[Nix-dev] How to get rid of systemd (was: Modifying the init system (introducing S6 supervision suite))

[Tobias Geerinckx-Rice]

On 27 December 2014 at 07:48, Ertugrul Söylemez <ertesx at gmx.de> wrote:

> One thing most of us seem to agree about [...]

Maybe that's true (I don't see a consensus on the list, only the usual
sparse FUD. I don't follow IRC) but arguments that start this way
always give me the willies.

> [...] is that conceptually NixOS does
> not depend as much on something like systemd as most other distributions
> do.

"Something like systemd"? Nix doesn't magically make *nix less *nix,
for better or worse. The meat of systemd is still service management,
which NixOS needs as much as any distribution.

> Switching to it was a huge step back from the
> ideals of NixOS, because it represents all the traditional views on what
> a system should look like: a giant pile of interconnected mutable
> variables.

That's what a running system is, though. Immutability *is* just for
file systems. You plant a pretty tree, and hope it describes a sane
system that will do the right thing most of the time. Then, something
will happen that will kick all your pretty algebraic assumptions off
the table very quickly. Most of your OS is in buggy C, whether you
like it or not...

>
> How to get rid of systemd
> =========================

Uh.

You seem to have some very nice ideas about describing "services" (or
something better), if still very rough around the edges. But if you
can't implement your ideas on top of systemd, so much for
init-agnosticism. And probably conceptual purity, too.

What's left of your argument then, besides "I don't like the damn
thing"? You'll be writing your own daemon supervision code before you
know it. With more bugs.

Those who don't understand systemd are doomed to reinvent it. Poorly. :-)

> As a final bonus this is so difficult and ugly to solve with systemd
> that we would feel a much greater temptation to get rid of it. =)

Because your plan is centred entirely around it not being systemd.

Regards,

T G-R