On 2026-07-20 13:10, Luca Boccassi wrote:
If it's required, why can it be disabled with a switch?
The --enable-systemd switch was put in, as I recall, because we figured there'd be two kinds of distros: those with systemd where you really need systemd for 'who' etc. to work or where you'd prefer systemd to the non-systemd approach; and everybody else. We figured distros would decided on their own which way to go. Although many distros now use systemd, some do not.
Unfortunately some distros mishandle this. For example, my Ubuntu 26.04 LTS workstation uses systemd but apparently did not build GNU coreutils with libsystemd, so its 'who' does not work. However, some distros do get it right, e.g., Fedora 44.
Will you accept a patch that drops the --enable-systemd option and makes the library always mandatory on Linux?
It doesn't sound right to require --enable-systemd for Linux-based platforms that don't use systemd by default for 'who' data. This includes platforms like Alpine and Gentoo, along with older Debian etc. Even if libsystemd is available, it's not always right for 'who' to use libsystemd to get utmp info. This is why we left this up to the distro.
