Well... All told, I think that went rather well.

I wanted to chime in and thank everyone for participating in what was clearly an insane exercise in trying to cut through the acrimony and vitriol and get some actual information on what systemd is and what it's trying to do. You can't always grok what complex things are about just from the docs. That's why I wanted actual first-hand experiences from people who could point to actual gems they'd found.

To respond to some recurring remarks throughout the comments:

• "Obviously a pro-systemd shill."
  No, I'm not shilling for RedHat or Poettering. In fact, I gave Poettering some stick for the whole corrupt-binary-logs-aren't-a-bug thing a couple weeks ago. I was being forthright in the opening paragraph: The simple fact that systemd has been widely adopted despite widespread protest made me genuinely wonder what I was missing that I hadn't figured out from the docs I'd read. So, no, there's no conspiracy here.
• "Who are you to establish posting rules?"
  Well, gosh, sorry, but I was trying to save everyone time. Seriously, tell me you haven't gone, "Oh, ${DEITY}, another systemd thread; there goes my afternoon as I pick through the rat's nest of comments." So I hoped -- perhaps naively -- that requesting some organization would let us all get to the meat of issues of interest fairly quickly. And enough people did choose the follow the rules that the discussion overall turned out valuable (for me, anyway).
• "Why do you dislike something you admit you know nothing about?"
  For largely the same reason I dislike Windows without having comprehensively pored over the "design" docs for COM, DCOM, MFC/ATL/WTL, WDM, NTFS, NTLM, Direct${THING}, Active${THING}, etc. etc. etc. Poorly-designed systems seem to have a certain "pattern" to them, and systemd at first glance seemed to match that pattern (the use of Windows-style INI files syntax didn't help, either). But the people adopting systemd are clearly not idiots, so I hoped people with actual experience with the thing could convey insights that (for me) the docs so far have not.
• "You're thinking of the ads for Miller Lite, not Bud Light."
  *headdesk* I would like to apologize to a no doubt deeply irritated TV ad executive for completely misattributing their fifteen-odd years and millions of dollars worth of loud beer ads to the wrong company (I think this speaks well to my socially-isolated geek cred, though :-) ).

In the best tradition of USENET, I thought I'd summarize the highlights of what I got out of the whole thing. Most of the good posts have already been modded up, but the ones that especially stood out for me were these:

• http://linux.slashdot.org/comm... , describing what 'systemctl status ' can do.
• http://linux.slashdot.org/comm... , pointing out a point/counterpoint summary on uselessd's Web site.
• http://linux.slashdot.org/comm... , describing that systemd plays nice inside a container, presumably making it easier to create VM-ish setups.
• http://linux.slashdot.org/comm... , where the poster describes how systemd does a better job of stopping processes/daemons. The poster then sticks around, giving clear answers to further questions.
• http://linux.slashdot.org/comm... , describing how systemd exposes Linux cgroups to create limited execution environments for daemons or (it appears) any process.
• http://linux.slashdot.org/comm... , while heavy on the snark, nevertheless links to concrete discussions of the insights and motivations behind systemd.
• http://linux.slashdot.org/comm... discusses how systemd doesn't just launch processes but manages their entire lifetime (although the replies suggest a machine can't survive systemd itself crashing).
• http://linux.slashdot.org/comm... points to a post on the Arch Linux discussion forum which describes their rationale for adopting systemd.
• http://linux.slashdot.org/comm... mentions four systemd features and the issues they solve.
• http://linux.slashdot.org/comm... describes some of the advantages working with systemd's logs, with examples.
• http://linux.slashdot.org/comm... describes how systemd made it easier to resource-limit their daemons.

Thanks again to everyone who chimed in. You've given me a lot to read up on...

Think back to the epic holy wars of the past. Emacs vs. Vi. Big vs. Little Endian. Motorola vs. Intel. Amiga vs. Atari ST. ASCII vs. EDBIC.

vi*. Little-endian. Motorola. Amiga. ASCII**. Obviously.

(* with great respect to those who are able to use EMACS well.)

(** Seriously, who not using punched cards ever actually liked EBCDIC?)

The chips are not destroyed.

Yes, the bricked chips can (allegedly) be restored to working order through the use of a utility. "Hang on. Would this utility be furnished by the very same company that wrecked my device in the first place?" Why yes; is that relevant? "Very fscking hilarious; I'll be looking elsewhere for my USB-serial adapter needs from now on..."

This is a distinction without a difference, as they say. You wouldn't cut any slack to a malware author who tried to claim, "Oh, the files aren't destroyed. They're merely encrypted, and can be restored to their previous condition through the use of this handy-dandy decryption key, available exclusively from me... for a modest fee..."

