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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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SystemD (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Ive been runing Debian 12 (kde) since bookworm was released and am loving it.

I have recently discovered Devuan which seems to be Debian without systemd - what is the benefit of removing this init system?

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[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 year ago

Portability matters.

In general: Yes. In the specific case of an init system for a specific OS: Not so much.

This is nicely demonstrated by none of the non-Linux OSes embracing any of the options you listed. They all want something that plays to the strength of their specific systems over some generic Unix thing.

If using Linux specific features was the only approach to security, I wonder how OpenBSD exists.

It is the best approach we have on anything running a Linux kernel.

systemd cannot compete with their simplicity, maintainability, smaller attack surface, and the list goes on and on and on.

It is also easy to have really simple code that does nothing interesting whatsoever. And for something that does not do much at all, the fork-dance that e.g. s6 does is pretty complex.

Maintainability also does not seem to be a big issue for systemd at this point in time either.

The smaller attack surface is relative as well: systemd-the-init is a bit bigger than the ones you list. But the difference is not as big as you make it sound and an init system does not do many interesting things that can get attacked by either.

On the other hand systemd can seriously lock down any service it starts (and does so out of the box for anything from the systemd project and many upstream projects that ship locked down systemd unit files). The init systems you listed do can not do that directly and either need helpers (which increases their attack surface again) or just do not bother. Considering that a init system starts way more lines of code that do more security critical things than an init system: I think this lockdown does lead to a smaller attack surface of the system overall.

systemd de-facto causing other projects to put in (sometimes radically) more work than they should have to, is not okay;

Somebody has to invest work to make things convenient and easy to use. You either run with what everybody else uses and share the effort or you do not and do the work all by yourself.

This is in no way systemd specific.