• nesc@lemmy.cafe
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    14 hours ago

    That’s pretty niche use-case devices that can run linux but at the same tume limited enough that systemd is the bottleneck. I do get it that running systemd on some embedded devices makes little sense.

    Systemd has stable API so nothing stops other systems from implementing parts of it that interest them, thing is, *bsds aren’t interested or resource constrained so much that they can’t.

    • ferrule@sh.itjust.works
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      3 hours ago

      it’s honestly not that niche. it’s just not a use case that hobbiest run into. there is a lot of devices in your house or in your life running linux and you just never think about it. none of the devs of these devices are loud about systemd because we are hand crafting distros ourselves so dealing with scripts in an init system is the least of our worries.

      I have worked on gas meters for your house, refridgerators, two way radios for your car, home automation systems, TVs, gas pumps, A/C controllers. All hand crafted, tiny distros, all things you never see a penguin on but still run linux.

      Systemd has stable API

      yes, now it does as an afterthought. it wasn’t a public standard, seeking comment. no taking input from other developers. systemd was created to solve a problem distro were having, a system manager that is plug and play and makes everything just work. it is a good problem to solve, it’s one of the few reasons that so many distros exist.

      But there are tons of design choices that had very narrow views. Polkit, logind and the rest of credential management come to mind as something that needs a lot of massaging if you are rolling your own distro. When running a non-systemd distro there are often pain points getting apps and services that need to have a wider reach or interact with other priviledged code. none of it makes the system any more secure, just more of a pain in the ass.

      • nesc@lemmy.cafe
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        49 minutes ago

        Interesting, I’ve worked on car infotainment system for a short while, it was based on yocto, I think, and it was build with systemd support, tbh not once developers had a problem with resources on that thing, a lot of problems were with safety and regulatory requirements.

        Before that I had an experience with wind river based system for network appliance and there were no systemd but that was when systemd was still a new thing.

        Modern hardware is extremely powerful and has a lot of resources, I think there is some project that runs more or less standard linux on esp32.

        • ferrule@sh.itjust.works
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          19 minutes ago

          it is definitely a question of power. had a debian based device because it was plugged into mains and needed to do a lot of tasks. i also had a yocto based system that ran on solar pannels and scavenged power from vibrations of the pipes the computer was attached to. power and resources setting limits on what i was running.