Can you tell, by merely looking at it, whether a given device is using GenuineFTDI(TM)(R)(C)(BFD) chips, or whether it's a counterfeit? Can you tell by using whatever the Windows equivalent of lsusb is? No? Then there is a random, non-trivial chance that plugging in your serial-ish device will either:

• Work (old non-destructive drivers),
• Not work (new, non-destructive drivers),
• Ruin the device (new, destructive drivers), so that it not only Not Works, but also Stops Working on every other machine on which it previously worked.

• Thus, in the mind of the user, FTDI == Flaky. And Flaky == Avoid.

  Congratulations, FTDI. Ten points for avoiding your feet, but minus several million for shooting yourself straight in the head.

One of the defects constantly levelled against systemd is its propensity to corrupt its own system logs, and how the official response to this defect is to ignore it. The uselessd page has a link to the bug report in question, which was reported in May 2013 and, over a year later closed and marked NOTABUG. However, it seems Mr. Poettering is getting annoyed by people using his own bug reports against him, and added a comment to the bug report today purporting to clarify his position.

Unfortunately, his "clarifications" serve only to reinforce my suspicion that systemd is a thing to be avoided. To wit:

Since this bugyilla [sic] report is apparently sometimes linked these days as an example how we wouldn't fix a major bug in systemd:

Well, yeah, corrupt logs would be regarded by many as a major bug...

...Now, our strategy to rotate-on-corruption is the safest thing we can do, as we make sure that the internal corruption is frozen in time, and not attempted to be "fixed" by a tool, that might end up making things worse. After all, in the case the often-run writing code really fucks something up, then it is not necessarily a good idea to try to make it better by running a tool on it that tries to fix it up again, a tool that is necessarily a lot more complex, and also less tested.

Okay, so freeze the corrupted data set so things don't get worse, and start a new data set. A reasonable defensive practice. You still haven't addressed how the corruption happened, or how to fix it.

Now, of course, having corrupted files isn't great, and we should make sure the files even when corrupted stay as accessible as possible. Hence: the code that reads the journal files is actually written in a way that tries to make the best of corrupted files, and tries to read of them as much as possible, with the the subset of the file that is still valid. We do this implicitly on every access.

Okay, so journalctl tries to be robust, assumes the journal data might be crap, and works around it. So we can assume journalctl is probably pretty solid and won't make things worse.

Hence: journalctl implicitly does on read what a theoretical journal file fsck tool would do, but without actually making this persistent. This logic also has a major benefit: as our reader gets better and learns to deal with more types of corruptions you immediately benefit of it, even for old files!

....Uhhhhh-huh. So, yeah, newer tools will do a better job of working around the corruption, and we'll be able to recover more data, assuming we kept known-corrupt logs around. But what I still don't understand is WHY THE LOGS ARE CORRUPT. And why aren't there log diagnostic and analysis tools? If you already know your logs can turn to crap, surely there are structure analysis tools around that let you pick through the debris and recover data that your automated heuristics can't.

And why do I get the feeling that implied in the above is, "You don't need to know the log structure or how to repair it. We'll write the tools for that. We'll release better tools when we get around to it?"

File systems such as ext4 have an fsck tool since they don't have the luxury to just rotate the fs away and fix the structure on read: they have to use the same file system for all future writes, and they thus need to try hard to make the existing data workable again.

....AAAAnd you lost me. Seriously, this is your defense: "Filesystems are more important than system logs, so they have to try harder?" I find this insinuation... surprising. You do realize that btrfs didn't become worthy of general use overnight, right? (Some might argue it still hasn't.) It took years of development, and hundreds of people risking corrupt or destroyed filesystems before the kinks got worked out, and the risk of lost or corrupt files approached zero. More significantly, during this long development time, no one ever once suggested making btrfs the default filesystem for Linux. People knew btrfs could ruin their shit. No one ever suggested, "Oh, well, keep a copy of the corrupt block image and format a new one; we'll release better read tools Real Soon Now." No one suggested putting btrfs into everyday use until it proved its reliability.

Likewise, until it can demonstrate to the same level of reliability as common filesystems that it doesn't trash data, systemd is experimental -- an interesting experiment with interesting ideas and some promise, but still an experiment. I would appreciate it if you didn't experiment on my machines, thankyouverynice.

I hope this explains the rationale here a bit more.

No, sir. No it does not.

P.S: Is there any evidence to suggest that systemd log corruption issues have since been solved?

- the Windows 8 era machines include Windows 7 AND 8 installation disks - choose whatever you like.

If you custom-build a machine from their ZBook "Mobile Workstation" line, you can even configure a machine to not have Windows installed at all. Saves you about $100.00. Still rather pricey, though...

1) fix the PAGEFILE. Go inot the settings and change ti to fixed size - 2x-3x size of ram - both of minimum and maximum size. Do not let WInodws manage it! [ ... ]

Better still, move PAGEFILE.SYS off of C: entirely, preferably on to its own spindle if you can. That way the swapper isn't having a fight with every other application in the system for accessing system files; and PAGEFILE.SYS itself won't become fragmented.

Consider moving %TEMP% and %TMP% off of C: as well.

