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1 • Blocking network access for specific applications (by kernelKurtz on 2014-11-24 09:10:11 GMT from France)
The only piece of Mac software i really really miss is called Little Snitch, and it does this job exactly, on a per application and per IP basis. I'd love to find a truly comparable functionality on the Linux side.
2 • a few thoughts (by Reuben on 2014-11-24 10:39:45 GMT from United States)
I think by this point Flash isn't really needed. Much video on the internet uses the video tag. Of course a lot of it is h264, so you would still need the rpmfusion repo. I haven't had flash on my desktop for a few months, and I don't really miss it.
Also, all the fighting going on inside of Debian is disheartening. Everyone is loses.
3 • @ 1 blocking (by greg on 2014-11-24 10:48:24 GMT from Slovenia)
how about gUFW? incoming deny, outgoing deny. although I am not sure if it blocks port or application.
otherwise Windows firewalls usually do that as well. block access for specific application, not port.
4 • Debian and SystemD (by Tux_Raider on 2014-11-24 11:31:55 GMT from United States)
i think making packages depend on systemD is a big mistake, what if someone wanted to install a multimedia player and apt started pulling all these dependencies that have nothing to do with playing audio & video files because someone built the multimedia player app with SystemD as a dependency?
Debian needs a Non-SystemD fork
Slackware might be the way to go
5 • Scientific Linux (by user6410 on 2014-11-24 11:47:54 GMT from United Kingdom)
Interesting that there are issues with this release of SL, are the same things present in the parent Red Hat?
6 • Ubuntu MATE (by anon on 2014-11-24 12:21:33 GMT from United Kingdom)
Couldn't they choose from name like; mabuntu, matbuntu, ubumate, mubuntu? etc ... and then possibly be taken aboard as a community/official distro later by the ubuntu team? A name matching *buntu would fit better with the naming scheme for other derivatives too, xubuntu, kubuntu, etc. With no on trademarks.
Distributions such as as fluxbuntu in the past (fluxbox and ubuntu) had no issues with naming as far as i know.
7 • @Tux_Raider (by RoestVrijStaal on 2014-11-24 12:30:15 GMT from Netherlands)
Which media player are you talking about?
Hopefully someone with proper knowledge about coupling and cohesion is willing to fork it. The current maintainers doesn't seem to have that knowledge.
8 • Debian init systems (by Dale Visser on 2014-11-24 12:50:34 GMT from United States)
I find it interesting that Canonical has been peacefully downstream of Debian running its own init system, Upstart, for some years now. Their reaction to the vote to go with Systemd? Paraphrasing here: "Not what we would have chosen, but we'll transition when Debian does." Is the resistance largely coming from veteran sysadmins sitting on piles of init scripts they don't want to be forced to rewrite?
9 • @8 (by Michele on 2014-11-24 13:46:48 GMT from United States)
Gnome depend of systemd, canonical can't chose.
10 • Application based firewalls (by Pearson on 2014-11-24 14:16:19 GMT from United States)
Jesse,
Your comment about using a VM brought to my mind Qubes - a security focused OS that I believe you reviewed recently. It is based on using different VMs to isolate applications, but with a seamless interface (at least that's the intent -- I don't recall how well they reached that goal). It seems to me that one VM could be set up with little or no network access,
11 • Firewalls and other things (by Jesse on 2014-11-24 14:38:14 GMT from Canada)
>> "how about gUFW? incoming deny, outgoing deny. although I am not sure if it blocks port or application"
It blocks ports, not applications.
>> "Interesting that there are issues with this release of SL, are the same things present in the parent Red Hat?"
Yes, I encountered the same issues when running Red Hat. If you dig back through the archives a bit you will find my observations on RHEL 7 Beta.
>> "Couldn't they choose from name like; mabuntu, matbuntu, ubumate, mubuntu? etc ... and then possibly be taken aboard as a community/official distro later by the ubuntu team?"
Lots of official community spins place "Ubuntu" in the name. Such as Ubuntu Studio, Ubuntu Kylin, Ubuntu GNOME, etc. Community spins do not need to use *ubuntu names.
>> " Is the resistance largely coming from veteran sysadmins sitting on piles of init scripts they don't want to be forced to rewrite?"
The resistence is mostly coming from people who either don't like the design of systemd or have run into compatibility problems or who do not like untested software being pushed into production or who feel "if it's not broke, don't fix it".
12 • @6 (by Frederic Bezies on 2014-11-24 14:52:25 GMT from France)
I think that ubuntu mate remix team wants to be since the beginning an official flavour of Ubuntu, as for Ubuntu Gnome.
And munbuntu ? Sound like the name of an african dictator, former president of Congo => https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobutu_Sese_Seko
Sometimes names are hard to choose.
13 • Scientific 7 versus Centos 7 (by foxhollow on 2014-11-24 16:30:28 GMT from United States)
I am wondering what value-add Sci-Linux-7 now gives the user over Centos 7? I loaded both on side-by-side machines and went through every menu, every option, all exactly the same
Sci-Linux-7 == Centos 7
I could not see a difference. Did I make a mistake and only load "Centos mode" or was this rushed out to have a "7.0" release and the group simply downloaded the Centos compile scripts?
14 • Ubuntu MATE (by Nick on 2014-11-24 16:51:18 GMT from United Kingdom)
It's been a four year wait, but the traditional Ubuntu is finally back.
15 • Scientific Linux 7 (by Oko on 2014-11-24 17:27:42 GMT from United States)
One more in series of useless reviews. Scientific Linux 7 is not just community distro of CentOS which is now part of Red Hat project. It would being much more useful to review a genuine Red Hat clone like Springdale Linux. I stop reading the review at point when you chose Btrfs. There is a reason why good old trusted Silicon Graphics XFS is the default file system of Red Hat 7.0. Linux "community" whatever that means has not being able to come up with a genuine working (and useful) native file system for over 20 years. Now somebody wants me to believe that Btrfs will become production ready soon. No thanks. I am sticking to ZFS :)
16 • Debian fork (by bison on 2014-11-24 17:31:21 GMT from United States)
> Debian needs a Non-SystemD fork
It probably just need a non-systemd base system and install image. Some stuff won't work, e.g. Gnome, but that probably doesn't matter much, since most people who object to systemd have probably already abandoned Gnome.
17 • @9 (by Michael on 2014-11-24 18:10:29 GMT from United States)
You don't need systemd to run Gnome. We're already doing this on Funtoo.
18 • Debian's Move to Systemd (by Buntunub on 2014-11-24 18:12:09 GMT from United States)
Regardless of where you stand on Systemd, Debian's move to making it default, and then voting to not restrict package dependancies is really problematic for a stable release. Because Debian is the upstream source project for so many derivative Distros, this impacts a vast amount of Linux users, such as Ubuntu, who now has no choice but to use Systemd.
Does this not raise alarm flags off with anyone here?
19 • @13 Sientific Linux vs CentOS (by Pearson on 2014-11-24 18:19:11 GMT from United States)
I haven't looked at the 7.0 stuff, but (speaking from memory) at one time Scientific Linux changed things more "under the hood" so to speak:
* Easily allowing various configurations of installs (presumably, kickstart configurations?), to support the diversity of different labs under the Fermilabs umbrella * Adding or updating a couple of science related packages (I'm thinking data analysis related packages).
