On Sun, Jul 17, 2016 at 04:37:10PM +0200, Michael Biebl wrote: > Control: retitle -1 Drop transitional sysvinit package in stretch > > Am 05.05.2015 um 17:57 schrieb Josh Triplett: > > On Tue, May 05, 2015 at 02:08:56PM +0200, Michael Biebl wrote: > >> Hi, > >> > >> On Thu, 02 Apr 2015 11:24:53 -0700 Josh Triplett <j...@joshtriplett.org> > >> wrote: > >>> sysvinit-core depends on initscripts, but sysvinit does not. However, > >>> sysvinit ships /lib/sysvinit/init, and it should be possible to use > >>> sysvinit by booting with init=/lib/sysvinit/init without having > >>> sysvinit-core installed. Thus, sysvinit needs to have dependencies on > >>> any packages needed for a functional sysvinit init system, including > >>> initscripts (and potentially other dependencies of sysvinit-core). > >> > >> The sysvinit package (as shipped in jessie) was mostly intended as a > >> transitional measure when upgrading from wheezy to jessie. > >> I tried to make that clear also in the package description. > > > > I had assumed that the sysvinit package would stick around as long as > > sysvinit does. What is your plan post-jessie? > > > >> Keep in mind, that when installing jessie from scratch, there will be no > >> /etc/inittab. This means, installing the sysvinit package (in parallel > >> to systemd-sysv) will not result in a bootable system via > >> init=/lib/sysvinit/init. > >> > >> Now, if there is desire to make the sysvinit package useful beyond the > >> wheezy -> jessie upgrade, someone would have to deal with this inittab > >> problem first, I think. > > > > That's a good point. I would have assumed that one of the sysvinit > > packages would create /etc/inittab on installation. I suspect that some > > people installing jessie from scratch will find it rather surprising > > when they're unable to switch to sysvinit simply by installing the > > appropriate package. > > So, we've been discussing the role of the "sysvinit" binary package > within the pkg-systemd team just recently. We've come to the conclusion > that keeping the sysvinit transitional package is actively harmful, as > it's confusing for users. They need to pick between sysvinit-core and > sysvinit, and intalling sysvinit won't actually lead to a bootable > system if there is no pre-existing /etc/inittab.
This change would break the mechanism that allowed switching between init systems via init= (or the generated options in GRUB). That makes it more difficult for someone who needs to test sysvinit for whatever reason. (The reverse works fine: having sysvinit-core installed but booting via systemd.) I realize that the missing /etc/inittab and missing initscripts dependency already broke that for anyone who didn't start out with sysvinit. And I also realize that having a transitional package named "sysvinit" that doesn't actually install sysvinit (unless you had it already) could lead to confusion. I don't have any objection to removing the transitional package named "sysvinit". However, it seems unfortunate to completely lose the "dual-boot" functionality. - Josh Triplett
