[request] upstart

Stefan Husmann · 2008-07-18 05:25:20

Backward compatible to what?

damjan · 2008-07-23 15:38:59

Upstart is backward compatible that it reads /etc/inittab and behaves the same as the init Arch uses (which is the sysvinit BTW). There's nothing else that Arch does specially with init, so upstart should be a transparent replacement.

jmdennis · 2009-10-24 20:35:48

I would love to see this in arch linux as well. If it helps Ubuntu to boot much faster then I would like to see it here as well. It is probably better to handle newer systems any ways. Just some thing to think about as other distributions go this route.

flamelab · 2009-10-24 20:42:34

It's not necessary for Arch, and I think that it's also only SysV init compatible.

Ηere check if this one

http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=24506

can enlighten a bit what changes it needs.

Last edited by flamelab (2009-10-24 20:43:13)

damjan · 2009-10-27 23:38:51

I'm not sure Upstart reads /etc/inittab any more, but the aforementioned AUR package has enough resources for someone to start playing with Upstart in ArchLinux

Zeqadious · 2009-10-29 14:54:49

I've successfully used Upstart on my Arch system in the past, completely replacing BSD init. I had no backwards compat when I did it since this negates the use of Upstart in the first place.

Not sure how up-to-date these events/jobs are anymore but for anyone interested in a starting place:
Upstart 3.x series Events /etc/event.d
http://zeqadious.homelinux.net/junkbin/ … .9-events/
Upstart 5.x series Jobs /etc/jobs.d
http://zeqadious.homelinux.net/junkbin/ … .5.1-jobs/

Have fun,
Z

kraftman13 · 2010-05-19 09:21:42

mucknert wrote:

Although that this question might start a flamewar of nuclear size I must ask: why? What's wrong with the BSD-style init-system? It perfectly fits into Archs KISS-Philosophy. Does upstart too? Why fix something that isn't broken?

Why a flamewar? Arch Linux is not freaking bsd and this forum is not about bsd. The bsd-style init system is a nightmare compared to what Windows and Linux+upstart offers. It's not even able to respawn service which already died (and this happens too ofen...). It wastes resources, because why would I want to have unneeded daemons running or to start and stop them manually? It's not the case in upstart. It also offers much faster startup and it's sad to see Ubuntu 10,04 starting faster then my super slim Arch Linux. Afaik every modern Linux distro already switched to upstart and I hoped Arch did the same, but sadly it didn't.

About KISS. Doesn't upstart offer a more simple solution, so you don't have to care about starting, restarting daemons and services?

Last edited by kraftman13 (2010-05-19 09:24:35)

Allan · 2010-05-19 09:48:59

Wow... that is an old bump just to argue about nothing.

kraftman13 wrote:

About KISS. Doesn't upstart offer a more simple solution, so you don't have to care about starting, restarting daemons and services?

Simple as in a baby could use it. Not simple in terms of implementation and modifying. Guess which simple Arch aims for...

extofme · 2010-05-19 13:21:03

i know this thread is slightly outdated, but i really like the concept of upstart. i personally think sysvinit _sucks_ for anything beyond being a exceedingly braindead program to start about 5 scripts... really? init is a special program endowed with special powers that no other process has... but nobody want's it to actually _do_ anything? IMO, the init program is the perfect candidate to be the "watchdog" of the system, and react to changes in the environment.

my primary systems are all mobile; upstart can more elegantly handle the changes the system experiences as i migrate around. i think it plays into KISS much more so than convoluted boot scripts and obscure daemons with a limited view of the system's state; they are slow, synchronous, and more prone to edge/corner cases due to the limited view of system state.

it would be nice to see some ability to run either, with packages providing both rc.d files and event.d files, and let the community decide.

ijanos · 2010-05-19 13:27:23

i will just leave this here.

http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html

wonder · 2010-05-19 13:57:55

extofme wrote:

but nobody want's it to actually _do_ anything?

what about you? you are the one that _wants_ it so start coding

ijanos wrote:

i will just leave this here.
http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html

http://www.reddit.com/r/archlinux/comme … k_on_arch/

Last edited by wonder (2010-05-19 14:00:54)

extofme · 2010-05-19 16:01:15

ijanos wrote:

i will just leave this here.
http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html

interesting... after reading that i realized that i've already read it

i remember thinking the same things when first investigated/worked with upstart (the bleh, i have to manually figure out all these deps?) i also previously thought about using cgroups in this way.

i guess i'm frustrated with sysvinit and the stagnation in getting to something else.

wonder wrote:

what about you? you are the one that _wants_ it so start coding

heh, good stuff, i like the ideas of systemd, and will try playing with alternatives to sysvinit.

C Anthony

kraftman13 · 2010-05-19 20:54:36

Allan wrote:

Wow... that is an old bump just to argue about nothing.

This holds Arch Linux back in the stone.. no sorry, in the old sysv init age. While even some of the "big distros" can boot faster then slim Arch it's not about nothing.

Simple as in a baby could use it. Not simple in terms of implementation and modifying. Guess which simple Arch aims for...

