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.
I would be interested in understanding how it boots faster considering that systemd init is fairly small and the features of runit is parallel process starting, which is also something that systemd provides.
Are you sure it’s not just that void itself has less crap to load?
This feels like I’m going to have to set up a couple of Arch installs to compare for myself.
I also had a Debian setup for a while with SysV init which also had a faster startup than systemd (on the same exact setup otherwise).
That Debian install would actually startup faster than my current Void setup, though I wouldn’t recommend it.
Even you asking this question means you should not. Systemd is perfectly fine for most people and the people that dislike it have their very specific reasons. Just use what your distro gives you, you shouldn’t have to care about these things.
Just use what your distro gives you, you shouldn’t have to care about these things.
To expand on this: OP, if you want to try a different init, you’re most likely better off switching the whole distro to one using that init. Unless of course your current distro explicitly supports many different init systems (like Gentoo). Don’t try to replace it by hand in a distro that expects to run on systemd, it’s a recipe for disaster.
Gentoo is great because they give you step by step directions for systemd and openrc so you can see the differences in action. (If you choose to read both sets of directions)
Switch to sysvinit and you’ll understand the benefit of systemd
This is a bit of a strawman. SysVinit is hardly the only alternative:
antiX: sysvinit and runit
Artix: openrc, runit, s6, and dinit
Chimera: dinit
Devuan: sysvinit (default), openrc, runit, sinit
Dragora: sysvinit + perp
Gentoo: openrc, systemd
Guix: shepherd
Hyperbola: openrc and runit
KNOPPIX: knoppix-autoconfig
MX Linux: sysvinit (default), systemd
Obarun: s6 supervision suite
Parabola: openrc, sysvinit, s6, systemd (default)
PCLinuxOS: sysvinit
Slackware: sysvinit
Stali: sinit
Void Linux: runit, openrc
Openrc at least is sysvinit based. Pre systemd the options were really sysvinit and upstart. Upstart was even worse than sysvinit such that afaik no one has bothered to try to revive.
Oh yeah ahaha
The kind of suggestion that does fuck all. Don’t force your myopic ignorance on others.
just another one of the holy wars within Linux – for the average user, it’s not going to make any difference – most of the mainstream distros switched over a LONG time ago so if you want to avoid systemd, you have to do a little hunting (ex. Devuan, Void, Gentoo, etc.)
so, it’s all just a “Playstation VS Xbox” kind of thing
It used to be that everything in Linux was a file, ideally a text file, so if you could find the right file you could access or change what you wanted. Systemd is a big program that manages a bunch of stuff and creates unique commands within its programs for doing so, which moves away from that principle and turns system management into what feels a bit more microsofty (like the registry editor program vs editing config files, etc) and a lot of people don’t like that. But to its credit, it does solve a few problems with cobbling together a modern system that doesn’t suck.
As a Windows app developer, I wish Windows service management, boot control, and logging were more like that of systemd. What we have is so much more janky and Sisyphean to work with.
It used to be that everything in Linux was a file, ideally a text file
Yes? The entire Systemd configuration is done with files. With a very well defined structure called units that you can use to configure, boot, service startup, networking, containers, mount stuff, open sockets… that’s exactly the point Systemd provides a cohesive configuration file format for a system.
Yeah but I’ve interacted with it a lot and most of my interaction is commands sent through one of their programs. Versus scripts like init.d whose contents I can easily inspect and modify. Init scripts aren’t config files, they’re directly executable code.
Init scripts aren’t config files, they’re directly executable code.
Yes and that’s exactly the problem.
Systemd is a large piece of software. There are ways to make it smaller and disable various modules for it, but usually by default it’s very heavy.
With a traditional init system, it’s just an init system, and you’ll use other other programs to do the other things. This basically means a chain of interconnected bash scripts. Perhaps you’ll run into some integration issues. Probably not though. It’ll be mostly the same.
There is no real advantage to this from a user perspective beyond a philosophical one. Systemd works quite well at doing the things it tries to do, but it’s the Unix philosophy to “do one thing and do it well,” and some people care very deeply that systemd does not follow their interpretation of that philosophy, and that’s certainly a fair reason to not use it.
However, if you’re not having problems with using systemd, I’d say don’t bother switching.
Systems is not the Unix philosophy, at least, not to me. It tries to handle so many different things and use cases. “One thing” normally means a small thing, and initialising everything you could ever think of is not a small thing.
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For desktops it doesn’t make much sense, but now everything’s so oriented to systemd its actually starting to affect embedded Linux applications… so lets try our best to keep the alternatives alive.
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So what do you do under Linux? Browse the web?
Okeeeeeey, so who’s is stuck in their ways?
I’m on Guix which doesn’t use SystemD. Running on an MSI GS66 Stealth laptop with an Nvidia RTX¹ 3080. I browse the web, develop, run Stable Diffusion on the GPU, game using Steam and Lutris (Chivalry 2 and Diablo 4), Zoom calls for work.
