systemd as external dependency
- From: Lennart Poettering <mztabzr 0pointer de>
- To: desktop-devel-list gnome org
- Subject: systemd as external dependency
- Date: Wed, 18 May 2011 14:09:14 +0200
Heya,I'd like to propose systemd (GPL2+,http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd) as blessed externaldependency for GNOME 3.2. Currently the interfacing between GNOME and systemd is minimal. Bastienhas been implementing a UI for changing the host name via aconfiguration UI in the control center which uses a tiny mechanismdaemon included in systemd as backend. GLib already exposesg_get_user_runtime_dir() which is a frontend for XDG_RUNTIME_DIR whoseonly implementation I know right now is in systemd.In the future I expect more interfacing with GNOME however, and I'd thuslike to see the discussion regarding acceptance as blesseddependency started early.In the long run I expect the following additional interfaces used byGNOME or one of its components:- I am working on two more mechanisms generalizing control of the system locale and system clock/timezone for use in the control center and by other UIs.- gdm will interface with the new CK-replacing code I am working on.http://lwn.net/Articles/441328/- gnome-session will be augmented by a per-user systemd instace, leveraging the benefits that systemd gives you for system startup also for session startup.- Later on I hope that we can use per-application cgroups to create reliable mapping between desktop files and processes. (i.e. place each app in a cgroup and name it after the .desktop file), integrated into the systemd cgroup hierarchy, so that this can be used for g-s and other UIs to relate desktop files to processes.And I expect a couple of more interfacing points, however things getmore and more into vaporware areas with those.With these interfaces I hope to bring the speed improvements we areproviding for the system also to the session. Also it brings a ton ofnew user-visible features with it, like automatic multiseat, or theability to change the system locale.systemd is Linux-only. That means if we still care for those non-Linuxplatforms replacements have to be written. In case of thetimezone/time/locale/hostname mechanisms this should be relatively easyas we kept the D-Bus interface very much independent from systemd, andthey are easy to reimplement. Also, just leaving out support for this onthose archs should be workable too. The hostname interface is documentedin a lot of detail here:http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/hostnamed -- we plan tooffer similar documentation for the other mechanisms.Not all Linux distributions currently use systemd. The majority of thebig and small distributions however has switched by now or is planningto switch in their next versions, or at least provides packages in thedistribution. The one exception is Ubuntu. While I have hopes this willbe resolved next year, there is no official statement from Ubuntu onthis. Distributions not interested in systemd which however are lookinginto having some of its features could probably compile systemd butremove all but the mechanism daemons.Integration between gnome-session and systemd I expect to be very lose,and can probably easily be #ifdef'ed out for conservative distros orother OSes.The closest integration I expect in gdm. Ideally I'd like to rip out thecurrent CK support completely and replace it entirely by the morelow-level systemd specific code. However, that I can only do if theoutcome of this discussion is clear.systemd itself has very minimal external dependencies. You need Linux,udev, D-Bus, and that's it. (there are a couple of additional optionaldeps however).The first version i'd like to see blessed is systemd 26.Comments?Lennart-- Lennart Poettering - Red Hat, Inc.
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