Adding systemd to postmarketOS

postmarketOS just gained my respect. To be fair there's no point in running a Linux system without systemd as you'll end up installing 32434 different RAM wasting services to handle things like cron, dns, ntp, mounts, sessions, log management etc.

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Whether you like Systemd or not, let’s not spread disinformation.

All these things still exist with Systemd. They are just called Systemd dash something. Also, while Systemd is feature rich, it is pretty heavy relative to many alternatives.

Distros that avoid Systemd typically do so because they consider it bloated and possibly insecure.

If you are a fan of Systemd, it is probably because you like the standardization and the integration across previously disparate services. That makes sense. If you think it is making your system faster or lighter, you have not explored the alternatives. Obviously Systemd was a big leap forward in init. Other systems have appeared that also work really well but they are probably too late to matter mainstream. The “market” has spoken and Systemd is the winner.

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- I've yet to find a use-case for "making my system lighter" by exchanging a daemon that takes <0.1% of my total system memory for a bunch of poorly maintained bash scripts.
  
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- All these things still exist with Systemd. They are just called Systemd dash something
  
  Although you're right that's not that "cut and dry" there's a lot integrated and baked into the systemd core. Even if you consider a "systemd dash something", let's say systemd-networkd we're suddenly talking about a single efficient daemon that covers all networking from basic IPv4 DHCP to IPv6 (with all it's possible addressing schemes), can act a client or more like a typical router acts, delegate stuff and manage the entire thing from top to bottom in a cohesive way.
  
  Just think about the amount of crap you've to setup to have a system do dual stack networking and provide prefix delegation on another interface, with systemd it's just systemd-networkd. From the basics to serve IP's, the classical isc-dhcp can do both IPv4 and IPv6, however...
  
  the ISC DHCP server can only serve IPv4 or IPv6, means you have to start the daemon twice (for IPv6 with option ”-6”) to support both protocols.
  
  Or you'll just find you the implementation is bad and you'll run wide-dhcpv6 instead. And then you won't survive without radvd for router advertisements etc.
  
  If you are a fan of Systemd, it is probably because you like the standardization and the integration across previously disparate services. That makes sense. (...) Obviously Systemd was a big leap forward in init.
  
  Exactly, systemd solves tons of painful issues and provides a cohesive ecosystem of tools to manage Linux systems. While there are other great alternatives none as are complete and solid as systemd.
  
  If you think it is making your system faster or lighter
  
  But it may. By not having to deal with bunch of poorly integrated tools such as dhcpcd, dhcpv6, radvd, chrony, NetworkManager, resolvconf, logrotate and others we might actually have less overhead. And I'm not even talking about the time we don't have to spend making sure all those integrate properly learning 234 different configurations syntaxes and dealing with specific bugs that only happen when program X interacts with program Y with feature Z enabled.
  
  I'm not saying system it perfect, because it isn't but it sure provides a LOT of piece of mind, stability and makes Linux a lot better than it used to be with init and friends.
  
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The only time it does make sense is on minimal systems like routers

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- because we all know that routers have so much RAM that installing DNS, NTP, mounts, session, log management isn't a problem? something doesn't add up...
  
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Next step is drivers that allow switching on/off components of the phone through systemd to save battery. Proper drivers are the only major missing piece for Linux phone OS right now.

When Linux phone comes with lasting battery and fast waydroid I'll switch.

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And firmware updates haha

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- Well that's harder
  
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- What firmware do you mean?
  
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Exciting to see! Positively surprised Alpine is modular enough to make this feasible/maintainable.
Curious to see what the part about SystemD and musl at the end meant.

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Our current understanding having spoken to systemd developers is that we should be able to find a path that brings us much closer to upstream, if not entirely.

The only way the systemd developers will allow musl support upstream is if musl supports the glibc-isms that systemd uses.

They have been extremely clear that they will not carry patches for other libcs.

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Makes sense

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"Lennart's mad cow disease afflicts new family tree. Film at 11"

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What are you talking about?

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This is bad news for those of us who were not only looking to give old mobile hardware a longer lifespan, but simultaneously obtain privacy and security while doing so.

The arguments provided in the blog post are rather faint and give a vibe of "holding on to last straws", as other distributions and even BSD's have managed to run both GNOME and KDE fine, even before pmOS.

For readers unfamiliar with systemd's drawbacks, these resources can serve as good starting points:

without-systemd.org // nosystemd.org

Out of curiosity: Can you point to a log of the communication with the Alpine team?

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So it will be only Systemd, no s6 or whatever without hacks and compatibility shims... sounds like bad news to me.

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So it will be only Systemd

what? no. did you read the linked post? Some desktop environments will have more functionality and work better if you do use it, but (for now, at least) you can still run even GNOME under OpenRC if you want.

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