@fabiscafe @okapi espechally in the form of an interactive desktop...

• I could see it valid for multiple shell sessions, but #tmux & #screen cover that pretty well.
• If one has to login into different machines then chances are #aithentification is centralized anyway.

Needless to say #modernizations like #SystemD don't happen because people like #Poettering are "hobbyless", but because the preexisting status-quo (#SysVinit) was slow, inflexible and error-prone by strict linearity and non-parallelization.

• With a literal /etc/init file one can literally get a system to hang due to a mistake (i.e. certain call doesn't get invoked correctly), whereas on #SystemD (and competing solutions like #LaunchD on #macOS and #SMF on #Solaris) your desktop / laptop will continue to noot even if it doesn't have a network connection.

Not to mention as Benno Rice explained: 'Shit just gotmore dynamic!': We don't have that one big ass maingrame and serial terminals, instead we have laptops that may he carried around a campus or traveled with all day and that constantly switch between wireless and wired networks and have VPN tunnels open and whatnot...

@fabiscafe @okapi OFC @chesheer 's criticism is understandable on #FreeBSD given that #SystemD is inherenty focussed and intertwined with #Linux (just as it's Inspiration, #LaunchD, is intertwined with #macOS's Darwin/NeXTstep kernel).

• The problem is after some hefty "init wars" with like #Upstart and others SystemD became the de-facto standard, and the "(statistical) rounding errors" of #BSD users got sidelined, in part because BSDs looked at that mess and went like "Nyet, SysVinit is fine!" and continued their fiddling around...

And sadly there's nothing they (or anyone else) could've done unless they had multiplied suddenly and being able to keepcthe old tech stack maintainable.

• Similarly #Xorg is dying and there are already GPUs that only support #Wayland and #X11 apps get run using #XWayland.

OFC I wish for more diversity in solutions, but #Linux being #streamlined is what makes #portability across distros easier and boosted adoption as well as providing massive gains in solutions like #DXVK, #Proton and #Wine in general.

• And TBH most "#TechIlliterates" aka. "#Normies" frankly don't give a shit what OS they use. All it needs to do is serve them their eMails and allow them to 'consoom themselbes happy' as in watching YouTube, Play games, etc.

chesheer

2025-06-11 16:45:07

So, known parties tirelessly work to make Linux a new Windows. Gnome announces even harder dependency on systemd.
GDM will depend on systemd userdb infrastructure. gnome-session will use systemd service manager instead of its own code that "has received very minimal attention in the 17 years since it was first written".
As per article, even now they do not test Gnome in non-systemd environments.
It's like a writing on the wall.
blogs.gnome.org/adrianvovk/202…
#Gnome #Linux #systemd

Introducing stronger dependencies on systemd

PSA for systemd-free distros about work they'll need to do to continue running GNOME

^{Adrian (Adrian's blog)}

I don't deny this to be a problem, far from it.

• In an ideal world, stuff would be portable enough that the underlying init (and Userland in general) as well as Kernel didn't matter and merely be a different config file.

In reality, a substantial part of #Gnome devs (or at least contributors) are paid by the 3 major #Linux distros (#RHEL, #SLED, #Ubuntu) and whilst not being antragonistic towards #BSD|s don't get employed to enshure it runs on #FreeBSD, but that it runs better on the distro their employer is selling…

• And given that these projects don't have infinite resources and espechally maintainers I don't blame them to redelegate a lot of work to #SystemD instead of reimplementing something themselves.

OFC it's saddening in regards to non-Linux #Unix-esque OSes, but given self-amplifying network effects both the murder of #OpenSolaris at the hands of #Oracle (with @EUCommission and #FTC as enablers!) and @iXsystems ditching #FreeBSD in #trueNAS alongside regressing #driver support for hardware outside of Linux, #macOS and #Windows, it's not a good time for these projects.

• Which is bad because BSDs and other OSes force Linux to innovate and ' get gud '!