cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/36342010
Nitro is a tiny process supervisor that also can be used as pid 1 on Linux.
There are four main applications it is designed for:
- As init for a Linux machine for embedded, desktop or server purposes
- As init for a Linux initramfs
- As init for a Linux container (Docker/Podman/LXC/Kubernetes)
- As unprivileged supervision daemon on POSIX systems
Nitro is configured by a directory of scripts, defaulting to /etc/nitro (or the first command line argument).
Because systemd replaced too many important components users still wanted to keep using… and politics. Not many people like Lennart (the guy who started the project). Politics ruin everything.
For me the breaking point was systemd-journald. Corrupted journal when you desperatedly needed to know what went wrong was too much. Last time I gave systemd a try was several years ago… Something like 5 to 7 years, so things might have changed a lot.
Also I’m in the minority here. I like to custom my system components too. systemd just doesn’t fit there. Also I administrate one lightweight, low power box, which uses musl libc. Last time I checked systemd needed glibc.
Enough ramblings. Here’s some reading for you… note that there’s most probably very biased technical writings here and there, so use common sense and verify the claims if you want the real truth. Then judge yourself, don’t let anyone else judge for you.