Systemd lead developer Lennart Poettering has posted on Mastodon about their upcoming v256 release of Systemd, which is expected to include a sudo replacem...
When does systemd stop? Linux without it is increasingly looking unlikely in the future. Are we not worried about it being a single point of failure and attack vector?
This isn’t a moan about the unix philosophy btw, but a genuine curiosity about how we split responsibilities in todays linux environment.
By this logic the Linux kernel is also a single point of failure and attack vector.
sudo isn’t going away, so does doas.
run0 is just another alternative to use or not.
There are still distribution out there without systemd and if there ever won’t be any systemd-free distributions left and systemd would become a critical part of the Linux ecosystem, then it would get the same treatment as the Linux kernel with many professional maintainers.
SystemD will consume the entirety of Linux, bit by bit.
In 2032, SystemD announces they’re going to be introducing a new way to manage software on Linux
In 2035, SystemD will announce they’re making a display system to replace the ageing Wayland
In 2038, the SystemD team announces they’re making their own desktop environment
In 2039 SystemD’s codebase has grown to sixteen times its size in the 2020s. SystemD’s announces they’re going to release replacements for most other packages and ship their own vanilla distro.
In 2045 SystemD’s distro has become the standard Linux distribution. Most other distros have quietly faded away.
In 2047, SystemD announces they’re going to incorporate most of GNU into SystemD. Outrage ensues from the Free Software Foundation, which vehemently opposes this move.
In 2048, Richard Stallman dies of a heart attack after attempting to clone SystemD’s git repo. SystemD engages in a hostile takeover and all resistance within the FSF crumbles
In 2050, SystemD buys the struggling RedHat from IBM for $61 million.
In 2053, most world governments have been pressured into using SystemD.
In 2054, Linus Torvalds, fearing for his life, begins negotiations to merge kernel development into SystemD
In 2056, the final message on the Linux kernel development mailing list is sent.
In 2060, SystemD agents assassinate the CEO of Microsoft.
In 2063, after immense pressure from SystemD-controlled human rights organisations, Arch developers discontinue development.
In 2064, the remaining living Debian developers release the next stable version of their clandestine and highly illegal distro.
One way to notice a person has “systemd derangement syndrome” is by looking at how they write systemd: if they write it SystemD they are already in late stages of SDS and it isn’t curable anymore.
Debian in many ways isn’t as slow-moving as people think.
For example, they moved to Wayland by default (for Gnome anyway) in 2019. A number of well-known distros likely won’t have that until 2025/2026 or beyond.
Sadly they’ve been dropping archs throughout the years, meaning they’re no longer the distro you can use to run on “anything” from a pi to a mainframe…
Doesn’t trixie still support like a dozen arches? I think one of the more recent deprecations was MIPS BE which is functionally obsolete in 2024, at least insofar as practically no one is using it to run a modern distribution.
Bookworm, Trixie, and Sid all currently support a total of 10 different architectures.
And looking through the Wikipedia article for Debian’s version history, most of the dropped architectures were functionally obsolete when they were dropped, or like the Motorola 68000, when support was added. (notable exceptions being IA-64 which was dropped 4 years before intel discontinued it, SPARC which is still supported by Oracle, and PowerPC.)
When does systemd stop? Linux without it is increasingly looking unlikely in the future. Are we not worried about it being a single point of failure and attack vector?
This isn’t a moan about the unix philosophy btw, but a genuine curiosity about how we split responsibilities in todays linux environment.
By this logic the Linux kernel is also a single point of failure and attack vector.
sudo isn’t going away, so does doas. run0 is just another alternative to use or not.
There are still distribution out there without systemd and if there ever won’t be any systemd-free distributions left and systemd would become a critical part of the Linux ecosystem, then it would get the same treatment as the Linux kernel with many professional maintainers.
SystemD will consume the entirety of Linux, bit by bit.
One way to notice a person has “systemd derangement syndrome” is by looking at how they write
systemd: if they write itSystemDthey are already in late stages of SDS and it isn’t curable anymore.Either that, or it’s a joke.
This is a script of Simpsons episode and Torvalds will actually die in 2058.
Thanks for that write up. Made my day! 😄
Debian already uses systemd.
Debian in many ways isn’t as slow-moving as people think.
For example, they moved to Wayland by default (for Gnome anyway) in 2019. A number of well-known distros likely won’t have that until 2025/2026 or beyond.
Sadly they’ve been dropping archs throughout the years, meaning they’re no longer the distro you can use to run on “anything” from a pi to a mainframe…
Doesn’t trixie still support like a dozen arches? I think one of the more recent deprecations was MIPS BE which is functionally obsolete in 2024, at least insofar as practically no one is using it to run a modern distribution.
If your bar is “modern distribution” stick to Ubuntu.
If you want to maintain older hardware Debian used to be a go-to solution.
Bookworm, Trixie, and Sid all currently support a total of 10 different architectures.
And looking through the Wikipedia article for Debian’s version history, most of the dropped architectures were functionally obsolete when they were dropped, or like the Motorola 68000, when support was added. (notable exceptions being IA-64 which was dropped 4 years before intel discontinued it, SPARC which is still supported by Oracle, and PowerPC.)
Probably the weirdest joke comment I’ve ever read.
Gentoo, Slackware and Devuan can be used without svchost for linux.
They’ll only stop when they rebrand it to systemd OS.
https://nosystemd.org has a list for more choice for readers.
“systemd announces a repleacement module for the kernel”