Re: systemd isn't hated
"Improve boot times? PUHLEASE! If (IF!) I turn off a system (which is a rare event) it takes less than 1 minute to boot."
So please clarify if you're using systemd or not. If you're not using systemd (which I assume from your tone), then what would be the boot time if you were and do you care what systemd does if it clearly doesn't affect you?
And if you ARE using systemd what would be the boot time if you weren't and why are you getting so worked up when your system goes 6 months without a reboot?
And secondly, your server scenario is hardly representative. Certain servers may reboot infrequently but the same is not true for workstations, laptops, embedded devices, virtual machines etc. where startup times are important and sometimes critical.
"Logging integrity? Never had an issue with the integrity of the logs."
And how do you know you've never had a problem unless you can verify the integrity of the logs in the first place? In systemd you can type "journalctl --verify" and see. If you're paranoid you can even enable forward secure sealing so that groups of messages are forward secure so silently tampering or corrupting the files is extremely difficult.
"How do BINARY log files improve things"?"
Forward secure sealing, indexing, metadata, searching etc. If you want text it is trivial to present it as text by typing "journalctl -n 100" or whatever. And commands like dmesg are still there too.
"Whose brilliant idea was it to disable /var/log/messages in Mint</sarcasm>? You can (still) re-enable it..."
Why not ask Mint? Maybe they assume that someone who wants to look at messages would be capable of typing journalctl and seeing them.