mostly controversy, the outlet of a bunch of people that don’t want Linux to evolve, become better and have more flexibility because it violates the UNIX philosophy and/or it is backed by big corp. Systemd was made to tackle a bunch of issues with poorly integrated tools and old architectures that aren’t as good as they used to be. If you look at other operating systems. Even Apple has a better service manager (launchd) than what Linux had with init and friends.
Systemd is incredibly versatile and most people are unaware of its full potential. Apart from the obvious - start services - it can also run most of a base system with features such as networking (IPv4+IPV6, PBR), NTP, Timers (cron replacement), secure DNS resolutions, isolate processes, setup basic firewalls, port forwarding, centralize logging (in an easy way to query and read), monitor and restart services, detect hardware changes and react to them, mount filesystems, listen for connections in sockets and launch programs to handle incoming data, become your bootloader and… even run full fledged containers both privileged and non-privileged containers. Read this for more details: https://tadeubento.com/2023/systemd-hidden-gems-for-a-better-linux/
The question isn’t “what is the benefit of removing this init system”, it is “what I’ll be missing if I remove it”. Although it is possible to do all the above without Systemd, you’ll end up with a lot of small integration pains and dozens of processes and different tools all wasting resources.
That list of “features” never needed to be replaced by systemd and for the most part are provided by the other init offerings.
As for logging you may find yourself one with a system using systemd that has faced an error and cannot boot good luck reading the binary journal it makes, yes these entries can be pushed out to text file or syslog but if systemd falls over hard it will log to the default binary journal and you’ll need to use another install with systemd to run journalctl --file /path/to/mounted/journal which in an emergency is a true PITA.
It is not an outlet for those who you choose to espouse as “People who don’t want linux to evolve” far from it most of them just want systemd to stop trying to replace things that are not broken and for other projects to stop having it as a hard dependency. Yes it is modular, yes these can be disabled but it has so many tentacles that it is clear the intentions are wider than just being an init.
What’s wrong with ip, iproute2, iptables/nftables, ufw, firewalld, ntp, dnscrypt, privoxy, dnsmasq, openresolve, crond, sudo, mount, syslog-ng?
Are they somehow obsolete now?
If you want a basic bootloader your UEFI has one built in and/or you can boot the kernel directly with efistub, systemd-boot is so basic it’s pointless to the point that an unconfigured install of refind is a truckload better.
I get that this is a hot topic but waaay too many people are just adding pointless opinion and toxic opinion into this debate that doesn’t help anyone make what they want is a decent informed choice and tbh when I see Gnome make a hard dependency of systemd it makes me think either systemd is doing too much, is not modular enough, devs got lazy or all of the above.
And a final FYI I use systemd and have disabled much of it but can’t uninstall the parts I don’t need/want.
That list of “features” never needed to be replaced by systemd and for the most part are provided by the other init offerings.
This is plain wrong. Init wasn’t able to properly start things in parallel and monitor them. With systemd you can even create a visual representation graph of your boot services that you can use to identify what is taking more time and when things are happening.
What’s wrong with ip, iproute2, iptables/nftables, ufw, firewalld, ntp, dnscrypt, privoxy, dnsmasq, openresolve, crond, sudo, mount, syslog-ng?
What’s wrong? Too many tools, way too fragmented and poorly integrated. It is very, very easy to get into trouble if you simply setup a dual stack system with IPv6-PD with those tools. With systemd it all works of the box with simples configuration files and its way more intuitive. For eg. cron is a mess, systemd timers share the unit config format which is way better and more scalable.
I use systemd and have disabled much of it
So you are saying you could just have a very small footprint and have a very lightweight system that is very solid but instead of choose to go with a bunch of different tools? I’ve leveraged systemd to be able to have fully working system on devices with 256MB of RAM while still having RAM for other important applications.
Here’s a handy chart for you
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Comparison_of_init_systems
As you can see many have the ability to start services in parallel. Some script magic with graphviz will also do similar to analyse blame.
What’s wrong? Too many tools, way too fragmented and poorly integrated. It is very, very easy to get into trouble if you simply setup a dual stack system with IPv6-PD with those tools. With systemd it all works of the box with simples configuration files and its way more intuitive. For eg. cron is a mess, systemd timers share the unit config format which is way better and more scalable.
Do you honestly beloved thie mental gymnastics your getting into just to prove your point, go back to windows. Lol
Well done on using systemd how you wish, now move on and let others use it how they wish or remove it.
It’s not gymnastics, it’s years and years of init bullshit and fragmentation / lack of integration related issues that were solved by systemd.
Keep telling yourself that, meanwhile we’ll all see your obvious dislike of of general userland tools.
I don’t dislike them, I never disliked them… I simply came to like systemd’s efficiency more.
Yup, windows is calling you.
Bye
systemd is insecure, bloated, etc
[Citation needed]
If a distro that doesn’t use systemd ends up booting much faster or being much easier to configure, maybe those are features you care about. But switching away from systemd in this case is merely an implementation detail. What you’re really doing is moving from a distro to another one that serves you better.
Otherwise, the choice of init system has very little impact to the average user. Maybe it’s worth it to switch init systems if you hate the syntax of unit files and/or the interface of
systemctl/journalctland you use them often enough to warrant the effort. The people who want to use alternatives to systemd without having such a practical issue with it are doing so for philosophical reasons.I don’t see any fundamental reason why systemd would be insecure. If anything, I would expect it to be less prone to security bugs than the conglomerations of shell scripts that used to be used for init systems.
The bloated argument seems to mostly come from people who don’t understand systemd init is a separate thing from all the other systemd components. You can use just the init part and not the rest if you want. Also, systemd performs way better than the old init systems anyway. I suspect many of the those complaining online didn’t really have first hand experience with the old init systems.
If a different init suits your needs better, then sure go with it. But for the vast majority of typical desktop/server stuff, systemd is probably the best option. That’s why most distributions use it.
The complaints are just a meme at this point. If you have to ask, don’t bother.
If you have to ask, the benefits of another init system than systemd starts and stops at “you look smart.” I like runit a lot and would even recommend Void Linux as a daily driver if that’s your speed, but honestly anyone who actually was around before systemd knew how much sysvinit and co sucked.
Not sure about the security, but recently I’ve tried runit on a very old laptop with HDD and it took waaay much less to fully boot up than a clean Arch32 with systemd
If you want to try living without systemd, take a look at voidlinux - it uses runit instead. I made the jump from Fedora recently and I love it! Linux is once again the unix system I loved for 40+ years - it’s rational, easy to understand and just works! As an added bonus, I do believe I get about 50% more life out of the battery (less busy-work going on?). What do I miss from systemd? Nothing really.
Before switching to Guix I ran Void Linux for years. It’s a very nice, light and quick distribution. The BSD of Linux if you will.
Can very much recommend it.
The things with init systems is as an average user you don’t really realize they’re there. Whether it’s SystemD or something else and I wouldn’t worry too much about them.
Do it for the lulz
You could always dual boot or use a vm.
