[Pkg-sysvinit-devel] Bug#781766: sysvinit should depend on initscripts for a functional /lib/sysvinit/init

[Michael Biebl]

Am 05.05.2015 um 18:19 schrieb Josh Triplett:
> On Tue, May 05, 2015 at 06:07:56PM +0200, Michael Biebl wrote:
>> Am 05.05.2015 um 17:57 schrieb Josh Triplett:
>>> On Tue, May 05, 2015 at 02:08:56PM +0200, Michael Biebl wrote:
>>>> On Thu, 02 Apr 2015 11:24:53 -0700 Josh Triplett <josh at joshtriplett.org>

>>> I had assumed that the sysvinit package would stick around as long as
>>> sysvinit does.  What is your plan post-jessie?
>>
>> Drop it, most likely. It has done it's purpose to provide a smooth
>> upgrade path from wheezy to jessie.

I have to add here, that I'm not part of the pkg-sysvinit team, so the
decision is ultimately up to the sysvinit maintainers.

> And drop the mechanism that allows booting sysvinit while keeping
> systemd as /sbin/init?

I think this mechanism has value and it's still useful for the other way
around (systemd + sysvinit-core installed => alternative boot entry for
systemd). Also, even if the sysvinit package is dropped in stretch, it's
not necessarily a given, that the user actually uninstalls it.

So I'd keep this mechanism at least for another release cycle.
Then again, I'm not the grub maintainer either.

> Personally, in the stretch timeframe, I plan to work on making it
> possible to remove the initscripts and sysv-rc packages from a systemd
> system.

Thanks for your interest in working on that.
I do hope you co-ordinate that effort with the pkg-systemd team and e.g.
make sure to user-tag the bugs accordingly
(suggestion user: pkg-systemd-maintainers at lists.alioth.debian.org ,
usertag: initscripts-removal)

systemd itself doesn't need any resources from the initscripts package
to boot a system successfully.

A few issues that come to mind

a/ priority of initscripts needs to be demoted, so it's no longer pulled
in automatically.

b/ /bin/mountpoint binary. Since initscripts is quasi-essential,
packages can make use of it unconditionally. Solved by moving the binary
to util-linux. Ongoing (#753779)

c/ packages, which added a versioned dependency on initscripts for the
/run-transition need to drop that dependency. It's no longer needed. MBF
which probably needs some announcement on debian-devel.

d/ insserv needs to be fixed to not barf if the facilities provided by
the initscripts package are not around and handle this gracefully (by
simply ignoring them).

e/ /lib/init/vars.sh: This shell library is sourced by quite a few init
scripts (261 according to codesearch) to get some basic SysV settings.
I'm a bit unsure what to do about this one. I bet, most of them don't
actually use the variables set by vars.sh, so they could simply drop
this include. That said, moving it into another package is probably the
simplest option. sysv-rc looks like a possible candidate.


I think that should be it mostly.

Michael


-- 
Why is it that all of the instruments seeking intelligent life in the
universe are pointed away from Earth?

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