Re: s6 usability

From: Guillermo <gdiazhartusch_at_gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 21 Dec 2019 15:36:45 -0300

El sáb., 21 dic. 2019 a las 6:26, Jan Braun escribió:
>
> > > 1) Debian ships with a working and maintained runit-init package.
> [...]
> > I hear you. Unfortunately, I have no control over what Debian does.
> [...]
> If you're referring to
> https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=906250#37
> then, well, you are fighting against POSIX. There's little choice for
> Debian in the matter. Taking a hardline stance on such "legal" issues is
> part of their identity as a distro.

Trying to accomodate Debian is probably a waste of time at the moment,
until the results of the ongoing General Resolution vote are known
next weekend.

> It's not difficult launching the browser, it's difficult getting to the
> correct webpage. Compare
> | $ elinks /usr/share/doc/s6/s6-log.html

'elinks /usr/share/doc/s6/index.html' and then navigate? :)

> > Would a generic "s6" command, that takes alternative syntax and rewrites
> > itself into "internal" commands, help?
> [...]
> Probably yes, but if you are doing that, then why don't you look at
> argv[0] and provide the runit interface proper? :D

That would create a 'multple personality binary'.

> (Or provide runsv/sv/chpst/.. as individual binaries, since you prefer
> those.)

That could prevent installing both s6 and runit, depending on
packaging, Same as s6 and daemontools[-encore] if the s6- prefix in
program names was dropped.

> > > 4) s6 seems more complex (hello execline!), and I don't (yet?) see any
> > > benefit/feature I'd appreciate except minimizing wakeups.
> >
> > This, on the other hand, is a misconception that really needs to
> > disappear. Understanding execline is *not needed* to run s6.
>
> Needing to *understand* execline wasn't my misconception, nor worry. But
> when I'm told that a runit-lookalike depends on bringing its own
> scripting language along, then that sounds more like systemd and less
> like djb to me. :(
> [...]
> I know you
> want to popularize execline, but "you must use it if you want to use my
> other tools" is not a helpful form of advocacy.

If there is no misconception about the need to understand execline,
then I find this criticism quite odd. It's like complaining that a GUI
application 'imposes' e.g. Qt, or that Xorg 'imposes' X11 video and
input drivers. As long as it is a dependency (i.e. an implementation
detail from the POV of a user), if fail to see the problem. I would
understand if it was e.g. a big and intrusive dependency, or a
dependency that prevented you from installing other packages, but
execline isn't that, so I don't see how this compares to systemd.

> But since you are mentioning it, that was another of my "s6 seems
> more complex" issues. runit goes from "start the supervisor manually" to
> "be pid 1" with very little effort. See runit(8).
> Or https://www.unix.com/man-page/debian/8/runit/ I guess. ;-P
>
> s6-linux-init and s6-rc seem extremely complicated in comparison.

s6 + s6-rc vs runit is not a good comparison. One alternative provides
a service manager, the other one doesn't. Not equivalent feature sets.
s6 + s6-linux-init vs runit would be a better comparison
feature-wise. But, if one takes 1) into account, this is kind of
abstract, because Debian currently packages neither s6-linux-init nor
s6-rc.

G.
Received on Sat Dec 21 2019 - 18:36:45 UTC

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