Mailing List Archive

Official support for the s6 init on Gentoo
Hi all,

I would like to propose the official support of s6 in Gentoo, although it is true that it is accepted, it does not have official support and would need the creation of new scripts for the correct operation of s6 in the system.

This request is motivated by the malaise caused by systemd along with the latest decisions made by Gentoo. The worst thing for OpenRC (native, by default and alternative to systemd) is to adopt binaries from it, that will create more discomfort in the community and it seems fair to me to have a real independent alternative (binaries, libraries and device manager) like s6 . I think it would be a good solution for both start systems, we would all be happier. Of course, some extra work will require from Gentoo.

S6 init system is already working in other distributions, with good acceptance, Gentoo has always been characterized by its flexibility, I do not see why we could not enjoy this init and thus have 2 clearly different, autonomous and compatible alternatives to continue using Gentoo comfortably.

For the record, I have nothing against systemd and I do not intend or encourage to create any controversy, but it seems good and healthy, both for the community and for the future of Gentoo, to have a real alternative to systemd and not follow the path which is adopting OpenRC, accepting systemd binaries if they "work and do the trick".

You can express your vote in favor by answering this email and affirming that you agree. Please, do not indicate controversial or disqualifying comments, this email can serve to demonstrate the number of users who are interested in having an alternative, complete and functional system to systemd in Gentoo. At no time do I have anything against it, that it continues to be developed and used, whoever wants, but also that those who do not, have an alternative.

Thanks.
Re: Official support for the s6 init on Gentoo [ In reply to ]
On Sunday, 19 September 2021 19.15.50 CEST lumaro@disroot.org wrote:
> The worst thing for OpenRC
> (native, by default and alternative to systemd) is to adopt binaries
> from it

Hi,

Those binaries (I'm assuming you're talking about udev and tmpfilesd)
don't really have any overlap with what OpenRC does (init/service
management) and from what I can see it's the exact same situation for s6
so the same systemd code would still be required. I'm not saying that s6
support is a bad thing but the reason you state for adding it seems out
of place.

There's an existing s6 eclass that installs s6 services; as far as I can
see, a total of 2 packages use it right now. My guess is that the reason
why there's no s6 support across the board yet is lack of interest. You
could either create a dedicated overlay or submit patches to the gentoo
repository to directly add support to more packages.

-Marco
Re: Official support for the s6 init on Gentoo [ In reply to ]
On Sun, Sep 19, 2021 at 12:16 PM <lumaro@disroot.org> wrote:
[...]

> Of course, some extra work will require from Gentoo.
>
That's great; when you have found enough people willing and able to do that
work specifically for Gentoo, including maintenance, updates, bug
reporting, triage and fixes for the foreseeable future, then a reasonable
proposal could be made.

An alternative is to start and maintain an oficial overlay (note: it would
also require enough people willing and able to do that work); if, as you
suspect, s6 has enough qualities, it would attract a large number of users
and then requesting a merge of the overlay to the official tree should be
easier.

But really, you are asking for other people to do the work in something
that interests you. No matter how many Gentoo users could share your
interest (which, BTW, I suspect there are not that many), if there are not
enough of them *WILLING* and *ABLE* to do the work to satisfy that
interest, then their number is irrelevant.

That's how Free Software and Open Source works: someone has to be willing
and able to do the work for anything to be implemented. If you are really
interested, *you* start doing the work.

Code talks.

Regards.
--
Dr. Canek Peláez Valdés
Profesor de Carrera Asociado C
Departamento de Matemáticas
Facultad de Ciencias
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México