"Do you really not acknowledge the existance of FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, AIX, Solaris, HP-UX, and more?"

Do you not acknowledge OS X, Windows, BeOS, C-64 DOS, CP/M, PS/2, VMS, MVS, Amiga DOS, Apple DOS, etc.!!!!?????

I guess you don't get that there are lots and lots of OSes that aren't Linux, and trying to be one system to rule them all is a fools errand? Again, you don't know anything about software engineering so stop complaining when the people who do make the right choice. When I said systemd is universal that means in a Linux conext, and your attempts to paint it as otherwise are not "cute" or "insightful".

" Just because something does the job and hasn't been mucked with in years does not mean it should be presumed garbage and replaced."

Your statement shows how much you don't know about init systems. every init system has been mucked with constantly. Again, your delusion that there is a single (or even two) init systems that "haven't been mucked with" blasts your complete lack of understanding of init systems to the world at high volume (and the bass is way to frigging loud.)

"Ignoring the very real problem that putting so damn much in PID 1 is dangerous for system stability and security"

Yeah. We ignore that because that isn't remotely true, and you are just repeating misinformation you heard and showing that you don't have a basic understanding of how Linux or systemd works.

"Also, despite the fact that dependencies are baked-in to systemd, it's not at all uncommon for a service that depends on an something else (service, NFS mount, etc.) to still start up before the dependency is fully ready, simply because the default systemd is to assume the dependency is fulfilled as soon as whatever "starts" it returns."

So it is not at all uncommon for people to use the default when they shouldn't, and that is somehow systemd's fault?

"Most init systems have a negligible amount of code running as pid 1, meaning init itself is unlikely to ever cause a blip at runtime. "

It means no such thing. You need to learn about spwan and fork, then get back to us.

"better counter argument would be that the kernel itself has even more complex needs and runs in an equally critical context."

I was going to make a similar point, without the lack of understanding of the kernel that you have. The kernel does not run " in an equally critical context" at all. It often runs in a far more critical context. Systemd runs in User space. The kernel runs in ... wait for it ... kernel space. Just as you don't understand fork and spawn, you clearly don't understand how privilege segmenting works in Linux. Much of the kernel runs in Ring 0 for example. It can disable interrupts and do all kinds of things that systemd cannot because ... wait for it ... it runs in user space.

"What systemd advocates fail to recognize is that not everyone should have to be an application developer to administer systems. "

Are you a troll? There is nothing more inherently complex about systemd than any other init system (and there are hundreds that fall under the SysV and BSD style, so don't kid yourself thinking there are two.) You can learn one system with systemd, rather than having to relearn how each distribution is using the basic SysV or BSD style approach completely differently from every other.

tldr?: EPIC FAIL

"It only runs on Linux, and will only ever run on Linux."

Who cares? Do you really think it needs to be ported to Windows?

"Upstream has vociferously declared that any attempts to merge patches to port to other systems will be denied, unless those other systems are feature-for-feature compatible with Linux."

Yes. In the field of software engineering we call this good engineering practice. If a different OS wants to fork it and use it they can, but none of the non-linux incompatible cruft is going to be folded back into the main branch. Your complaint boils down to: OMFG! The systemd folks insist on following solid engineering practices!

"That we have to ask these questions is reason enough to be angry about systemd."

No. It isn't. They haven't cracked into the SysV and BSD init repos and deleted everything, so you have no reason to be angry. If you like that old garbage, you are free to use it. Being angry that others choose to use a better system while giving you the freedom to use what you want is just plain stupid.

". Go ahead, kids, spackle over all of that unsightly runlevel stuff. Paint over init and cron, pam and login. Put all of that into PID1 along with dbus. ... Tune your distribution for desktop workloads. Go reinvent Windows."

Posting this uninformed drivel as a valid submission is a new low for Slashdot. Init runs as PID 1. Systemd runs as PID 1. In other words systemd renames Init to systemd. Does this idiot not get that systemd is essentially just a powerful universal init system that beats SysV and BSD style init?

Hint: A bunch of people still think Windows is great. Claiming that "lots of people don't like systemd equates to anything other than lots of people don't understand systemd, but will complain anyway is just stupid. Systemd works great, and most of the major distributions have chosen to switch to it for good reason.

Some people don't like them new fangled fuel injectors and still think a carburetor is the way to go as well. For those people, the old init systems are still available, but fighting progress with FUD is the Microsoft way, and while nobody is reinventing Windows here, these "systemd suxors" idiots are becoming the new FUD machine.

