Is s6/s6-rc ready to be the ubiquitous init?

Is s6/s6-rc ready to be the ubiquitous init?

[Steve Litt]

Hi all,

Months ago IBM bought Redhat, and IBM might not want to throw a million
a year at a dev group devoted to keeping the systemd leaky boat afloat.
Meanwhile, just today another major systemd snafu emerged.

If IBM bails on systemd, is s6/s6-rc ready to take its place? I mean we
all know it's ready technically, and is well maintained, but is it ready
politically, with help for distro packagers? Perhaps some documentation
on best practices and making it easy to install s6/s6-rc.

We could soon have a rare opportunity for a Linux-wide init change. I'd
hate to see systemd replaced by more snake oil.

SteveT

Steve Litt 
January 2019 featured book: Troubleshooting: Just the Facts
http://www.troubleshooters.com/tjust

Re: Is s6/s6-rc ready to be the ubiquitous init?

[Laurent Bercot]

>Months ago IBM bought Redhat, and IBM might not want to throw a million
>a year at a dev group devoted to keeping the systemd leaky boat afloat.
>Meanwhile, just today another major systemd snafu emerged.

I think you're deluded if you think systemd's going away by a
top-down decision. Corporate likes organizational stability, and
has a lot of inertia. They will keep what they have, they will
keep funding the systemd team, who are, after all, the experts on
systemd, and who will fix the issues (nevermind the fact that
they're also the ones creating them). They are not going to take
a major risk by throwing away their product and using something
they don't know.

Now, *if* someone with important lobbying power could demonstrate
to IBM/RedHat executives that they could do the same thing for
much less effort and much less PR trouble by supporting another
product with a much cheaper team, *then* they might be interested.
But we're not there yet, unless you have high-placed connections I
don't know about. :P


>If IBM bails on systemd, is s6/s6-rc ready to take its place? I mean we
>all know it's ready technically, and is well maintained, but is it ready
>politically, with help for distro packagers? Perhaps some documentation
>on best practices and making it easy to install s6/s6-rc.

I'm very thankful for your generous offer to provide documentation
and tutorials. Help for distro packagers is indeed something s6/s6-rc
needs. Can you give me an outline of your tutorial when it's ready?
I'll be happy to proofread it and make suggestions.


>We could soon have a rare opportunity for a Linux-wide init change. I'd
>hate to see systemd replaced by more snake oil.

  So would I. So would, I like to think, most people here. But
systemd isn't going to disappear on a corporate whim. It will have
to be dislodged with pitchforks and torches, and most importantly,
constant lowburn effort by enthusiasts spreading the word.

  The plan is coming along - slowly, *very* slowly because I have to
fund myself, but surely. Next year I'll be working on an interface
for the whole s6 stack that makes it easy for distributions and
administrators to replace systemd with something close to what they
know. Stay tuned.

--
  Laurent

Re: Is s6/s6-rc ready to be the ubiquitous init?

[Steve Litt]

On Sat, 12 Jan 2019 11:37:55 +0000
"Laurent Bercot" <ska-supervision@skarnet.org> wrote:


> >If IBM bails on systemd, is s6/s6-rc ready to take its place? I mean
> >we all know it's ready technically, and is well maintained, but is
> >it ready politically, with help for distro packagers? Perhaps some
> >documentation on best practices and making it easy to install
> >s6/s6-rc.  
> 
> I'm very thankful for your generous offer to provide documentation
> and tutorials. Help for distro packagers is indeed something s6/s6-rc
> needs. Can you give me an outline of your tutorial when it's ready?
> I'll be happy to proofread it and make suggestions.

You're welcome. The docs and tutorials will roll out slowly, but
they're roll out.

A couple questions:

1) Where can I find the s6/s6-rc project's preferred directories for
   everything? I'd prefer not to put anything directly off the root
   directory: Too many people would object.

2) Does there exist a block diagram of either s6,  s6-rc, or both
   combined, and if so, where?

Thanks,

SteveT

Steve Litt 
January 2019 featured book: Troubleshooting: Just the Facts
http://www.troubleshooters.com/tjust

Re: Is s6/s6-rc ready to be the ubiquitous init?

[Laurent Bercot]

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>1) Where can I find the s6/s6-rc project's preferred directories for
>    everything?

If there is *one thing* you should know about s6, and that you should
convey to your readers, it is that *it does not provide, or care about,
policy*. I thought it would be abundantly clear by now.

That means there are *no* preferred directories. People can do
whatever they want. Yeah, this is a hard concept to grasp in the era
of systemd, but the Overton window needs a big fat shift towards
flexibility and user choice.

Of course, there are smarter choices than others. I have expressed
and explained my own preferences several times, both in parts of the
s6 and s6-rc documentation, and on this mailing-list when the subject
came up. You can find them in the archives. But these are my
preferences and recommendations, not official policies. Official
policies should be done in the context of a _distribution_.


>  I'd prefer not to put anything directly off the root
>    directory: Too many people would object.

Boy, if your audience is going to clutch their pearls at the mention
of adding something to the root directory, just wait until they hear
about how to write init scripts. :P

Again, directories can be put *wherever*, and you don't have to
create anything in the root directory. But approaching this with
the angle of "I won't say anything radical to avoid scaring my
audience" is the wrong mindset. You will never convince people
who are far enough gone to believe that nothing should ever be
created in the root directory despite having accepted /media without
questioning because it came from a Standard™.


>2) Does there exist a block diagram of either s6,  s6-rc, or both
>    combined, and if so, where?

  Well, dear, that's one of the things that are missing and that
you're going to provide, isn't it?

--
  Laurent

Re: Is s6/s6-rc ready to be the ubiquitous init?

[Dmitry Bogatov]

[2019-01-11 01:24] Steve Litt <slitt@troubleshooters.com>
> Hi all,
> 
> Months ago IBM bought Redhat, and IBM might not want to throw a million
> a year at a dev group devoted to keeping the systemd leaky boat afloat.
> Meanwhile, just today another major systemd snafu emerged.
> 
> If IBM bails on systemd, is s6/s6-rc ready to take its place? I mean we
> all know it's ready technically, and is well maintained, but is it ready
> politically, with help for distro packagers? Perhaps some documentation
> on best practices and making it easy to install s6/s6-rc.
> 
> We could soon have a rare opportunity for a Linux-wide init change. I'd
> hate to see systemd replaced by more snake oil.

Wish it was true, and systemd got abandoned.  While I am already
maintaining runit as init system in Debian (and do not spare cycles for
another init system), probably I could provide some assistance --
sponsor uploads, for example.

But currently, s6 is quite out-of-radars in Debian.