4) Dump the System Restore from time to time. This is just junk removal. [ ... ]

Sadly, this appears to be an all-or-nothing affair -- on XP, you can either delete all restore points or none of them. It would be nice to delete those that are, say, more than a year old.

...federal officials forced American tech companies to participate in the NSA's controversial PRISM program.

You misspelled "illegal." HTH. HAND.

In a filesystem like EXT3, if you open a file, seek to some offset, and write new data, EXT3 will write the new data to the existing disk block in place. ZFS, however, will allocate a new block for that offset (copy on write), write the modified data to it, and update the block chain. The result is that it's apparently very easy to badly fragment a ZFS file (do a Google search for "ZFS fragmentation" to see various stories and tests people have written).

You can apparently mitigate the problem by occasionally copying the entire affected file -- Oracle's own whitepaper on the subject apparently reads, "Periodically copying data files reorganizes the file location on disk and gives better full scan response time."

Bottom line: ZFS is not a panacea, nor is it simple. There are myriad options, and trade-offs to all of them.

Why is that link relevant? Because they were all made using Kdenlive.

When I first started mucking around with digital video, I tried a bunch of free/libre packages, and formed the following opinions of each:

Windows Movie Maker
Yes, $(GOD) help me, I gave it a serious try. To my utter surprise, it mostly worked and did what I wanted without crashing. However, the UI was rather inflexible, and I needed more than the handful of features it offered, so I kept looking.

Cinelerra
Every Google search for free video editing software always turns this up, so I tried it. Then, ten minutes later, I had to stop trying it because it kept crashing and/or hanging at the slightest provocation. It has an impressive-looking array of features, and the editing timeline looks quite powerful. Evidently, you can do some fairly impressive things with Cinelerra, provided you can identify and avoid all its weak spots.

Pitivi
The last time I tried this, it was unreliable, under-featured, and incredibly slow. Just loading a one hour-long video clip into the timeline took several minutes as it tried to generate thumbnails and an audio waveform for the clip.

OpenShot
Assuming I'm remembering this package correctly, all it does is assemble edits -- that is, you can tack together a bunch of clips one after the other to create a larger work. If you want to do any effects or titling, you're SOL. Perhaps the Kickstarter-funded upgrade will yield some improvements.

Lightworks
I had to learn something the hard way with this package: This is a professional package. By that, I don't mean it has a ton of features (although it certainly does). I mean it expects a certain level of media asset before it will operate on it in the manner you expect. Us mere proles are satisfied to use MP4 or MKV or ($(GOD) help us) AVI files. However, in the pro space, you have files that contain not just compressed audio and video, but also timecode. And not just timecode measured relative to when you last pressed the RECORD button, but also a master timecode from an achingly accurate central timecode generator fed to all your cameras and microphones. This not only means all your cameras and mics are in precise sync ('cause otherwise their internal clocks will drift relative to each other), but you can trivially sync all your master footage and then intercut shots without even thinking about it. Also, near as I can tell, there's no such thing as inter-frame compression in professional video. Each frame is atomic, which means you can cleanly cut anywhere, but it doesn't compress anywhere near as small as, say, H.264.

The result is that, if you don't have equipment that generates all this metadata for you, then you need to convert it from the puny consumer format you're likely using. This means having truly monstrous amounts of disk available just to store the working set, and tons of RAM to make it all work. And hopefully your conversion script(s) didn't cough up bogus timecode.

So, yes, Lightworks is very very nice, if you have the proper resources to feed it. I don't, so I've set it aside for that glorious day when I get some proper equipment :-).

Kdenlive
Kdenlive is built on top of the MLT framework, and is about the best and most reliable thing I've found out there that doesn't cost actual money (either directly or indirectly). It has a non-linear timeline editor, it supports a wide variety of media formats, and it has a modest collection of audio and video effects (almost none of which you will use).

One of the more amazing things Kdenlive does is transparently convert sample and frame rates. Without thinking about it, my first video involved using a 44KHz WAV file, a 48KHz WAV file, and a 44KHz MP3 file, with the output audio to be 48KHz AAC. I feared I was going to have to convert all the sources to the same format, but Kdenlive quietly resampled them all when compiling the output video file, and everything came out undistorted and in sync.

Kdenlive does occasionally crash, which is annoying, but it has never destroyed my work. It has a fairly robust crash recovery mechanism, and you may lose your most recent one or two tweaks to the timelines, but you won't lose hours of work.

Kdenlive is not perfect, of course. It has limitations and annoyances that occasionally make me search for another video editor. But if, as I was, you're new to video editing, it will take you a while to find those limitations. Kdenlive has certainly served me very well in the meantime, and I think it's the most reliable, most capable, and most easily accessible Open Source video editor out there.

...I'm going to trust a link to install software on Android from outside of the Play store?

I think not.

Clearly you've never heard of the F-Droid project. Go read up on it.