You might want to perfom 'rpm -qa' on your CentOS and Scientific Llinux installs, and see what is different.
20 • Debian and Systemd (by Corbin Rune on 2014-11-24 18:48:57 GMT from United States)
That's a good point, Buntunub. Thing is, at this point, systemd's becoming default all over the place. Hell, if you want to escape it full-stop, you're getting to the point where it's Slack, Gentoo or run for the (BSD) hills. One _can_ replace systemd ... but it does require some work. As for alarm flags. I'll admit to having some concerns with how many functions systemd is beginning to incorporate. (Although, I wasn't originally a big fan of PulseAudio, either - and these days, it's been pretty workable on my side.)
21 • @18 app init dependcies (by cykodrone on 2014-11-24 19:51:41 GMT from Canada)
Yes, I am quite alarmed by this, no single app installation should pull in an init system I do not want or be any part of. I want no part of this 'Winux' (pronounced win+ix) ideology.
22 • Chromixium OS (by Ari Torres on 2014-11-24 19:53:29 GMT from United States)
It is so close, so close that it's hard to distinguish from the real thing I am impressed and can attest that it's very stable holly macro you guys are smoking.......... just be careful with big brother Google :)
23 • Debian and Systemd (by Buntunub on 2014-11-24 21:23:54 GMT from United States)
@ Corbin - Running for the BSD hills may be the thing to do these days, considering they just got a million dollar gift bucket. I have no doubt that with as many people being alarmed/concerned about what is happening to Linux with Systemd, that they will get some fresh talented new devs, and that money will go a long ways to helping out with further refining what is already a fantastic OS with ZFS to boot!
@ Cykodrone - I understand your analogy. Systemd is very much like the Windows svchost. In fact, it is nearly a clone of it in many ways, and perhaps will even clone the problems Microsoft has had as a result of svchost based attacks! Most likely, it will given that massive attack surface.
24 • Evolve OS (by Ari Torres on 2014-11-24 21:24:17 GMT from United States)
I cannot say the same about Evolve OS it is NOT stable and has few boot bugs it does works cause I am typing from it right now BUT well try for yourself :( settings are a bit tricky (Volume) Icon Theme looks very good :) keep working on it, love what you are doing :)
25 • Ubuntu Mate (by Ari Torres on 2014-11-24 21:27:47 GMT from United States)
You guys know what you are doing, STABLE!!! if you are an old guy like me, lover of DON"T FIX IT IF IT AIN'T BROKEN here we are :) Everything works right out of the box, Gnome 2 here we stand :) you've never left
Thumps Up Ubuntu Mate :)
26 • Phoning home (by David on 2014-11-24 22:56:31 GMT from United States)
If a package in a distribution's repositories phones home, please file a bug in your distribution's bug tracker! This is something the distro should fix in the package, or they should drop the package. I packaged ufdbguard for my distro, and it is open source and phones home, but I was able to fix the package such that it won't phone home out of the box. It took a bit of effort (and I have to check source code changes carefully each time there's a new version), but it was do-able.
27 • @10--Qubes and application-based firewalls (by Ralph on 2014-11-24 23:07:05 GMT from Canada)
You are correct about Qubes, but you would not have to install an entire "lightweight distro" to a VM just to shutter one application, all you would have to do is create an application VM just for that one app in which network access is blocked. Qubes makes this very easy to do as they have a GUI VM manager that is streamlined for just this sort of thing.
28 • DebIan - Testing vs Stable (by Fossilizing Dinosaur on 2014-11-25 00:58:33 GMT from United States)
When people object to bug-riddled code migrating from Sid into Testing, don't devs simply say they'll work it all out before it goes to Stable? Why call Testing "Production"?
29 • RE: 19 Scientific Linux vs CentOS (by ladislav on 2014-11-25 01:35:14 GMT)
You might want to perfom 'rpm -qa' on your CentOS and Scientific Llinux installs, and see what is different.
You can get the package lists (all packages available on the installation media) of CentOS 7.0-1406 and Scientific Linux 7.0 directly from DW:
http://distrowatch.com/resource/scientific/scientific-7.0.txt http://distrowatch.com/resource/centos/centos-7.0-1406.txt
30 • It's a PID thing. (by slartybartfarst on 2014-11-25 08:56:32 GMT from United Kingdom)
Systemd is better at handling PID's, I read somewhere. On a ROSA Linux install, systemd uses 161 PID's with the highest number being in the 60000 range. Slackware used 153 with the highest number being in the 1000 range.
Systemd means Red Hat now controls all but 3 distros (Slackware, Crux and Pisi - despite posts to the contrary - Gentoo uses systemd). If you're happy with that I would suggest you haven't been paying enough attention.
31 • Blocking network access for specific applications (by zcatav on 2014-11-25 09:11:02 GMT from Turkey)
Android performs these action with same linux kernel via SElinux. You can see on NoRoot firewall application.
32 • @30 (It's a PID thing) (by steve on 2014-11-25 12:25:02 GMT from Italy)
I have PCLinuxOS installed in my netbook:
cat /proc/1/comm
results:
init
so you can add PCLinuxOS to the list of the distros that don't use systemd.
33 • Now I know to skip the current Scientific Linux release (by RJA on 2014-11-25 12:33:35 GMT from United States)
Bug that should have been squashed during beta stages!
34 • @30 (by a on 2014-11-25 13:34:38 GMT from France)
There are more than 3 distros, and Gentoo *can* be installed without systemd.
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=118319
But yes the list is very small and I haven’t found any easy to use distro in that list. (Maybe you’ll have more luck if you’re a qwerty user.)
35 • non-systemd search (by Marten on 2014-11-25 15:02:02 GMT from Netherlands)
Perhaps it's an idea to make it more clear on DW which init system is used by each distro? The summaries of distro's clearly state available architectures and DE's. With the rise of systemd and the way it is pushed into many (most) distro's, this may also become an important search criterium.
Searches for packages sysvinit and systemd yield overlapping results. It tells nothing about the default init system nor whether it's much work to switch.
36 • Application-level firewalls for Linux (by AnklefaceWroughtlandmire on 2014-11-25 19:15:47 GMT from Ecuador)
Good point about the lack of application-level firewalls for Linux. There are definitely some use cases for something like this. For example, let's say I have a bandwidth-limited backup 3G/4G internet connection. When my DSL goes down, maybe I just want Pidgin and Firefox to continue being able to connect, but I don't want my filesync app, Thunderbird, Skype, and the OS updater to use up my limited bandwidth. This is when an application firewall would come in handy.
I think I found a new application-level firewall for Linux: http://douaneapp.com/ It's recently open-sourced, and I haven't tried it yet. But it might be a good option.
37 • @29 Scientific Linux vs CentOS (by Pearson on 2014-11-25 20:00:47 GMT from United States)
Thanks, Ladislav. It looks like most of the differences are of the variety of 'centos.x86_64' vs 'sl7.x86_64'. I don't know if that necessarily means the packages are built differently or just named differently. Scientific Linux does appear to add a few packages that aren't in Centos (and likewise, excludes some packages that appear to be specific to the RedHat infrastructure such as RHN).
