WSL is a joke, and so is WSL2. Neither will let me work on the kind of projects I do; I tried. With WSL1, you couldn't even build a package for distribution because you couldn't do a chroot.

Nope. VMs for me. Started with Microsoft's limited VMs, and now I'm on VMWare Workstation 16. THAT is how you do Linux on Windblows. :)

That many, eh? Roughly twice as many as I expected.

More seriously, if Windows users want the systemd-cancer, they can have it. Hopefully they'll manage to make it completely incompatible with Linux along the way.

Watch what you're wishing for!

Something tells me this is exactly Microsoft's plan. They'll make it incompatible, and as soon as Linux runs well within WSL, Microsoft will start shutting down any other distribution that doesn't run on Windows. This is where SecureBoot comes in handy, nobody will be able to run Linux unless they login to Windows with a Microsoft account. It took a while but they will soon have total control over every PC.

"Microsoft will start shutting down any other distribution that doesn't run on Windows."

What, pray tell, would be the proposed mechanism for this fantasy?

They have the signing keys for secure boot. So long as you can turn that off it's not an immediate problem but in essence it's a dangerous monopoly. If systems are sold with BIOSs that don't provide for that they have control of what can be booted on a PC. Strange things seem to be happening in the world of BIOS - my current laptop has a very strange one without the many parameters you could tweak on AMI and the like.

Poettering has a friend?

Probably they aren't really WSL 2 users - they are users of proper Linux who figure if they have to suffer so should WSL 2 users!

As a BSD user, systemd hasn't really affected me but it has been interesting to watch from the sidelines.

One observation I have is that for too long Linux (and the rest of us) has been riding on the ancient UNIX/POSIX design that has proven to be fairly successful. Perhaps it is time for it to go its own way and prove to the world that it is Linux that is great, rather than the old crusty UNIX design. I see Systemd as the first step in doing so.

I'm certainly not saying that all Linux distros should do this. If anything Devuan, Alpine, void, etc can act as the "control" group so if systemd crumbles, we can blame it on that broken design rather than Linux in general.

After all, "GNU Is Not UNIX". It is possibly time for it to prove its worth and perhaps even surpass it? Who knows? GNU favours bigger, entangled software (Emacs, GTK, systemd). I personally am not convinced by this but time will tell.

As for Microsoft embracing it. This is a gimmick. A mere distraction whilst they slowly become irrelevant.

No chance for Microsoft to become irrelevant, they have too much control.

"No chance for Microsoft to become irrelevant, they have too much control."

Don't you believe it, not even for a minute.

By it's very nature, FOSS will be around as close to forever as makes no nevermind. Corporate closed source software, on the other hand, is just as ephemeral as the company in question. IBM is doomed to die, eventually. So are Amazon, Goophabet, Metaface, Apple and yes, even Microsoft.

Before you poo-poo this, think about it. Where are Burroughs, Sperry, Allied Signal, Philco, Amdahl, Remington Rand, DEC and ROLM? We won't mention the likes of HP, the poor mewling thing, so senile it doesn't know it's dead yet. And that's just for a start.

Like IBM ? Or Rome ?

Their relics are everywhere but the power is long gone.

I see Systemd as the first step in doing so.

Seriously?

Are you sure it was sugar you sprinkled on your tea?

From my point of view, after far too many years of work with M$ OSs, the one thing I can say is that systemd behaves just like M$'s infamous registry and that is no coincidence.

To quote another comentard on systemd, here at ElReg:

---

" ... takes root in its host, eats massive quantities of resources as it grows, spreads unchecked into areas unrelated to the initial infection, and refuses to die unless physically removed from the system, all the while doing absolutely nothing of benefit to the host."

---

ie: just like a malignant tumour.

In a nutshell: systemd is nothing but a developer endorsed registry-class© virus set up inside Linux distributions, just like the registry in MS OSs from W95 onwards.

I don't want that sort of crap inside my Linux distribution.

That's why I run Devuan.

O.

Thing is, if one writes off Unix/Posix as a defunct outdated "style", really what other "styles" are there? Windows? MacOS?

SystemD is effectively threatening to overturn everything, eg you no longer program to the Posix API, but to the SystemD API (eg how name resolution is now done; SystemD would have you do that via a Dbus req to itself rather than established Posix API calls for host lookup).

The problem with this is that it is hell bent on nothing less than major revolutionary change when, at most, only minor tweaks to Posix are needed to fix whatever inadequacies are perceived to exist in current implementations like glibc.

This is nuts, because it creates a third ecosystem for the sake of having a third ecosystem, not because there's anything technically and irrevocably deficient about the existing ecosystems. Windows does work. UNIX/Posix does work. MacOS occasionally works (and can be fairly Posixish when squinted at). These things are already pretty heavily optimised (yes, even the Windows kernel plus API is pretty good).There's nothing really to be gained by porting one's code to do things the SystemD way. You lose a ton of portability as well.

UNIX and Posix are not the same thing. Stop conflating them, it makes you look silly.

"you no longer program to the Posix API, but to the SystemD API"

Speak for yourself, Kemosabe.

First of all, the systemd-cancer is nothing more than an init. A huge, grossly bloated, inefficient, unsecure, hideous, spaghetti-coded blob of an init, but just an init nonetheless. There are many inits.

Second, the systemd-cancer has absolutely nothing to do with Linux (the kernel). This isn't going to change any time soon, as the kernel maintainer has decreed it so.

Third of all, most of the other little bits & bobs that make up a running system aren't even aware that the systemd-cancer exists, much less require it in order to do their jobs.

Thus, it is easy to put together a very usable system based on the Linux kernel without requiring even a sniff of the stinking mess known as the systemd-cancer.

This is not going to change any time soon.

Also note, the systemd-cancer is not part of the GNU toolkit ... and most of that toolkit consists of small tools, each of which does one thing very well. The bloated monstrosities like EMACS (sorry, rms!) are the exception, not the rule.

Emacs bloated ?

It might be 'eight megs and constantly swapping' but have you see VS Code ?

Note that the "eight megs" was the amount of RAM in the machine, not the size of the code.

Yes, VS is bloated. That doesn't preclude other code from also being bloated ... and remember that bloated is a relative term.

AFAIK the Gnome crowd are trying to make systemd essential to their stuff. As far as I'm concerned they're welcome to each other but if too much other stuff just assumes systemd and its tentacles are there to be used then it could become worrying time to move to BSD.

"for too long Linux (and the rest of us) has been riding on the ancient UNIX/POSIX design"

The reason I use Linux is that it implements that design.

..is why you'd run Linux in a Windows subsystem??? If you want to run Linux (i.e. need the stability and security, don't need all the bloat and a bazillion services adding to your "user experience" barff), then just run it. If you need Windows to run a favourite program then run Windows in a VM, where it can't do too much damage.

systemd stuff is fine - suffers from a common name where really it should have lots of different names ‘systemd-init’ ‘systemd-time’ ‘systemd-networkd’ etc etc. The thing is, it’s ALL optional, none of it is preventing good work on other projects and some of it (systemd vs initv) is actually good and handy for many people. So, chill out - no one is making you use it - a default is only a default you like if you like the default.

Folk spouting off about systemd is so boring, it’s like complaining about the colour of your neighbour’s car.

Retreating in 5,4,3…