 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 715, 5 June 2017 |
Welcome to this year's 23rd issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
We receive a lot of e-mails at DistroWatch about the systemd init software, particularly from people asking how they can find distributions which do not feature the systemd technology and asking for our recommendations on ways to avoid systemd packages. This week we explore the systemd topic, beginning with Devuan, a fork of Debian created specifically to side-step systemd adoption. Devuan launched its first stable release in May and we talk about migrating from Debian to Devuan in our Feature Story. The Devuan distribution, and whether our readers plan to use the newly launched Devuan 1.0.0 release, is the subject of this week's Opinion Poll. In our Questions and Answers column we answer questions about Devuan, systemd and the future of Linux distributions running alternative init software. In our News section we discuss progress happening in the Tails project and new features planned for Linux Mint 18.2. We also discuss the Yunit desktop (formerly Unity 8) being ported to Debian and its derivatives. Plus we share the distribution releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a terrific week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: Devuan 1.0.0 -- Debian without systemd
- News: Tails migrating to Debian Stretch, Mint plans 18.2 features, Yunit ported to Debian
- Questions and answers: Devuan and systemd
- Released last week: Bodhi Linux, Grml, TrueOS, Porteus Kiosk
- Torrent corner: 4MLinux, Antergos, Bodhi, Clonezilla, Grml, OpenELEC, Porteus Kiosk, SmartOS, TrueOS
- Upcoming releases: Fedora 26 Beta
- Opinion poll: Devuan
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (91MB) and MP3 (69MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Devuan 1.0.0 -- Debian without systemd
Prior to the release of Debian 8 in early 2015, the Debian project held a debate over which implementation of init software should be used in future versions of the distribution. Of the contenders (Upstart, SysV and systemd), systemd came out on top, which resulted in Debian using the same init software as most other mainstream Linux distributions. Some people were unhappy with the transition from the previous init implementation (SysV) to the newer systemd software. This discontent gave rise to the Devuan GNU+Linux project, which forked Debian with the purpose of removing dependencies on systemd.
Devuan 1.0.0 is essentially a fork of Debian 8 with SysV as the default init software. The Devuan distribution is offered as either a stand alone distribution or as an upgrade for recent versions of Debian - specifically for Debian 7 Wheezy and Debian 8 Jessie. I decided to try out the migration process from Debian 8 to Devuan and then explore what it was like to run a fresh, new installation of Devuan.
Devuan migration
I began my test of migrating from Debian 8 to Devuan 1 by installing Debian with the MATE desktop environment. Apart from the MATE desktop, my Debian installation had the default services running. With Debian 8 installed and all available software updates downloaded, I then followed the migration instructions provided in the Devuan release notes. The instructions are fairly straight forward and basically just require replacing the names of the Debian package servers in /etc/apt/sources.list with the Devuan server names. We then refresh our package information and run an upgrade command. From the Debian command line these three commands will perform the migration:
apt-get update
apt-get install devuan-keyring
apt-get dist-upgrade
The APT package manager removes the systemd-sysv package, offers to download some alternative packages such as D-bus, ConsoleKit, the control groups manager, the systemd-shim package, the wicd network manager, the Slim display manager and SysV init. During the transition the package manager paused to ask me to select which display manager to use, Debian's LightDM or Devuan's Slim. I opted to use the Slim package in order to get a more pure Devuan experience.
Devuan GNU+Linux 1.0.0 -- Browsing files and running LibreOffice
(full image size: 187kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
The migration process completed and I next rebooted my computer to confirm my Debian installation had survived the transition to Devuan. The newly created Devuan system booted to a graphical login screen provided by Slim. Signing into MATE I found my desktop's wallpaper had been changed to an image with Devuan branding, but otherwise MATE appeared to be unaffected. One of the few changes I encountered was that I was unable to shutdown my computer when signed into the desktop. Attempting to power off the computer from MATE's menu would sign my user out of the desktop and the computer would then display a text console and freeze. I was unable to login as another user or otherwise recover the system at that point and a hard reboot would be required.
I noticed after playing with my Debian-turned-Devuan system for a while that the systemd packages were still present on my computer. I checked and found SysV had been set up as the default init software, but systemd packages lingered. When I tried to remove systemd entirely, I found that the package manager then insisted it would need to remove my MATE desktop as the MATE packages listed systemd as a dependency. It appears as though the Xfce desktop environment has no dependency on systemd and, if I wished, I could swap out MATE for Xfce if I wanted to run my computer without any systemd packages present.