38 • SL 7.0 (by GrzegorzW on 2014-11-25 20:01:05 GMT from Poland)
I think testing "KDE edtion" was poor choice and it distorts usability test to some extent. Red Hat is known for its poor integation of KDE desktop - it is absolutly GNOME centric distribution. SL goal is to add some more sci related software - like R packages but I did not heard they tried to improve KDE integration. So for next time choose GNOME/Default edition, with this you got Grafical Package management, update notifications in default setup. BTW: GUI Package management can be added by installing gnome-packagekit package. There are also packages elrepo-release and epel-release which enable addtional repositories that contain multimedia related stuff and much more.
39 • @30 (by jadecat09 on 2014-11-25 21:11:46 GMT from United Kingdom)
I have Kwheezy installed on my desktop:
cat /proc/1/comm
results:
init
But how long for, I don't know, because it is Debian with KDE.
40 • systemd vs. Unix Philosophy (by frodopogo on 2014-11-26 03:56:29 GMT from United States)
I'm kind of an outsider since I'm a music geek who likes Linux Mint. I don't really have a horse in this whole systemd thing, but it's sort of fascinating to watch except that things are getting so heated that people are quitting and retiring and stuff in Debian project, and that may at some point impact the Mint project.
Somewhere in the last few days, I discovered this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy
Even as an outsider, it's pretty clear to me that systemd flies in the face of the Unix philosophy, and the developers HAD to know that, and that what they were doing was really bucking the way Unix and Linux had been from the beginning... in other words, they are GOING AGAINST A TRADITION. From my experiences and observations in the music world, when you buck a tradition, be prepared for fireworks... things WILL get heated. And in the music world, you often end up with TWO genres instead of one! (Bluegrass vs Newgrass, New Orleans Jazz vs Modern Jazz, and innumerable subgenres of rock) So the heatedness of the discussion doesn't surprise me.... what surprises me is that some are surprised by it!
41 • So much talk about systemd (by Diego on 2014-11-26 10:02:06 GMT from Italy)
I can see a lot of comments about systemd, but no technical insight in it. All points are vague, or nonsense. C'mon it's 2014, why do we think a Unix shell is still a good programming language for an initsystem? Why can't we use modern kernel functionalities?
42 • @34 a: distros without systemd (by Kazlu on 2014-11-26 11:50:14 GMT from France)
Well, Debian Wheezy does not use systemd and is still far from EOL, nor does Ubuntu 14.04, so you still have at least 5 years ahead with easy to use distros without systemd (just pick any Ubuntu derivative you want). But for the longer term, have you tried Salix? It's Slackware based, I haven't tried it but I heard good from it. And like #32 steve said, PCLinuxOS does not use systemd either and it's also said to be easy to use (never tried myself).
43 • SystemD (by Rev_Don on 2014-11-26 15:09:29 GMT from United States)
All of the ranting against SystemD is getting to be really annoying. Okay, a lot of you don't like it. Fine. So figure out how to work around it. Find a distro that doesn't use it or find a way to install the Init system you prefer. If you want to complain and whine about it like a bunch of little 5 year olds then do so on the DEVELOPER'S and DISTRO'S forums instead of here at Distrowatch. Complaining here will accomplish very little at best, and more likely won't accomplish anything at all positive.
Instead of wasting your time complaining, go out and do something POSITIVE and CONSTRUCTIVE about the situation. I for one and sick and tired of all the constant infantile whining about it.
And please don't start ranting at my post. You've had your say for the past few weeks and it's time for it to stop
44 • systemd (by Carlos on 2014-11-26 15:58:36 GMT from Portugal)
For more than a year I've used Fuduntu on my laptop, until it disappeared from the map. Fuduntu was a rolling distro, originally forked from Fedora, (very nice) Gnome2 desktop and no systemd. It was IMO and IME the most stable rolling distro ever, it just worked and worked without any issue, I loved it. Anyway, these were Lee Ward's reasons to close Fuduntu:
"Particularly in light of Fuduntu's growing success, the decision was not made lightly to close its doors, Ward noted.
Waning support for the GTK+ 2 cross-platform toolkit was one key factor. “With this, apps using GTK 2 have been moved to GTK 3 and old versions are no longer being maintained for either bugs or security flaws,” Ward explained.
Another influencing factor was the Linux world's transition to the systemd system and service manager. Fuduntu does not use systemd, but it has become required for many programs, causing increasing problems for the distro.
“Fuduntu has reached an impasse,” Ward explained. “To move forward would take quite a bit of time and manpower, neither of which can be supported.”
Taken from here: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2034669/fuduntu-linux-is-closing-its-doors.html
These days, it is not easy for a distro to remain systemd free.
45 • @42 & 34 (by cykodrone on 2014-11-26 16:02:23 GMT from Canada)
Mint 17 (all DE flavours) is based on Ubuntu 14.04 http://ubuntuportal.com/2014/03/linux-mint-17-18-19-and-20-will-based-on-ubuntu-14-04-lts-trusty-tahr.html
But...Mint 17 'sports' some systemd parts, unless DW's package list is wrong, it still contains systemd-services and systemd-shim so it's not *completely* free of it... http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=mint&pkglist=true&version=17#pkglist
46 • It's the end of the world as we know it (by Alex on 2014-11-27 00:39:03 GMT from France)
RE: 43 Flaming anywhere won't accomplish anything, other than scorched earth. systemd as a project is larger than Lennart Poettering, but since he is the face of systemd, I will say that he has displayed gratingly poor people skills on several occasions, but the anti-systemd flaming is making him look cordial and constructive by comparison. So much of this has been counterproductive if the goal is to maintain existing alternatives to systemd, as well as develop new alternatives. I wish I could say that the moral panic has been limited solely to the peanut gallery, but it hasn't.
47 • LXLE, best for old PC, not downloadable (by Jan on 2014-11-27 10:34:13 GMT from Netherlands)
Based on a search on Distrowatch, for old PC's LXLE is the best. It seems not to be downloadable. Pretty annoying for a best distro, maybe DW should not advise it?
Jan
48 • @47 re: LXLE download (by Jeff on 2014-11-27 12:30:54 GMT from United States)
It appears that there is a captcha that must be answered to download LXLE, a bit odd for a Linux distro
Do they really get that many bots trying to download an ISO that they need a Turing type test to stop it?
49 • LXLE (by Somewhat Reticent on 2014-11-27 14:38:31 GMT from United States)
Torrent downloading is simply more reliable (than http/ftp), and reduces the bandwidth burden on the developers. Not everyone will be immediately aware of the Adobe Flash "captcha" or additional domains (esp. solvemedia.com) integrated into the website's download page, but that's not the only place to find a (torrent) link.
50 • @47 @48 @49 LXLE, best for old PC, not downloadable (by Jan on 2014-11-27 15:13:06 GMT from Netherlands)
I succesfully entered the captcha and the torrent program tried to download, through both Linux and Windows torrent programs, several times. No success.
