Guest post by Debian is one of the largest and longest lived GNU/Linux distributions. The project forms the foundation of many other popular Linux-based operating systems, including Ubuntu, Linux Mint, and Raspbian. The Debian project announced this week that the distribution’s Testing repository, called “Jessie”, has entered a feature freeze. This means Debian’s Jessie branch will not receive any new features nor any significant software upgrades. From now until Debian’s upcoming stable release is launched, the Jessie repository will accept only important bug fixes and updated translations. Based on the time-line presented by Debian’s freeze policy it seems as though Debian 8.0 will be released in late February.
Considering the primadonna BS we’ve seen from the creator (Poettering?) I would treat systemd as welcome as plague blankets.
Yes, it has systemd.
The current debate is to whether it should be treated as a release-stopping bug if a package is not also compatible with non-systemd inits.
While Poettering can be abrasive at times and Pulseaudio will be remembered by some (myself included) as an example on a bumpy transition. systemd has been pretty much painless from an end user point of view and does provide Linux with a standard set of tools which are now being used across most distributions.
Fragmentation is often noted as a detractor from developing applications for Linux distributions and it seems that now the Linux kernel and systemd are core parts of the system where there is less fragmentation.
Although end users do not have the ability to do this, distributors can band together and fork it or do something like Upstart if systemd becomes a problem (although it would be a lot work at first). An example in the past has been Xfree86 vs Xorg, where a fork happened and Xorg became the standard, next it is Wayland vs Mir to replace Xorg (no fork this time).
As long as the software remains open source I do not think systemd is a problem and so far, as far as I am concerned, seems to be an improvement.
Even Pulseaudio now works well to the point where my parents simply nip to the shop and plug in some USB speakers or a headset and it works with no configuration (apart from adjusting the volume).
I honestly don’t care how painless it is, i don’t trust ANY software where the developer tries to squash critics and his supporters bury threads and ban posters.
And they can mod me down all they want, won’t change the fact that an OS that prides itself on being “uber-GPL” is foolish to use a blackbox binary like systemd…has anybody asked RMS his thoughts?
The source code is available under the GNU Lesser General Public License so it is not black box in the sense that there is no way of tracking why a particular behaviour is occurring.
What would you like instead of systemd and what are the specific reasons for disliking systemd?
Edited 2014-11-10 10:52 UTC
You don’t even use Linux desktop, why do you care?…
I’m grandfathered in to the previous release then, where I can read logs. Great job Red Hat infiltraitors.
I have been using Jessie for quite some time now. I needed to move up from Wheezy to support some of the hardware in a newer laptop. Early in my use of it, there were a few rough edges, especially in Gnome system control functions. It has been very good for several months now. I am looking forward to it moving into being the stable release.