I know for which one Arch is aiming for. However, I don't think simpler idea is to occasionally restart broken services. I guess upstart isn't more or much more complicated then sysv init. Btw. someone should make a shortcut for /etc.rc.d/network restart

ngoonee · 2010-05-20 01:19:35

Simple, if you don't like it you can either:-
a) Get coding
b) Deal with it
c) Go to one of the "big distros"

Arch's goal isn't to have a fast boot time. If you're such a ricer Gentoo would be much better for you (and even the gentoo crowd is admitting that all those optimizations don't actually speed things up noticeably).

Sysv init is dead simple, basically a bunch of bash scripts. Upstart isn't.

And you can make a shortcut, heard of aliases in bash?

extofme · 2010-05-20 01:45:26

your args don't make any sense.

so because people want better handling of system state, they must defect to "a big distro"?

most will admit that sysvinit is heavily outdated, plain and simple. it was designed in a time when device hotplugging and all the dynamic goodies in the kernel were nonexistent.

simple? sure the init itself is simple... because it can't do actually do ANYTHING. i have been thru the entire boot process several times, line by line, from grub to X, and i assure you the bash scripts get rather large, with many things going on. just because it's shell doesn't inherently mean it's simplistic; i've written plenty of nasty bash myself. upstart's event files are pretty clean and easy to understand from my experience.

to everyone... don't get so hung up about the "boot speed"; thats more of a nice side effect to the more practical benefits (better/more intelligent handling of suspend/resume [daemons up/down], ondemand services, etc.). boot speed was Ubuntu's big advertised goal or whatever, but it's not the general driving force behind the uptake and discussion of an init replacement... there are many things an a$$load of synchronous bash scripts simply can't handle very gracefully.

because of sysvinit lack of features, we have all these bad practices like rouge daemon forking, PID files, and poor state handling. upstart/systemd/whatever are here to address that and break stuff to get programs to stop depending on broken behavior (same thing as ext3 data=ordered type issues)

ngoonee · 2010-05-20 11:45:17

My 'args' as you put them are very simple. Arch Linux isn't populated with developers devoted to making your life easy. The fact that this doesn't exist yet is simply because none of the devs are interested/have the time. So you have those 3 choices I mentioned. Notice that 'debating with a non-dev forum member on the merits of upstart/systemd' is not on this list.

Don't try and convince me, try and get something working. If its good that's all the convincing I or anyone else will need.

toad · 2010-05-22 12:47:14

I noticed in the AUR and checked the wiki to see whether there was any info. Alas, no. Not knowing anything about it and not having access to proper info makes me take the "sit back and wait" approach... Now if there were at least a wiki page detailing what it was, how to get it going and how to get rid of upstart again I am sure people might try it more readily

damjan · 2010-05-24 20:34:20

sysvinit sucks indeed.. but upstart seems to not be a worthy replacement

techzilla · 2012-02-03 20:21:46

I know this is dated, but regardless ...

I'm a Debian/Ubuntu user, and I was very suspicious of something replacing init.
The best part about upstart, is that you don't need to recreate anything if you don't want to. The whole thing was designed to be a fully compatible drop-in replacement.
Its just a smart and modern idea, and I've yet to see a downside. You have to actually try something, before you go and judge it so harshly.

I also agree with the idea of forgetting bsd, GNU/Linux was never bsd.

ewaller · 2012-02-04 00:36:41

Techzilla,
Welcome to Arch. I hope you make the switch one day. I don't see much point to all of this, I think you will find that on Arch, no one cares how you choose to set up your system. This thread does seem to attract some passionate members; but in my mind it it is a tale, ... full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

In accordance with our policy on old threads, I am ending it.

Arch Linux

#26 2008-07-18 05:25:20

Re: [request] upstart

#27 2008-07-23 15:38:59

Re: [request] upstart

#28 2009-10-24 20:35:48

Re: [request] upstart

#29 2009-10-24 20:42:34

Re: [request] upstart

#30 2009-10-27 23:38:51

Re: [request] upstart

#31 2009-10-29 14:54:49

Re: [request] upstart

#32 2010-05-19 09:21:42

Re: [request] upstart

#33 2010-05-19 09:48:59

Re: [request] upstart

#34 2010-05-19 13:21:03

Re: [request] upstart

#35 2010-05-19 13:27:23

Re: [request] upstart

#36 2010-05-19 13:57:55

Re: [request] upstart

#37 2010-05-19 16:01:15

Re: [request] upstart

#38 2010-05-19 20:54:36

Re: [request] upstart

#39 2010-05-20 01:19:35

Re: [request] upstart

#40 2010-05-20 01:45:26

Re: [request] upstart

#41 2010-05-20 11:45:17

Re: [request] upstart

#42 2010-05-22 12:47:14

Re: [request] upstart

#43 2010-05-24 20:34:20

Re: [request] upstart

#44 2012-02-03 20:21:46

Re: [request] upstart

#45 2012-02-04 00:36:41

Re: [request] upstart

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