Re: Installing 3.20 gpsd from source on Raspberry Pi cards old and new.

[Paul Theodoropoulos]

On 6/9/2020 10:23 AM, Gary E. Miller wrote:
> Yo David!
>
> On Tue, 9 Jun 2020 09:39:44 +0100
> "David J Taylor" <gm8arv@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > I've now managed to get gpsd 3.20 working and installed as a service
> > using only the files from the current GIT on a Raspberry Pi.  My
> > notes are here.
> Cool.  Anything that gpsd should patch to be better/easier?
>
> I still don't understand why anyone would run gpsd/ntpd for a stratum 1
> under systemd(umb).  A lot of complication for negative benefits.
I've been running gpsd/ntpd under systemd for years now. It's a 
_different_ means of managing startup/running of daemons. If one considers 
'learning a new way of doing something' as equivalent to 'a lot of 
complications for negative benefits', then I guess I can understand your 
perspective, but it's a false equivalence.

What are these 'negative benefits' you claim? Certainly you can describe 
them if they exist. The only problem that I see, in watching this and the 
ntpsec mailing lists for the last couple of years, is that systemd is new 
and different, and people aren't familiar with it - which leads to failure 
and confusion. That's not an inherent fault. Someone faced with emacs for 
the first time is very likely to hit 'ESC :wq' when they get lost. That's 
not a shortcoming of emacs. It just means you need to learn.

I will note that I agree that there is a lot to dislike about systemd 
philosophically as well as in practice. It offers 99,980 options for doing 
tasks that really need only twenty options, if that. I'd wager than the 
vast majority of people who 'use' systemd never or ever will touch those 
99,980 options. But that's the thing - you can live with systemd and do 
everything you need and *you don't have to deal with the 99,980 other 
options*. They exist, but that's it. Use them if you want.

For example, in one of my gpsd.service files, I have

Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=5

as part of the service declaration. Poof. It's now managed in the sense 
that if it aborts for some reason, it'll restart. If I shut off the 
service, it won't try to restart until I tell it to. If I wanted, I could 
set up emailed alerts on failure. But since it's not a 'production' 
device, I don't care. The option is there, but I don't have to use it. As 
it stands, neither gpsd nor ntpd have failed unexpectedly, so it's never 
mattered.

> > It is annoying to find the latest release of the Raspberry Pi OS (new
> > name) still has out-dated versions of packages such as ntp and gpsd.
> Interesting.  As this pages says:
>
> https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/
>
> "Raspberry Pi OS (previously called Raspbian) is our official operating
> system for all models of the Raspberry Pi."
>
> So the distro formerly known as Raspbian.
Nope. Please go a little deeper. 
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/raspberry-pi-os-no-longer-raspbian

> No mention of Ubuntu or Buster anywhere on that page.

?? How did Ubuntu enter the conversation?

--
Paul Theodoropoulos
www.anastrophe.com