51 • @50 LXLE (by Rev_Don on 2014-11-27 17:56:13 GMT from United States)
I just went to the download site, selected the 12.04.5 32bit Revisited, entered the captcha, and the torrent started within seconds. It's downloading at 6MB/s which is essentially saturating my connection. This was about 4 minutes ago and it will just completed so there is nothing wrong with the system on their end.
Using Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit and uTorrent.
Just tried it in Deluge and that worked perfectly as well.
52 • @50 LXLE (by Rev_Don on 2014-11-27 18:04:21 GMT from United States)
Deluge finished it in about 5 minutes as well. This is in a small town north of Green Bay Wisconsin if that makes any difference.
Don't have a Linux box handy to try it in that, but I can't imagine that would make any difference. Sounds like an issue with your ISP of some sort.
53 • @51 @52 LXLE download (by Jan on 2014-11-27 19:12:36 GMT from Netherlands)
After your experience I just tried it again, with a negative result.
So I have to admit this must have something to do with my current ISP.
Sorry for my earlier negative remarks. However now I can ask a friend in my neighborhood to download and burn it for me.
Thanks for your effort to test it for me.
54 • Devuan is now an official project (by cykodrone on 2014-11-28 03:21:32 GMT from Canada)
aka Debianfork dot org... https://devuan.org/
Take that you systemd lovers. :P
55 • @53 LXLE (by Rev_Don on 2014-11-28 04:41:22 GMT from United States)
That might be the best thing to try. I'm still seeding it and it's showing 123 seeders and 25 peers.
If you are in the USA I would be glad to burn a copy and mail it to you tomorrow at no charge. Just send me an e-mail with your mailing address.
56 • Continue with Take What? (by Garon on 2014-11-28 04:47:43 GMT from United States)
@54, What does that mean. I don't think that the so called lovers of systemd are in any danger. Also I don't believe you will be seeing the Debian fork called Devuan anytime soon. That's going to be a gigantic undertaking. All that this in house whining will cause is further fracturing of the open source community. There is nothing wrong with a fork of a project if it is done for the right reason. What is so sad is that there are so many people who are giving an opinion on this issue when they have no ideal of what they are talking about. Only the future will tell how all this will turn out. At this time I can't see any good coming out of people being arrogant and refusing to work together. So sad.
57 • Debian knife & fork (by don't ask - just hack on 2014-11-28 05:18:33 GMT from Australia)
# 54 Debian fork: it doesn't look good for the vets. Because after they've died and gone to tech heaven, Leonard - with his boyish good looks - will still be Poettering away on his systemd code.
58 • @53 LXLE (by Rev_Don (by Jan on 2014-11-28 09:18:31 GMT from Netherlands)
That's a very nice offer.
However I am in the Netherlands (Europe), so I think its easier to ask a friend here.
Best Regards Jan
59 • @56 (by Alex on 2014-11-28 10:51:49 GMT from France)
It needn't be gigantic if "VUA" only focus on the relevant packages, although it sounds like their scope may increase with time, resources permitting.
By all means, fork Debian. Hopefully almost everyone can be content this way, and the acrimony can die down. Debian will continue moving forward in its path, Devuan can move forward with its own plan.
60 • Devuan (by Kazlu on 2014-11-28 12:52:04 GMT from France)
@59: I'm with you on this one. I don't think this fork is a bad thing, since the (initial) goal is to reuse as many packages from Debian as possible, and modify them only if necessary to run without systemd. That way, many experience and bug reports can be shared between the two projects, when the bugs affect identical or nearly identical packages, for mutual benefits. So I think it's good as long as Devuan does not get too far away from Debian. It's particularly good for Debian, since the other solution for the people starting this project would have been to switch to another GNU/Linux distribution or a *BSD.
We have gotten so far in this systemd fight, even to the point of disrespecting others here on the distrowatch comments, that if this solution is a way where everyone can find one's place, that's a great way to come out of this. Generally I am sceptical about forks made for any reason, but in this case, since it does not seem trivial to run Debian without systemd, it seems like a good reason.
I wish luck to the Devuan project and hope that both Debian and Devuan may progress together in a way that keeps the fun going for all of us.
61 • Another fork... Another waste. (by Frederic Bezies on 2014-11-28 16:18:21 GMT from France)
Devuan will be a dead end, for some reasons :
1) Built on systemd hating. How many alive distributions are based only because they hate a technology ?
2) Wheezy will be alive until spring 2016.
3) Who is beyond VUA ?
But I can be wrong. For me, devuan is a waste. Nothing less, nothing more.
A french speaking article on my blog related to this waste : http://frederic.bezies.free.fr/blog/?p=12139
Winners : Microsoft, Apple and Google.
Losers : all the linux community.
62 • More on Scientific Linux 7.0 KDE (by eco2geek on 2014-11-28 19:48:41 GMT from United States)
There's an unofficial forum for Scientific Linux that has a lot of information about using third party repositories, installing multimedia codecs, etc. And of course you can sign up and ask other SL users for help.
http://scientificlinuxforum.org/index.php?
I put the KDE live DVD on a USB stick. It is unusual that it doesn't come with a GUI-based package installer, but, as GrzegorzW mentions in comment #38, if you
sudo yum install gnome-packagekit
you'll get a package manager ("/usr/bin/gpk-application") in your System menu. It shows up in the menu system as "Software".
Another unusual cosmetic detail was that it uses gdm, rather than kdm, as its login manager. Otherwise, it looks like a straightforward version of KDE 4.10.5.
63 • Debian Systemd (by linuxista on 2014-11-28 20:43:14 GMT from United States)
I'm trying to figure out why the stink over systemd erupted with the Debian community. Other distros such as Fedora, Suse, RHEL, CentOs, Arch, Manjaro, Frugalware, Mageia, and Sabayon made the switch without any (much?) controversy, and Ubuntu committed to the switch without controversy. Why Debian? I've heard the arguments that admins running multiple servers and other serious sytem admin types have to have their plain text init scripts, but many (more?) servers run CentOs and Ubuntu as well, and there are certainly serious server admins running CentOs, RHEL, Suse, and Ubuntu (and maybe Arch in some cases).
So why no "looming catastrophe" protests from admins running these other distros? I know this has the potential for starting a flame war, but the question is not systemd, good or bad? , but systemd, why Debian? FSF purity, community/democratic decision-making structure, timing/coincidence?
64 • systemd (by PasserBy on 2014-11-28 22:28:31 GMT from United Kingdom)
Just a quick note, Manjaro has active open-rc init support, & openrc packages in AUR for Arch & derivs. (While mentioning alternatives)
65 • @ 53 LXLE download with Torrent (by Ben Myers on 2014-11-28 22:58:22 GMT from United States)
It is possible that your ISP prohibits use of Torrent clients because Torrent is often associated with downloads that violate copyrights. Or possibly your computer blocks the ports used by your Torrent client? Torrent can be a little bit tricky to set up, but I am now comfortable using uTorrent.
A few months ago, I asked the LXLE team to make available a non-Torrent download, i.e. regular everyday FTP or HTTP, but they declined. My reasoning was very simple. LXLE wants to attract users, and people who would want to download it are in the newbie category, unfamiliar with Torrent.
