Arch Linux

It was a transitional package in the first place, only separate because of initscripts. The symlinks should probably just be moved to the systemd package now.

Yes, that seems like a good idea. If it’s really only symlinks then moving them to the package they’re used with seems to be the easiest and best solution.

@dsohler

They are all links to either systemctl or systemd. We've still haven't decided on the final version for this, but I think it all points in the direction of having those links residing on the systemd package itself.

Telling users they should set init= by hand is insane. And, we only support systemd. Also, I don't get why you're complaining about a 5KiB package.

Curious: do you type "reboot" or "systemctl reboot"?

Merging the symlinks into the systemd package will simply result in other bugs being filed. The systemd package has the nice feature right now of being able to co-exist with other init systems. it's not easy to uninstall systemd, in part because the packaging has changed numerous times and we've not enforced rebuilds to keep up with the various provides, etc. So, having the symlinks in a separate package to make you "commit" to systemd is a nice feature for everyone.

Yes, it's nice that it can coexist with other init systems, but those systems require a lot of other things in the repos to be rebuilt, they can do the same with systemd. Arch only supports systemd, other systems shouldn't be part of the decision IMO.

I'm not doubting you, but can you provide some examples of things that depend on systemd (not systemd-libs) and don't work without systemd as pid 1?

Either we decide we are going to go through extra lengths to not be actively hostile against derivatives not using systemd and/or people trying to replace systemd on Arch, or we support one init system, and do it well. I don't think having 7 symlinks inside the systemd package will change the big picture.

btw: I only use systemctl reboot and counterparts, so, in theory I could get away without a systemd-sysvcompat package.

I would have to look at the AUR history, but I remember a dozen or so packages that had to be replaced, besides systemd itself, when switching to openrc. I never looked into it that far, though, so I don't know exactly how many or which ones.

From the artix pacman one-liner, it seems to be a lot of packages:

sysvinit openrc eudev udev-openrc eudev-systemd dbus-openrc procps-ng-nosystemd syslog-ng-nosystemd udisks2-nosystemd consolekit polkit-consolekit upower-pm-utils udisks2-nosystemd desktop-privileges xorg-xwrapper acpid-openrc alsa-utils-openrc autofs-openrc consolekit consolekit-openrc cronie-openrc dbus-openrc cups-openrc displaymanager-openrc fuse-openrc haveged-openrc hdparm-openrc openssh-openrc samba-openrc syslog-ng-openrc avahi-openrc

Not sure about parabola or hyperbola, couldn't find links regarding migrating from Arch to them, as artix does.

@falconindy: I type `systemctl reboot` since systemd was introduced as init system several years ago.

FWIW systemd developers consider the "halt", "poweroff" and "reboot" symlinks the primary interfaces, https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/13254#issuecomment-517921244 .

@nl6720

One statement in an accessory sentence by one individual in one single issue not even related to "`systemctl xyz` vs. `xyz`" ... It's a bit of a stretch to say that systemd developers see this as primary interfaces. And according to the issue creator it is written in the manpage for `reboot` that those are "legacy commands available for compatibility only". I doubt that systemd devs see legacy commands that only exists for compatibility reasons as primary interface.

If those symlinks are really the primary interface (is this documented somewhere in official systemd documentation?) why are they not part of the systemd package? Were they moved into an own package by Arch devs and are actually part of upstream? And if so: Is this still needed in reality?

I think this will be handled soon. There has been some discussion around this already. We only support systemd on Arch, but we'll try to not be actively hostile against other PID 1. Not sure what the final solution will look like though.

> And according to the issue creator it is written in the manpage for `reboot` that those are "legacy commands available for compatibility only". I doubt that systemd devs see legacy commands that only exists for compatibility reasons as primary interface.

The man pages now state "These commands are implemented in a way that preserves compatibility with the original SysV commands."