On Tue, Aug 14, 2012 at 9:35 PM, Felipe Contreras < felipe.contreras@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Hi, > > I just became aware that Arch Linux plans to switch to systemd, and > this worries me for several reasons. > > I tried systemd a while ago in a brand new machine with Arch Linux and > the boot was *much slower*. After some exchanges with Lennart > Poettering and other people in Google+[1], it became clear I was on my > own. Eventually I found the culprit: Fedora uses CONFIG_HZ_1000, and > Arch Linux uses CONFIG_HZ_300. It became clear to me that systemd was > not ready for prime time, it wasn't thoroughly tested in a lot of > machines, and if you have problems Lennart Poettering will blame you > (PulseAudio sounds familiar?). > > systemd was the reason I stopped using Fedora in the first place; when > they moved to it my machine stopped booting reliably. My configuration > was non-standard (a single encrypted partition), so I guess they never > tested that. Similarly, I expect many Arch Linux users to bite these > corner-cases. > > Finally, it's much harder to debug. If you have a problem you will not > be able to open a script and figure out what is happening, and perhaps > modify it, and debug it. You would be greeted with an unmodified > binary, and the source code would be along these lines: > > > http://cgit.freedesktop.org/systemd/systemd/tree/src/remount-fs/remount-fs.c > > I'm sure in due time systemd will be ready, and will have nice > advantages, but I doubt that's the case right now. Has anybody looked > into the CONFIG_HZ issue? I doubt that. > > I was expecting more from the Arch Linux community, something along > the lines of Google's analysis to pick to mercurial[2], but so far I > have only seen a couple of people saying +1 in the development mailing > list, with barely any explanation at all. Such an important move (one > that might make users' machines stop booting) should warrant at least > an analysis of some sort, with clear advantages. Would it not? > > At the moment I am unconvinced; does systemd has any *real* advantage? > I don't think so; the potential of breakage outweighs the "supposed" > advantages, and I think a proper analysis would show that. > > Cheers. > > [1] https://plus.google.com/108736516888538655285/posts/BTG39o6YoGS > [2] http://code.google.com/p/support/wiki/DVCSAnalysis > > -- > Felipe Contreras > I haven't had this issue at all, and so far the systemd developers have been very accommodating to the arch developers