It's all about getting your distro exposed to as many eyes as possible and used as much as possible. So one would believe... Ben Myers
66 • @65 LXLE and Torrents (by Rev_Don on 2014-11-29 00:14:03 GMT from United States)
I agree. The LXLE team does seem to have gone out of their way to make it as difficult as possible to download their iso image for their target user base. One of the reasons I've been recommending MX-14 and Q4OS more than LXLE these days. Much easier for the new user to download.
67 • Deb spoon fed (by don't give - just take on 2014-11-29 02:03:01 GMT from Australia)
Like someone said on osnews, when the vets are asking for money and not publishing any code yet, or giving any names or addresses - like, "I'm the dev maintainer, Pastor Dan Jonson, and I'm from the Outback Tavern, on Emu Plains, next to the Dingo Reserve, where wild koalas roam free - and here's our code" - then their efforts are likely questionable.
Also, how long will their interest last when it is only based on disliking a new piece of technology? And are they going to rebel with every new technology release?
68 • @67 (by Ika on 2014-11-29 03:34:36 GMT from Spain)
First of all new doesn't mean better. It could be or it could be not. The problem with systemd is not because it's new but because it's waay more than a simple init system, creating a Windows like environment. Personally, I don't want to go out from Windows to encounter another Windows. If so, I already have the "original" one.
69 • Wow, I have to clear a few things up (by cykodrone on 2014-11-29 04:08:07 GMT from Canada)
1st, Devaun is NOT based on hate for systemd, it's based on CHOICE and no forced lock-in to any one particular init system (there are other less 'domineering' inits than systemd), major DEs and apps will HAVE TO BE compatible with systemd now and more so in the future. Do you realize the implications of this? This is a total nightmare for upstream apps and DE development OUTSIDE of systemd, FYI, systemd is a moving target development wise, please, 'do the math'.
Secondly, I'm on Devuan's email list, at the bottom of an email from them, it's signed by Roger Leigh, and accompanied by a GPG Public Key.
Some of the links from that email: (the obvious) https://devuan.org/ http://without-systemd.org/debian-jessie/ http://without-systemd.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page https://github.com/devuan http://jenkins-debian-glue.org/ https://github.com/devuan/devuan-baseconf/issues http://without-systemd.org/wiki (email address is linked in my nick) https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
IRC chat channels on freenode: #debianfork (generic discussion) #devuan (focus on development)
Does this look like some fledgling wannabe project? It's still in its infancy and some haters can't wait to bash it, really sad. Each to their own, if you choose and like being locked in to one particular init, that's YOUR deal, some of us don't. Ironically, some of you will come running to our 'camp' when systemd blows up in your face, for some reason or another.
70 • @63 (by Alex on 2014-11-29 04:45:17 GMT from Germany)
There has been difference of opinion within Debian to be sure, but some of the noise has not come from within Debian, but has been injected into it by outside parties. Debian has become a proxy war, a battleground for people who aren't stakeholders in Debian, but who do have inflamed passions with regard to the adoption of systemd, not to mention all the clickbait born of it.
Debian has decided the matter for the next release, and now is time to fix release bugs and consign the FUD to the historical logs. After the next release, maybe the issue will be actively revisited. I somewhat doubt that, as the energy and goodwill for that discussion will be exhausted for some time due to all the attacks. I would personally prefer that another discussion of default init system wait until FreeBSD decides how to evolve on that front. Jordan Hubbard's talk at MeetBSD gave me hope that it will sometime in the next five years. Should that solution be portable, then Debian can factor that into any future discussions down the road, otherwise Debian would likely just be considering the same options as before.
As for, « The current leadership of the project is heavily influenced by GNOME developers and too much inclined to consider desktop needs as crucial to the project, despite the fact that the majority of Debian users are tech-savvy system administrators. » (debianfork.org), to quote from a debian-devel email written by Russ Allbery : « This idea that systemd is somehow aimed at desktop environments and is not useful or a good idea for servers is complete nonsense. I say this as someone who barely uses desktops at all and who has been running large-scale server environments professionally for twenty years, and who has had extensive conversations on this topic with professional colleagues in environments ranging from a hundred servers to hundreds of thousands.
Obviously, there are some server administrators who disagree with me, just like there are some desktop users who don't like systemd, and some embedded developers who don't like systemd (and others who love it and think it will help their work immensely). The opinions about systemd do not at all break along the lines that you have imagined.
Given that, could you please stop trying to divide Debian's users into artificial opposing camps, and then trying to play those camps off against each other?…
The decision about the default init system to use for Debian was made with an eye to *all* of Debian's users and all of their varying use cases. You are certainly entitled to disagree with that decision on its merits, but if you're going to claim that it was made solely for desktop users while ignoring server administrators or embedded users, directly contradicting the statements of the people who were actually involved in that decision-making process, you're going to need some really good evidence to back up that assertion. Not just a gut feeling. »
71 • Torrent tool for newbies (by Somewhat Reticent on 2014-11-29 04:47:52 GMT from United States)
I recommend Transmission (also-known-as qtTransmission) - Keeps-It-Short-&-Simple, available for many systems.
72 • Debian Systemd (by linuxista on 2014-11-29 06:28:21 GMT from United States)
@70 Thanks for the informative answer. I didn't realize there was a proxy war going on with Debian. I thought it was just peanut gallery from withing and without. Do you think there are system admins from other projects that are trying to prevent or roll back systemd in their own distros?
As far as my motives, I'm not trying to divide Debian into opposing camps, I was just wondering why, without starting a flame war, this all came to a head with Debian in particular and not with Suse or Fedora or whatnot.
Also, I'm not claiming the decision was made solely for desktop users. That's just the way things are portrayed in all the flame wars. I have heard, in fact, that systemd has a lot of features for server management that you can't accomplish with init scripts. But I'm not claiming or asserting anything. I think you are closer to the center of the fire on this one than I am (in fact, I don't use Debian; just Arch and I like Systemd, so I don't have a dog in the fight), so I understand your concern.
What I was really fishing for was information about the structure of the Debian community, community management, size of the project, or as you pointed out proxy war dynamics related to the blowup. Like is Debian too democratic? Again, not trying to start a flame war, but maybe there is something useful to learn in this for all distro communities about implementing big changes.
73 • @72 (by Alex on 2014-11-29 10:07:15 GMT from Germany)
Excluding Chrome OS (which uses an older version of Upstart), I don't think anyone will dispute that the Debian family tree is the most used in GNU/Linux. That doesn't mean Debian-based distributions are better. Arch is great, but I don't have to tell you that. Debian defaulting to systemd (or Upstart or OpenRC) carries a lot of weight, both for distributions based on Debian, as well as for the wider community. Distribution usage share statistics are nebulous enough that I won't say the Debian family is the last of the major distribution families to transition to systemd, but it is one of the last, and as such was also somewhat of a final opportunity to stem the systemd tide. I don't expect Slackware to ever adopt systemd, nor do I expect systemd to replace OpenRC as the default in Gentoo, although systemd is supported in Gentoo (I would like to add that Slackware and Gentoo are also both great distributions). There will probably also be several smaller distributions that will continue to abstain from systemd, but once Debian and Ubuntu transition to systemd, GNU/Linux at large will have transitioned, and that will be the new paradigm. Thereafter, I think Canonical's commitment to Upstart will wane. I expect it to mostly be in maintenance mode. After Ubuntu 14.04 reaches its end of life, I don't know if any Canonical employees will be be working on Upstart on company time, although perhaps they will continue working on it on their own personal time. Maybe Google will take hold of the Upstart reins. Who's to say? Regarding systemd's future, I would not at all be surprised if in the next decade systemd is upended by another solution. Regardless of where that next solution originates, I hope that transition will see significantly less enmity.
