[Nix-dev] Systemd branch merged

[Eelco Dolstra]

Hi all,

As promised, I've finally merged NixOS' systemd branch.  This changes NixOS'
init system from Upstart to systemd.  Once the NixOS channel has caught up,
upgrading is done as usual ("nix-channel --update; nixos-rebuild switch") except
that you need to reboot to make the upgrade take effect.  (If you're using
Charon, you can use its "--allow-reboot" flag to do this automatically.)

The two main things to know if you're a systemd newbie:

- System services are managed using "systemctl" instead of "initctl".  See the
systemctl(1) manpage for details.

- Syslogd does not run by default anymore, since systemd's journald performs
syslog logging.  This means that /var/log/messages is no longer used.  Instead,
you should run "journalctl" to see log messages, or "systemctl status
<service-name>" for service-specific messages.  If you really need syslogd, you
can enable it by setting "services.syslogd.enable" to true.

The NixOS manual (run "nixos-help" to read it.) has more information.
Definitive systemd info is in the systemd manpages
(http://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/).

If for whatever reason you don't want to switch to systemd at this time, you can
use the "upstart" branches of NixOS and Nixpkgs.  To use them, get a checkout of
the NixOS/Nixpkgs trees (e.g. using "nixos-checkout"), then do "git checkout
upstart" in both and use "nixos-rebuild -I ..." to point nixos-rebuild at those
trees.

I've bumped the NixOS version number from 0.1 to 0.2, so 0.1 = Upstart, >= 0.2 =
systemd.  (And to immortalize the Upstart era, there is a "final" Upstart-based
NixOS release at http://nixos.org/releases/nixos/nixos-0.1/.)

Thanks,

Eelco.

-- 
Eelco Dolstra | LogicBlox, Inc. | http://nixos.org/~eelco/