You are thinking of Windows. With Linux most updates happen without the need for a reboot. The only kernel vulnerabilities you are likely to be exposed to are privilege escalations, in which case they have already hacked in to the system. I'm not saying it isn't a good idea to keep current, but using an older kernel is far from the same as not applying updates for three years as you seem to be assuming it does.

"No, he's saying that if the officer was in fact following procedure (questionable) then he should be shielded from liability."

Right. And then I said he should be held liable just as much as if pointing a gun at an unarmed man was not illegal or against procedure and he did it then the gun went off.

" Even in post-war Germany, rank and file soldiers weren't prosecuted for their crimes against humanity."

Godwinism doesn't help your case.

" If the guy was in fact doing his duty ..."

Which he wasn't, unless you are saying that he protected and served the bicyclist. If so, you have a funny definition of protecting and serving.

" Not every bad thing that happens needs to have someone punished for it."

A bad thing didn't "happen". That implies lack of causaility and responsibility. A cop favored efficency in the field and a chance at promotion over the safety and well being of the citizenry. Excusing the behavior is dangerous. Almost as dangerous as putting guns in the hands of people who don't have the common sense to not use a computer while driving.

No. We get it. You're an idiot. Thanks for popping back to point it out to the world yet again though. Some people still haven't got the memo about you.

"This was within standard operating procedure for the deputy."

So what you are saying is there are at least two people who should go to jail for manslaughter. The person or people who said to do this, and the officer who was negligent enough to follow the procedure.

Great. Now learn what the term modern means.

"There seems to be this attitude out there that pot is harmless, and that's just not the case in my experience. In moderation, it's probably safe. But chronic use- long term use at high doses- seems to really fuck people up."

There seems to be this attitude out there that oxygen is harmless, and that's just not the case in my experience. In moderation, it's probably safe. But chronic use- long term use at high doses- seems to really fuck people up."

"The War on Drugs has been a a smashing success - it's put millions of people whom the power structure wanted to imprison in prison, diverted billions of dollars to those in the power structure, and helped subsidize honest-to-God warfare in South America and Mexico- and still, too small of a subset of Americans realize this."

Just a little accuracy upgrade to your well thought out post.

"I doubt the war on drugs was only targeted towards Marijuana."

Since people aren't Marijuana you would be right. The War on Drugs is a misnomer. It has always been a losing war against the US Citizens, and more specifically a subset of the US citezenry that valued morals and freedom of choice over laws designed to create a ruling class and a subjegated class. This is not to say that there are no immoral drug users of course, but the all too often successful attempt to paint drug use as immoral was never about helping people, and has always been about excercising control over them. In truth: Drugs have done some good things for US.

""CISC functionality" is the ability to execute a given CISC instruction set with acceptable performance."

When you start off with a broken definition, everything you say about it becomes suspect.

"you can choose to use fewer transistors in one place on a chip in favor of more transistors in another place,"

That's a phenomenally stupid thing to say, and represents a complete lack of understanding of circuit design in general.

"You may happen to execute some functions slower, and other functions faster, but if the net result is faster execution of the code actually run on the machine, you have a better implementation."

This statement represents a complete lack of understanding of benchmarking.

"For existing architectures, the reason they don't do it is that it would require changes to the instruction format, which, for most instruction set architectures, would be a royal pain."

Again, that is just phenomenally stupid, and alludes to the idea that the designers are lazy, as well as ignoring the fact the nothing about chip design is anything other than "a royal pain."

" For ARM, they were already introducing a 64-bit variant of the instruction set, and didn't have to maintain binary compatibility."

Do you even think about what you write before you write it?

Just accept that your attempts to sound like you have a clue failed miserably, and you have been called on it. You haven't made a coherent point in the entire post, and you need to let qualified designers make decisions rather than playing "armchair designer."

"I said nothing about keeping all the same functionality, if by "functionality" you mean"

The problem is that you were assuming you are the only one speaking in this thread. The discussion was about adding more registers in a CISC architecture, and so CISC functionality is the context. When you ask what "the same functionality means" that is absurd. You can't implement a subset of the functionality and still have the same functionality.

I'll put this in simpler terms. Smart people design CPUs and they don't add a bunch of registers even though that would be useful. The reason they don't do it is because of the additional chip real estate it would cost in an already over-taxed landscape, not because they are lazy or haven't though of the idea.