Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 4th Oct 2006 21:02 UTC
"For years, most Linux distributions have been using an init daemon based on the one found in Unix System V. The init daemon is spawned by the kernel itself, and tasked with booting the rest of the system, starting all other processes, and taking care of them when they need to be stopped or when they die. While the System V init setup has worked well for Linux in the past, it hasn't aged well - which is why we're replacing the aging init system with Upstart in Ubuntu 6.10, codenamed Edgy Eft."
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2005-11-14
The premises of the article are plain wrong. All the deficiencies they talk about are being resolved or are already resolved in Udev. They talk of cold boot problems, but if the kernel doesn't solve them, Upstart won't either.
I see it as having two advantages. The first is it is modern - by having dependencies based on events, not "after loading a and b, you need to load c, d, e and h" but instead "after loading fire off event-x and let other subsystems react to that"
There are already other init systems doing that on Linux. It doesn't change anything except being able to parallelize some launchers. But you still have dependancies in the event based process. It's actually the same thing, just less rigid.
The second advantage is a byproduct of the above. Let's step back to the article example - a network adapter. Yes, if you currently plug one in (for arguments sake) the module is loaded. But what if it's already plugged in, but couldn't get an IP address
The module is still loaded ... No change there.
Sure NetworkManager (which is AwesomeWare IMO) will handle the notifications in user-space when a connection is available... but Upstart, behind the scenes, will send an event stating there is a usable connection available. That event can spawn all sorts of things - your update manager waking up, apache loading, mysql loading, ftp server starting, mail server starting etc.
FYI, I was doing the same thing with DHCP, rp-pppoe, or hotplug before, and with udev after that. That's how I was managing regular disconnections by my ISP with my P75 200, and this was 2 years ago ! So there's nothing new there. After that, I even used it on the Thinkpad 380XD that replaced my P75 200 (this was my front firewall/router/proxy to Internet BTW). The Thinkpad used one native ethernet interface, and one PCMCIA. Everything worked like described there in Upstart.
Those in turn may fire off further events which subsequently will fire off more - causing all services dependent on having a live IP connection being activated automatically
But project Utopia already does all of this. It even configures your cards name. I don't have any eth0 on my PCs for example. All my interfaces have custom names, created by udev.
Upstart, as I understand it, is so much more than just hotplug and "my USB disk appears on my desktop when I plug it in" and "I can use this USB mouse immediately after plugging it in". It is an entire event-driven subsystem that will load and unload dependent services on the fly
But project Utopia does that already, except it doesn't unload drivers (as kernel devs says there's no point in doing this). But you can launch any script you want when your link is up or down. So really, I don't see the point of Upstart.