[OE-core] RFE: make the init manager an image feature (again)

[Enrico Scholz]

Richard Purdie <richard.purdie at linuxfoundation.org> writes:

>> it would be nice when the decision to make the init manager a distribution
>> feature will be reverted to the old oe-meta mechanism.
>
> The trouble is that by making it an "image feature", people will
> expect *everything* to work properly and to be able to have fully
> functional sysvinit and systemd variants of images.

I do not see an obvious reason why fully functional sysvinit, systemd and
perhaps upstart image variants based on the same distribution/package set
are impossible.

Of course, not "everything" will work.  But initmgr being a distribution
feature makes some things completely impossible.


> We already see this expectation.

IMO, removal of features just to lower expectations is the completely
wrong way.


> Trying to explain to people what the limitations are, what is expected
> to work and what isn't will be difficult.

OpenEmbedded is not an end-user distribution but for people who are
willing to invest some learning effort.  Trying to limit ourself on the
lowest common ground is not desirable imo.


> For that reason I'd rather see this done in a different way, for
> example blacklisting the problematic systemd dependencies at image
> generation time with some kind of stronger BAD_RECOMMENDS code.

Assuming we are able to break the hard dependencies, what is with package
scripts which require programs, files or directories from these deps?  Do
we need a way to differ between good and bad script failures then?

Sounds extremely hacky and fragile...


Enrico