I hope it didn't read as if I was accusing you of anything. I quoted debianfork.org and Russ Allbery in address of your question about system administrators who use Debian. I understand some people's natural hesitation to forks, and I also hope my comment to Garon earlier wasn't taken the wrong way. But I do think this fork is for the best, for the sanity and health of all involved. I see Devuan's primary value as being a landing place for people who don't feel Debian's vision and values match their own. Devuan's success or failure is largely irrelevant to me, but I certainly don't wish it to fail. I just hope that the bickering is mostly at an end.
Regarding community, Debian upholds a social contract, of which #4 will likely be the most cited regarding this issue.
« 4. Our priorities are our users and free software
We will be guided by the needs of our users and the free software community. We will place their interests first in our priorities. We will support the needs of our users for operation in many different kinds of computing environments. We will not object to non-free works that are intended to be used on Debian systems, or attempt to charge a fee to people who create or use such works. We will allow others to create distributions containing both the Debian system and other works, without any fee from us. In furtherance of these goals, we will provide an integrated system of high-quality materials with no legal restrictions that would prevent such uses of the system. »
I believe some who are unhappy with the decision feel let down or even betrayed in this regard, but #4 doesn't stipulate that everyone gets what they want. I do believe Debian developers as a whole have tried their best to do right by Debian users as whole. I don't think systemd is in Debian because Debian has been infiltrated or extorted by agents of Red Hat, I think systemd is in Debian because it has been deemed to be of use.
As to how decisions are made, this is covered in the Debian Constitution. Given its length, I won't quote it, but here is a link https://www.debian.org/devel/constitution#item-2.
In the last general resolution, 483 out of 1006 developers voted. For context, https://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2014/11/msg00192.html compares these numbers to previous votes.
Here is a list of packages for the next Debian release https://packages.debian.org/jessie/allpackages?format=txt.gz
One positive out of this mess is that questions regarding project bureaucracy and Debian Technical Committee structure and term limits have been raised.
74 • Lies, damned lies and statitics. (by Frederic Bezies on 2014-11-29 12:01:15 GMT from France)
@69 :
"1st, Devaun is NOT based on hate for systemd, it's based on CHOICE and no forced lock-in to any one particular init system (there are other less 'domineering' inits than systemd), major DEs and apps will HAVE TO BE compatible with systemd now and more so in the future. Do you realize the implications of this? This is a total nightmare for upstream apps and DE development OUTSIDE of systemd, FYI, systemd is a moving target development wise, please, 'do the math'."
s/CHOICE/HATING/g
Let's be honest at least for once.
Well, Black Sabbath sophomore album name applies here flawlessly.
"Secondly, I'm on Devuan's email list, at the bottom of an email from them, it's signed by Roger Leigh, and accompanied by a GPG Public Key."
Good to know this. But this information was not available last time I came to this - going to be dead soon and useless - fork.
"Does this look like some fledgling wannabe project? It's still in its infancy and some haters can't wait to bash it, really sad. Each to their own, if you choose and like being locked in to one particular init, that's YOUR deal, some of us don't. Ironically, some of you will come running to our 'camp' when systemd blows up in your face, for some reason or another."
Bash it or look at it with reality ? I'm sick of this religious war on init systems.
Blows up ? Only time will tell, but devuan is - I am only a bottom hole thing called end user.
By the way, boycotting something is about choice or reject of this thing ?
And if sysVinit was the good choice, why another well known unix based system dropped it ? I'm talking about... MacOS-X.
And FreeBSD wants a new init system within the 10 next years. Another war to foresee ?
75 • Debian Systemd (by linuxista on 2014-11-29 15:44:30 GMT from United States)
@73 Thanks again for the informed post. I think it makes sense about Debian being the last stand on stemming the tide, and from the dev voting statistics it looks like there was very high Debian dev participation (historically) in the decision. So, then are you saying that the complaints are coming not from users/devs within Debian itself but more from the many distros that depend on Debian? And this is the proxy war being fought with Debian in the middle?
The decision-making procedures in the constitution are VERY long. I wonder if there's a mechanism to challenge a resolution, or, if the anti-systemd contingent is dissatisfied, why can't they just call for a new resolution that dumps systemd or requires all software to be init system agnostic? If that mechanism is available and they simply don't have the support, then it seems like they ought to accept it or if there are enough of them to go ahead and fork Debian (or at least a piece of it, if that's realistic).
76 • systemd flames (by cykodrone on 2014-11-29 16:23:05 GMT from Canada)
Wow, I can't believe some of the posts here.
1. Systemd is NOT developed and maintained by an independent purely FOSS developer, but by an employee of a corporation which ultimately seeks more market share on desktops and servers, true or false? TRUE
2. Systemd, when fully installed and used initiates and controls almost every service (including networking, huge NSA red flag) on your machine and has secretive binary format log files, true or false? TRUE
3. Systemd developers have tried to bully LINUS TORVALDS to ingrain not fully tested buggy code in to the Linux kernel itself to which he replied, "fix your stuff first, I'm tired of OTHER people fixing your bugs for you", true or false? TRUE
@ 72 wrote "this all came to a head with Debian in particular and not with Suse or Fedora or whatnot". SUSE (who caved to MS software patent threat 'deal') is the corporate version of openSUSE, which has its roots in rpm based distros, which brings me to Fedora, the beta testbed for the very CORPORATION behind systemd, Redhat.
I can't believe a lot of you are missing the main point in all of this, normally under the old Debian guard, systemd would have been banished to contrib or even the non-free repository, since it is built and supported by a corporation, regardless of it being GPL (for now, I'm going to laugh when they pull that license), nevermind completely caving and making the rest of Debian a DEPENDENCY OF SYSTEMD, lol. *shakes head*
I'm tired of feeding trolls, but that's what they want, silence the voices of true software choice and freedom.
77 • @76 : ah, fanboyism... and red hat bashing... (by Frederic Bezies on 2014-11-29 18:16:53 GMT from France)
"1. Systemd is NOT developed and maintained by an independent purely FOSS developer, but by an employee of a corporation which ultimately seeks more market share on desktops and servers, true or false? TRUE"
What a bad thing... Are you living in a world without capitalism ? :D
"2. Systemd, when fully installed and used initiates and controls almost every service (including networking, huge NSA red flag) on your machine and has secretive binary format log files, true or false? TRUE"
Source about NSA ? So, let's kill with fire SELinux too... Which is what ? 10 years old or so ?