Mainly this just like any other machine.
¹ or whatever the letters are these days.
I’m not recommending non-systemd inits, but in a desktop usage, I never wrote a single script with MX Linux and Alpine. Their init system just works.
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.
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.The Artix folks cite sources for their opinions on systemd being bloated and insecure:
These are terrible sources. 3 random CVEs and opinions of randoms on the internet. The “sources” conflate arguments about systemd as an init system with the non-init parts and with criticisms of Poettering, and a lot of it is “this is bad” with no argument or, worse, incorrect arguments. If there is anything in there that actually proves something, link directly to it. I’m not going to shift through mountains of garbage to find it.
@patatahooligan @prettydarknwild keyword here is average users , else glibc hardly compares to musl
the only reason to stick to one of those init systems is that you already know everything about them and you dont want to relearn a bunch of stuff.
other than that i see 0 benefits to skip systemd
Is the experience of trying new distros very cool? yes
Should you abandon systemd? no
systemd is not bloated and it’s not insecure. If you don’t have any problems, don’t switch (unless you wanna have some fun trying new things, if you do, run a vm).
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.
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.
I don’t see any fundamental reason why systemd would be insecure.
You mean aside how the author answer to CVEs, right ?
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.
Not sure. In the end the shell script were just an easy and consistent way to start/stop programs. If the programs were secure (read: checked the input and sanitize it, did the check for permissions and so on) there is not a big difference.
Also, systemd performs way better than the old init systems anyway.
In what regards ? Boot faster ? Fine, but on a server it does not mean anything, a server does not reboot that often; for a desktop it not that the 5 seconds you gain are a fundamental gain.
One problem I see is with the logs: it is true that the format is documented, but a text format is always readable while a binary format… (been here, done that 🤬 )
I agree those CVE responses are not great. Those are from quite a few years ago though. Has their handling of CVEs improved since?
Boot times are not that big of a deal to me either, but some people seem to care about it a lot.
I’ve never personally had any problems with binary logs. You could always forward to a different logging daemon if that’s a concern.
I’ve never personally had any problems with binary logs.
I had it and I am sure that I could have solved the problem faster if I could have solved it faster if I did not needed to first understand how to access the logs on a damaged system.
You could always forward to a different logging daemon if that’s a concern.
This does not solve the problem, it only move it to somewhere else.
In what regards ? Boot faster ? Fine, but on a server it does not mean anything, a server does not reboot that often; for a desktop it not that the 5 seconds you gain are a fundamental gain.
Are you sure it doesn’t mean anything? It means to a LOT of people.
Anyways are you aware of
systemd-analyzeand that you can profile your boot and services even with graphical representations? Have a look at https://www.apertis.org/guides/boot_optimisation/ and https://opensource.com/article/20/9/systemd-startup-configurationAre you sure it doesn’t mean anything? It means to a LOT of people.
Fine, still not understanding why something that I should run once in a while (on a server) or it is not that critical seems to be so important. Look, I had way bigger gain moving from a HDD to a SDD than switching to Systemd from the old init.
I refuse to belive that for a desktop user a 5 seconds longer boot time is that important. I could understand on a server where, if you work with it, you can have fines for downtime but even in this case it is a thing that could be handled in different ways.
Anyways are you aware of systemd-analyze and that you can profile your boot and services even with graphical representations? Have a look at https://www.apertis.org/guides/boot_optimisation/ and https://opensource.com/article/20/9/systemd-startup-configuration
Good, but I am not interested in booting my laptop 5 second faster and for my server I have not fines if it start in 20 seconds instead of 10 😁
systemd-analyzeisn’t only about reducing your boot time by 5 seconds, it’s about when you’ve problems knowing exactly what is happening and when and also about having a clear view of dependencies between services.At this point I am not that interested in these aspects, for what I need I am ok if the system boot and I can work 😀
But thanks anyway, it is a good thing to know if I ever need it.
If that’s the case you can simply run systemd configured as it comes with most distritos and enjoy.
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.
I would be interested in using a distro that uses only systemd for everything(preferably arch based). Is there such a distro? I know it can be done manually,but I lack the time or patience to do it at this time.
Debian isn’t that far from it right now.
TBH I like Debian, but am used to Arch and plasma. I like the fact that Debian sticks to default DEs with no customizations. If I ever get tired of Arch (probably not) Debian is next on the list.
The article you linked is really nifty! Are there any distros that are using all or nearly all of the features that systemd provides?
In Gentoo we can enable or disable most features via USE flag: https://packages.gentoo.org/packages/sys-apps/systemd
This enables the user to select how much (or little) of systemd is used on their system. It’s also one of the few distros that enables you to switch init systems on a running system if you really want to.
Yes, I wrote the article as a collections of thoughts and links of what I’ve learn about systemd over the years. The reality is that when Debian moved to systemd I wasn’t that happy but after learning all it can do and the way it works I see it was the best move.
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
