I’m just glad I chose arch instead of Gentoo. I got plenty of will power to learn something new but waiting hours or even days for a bunch of software to compile was too much for me.
But the documentation is really good and I like the simplicity of OpenRC. Give Void or Alpine a go if you want to dip your toes into something similar, but without all the compiling.
How’s the init script management access? I had a friend try to switch to openrc on Arch (I know) and he had a terrible experience, most likely because it’s Arch and not Arco which is designed for alternative init systems. Do you have to write and maintain your own init scripts, or is that created during installation?
Do you have to write and maintain your own init scripts, or is that created during installation?
Packages should come with the necessary scripts (on Gentoo and Alpine they do), but if they don’t for some reason then writing them is pretty simple. I think the updated layout really only needs dependencies and a couple variables defined.
Void uses Runit which is even simpler, you have one directory per service and at least a script called “run” in there which gets executed by the supervisor. The is usually just one line, that’s all it takes to make a service work. It also has the supervisor take care of handling logging, similar to what Systemd does. I think it’s a very clean, modern take on classic init, except that dependency/ordering doesn’t exist - it just retries until things fall into place. Works well though.
I like OpenRC! I never really measured it but it feels like a much faster boot time than systemd. I’d have to get used to the syntax and writing my own scripts but if the majority of Linux distros switched to it tomorrow I’d enjoy it.
Big and small projects alike typically have poor documentation for alternative init systems and what they depend on in the aystemd ecosystem so I’ll probably stick to systemd for now. The poor documentation on alternative init systems is probably one of the biggest reasons Gentoo doesn’t move fast on getting new projects in their repos.
I’d have to get used to the syntax and writing my own scripts but if the majority of Linux distros switched to it tomorrow I’d enjoy it.
I don’t think I wrote more than one or two init scripts during my years of using Gentoo, the packages usually come with them. The newer syntax looks like you can get by with just a few variables and a dependency definition, not that different from a unit file I think.
But the documentation is really good and I like the simplicity of OpenRC. Give Void or Alpine a go if you want to dip your toes into something similar, but without all the compiling.
How’s the init script management access? I had a friend try to switch to openrc on Arch (I know) and he had a terrible experience, most likely because it’s Arch and not Arco which is designed for alternative init systems. Do you have to write and maintain your own init scripts, or is that created during installation?
Packages should come with the necessary scripts (on Gentoo and Alpine they do), but if they don’t for some reason then writing them is pretty simple. I think the updated layout really only needs dependencies and a couple variables defined.
Void uses Runit which is even simpler, you have one directory per service and at least a script called “run” in there which gets executed by the supervisor. The is usually just one line, that’s all it takes to make a service work. It also has the supervisor take care of handling logging, similar to what Systemd does. I think it’s a very clean, modern take on classic init, except that dependency/ordering doesn’t exist - it just retries until things fall into place. Works well though.
I like OpenRC! I never really measured it but it feels like a much faster boot time than systemd. I’d have to get used to the syntax and writing my own scripts but if the majority of Linux distros switched to it tomorrow I’d enjoy it.
Big and small projects alike typically have poor documentation for alternative init systems and what they depend on in the aystemd ecosystem so I’ll probably stick to systemd for now. The poor documentation on alternative init systems is probably one of the biggest reasons Gentoo doesn’t move fast on getting new projects in their repos.
I don’t think I wrote more than one or two init scripts during my years of using Gentoo, the packages usually come with them. The newer syntax looks like you can get by with just a few variables and a dependency definition, not that different from a unit file I think.