I ran a few comparisons of boot times, memory consumption and disk resource usage when running Debian 8 verses running Devuan 1. My original Debian system used approximately 170MB of RAM when logged into the MATE desktop and took up about 2.9GB of disk space. Devuan used 200MB of RAM when signed into MATE and used 2.7GB of disk space. The boot times of both systems were identical, to within a second. In short, boot times, disk usage and memory footprints were near enough to being the same as to make no practical difference.
A fresh install of Devuan
My next action was to wipe my installation of Debian-turned-Devuan and set up a fresh installation of Devuan. Booting off the Devuan live media brought up the Xfce 4.10 desktop. On the desktop I found icons for launching a file manager and starting the distribution's system installer. A panel at the top of the screen housed the Xfce application menu, a task switcher and the system tray. At the bottom of the screen we can find a quick-launch bar.
Devuan GNU+Linux 1.0.0 -- Connecting to a network and browsing the web
(full image size: 192kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Devuan's live disc features a completely different system installer than the one Debian uses. The Devuan installer begins by displaying a window on the desktop asking if we want users on our new operating system to use the su or sudo command to run tasks as the system administrator. We are then told we will need to have a disk partition set aside for the operating system. Buttons in the installer window give us the option of launching the GParted graphical partition manager or the cfdisk command line partition manager. Once I had used GParted to format a partition, I was returned to the installer's window where I was asked to select a partition for Devuan to use. Available partitions are displayed with their device names (/dev/sda1, /dev/sda2, etc) and no description indicating the size or type of the partitions.
Once I had set up and selected a partition to use for Devuan, I was asked to select my time zone from a list. Then I was asked to select my language locale from a list of short, cryptic locale names. US English is the default locale setting. For a while after I selected the locale nothing happened. Then I realized a terminal window had opened in the background and the terminal window contained a prompt asking if it was okay for the installer to proceed with the installation. A list of files being copied to my hard drive then filled the virtual terminal for several minutes.
A bit later, the installer asked me to provide my name for a new user account. I was then asked how I would like to use sudo to elevate my user's access and the questions were, in my opinion, unusual and (perhaps) unique to Devuan. The three questions asked if my user should have permission to use sudo, whether to use sudo only for shutting down the computer and if sudo should be used "as default". I suspect the third question meant I could set my user account to execute all commands through sudo, making me effectively the administrator all the time, but the meaning of the query was unclear. At any rate, at this point the installer was finished and returned me to the Xfce desktop where I could reboot the computer to start using my new copy of Devuan.
First impressions
Devuan boots to a graphical login screen. There are no prompts to enter a username or password, just a single blank field where we can type. Typing the username, followed by the password signs us in. Logging in brings up the Xfce desktop environment. Icons on the desktop open the Thunar file manager and open a text editor containing the project's release notes. There are also two other icons on the desktop which will universally increase and decrease the size of the desktop's fonts. I don't think I have encountered any other distributions which have such easily accessible controls for changing font size and I appreciated the feature. The Xfce desktop was responsive and featured a traditional tree-style application menu.
Applications
Looking through the application menu we can find the Firefox web browser (without Flash support) and version 4 of the LibreOffice productivity suite. The wicd networking utility is available to help us connect to local networks. Devuan includes a dictionary, a PDF document viewer and the GNU Image Manipulation Program. The Ristretto image viewer is present along with the Quod Libet audio player, the VLC media player and the Xfburn disc burning software. Another application called Ex Falso is featured and, though I did not see a description of the application, it appears to be designed for managing audio libraries. Devuan ships with media codecs, allowing us to play most audio and video formats. The distribution also includes a file archive manager, a text editor and a bulk file renaming tool. The Orca screen reader is included as is a configuration module for setting up printers. Looking further we can find version 4.9 of the GNU Compiler Collection, Java, the Sys V init software and version 3.16 of the Linux kernel.
Hardware
Devuan ran well in both of my test environments, in a VirtualBox virtual machine and on a desktop computer. At first, Devuan did not integrate with VirtualBox and was not able to make use of the system's full screen resolution. However, I found VirtualBox guest modules are included in the distribution's repositories and installing them improved my experience running Devuan in the virtual environment. The distribution booted quickly, ran smoothly and was stable. The Xfce desktop was quick to respond and the default theme, while it was dark, was easy to look at for prolonged periods. I also found my HP printer was detected and set up with minimal effort on my part.
Earlier I mentioned when I had migrated from Debian to Devuan, the operating system was unable to shutdown my computer. This problem did not occur when I was running a fresh installation of Devuan and I was able to reboot or shutdown the system. Whether I installed Devuan from scratch or migrated to Devuan from a Debian installation, my system used about 200MB of memory when logged into the Xfce desktop.