"3. Systemd developers have tried to bully LINUS TORVALDS to ingrain not fully tested buggy code in to the Linux kernel itself to which he replied, "fix your stuff first, I'm tired of OTHER people fixing your bugs for you", true or false? TRUE"
Ah, this thing you never sourced ? When you say something, either source it or don't say anything. But you're nothing but a troll and a fanboy.
"I can't believe a lot of you are missing the main point in all of this, normally under the old Debian guard, systemd would have been banished to contrib or even the non-free repository, since it is built and supported by a corporation, regardless of it being GPL (for now, I'm going to laugh when they pull that license), nevermind completely caving and making the rest of Debian a DEPENDENCY OF SYSTEMD, lol. *shakes head*"
What a bag of... total fanboysm and RedHat bashing ! You're just ridiculous.
"I'm tired of feeding trolls, but that's what they want, silence the voices of true software choice and freedom."
From a troll, really funny ! I'm only a linux end user, that crappy and useless thing, full time since 2006... So... :D
You're just paranoid and you want to tell what freedom is.
78 • Close to 'true', and yet ... (by Somewhat Reticent on 2014-11-29 18:19:32 GMT from United States)
DebIan's non-freed repository is segregated by licensing, not by the day-jobs or motives of the contributors. (Even the internet came from military interests in research, right?) There are many corporations who make huge contributions to Freed Open-Source Software (for example, HP, Intel, and Novell, not just RedHat). DebIan benefits from many of these contributions, as do many others. They are not inherently immoral, though they may often seem amoral. A visionary may off-load debugging and code cleanup to others within a business organization; a greater community might refuse that burden. (Did we all move on?) Any operating system needs process management, and some sort of start. Many contributors prefer to work on what they enjoy, and grate when upstream changes increase their less-fun workload.
All the baiting does get tiresome.
79 • @65 @66 Linux for old nonPAE notebook, LXLE (by Jan on 2014-11-29 19:35:20 GMT from Netherlands)
As an alternative for LXLE I found and succesfully downloaded/installed Ubuntu 12.04 non-PAE http://people.canonical.com/~diwic/12.04-nonpae/ It clear to me now that my current ISP does not allow torrents. I know there are mirrors all over the world (universities, scientific institutions, etc.) who supply linux-iso downloads, however for LXLE I could not find any.
I changed the desktop from Unity to Gnome (easier survey of installed and available programs and starting them, in Debian (a.o. ANTIX) the available downloads seem to me a chaos). Trough this Ubuntu 12.04-Gnome gives a nice experience, this is not a speed-beast situation. So LXLE seems a perfect choice: the Ubuntu environment, optimized for old and low memory hardware.
I have now downloaded your suggestion of Q4OS and I am going to test it as a live-cd.
Jan
80 • @77 (by linux user on 2014-11-29 22:24:54 GMT from United States)
http://lkml.iu.edu//hypermail/linux/kernel/1404.0/01331.html
And by "their" you mean Kay Sievers.
Key, I'm f*cking tired of the fact that you don't fix problems in the code *you* write, so that the kernel then has to work around the problems you cause.
Greg - just for your information, I will *not* be merging any code from Kay into the kernel until this constant pattern is fixed.
This has been going on for *years*, and doesn't seem to be getting any better. This is relevant to you because I have seen you talk about the kdbus patches, and this is a heads-up that you need to keep them separate from other work. Let distributions merge it as they need to and maybe we can merge it once it has been proven to be stable by whatever distro that was willing to play games with the developers.
But I'm not willing to merge something where the maintainer is known to not care about bugs and regressions and then forces people in other projects to fix their project. Because I am *not* willing to take patches from people who don't clean up after their problems, and don't admit that it's their problem to fix.
Kay - one more time: you caused the problem, you need to fix it. None of this "I can do whatever I want, others have to clean up after me" crap.
Linus
81 • @80 : smells like "holy war" now. (by Frederic Bezies on 2014-11-29 22:46:34 GMT from France)
I know about this mail. And all this "systemd vs other init" is smelling like an holy war, far from computing.
Only time will tell what will happen. I'm sick with "systemd vs other init" threads. It leads nowhere.
End of topic for me.
82 • more Deb forking (by big drama on 2014-11-30 04:47:12 GMT from Australia)
#69, 76 Anticorporation, Antimonolithic software, AntiNSA, anti this anti that. I know what this Debian fork is all about. It's a group of veteran hackers who are used to hiding behind Linux, other people's names, and bits & pieces of code, etc., They now feel threatened that their anonymity is going to be exposed by a piece of corporation-sponsored code making its way into Debian. So they decide to fork it to try to stay "free" (AKA anonymous).
83 • systemd (by Linux Apocalypsis on 2014-11-30 08:38:09 GMT from Belgium)
The problem about systemd is not about technology but about politics. It is about corporations trying to take full control of Linux.
It is ironic that the same fellows that applaud every new Ubuntu spin (on diversity grounds), are criticising so bitterly the advent of Devuan. So diversity seems to be good when it suits their agenda and bad when it does not...
But, then, what can you expect from the guys of the FN?
84 • @83 ah, corporations taking power ! :) (by Frederic Bezies on 2014-11-30 10:21:13 GMT from France)
The good old : "corporations trying to take full control of Linux."
Well, how many big corporations are participating in Linux distributions, either in kernel or third party tools ?
Cups is owned by Apple for example.
Kernel submitters ? IBM, HP, Intel and how many more ?
How many ubuntu based distributions are useless ? 50% or so ? :)
Well, only tell will tell is devuan is or not a good idea.
85 • A couple responses (by Barnabyh on 2014-11-30 11:46:42 GMT from United Kingdom)
@82: This doesn't make any sense at all. If it was about anonymity, how would people who are sysadmins at first be more anonymous by starting their own distribution and becoming developers who are more in the public eye?
@84: Didn't you just state in your previous comment you were sick of going on about this?
All I see here is ill-informed opinions and warped logic. We'll see what you say when systemd has finally become the attack vector into Linux so many have been looking for due to being omnipresent and unifying (almost) all distributions.
The defence will probably be "I didn't know" or the tried and tested passive-aggressive tactic displayed here.
86 • @79 - "Light" Ubuntu (by Uncle Slacky on 2014-11-30 14:47:55 GMT from France)
Why not just use Lubuntu? Or, as you already have "full" Ubuntu installed, install LXDE or lubuntu-desktop to give you a less resource-hungry desktop roughly equivalent to that provided by LXLE?
87 • @85 (by Frederic Bezies on 2014-11-30 15:29:20 GMT from France)
Tired of threads going nowhere indeed. All these "ill-informed opinions and warped logic" are poisoning everything and turning this debate into a war :(
systemd seems to be for some people like the "black death". Only time will tell if systemd will be a vector of all kind of attacks against linux distributions in the future.
In 2014, openssl and bash suffered a lot and got a lot of hotfixes. How much versions for both of them this year ? Lost count :(
And unification of almost of distributions ? Upstart used by ubuntu and its derivative will be plugged out in 2019.
Let's see what will happen.
88 • systemd - chill! I'm neutral (by Hoos on 2014-12-01 01:51:52 GMT from Singapore)
I have systemd on Manjaro and Semplice. I also have older Ubuntu and Debian Stable installations without systemd. I have nothing against it and have no problem using it, but I am troubled by the vehemence of some systemd proponents that those against it are paranoid or wear tinfoil hats. Why the need to label them and attack the person?
