[NTLUG:Discuss] Epoch Init System Howto

[Steve Litt]

On Thu, 1 Jan 2015 17:48:58 -0500
Steve Litt <slitt at troubleshooters.com> wrote:

> On Thu, 1 Jan 2015 15:06:24 -0700
> Stephen M <smelheim85 at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Maybe not today but whats the use of using an older system?
> 
> If you're referring to sysvinit as the older system, there's only one
> use for it: As a place to wait until we get a good init system. Many
> believe that systemd doesn't qualify as "a good init system", and
> would be willing to put up with the opaque and dysfunctional sysvinit
> a little longer until their ducks are in line to install and use an
> init system well suited to their needs. My research tells me the easy
> availability of excellent init systems is right around the corner.

Oops, I answered only half your question.

If you *weren't* referring to sysvinit, but just older systems in
general, there's no law of nature that older must be worse and newer
must be better.

From about 2006 onward, quite a few great Init Systems have been
released: Epoch and runit are the two I can vouch for, but from the
reading I've done I expect s6 and nosh to be in that same quality
ballpark, or perhaps even better. I'm not a huge fan of veteran OpenRC,
but, having used it and experimented with it, I consider it better than
sysvinit and systemd.

Init systems are like any software, some new stuff is spectacular, and
some new stuff is junk. I stick with the old stuff until something new
proves itself materially better than what I have now. I'm typing this
on a Debian Wheezy machine with a sysvinit init system, so believe me,
there's plenty of newer stuff materially better than what I have now: I
just have to decide among the several materially better alterntives.

Thanks,

SteveT

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