Software management
Devuan uses the APT command line suite of tools for manipulating software packages. The distribution also features the Synaptic graphical package manager which makes it fairly easy to install, remove and upgrade software on the system. Synaptic has a relatively plain interface, presenting the user with a list of available packages. We can click a box next to each package to install or remove the selected item. During my trial with Devuan, the project made 30 new software updates available and these totalled just 62MB in size. The only problem I faced when working with Devuan's software came when I tried to install Flash support. The Flash installer was downloaded successfully, but Flash itself failed to download from Adobe's servers. The distribution does not appear to have the Gnash free software implementation of Flash, leaving me without Flash support while browsing the web.
Devuan GNU+Linux 1.0.0 -- Managing software packages with Synaptic
(full image size: 221kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Settings
Most of the distribution's settings can be accessed through the Xfce control panel. This panel contains friendly modules for adjusting the appearance of the desktop, the placement and style of panels and screen resolution. The settings panel also allows us to adjust notifications and change our mouse and keyboard configuration. Additional modules help us change the desktop's theme and short-cut keys. The only module I felt was missing was a tool for managing user accounts, though we can work with accounts from the command line.
Devuan GNU+Linux 1.0.0 -- The settings panel
(full image size: 194kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Conclusions
On the whole, the Devuan project appears to have achieved its goals. The distribution offers users an operating system virtually identical to Debian 8, but with systemd replaced with SysV init. The project provides existing Debian users a clean and easy migration path to Devuan that has only a minimal amount of side effects. Taken on its own, Devuan is a lightweight operating system with a fairly minimal (and responsive) desktop environment.
While Devuan has reached its goals, I had two significant concerns about the distribution. The first concern was the system installer. While it worked, I'm curious as to why Devuan appears to have discarded the reliable Debian installer in favour of a less feature rich and less polished installation process. Other Debian-friendly installers, such as the one which ships with Linux Mint Debian Edition, are available if a more streamlined approach is wanted.
My other concern is that Devuan 1.0.0 is about two years behind Debian. A fork of Debian without systemd seemed promising and interesting in 2015 when Debian 8 was released. But now, two years later, with Debian 9 on the horizon, Devuan 1 feels outdated. The software, such as the office suite and kernel, are about three years old at this point and unlikely to appeal to any except the most conservative users. The distribution may hold more appeal on servers where change often happens more slowly, but even there some of the Devuan packages are starting to show their age.
At this point I suspect Devuan 1 will only appeal to the more enthusiastic members of the anti-systemd crowd. If Devuan 2 can be launched shortly after Debian 9 comes out later this year then I could see the project gaining a stronger user base, but at the moment Devuan feels like an interesting idea that took too long to get off the ground.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a desktop HP Pavilon p6 Series with the following specifications:
- Processor: Dual-core 2.8GHz AMD A4-3420 APU
- Storage: 500GB Hitachi hard drive
- Memory: 6GB of RAM
- Networking: Realtek RTL8111 wired network card
- Display: AMD Radeon HD 6410D video card
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Visitor supplied rating
Devuan has a visitor supplied average rating of: 9.1/10 from 147 review(s).
Have you used Devuan? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Tails migrating to Debian Stretch, Mint plans 18.2 features, Yunit ported to Debian
The Tails distribution provides its users with anonymisation software running on a Debian base. The Tails project is currently working on Tails 3.0 which will be based on Debian 9 "Stretch". The project is already moving some of their systems over to Debian Stretch in order to test for potential problems and changes. "We upgraded some of our systems to Debian 9 (Stretch), in order to help identify remaining issues before it becomes the new Debian stable release. We made good progress towards using our Vagrant build system on our Continuous Integration infrastructure, to make it match what developers use. This is part of our work on Reproducible ISO Builds." The latest Tails newsletter also mentions several language translations are a work in progress. People who would like to help translate the Tails distribution or website should visit the Tails page for translators.
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The Linux Mint team published their May newsletter which indicates Linux Mint 18.2 will be released soon with a beta coming out in June. Some of the new features coming to 18.2 will include improved X-apps, the Cinnamon 3.4 desktop and MATE 1.18. The login screen will switch to using LightDM which includes built-in support for guest sessions. "Linux Mint 18.2 'Sonya' is just around the corner. The Cinnamon and MATE editions are currently in QA (functional testing) and we should be able to release them as BETA early this month. Cinnamon was upgraded to version 3.4 and MATE to version 1.18. The switch to LightDM was confirmed, with out of the box support for guest sessions and a beautiful login screen."
