this post was submitted on 01 Apr 2026
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Inside the Systemd Age Verification Debate: Developer Responds to Criticism (itsfoss.com)
submitted 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) by Aatube@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/technology@lemmy.world
15 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I draw the line at when a third party internet-connected service is doing validation of ID. Let’s be honest though, I strongly believe such a thing isn’t possible on a FOSS operating system environment unless they could control what was bootable on the device at a firmware level, enforce signatures to ensure that you couldn’t boot something unrestricted, remove the ability to be root, and block LD_PRELOAD so signals couldn’t be faked. There’s probably more ways to circumvent that.

What I’m trying to say is real ID verification on Linux would be awfully hard to implement, and I guarantee you, nobody would put up with it. They’d fork to a version that doesn’t have it immediately as a protest. Right now, we’re considering implementing something akin to the date pickers that were ubiquitous when signing up for internet services in the early 2000s where it’s just an honor system.

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[–] knobbysideup@sh.itjust.works 32 points 7 hours ago (3 children)

I think a birthday field in Pam or passwd would be fine. It'd be cool to have a happy birthday motd on login.

But it doesn't belong in what should be an init system. Much of the scope of systemd beyond an init system is the real issue. Resolved for example. Fuck poettering.

[–] nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 1 hour ago

happy birthday motd

I would uninstall this immediately

[–] Aatube@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

The change was to systemd-userdb (and systemd-homed but that one most distros don't use) which is optional. You can use the init system without it. IIRC You only need it if some apps want to use user records beyond the default NSS ones.

See also https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/805105/can-systemd-be-used-only-as-an-init-system-without-its-other-components

[–] anyhow2503@lemmy.world 7 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Don't like systemd-resolve? Fine. I get that plenty of implementation details are incomplete, suck or have caused friction with other software. On the other hand it's a really useful tool for dynamic split dns handling, which is why I like using it. You can disable it, I've done so on some workstations and servers, because of poor choices in internal domain names leading to mDNS issues, knock yourself out.

Don't think it should be part of an init system? It really isn't. I wouldn't call systemd just an init system to begin with, though that was the initial project goal. Most of its parts are reasonably well separated or at least highly configurable for a service layer. I genuinely think it's completely insane to have DNS resolution in libc, but people have gotten used to that. Systemd-resolved is completely inoffensive in comparison imho.

Don't like systemd as a whole? Use a distro without it. It really is that simple. Everything has been discussed - at length. Wars have been fought. At this point, change will only come if the complainers actually sit down, shut up and do some work towards their goals.

Sorry this turned into such a rant, most of this isn't even directed at you, this situation just annoys me. Especially this poor guy getting death threats on GitHub because someone riled up all the asshats in the community who have no idea how any of this works. Maybe they should focus their energy on the political forces pushing the California legislation that started this whole mess? I've been tired of this stupid debate for years now. I feel like it's mostly carried by people who have no idea what they are talking about these days.

[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 hour ago

I wouldn't call systemd just an init system to begin with, though that was the initial project goal.

Scope creep. You're describing scope creep.