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# 2024-04-16 - SystemD vs SysV
I've gone back and forth between using different operating systems
over time. For years i used Fedora at home and RHEL at work, so I
had years of using systemd. I never had any major problems with
systemd per-se, but i can totally understand why other people do.
It represents a major change. It touches all aspects of the system.
And it has a history of breaking things.
When these problems are reported, it's not unusual to get responses
like "fix your users." The idea being that the users were using the
system in the wrong way. It was a "happy accident" if their wrong
way ever worked at all. I view this as a philosophical struggle
that affects all architecture including technical architecture.
On one hand you have the idea that it's too expensive to support
every possible use case. Thus the need to "fix your users."
https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/2039
On the other hand you have the idea that the whole reason the
architecture exists at all is because of the users. In other words,
"the Internet is for end-users."
gopher://gopher.fnord.one/0/Mirrors/RFC/rfc8890.txt
In the life cycle of an architecture, it is designed once and then
used for a time. When my grandparents hired a carpenter to build
their kitchen, my grandmother asked for tall counters because she was
tall. The carpenter refused. He explained that there is a standard
counter height, and that deviating from the standard will cause
problems down the road. So he built a standard kitchen that my
grandmother used for the rest of her life.
SystemD vs SysV is more of a kitchen than a bike shed. It sits at
the heart of the operating system like the kitchen sits at the heart
of the household. The counter height is an implementation detail.
whether it is short, standard, or tall is not inherently problematic.
The problem with "fixing your users" is the hidden external costs.
Whenever you build and use something, it costs more than you think.
Ultimately, you are paying for it, not the architect. If it doesn't
fit you then you will pay the price of poor ergonomics all throughout
its lifecycle. Are these ergonomic problems a fair trade-off for the
economies of scale promised by standardization? That SHOULD be your
decision to make.
I wish i could go back in time to confront that architect. If he
had the gall to challenge me to find one thing i liked about the way
HE wanted to build the counters, then i would challenge him to find
more compliant clients.
Because i value personal freedom so much, i don't intend to judge
anyone for which software they choose to use, or how they choose to
use it.
tags: bencollver,retrocomputing,technical,unix
# Tags
bencollver
retrocomputing
technical
unix
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