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Yunit is the community fork of the Unity 8 desktop environment which was abandonned by Canonical earlier this year. The Yunit team has been working on getting the forked code to build and has created packages for the Yunit desktop. The first batch of packages are for the Unstable branch of Debian. This should make Yunit compatible with most modern Debian derivative distributions. There are also plans to backport Yunit to Ubuntu 16.04 LTS which will make Yunit available to people running Ubuntu derivatives too. "In this initial phase of the project, we needed to make sure that we understand Yunit and all of its dependencies. Debian was a perfect choice to do so, as it is the base of Ubuntu, so we are in a similar environment." Installation instructions can be found in the project's blog post.
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Devuan and systemd
Checking-out-Devuan asks: I see that the DistroWatch page for Devuan says that it is free of systemd yet further down the page shows that it has systemd. From the Devuan homepage there is nothing to make this area clearer so I think it must be a typo?
DistroWatch answers: In this case, the availability of the systemd package in Devuan is not a typo. The Devuan distribution does not use systemd as its default init software. However, the systemd package is available in Devuan's repositories. The systemd package may be pulled in as a dependency for other software.
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Living-without-systemd asks: I can't find a way to show all distributions without systemd, can you add one?
DistroWatch answers: On our Search page there is a quick-search link at the top of the page which will show all distributions which do not feature systemd in their latest release. These results will not be perfect as some projects make systemd available, but do not use it by default, while others do not package systemd at all. The list will provide a few dozen options of Linux distributions (and other open source platforms) which do not use systemd.
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Planning-for-the-future asks: Are distributions like Devuan, Void, etc without systemd sustainable? With everyone else moving to systemd is fighting the tide realistic?
DistroWatch answers: Distributions which do not feature systemd are probably sustainable, in my opinion. While systemd does feature a wide range of functionality that other projects are able to tie into, rather than develop on their own, there isn't anything particularly special about systemd which prevents other projects from duplicating its functionality. The systemd software provides a range of utilities under one umbrella project, but there isn't anything about these pieces which prevent other projects from duplicating the available features and functions.
We have already observed some projects adopting a systemd "shim" which basically provides a subset of systemd features other packages require. Projects also have the option of discarding packages which tie themselves too closely to systemd and using something else. For example, around the time KDE and GNOME were looking at using systemd as a dependency, other platform agnostic desktop environments such as Lumina gained attention. The open source community has a tendency of working around technologies a portion of its users do not wish to adopt.
Whether systemd is a worthwhile technology, or whether stripping it from an operating system in favour of something else is worth the effort, are discussions for another time. So far several projects have demonstrated that they can get along without using systemd as their init implementation.
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More answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Bodhi Linux 4.2.0
Jeff Hoogland has announced the release of Bodhi Linux 4.2.0. Bodhi Linux is an Ubuntu-based distribution featuring a fork of the Enlightenment desktop called Moksha. The new version is a minor update to Bodhi Linux and existing users of 4.1.0 will not need to upgrade via new installation media. One of the important changes in 4.2.0 is the dropping of the 32-bit PAE-enabled installation media. Older, 32-bit computers are still supported through Bodhi's Legacy edition: "This is the first release in which we are dropping our 32-bit PAE discs. I would like to clarify that we are still supporting 32-bit computers, but if you need to install the 32-bit version of Bodhi Linux the only version we are preparing is our Legacy ISO image. The Legacy image will work on PAE and non-PAE 32-bit hardware alike. If your computer needs a PAE kernel to utilize all of its memory it is likely better for you to be using a 64-bit operating system anyways. If you do feel the need to use a PAE kernel on a 32-bit operating system with Bodhi though, you can always install the Legacy release and then change kernels afterwards. The release announcement has further details.
Grml 2017.05
The Grml distribution is a live disc based on Debian that includes tools for system administrators for detecting hardware, running tests and rescuing systems. The new version of the distribution, Grml 2017.05, switches from file-rc to systemd for the project's init software. This release also shifts the 32-bit build from i586 to i686. "Switch from file-rc to systemd as init system. grml-live (the build system for creating Grml-based Linux live systems) still supports non-systemd systems using file-rc, though we don't plan to maintain this in the long run. For the reasons why we actually switched to systemd please visit the FAQ. Due to the change to systemd some boot options in the current release might not work as before and some further issues might have been unnoticed yet. Please let us know if you should stumble upon any such issues. Following Debian's switch, the 32-bit PC support (known as the architecture 'i386' and what's provided by 'grml32') now no longer covers a plain i586 processor. The new baseline is the i686, although some i586 processors (e.g. the 'AMD Geode') will remain supported." The project's release notes contain a detailed list of changes since the previous version.
