This kind of end to end documentation is invaluable when you're trying to troubleshoot.
I had a service complaining about the root file permissions which changed between Fedora versions [1]. I was never able to figure out what produced the file system image but thanks so this guide I know where to start looking now.
So as a relatively fresh Fedora user (2024) who just sold their Windows PC (2025) and is in love with the OS, where would be a good place to look for areas to contribute in? Is there a place where Fedora maintainers write down what parts of the pipeline are in need of volunteers?
Personally I feel a good way to get involved is to test updates in bodhi for those packages you care about, or to take part in the process that happens around release time where we go through several freeze cycles and have 'blocker bugs' that need their fixes to be validated: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA:SOP_blocker_bug_process
> Every build starts from a clean room. You can never get a different result because someone installed something on the builder last week.
At least 6 years ago, this was not entirely true: a package happened to build only because, by happy accident, the builder had a dependency installed by something else. Since the dependency was not in its Build-Requires:, the build would fail in COPR, which really used a clean room. A case of being saved by the alphabetic order, I guess?
Mmm, COPR and Koji I think use the same mock configs but someone else would have to confirm that :)
It's definitely possible that one of a packages build dependencies pulls in something that a package /should/ depend on and then when it drops it suddenly the build fails. That's why I think we mostly want 'autogenerated' BuildRequires nowadays that are generated based on the upstream source or packaging format to make that less of a figuring out excercise.
It’s at odds with the philosophy of do one thing and do it well. Its monolithic feature set pushes out smaller contributors and leads to increased reliance on a singular package. This tends to self reinforce. I also use systemd in my current distro so not sure where I stand on this but it’s a fair concern.
Before systemd I had Redhat machines with 3 to 4 years of uptime, and now you need to restart Linux after updates....while Windows people rarely and they laugh at you...
The best example of suck, and that forced you to restart Linux machines after an update, something that was not the case before... you little ducklings...
The systemd init isn't half an operating system any more than the coreutils "ls" utility is half a userspace. The systemd project has many different components but they're independent, they are not all literally part of the init system.
You're the one who brought up init systems. Like you said, systemd is a huge project; an init system is just one of its components.
> he systemd project has many different components but they're independent
They _are_ dependent. It's one codebas, and even if you somehow separated it - you would still only have systemd-specific, systemd-dependent replacements for _actual_ independent components.
They all depend on systemd and won't work with anything else, nor on any other operating system either.
>> The proof this site is misnamed is that a post criticizing systemd gets downvoted, probably by people who have never questioned why an [[ init system ]] needs to become half the operating system.
So no, I didn't bring it up.
I find the whole argument kind of dumb anyway. People talk about this as if it was a violation of the "Unix Philosophy" when Unix and BSD are developed even moreso in the same way - the init system is sitting in the same repo as the libc, the kernel, and the entire rest of the OS. Linux is alone amongst operating systems in making core system components swappable like to that degree in the first place. It's fine to like that kind of flexibility, but a bit silly to act as though that approach is fundamentally superior. If you want to use non-systemd tools, use a non-systemd distro, that is your choice. Just quit whining about 99.9999% of the other software users on the planet not catering to it.
I think the systemd people state that it is more than an init system, maybe your expectation of it needs to be adjusted. "systemd is a software suite for system and service management on Linux built to unify service configuration and behavior across Linux distributions." One of the great things about Linux is that you can always choose a distro that fits your ideals (or whatever else).
It's absolutely off-topic to moan about systemd on every post about Linux.
If there was a complaint about how systemd complicated builds and tests in a specific way the commenter could name, that'd be valid. Just finger-wagging is tiring after how many, 10 years?
We moan about Microsoft's horrid choices with its operating choices, already for, what, let's say 40 years now? 45? When they cut it out, start using standards, stop forcing crap onto their users (not all of Windows is crap; a lot of it is quite solid), stop with the spying and surveillance, and of course make the code FOSS, then we'll stop the moaning.
It's similar for systemd. It's a poor architectural choice and it needs to be undone. And that's ignoring the personal drama surrounding it over the years which, indeed, needs to be let go by now.
As for topicality: This post is about the "sausage" that is a distribution. Following this metaphor and mentioning a problem with a certain kind of sausage is on-topic.
I had a service complaining about the root file permissions which changed between Fedora versions [1]. I was never able to figure out what produced the file system image but thanks so this guide I know where to start looking now.
[1]: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2402944#c1
https://web.archive.org/web/20230112002240/https://beefymira...
Personally I feel a good way to get involved is to test updates in bodhi for those packages you care about, or to take part in the process that happens around release time where we go through several freeze cycles and have 'blocker bugs' that need their fixes to be validated: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA:SOP_blocker_bug_process
At least 6 years ago, this was not entirely true: a package happened to build only because, by happy accident, the builder had a dependency installed by something else. Since the dependency was not in its Build-Requires:, the build would fail in COPR, which really used a clean room. A case of being saved by the alphabetic order, I guess?
Maybe they have updated Koji since.
It's definitely possible that one of a packages build dependencies pulls in something that a package /should/ depend on and then when it drops it suddenly the build fails. That's why I think we mostly want 'autogenerated' BuildRequires nowadays that are generated based on the upstream source or packaging format to make that less of a figuring out excercise.
https://suckless.org/sucks/systemd/
https://without-systemd.org/wiki/index_php/Arguments_against...
> he systemd project has many different components but they're independent
They _are_ dependent. It's one codebas, and even if you somehow separated it - you would still only have systemd-specific, systemd-dependent replacements for _actual_ independent components.
They all depend on systemd and won't work with anything else, nor on any other operating system either.
>> The proof this site is misnamed is that a post criticizing systemd gets downvoted, probably by people who have never questioned why an [[ init system ]] needs to become half the operating system.
So no, I didn't bring it up.
I find the whole argument kind of dumb anyway. People talk about this as if it was a violation of the "Unix Philosophy" when Unix and BSD are developed even moreso in the same way - the init system is sitting in the same repo as the libc, the kernel, and the entire rest of the OS. Linux is alone amongst operating systems in making core system components swappable like to that degree in the first place. It's fine to like that kind of flexibility, but a bit silly to act as though that approach is fundamentally superior. If you want to use non-systemd tools, use a non-systemd distro, that is your choice. Just quit whining about 99.9999% of the other software users on the planet not catering to it.
If there was a complaint about how systemd complicated builds and tests in a specific way the commenter could name, that'd be valid. Just finger-wagging is tiring after how many, 10 years?
It's similar for systemd. It's a poor architectural choice and it needs to be undone. And that's ignoring the personal drama surrounding it over the years which, indeed, needs to be let go by now.
As for topicality: This post is about the "sausage" that is a distribution. Following this metaphor and mentioning a problem with a certain kind of sausage is on-topic.