Systemd is a core part of most Linux distributions today, but managing services from the command line with systemctl can feel intimidating, especially for newer users. That’s where a promising new project caught my attention: systemd-manager-tui.
Sure, the name isn’t exactly short. I mean, the author probably could have come up with something snappier. But to be fair, it couldn’t be more descriptive. You instantly know what the tool is about. Still, even with a name that clear, it’s worth taking a closer look at what it actually offers.
systemd-manager-tui is a relatively new Rust-written tool that provides an interactive text user interface for managing systemd units directly from the terminal. However, instead of relying solely on systemctl and related commands, the tool communicates with systemd via D-Bus and presents services, timers, sockets, and other units through a structured interface.
I don’t think it’s ever been so seemingly important to name-drop what language a piece of software is written in than as in the post-Rust era.
It’s like “Rust” is some kind of stamp of approval. It’s certainly not a bad thing/sign, but it’s just a pattern I’ve noticed. Everything written in Rust is advertised as such, as opposed to other software where it doesn’t seem as prevalently prominent.
Just an observation.
The rusties have to make themselves known.
personally, I find it useful as a crude heuristic for identifying software that probably won’t make someone wake me up in the middle of the night because it crashed because of some ridiculous bug caused by the dev doing clumsy ad hoc string parsing or poor null checking (more common than memory safety issues, IME)
There’s generally a culture of comprehensiveness and solidity I find lacking in most mainstream programming communities
I can’t lie if I didn’t say I’m also drawn to software written in Rust, as it automatically has an aura of being fast and “memory safe”. But of course, Rust software is not immune to bugs. 😅
I tried to install this on my headless Ubuntu server laptop I keep on the corner and it won’t run. Does this TUI rely on graphical libraries?
Neat! I’ll be testing this later.