Putting aside this whole contentious issue of whether or not there is a deliberate plot by corporations (so maybe people against systemd should focus less on this in their arguments against it), is it not a reasonable or practical concern that with systemd, there is a large, single point of potential attack and failure?
If people want to come up with different init solutions to systemd, isn't it good for all Linux users?
Well, in my opinion it would be good, except there's so much heated arguments on both sides it makes me as an onlooker very troubled.
89 • Yet more systemd clarification (by cykodrone on 2014-12-01 03:41:45 GMT from Canada)
*sigh*, the main issue is not so much about any one piece or group of software, it's about developers having to write apps and DEs around ANY beta lock-in app, process, init, whatever.
Heres a scenario, just an example fanbois so please relax, let's say you really like a particular text editor and there is no systemd in your installed OS, so you select it for install via CL or GUI package installer, then you get this huge list of dependencies including low level system changing packages, now back in the day, this wouldn't happen, your favourite text editor would just drag in ESSENTIAL dependencies to make it work, in the new world, it's quite possible that your choice of text editor (or major app 'x') may drag in fundamental system changes (and possibly trash your install), right down to the layer that lies just above the Linux kernel and between you, your apps and your hardware. Some people are not comfortable with this, me included, I do not need or want a beta blob controlling 99% of my system, complete with secretive binary log files and dictating to me what 3rd party apps and DEs I can and cannot install, especially if I didn't want or ask for a new init system or any other piece of software in the first place.
3rd party app developers will eventually be FORCED to write everything AROUND systemd, in other words, everything will become dependent on systemd to work (this is a software dictatorship in the making, a slippery slope), including the OS and your choice of DE. Everyday user land apps should NEVER drag in an init system as a dependency, this is a low level OS layer. That would be like VLC saying you can only use it on distro 'x'. Do you see the insanity now?
I coined a new term, "distros will become an add-on to systemd", read that over again a few times, let it sink in. The lines are getting blurred, will you be using a Linux distro or a systemd distro in the future?
If what Lennart REALLY wants to do is write his own OS kernel, then that's what he should do, instead of being a barnacle on somebody elses. He can call it Lennux.
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• Issue 1091 (2024-10-07): Redox OS 0.9.0, Unified package management vs universal package formats, Redox begins RISC-V port, Mint polishes interface, Qubes certifies new laptop |
• Issue 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
• Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
• Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
• Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
• Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
• Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
• Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
• Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
• Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
• Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
• Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
• Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
• Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
• Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
• Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
• Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
• Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
• Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
• Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
• Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
• Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
• Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
• Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
• Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
• Issue 1066 (2024-04-15): Fun projects to do with the Raspberry Pi and PinePhone, installing new software on fixed-release distributions, improving GNOME Terminal performance, Mint testing new repository mirrors, Gentoo becomes a Software In the Public Interest project |
• Issue 1065 (2024-04-08): Dr.Parted Live 24.03, answering questions about the xz exploit, Linux Mint to ship HWE kernel, AlmaLinux patches flaw ahead of upstream Red Hat, Calculate changes release model |
• Issue 1064 (2024-04-01): NixOS 23.11, the status of Hurd, liblzma compromised upstream, FreeBSD Foundation focuses on improving wireless networking, Ubuntu Pro offers 12 years of support |
• Issue 1063 (2024-03-25): Redcore Linux 2401, how slowly can a rolling release update, Debian starts new Project Leader election, Red Hat creating new NVIDIA driver, Snap store hit with more malware |
• Issue 1062 (2024-03-18): KDE neon 20240304, changing file permissions, Canonical turns 20, Pop!_OS creates new software centre, openSUSE packages Plasma 6 |
• Issue 1061 (2024-03-11): Using a PinePhone as a workstation, restarting background services on a schedule, NixBSD ports Nix to FreeBSD, Fedora packaging COSMIC, postmarketOS to adopt systemd, Linux Mint replacing HexChat |
• Issue 1060 (2024-03-04): AV Linux MX-23.1, bootstrapping a network connection, key OpenBSD features, Qubes certifies new hardware, LXQt and Plasma migrate to Qt 6 |
• Issue 1059 (2024-02-26): Warp Terminal, navigating manual pages, malware found in the Snap store, Red Hat considering CPU requirement update, UBports organizes ongoing work |
• Issue 1058 (2024-02-19): Drauger OS 7.6, how much disk space to allocate, System76 prepares to launch COSMIC desktop, UBports changes its version scheme, TrueNAS to offer faster deduplication |
• Issue 1057 (2024-02-12): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta, rolling release vs fixed for a smoother experience, Debian working on 2038 bug, elementary OS to split applications from base system updates, Fedora announces Atomic Desktops |
• Issue 1056 (2024-02-05): wattOS R13, the various write speeds of ISO writing tools, DSL returns, Mint faces Wayland challenges, HardenedBSD blocks foreign USB devices, Gentoo publishes new repository, Linux distros patch glibc flaw |
• Issue 1055 (2024-01-29): CNIX OS 231204, distributions patching packages the most, Gentoo team presents ongoing work, UBports introduces connectivity and battery improvements, interview with Haiku developer |
• Issue 1054 (2024-01-22): Solus 4.5, comparing dd and cp when writing ISO files, openSUSE plans new major Leap version, XeroLinux shutting down, HardenedBSD changes its build schedule |
• Issue 1053 (2024-01-15): Linux AI voice assistants, some distributions running hotter than others, UBports talks about coming changes, Qubes certifies StarBook laptops, Asahi Linux improves energy savings |
• Issue 1052 (2024-01-08): OpenMandriva Lx 5.0, keeping shell commands running when theterminal closes, Mint upgrades Edge kernel, Vanilla OS plans big changes, Canonical working to make Snap more cross-platform |
• Issue 1051 (2024-01-01): Favourite distros of 2023, reloading shell settings, Asahi Linux releases Fedora remix, Gentoo offers binary packages, openSUSE provides full disk encryption |
• Issue 1050 (2023-12-18): rlxos 2023.11, renaming files and opening terminal windows in specific directories, TrueNAS publishes ZFS fixes, Debian publishes delayed install media, Haiku polishes desktop experience |
• Issue 1049 (2023-12-11): Lernstick 12, alternatives to WINE, openSUSE updates its branding, Mint unveils new features, Lubuntu team plans for 24.04 |
• Issue 1048 (2023-12-04): openSUSE MicroOS, the transition from X11 to Wayland, Red Hat phasing out X11 packages, UBports making mobile development easier |
• Issue 1047 (2023-11-27): GhostBSD 23.10.1, Why Linux uses swap when memory is free, Ubuntu Budgie may benefit from Wayland work in Xfce, early issues with FreeBSD 14.0 |
• Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
• Issue 1045 (2023-11-13): Fedora 39, how to trust software packages, ReactOS booting with UEFI, elementary OS plans to default to Wayland, Mir gaining ability to split work across video cards |
• Full list of all issues |
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pQui Linux
pQui Linux was a Brazilian desktop-oriented distribution based on Slackware Linux.
Status: Discontinued
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Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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