Systemd: Hidden Gems for a Better Linux // More Homelab with less Hardware ( tadeubento.com )

Cyber , 10 months ago

Nice article, I’ll have to go through that again on my next clean build.

There are some features though, like timesync, that aren’t quite as cut & dried, so I do wish systemd was more modular and I could only install the part(s) I wanted

But, interesting about the containers… I didn’t know that - thanks!

TCB13 OP , 10 months ago

timesync, that aren’t quite as cut & dried,

Can you elaborate on that?

Cyber , 10 months ago

Sure

1st place to look at comparison of features (IMHO 😉) is the Arch Linux Wiki

And there’s also a good list on the Chrony site

But my brief list is:

• If you need to sync and provide time, then use ntpd.
• Otherwise, the (SNTP) client-only systemd-timesyncd is “better”, but, this doesn’t (yet?) use a DHCP NTP option and always writes to a file - not good for read-only filesystems / SD cards (source)
• For laptops / intermittent network connections, use chrony (Note: on LinuxMint, installing this removes systemd-timesyncd)

- For non-battery backed RTCs (ie Raspberry Pi), there’s also fake-hwclock

So, I go with the general theme of your article - keep it simple, don’t install multiple tools to do the same thing - but as you can see, there are use cases where I personally wish we could remove the systemd component(s) and keep the others.

TCB13 OP , 10 months ago

I never had issues with systemd-timesyncd in laptops / intermittent network connections. It works as expected…