Grml 2017.05 -- Running the Fluxbox window manager
(full image size: 87kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Porteus Kiosk 4.4.0
Tomasz Jokiel has announced the release of Porteus Kiosk 4.4.0. Porteus Kiosk is a Gentoo-based distribution which has been customized to be a dedicated platform for exclusively running a web browser. The new release features Firefox 52 ESR, Google Chrome 58 (with Netflix streaming support) and the swap partition has been replaced by a more flexible swap file. "I'm pleased to announce that Porteus Kiosk 4.4.0 is now available for download. Major software upgrades in this release include: Linux kernel 4.9.30, Mozilla Firefox 52.1.2 ESR and Google Chrome 58.0.3029.110. Packages from the userland are upgraded to portage snapshot tagged on 20170526. Short changelog for 4.4.0 release: Online or local webpage can be used as the screensaver. Swap partition has been replaced with more flexible swap file. It is possible to set custom printer name in the system. Added support for hosting SSL certificates directly on Porteus Kiosk Server. Enabled CloudPrinting by default for Porteus Kiosk Cloud/ThinClient variants utilizing Chrome browser. All plugins for Chrome are enabled by default including 'Widevine Content Decryption Module' so its possible to watch e.g. Netfilx movies." A complete list of changes can be found on the project's news page.
TrueOS 2017-06-01
The TrueOS project creates a rolling release operating system that is based on FreeBSD's -CURRENT development branch. The TrueOS team has released a new snapshot, version 2017-06-01, of their operating system which now features two branches: STABLE for users who want a more consistent experience, and UNSTABLE for people who want to test the latest developments. The installation media now tries to stick with low level drivers (like vesa) to provide the widest range of compatibility, the OpenRC init software has been updated to version 0.26.2 and the Lumina desktop has been updated to version 1.2.2. "A new STABLE update for TrueOS is available! Released on a six month schedule, STABLE updates represent a significant step forward for TrueOS (see our earlier post discussing this change). There is more extensive testing of new features and less experimental work in STABLE images, resulting in a more solid and usable experience. Current TrueOS users can update using the built-in update manager." A list of recent changes to TrueOS can be found in the project's release announcement. TrueOS can be downloaded in two separate builds, one for DVDs and another for USB thumb drives.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
The table below provides a list of torrents DistroWatch is currently seeding. If you do not have a bittorrent client capable of handling the linked files, we suggest installing either the Transmission or KTorrent bittorrent clients.
Archives of our previously seeded torrents may be found in our Torrent Archive. We also maintain a Torrents RSS feed for people who wish to have open source torrents delivered to them. Thanks to Linux Tracker we are able to share the following torrent statistics.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 432
- Total data uploaded: 66.1TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll |
Devuan GNU+Linux
This week we talked quite a bit about the Devuan GNU+Linux distribution and the main reason it exists: avoiding the use of the systemd init software. In this edition's opinion poll we would like to find out how many of our readers are excited to try the first stable version of Devuan and what you think of the project. You can leave us a comment with your impressions of Devuan below.
You can see the results of our previous poll on using the Wake-on-LAN feature in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Running Devuan
| I plan to try Devuan in the future: | 384 (19%) |
| I have no plans to use Devuan: | 1144 (57%) |
| I have used Devuan and did not like it: | 84 (4%) |
| I have used Devuan and did like it: | 156 (8%) |
| I am currently using Devuan and plan to continue: | 167 (8%) |
| I am currently using Devuan and plan to switch: | 15 (1%) |
| Other: | 69 (3%) |
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| DistroWatch.com News |
DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 12 June 2017. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Article Search page. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
- Jesse Smith (feedback, questions and suggestions: distribution reviews/submissions, questions and answers, tips and tricks)
- Ladislav Bodnar (feedback, questions, donations, comments)
- Bruce Patterson (podcast)
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| Extended Lifecycle Support by TuxCare |
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Dev1 (by Somewhat Reticent on 2017-06-05 00:42:05 GMT from United States)
A 1.0 release is rarely bug-free; it's stable enough to start development. Debugging thousands of repository packages will naturally take longer.
Tried it, along with several derivatives (aka spins, flavors), which were available before the 1.0 release (likely conversions from DebIan-based distros); each has some things working, other things needing work, just like the release.
One significant factor is refracta-tools, which allows changes made while live to be included in an installation.
2 • Devuan poll (by DaveW on 2017-06-05 00:46:28 GMT from United States)
I took a look at Devuan and down-rated it because the software versions, particularly LibreOffice, are old. Other than that, it would have been acceptable. I'll take another look at it if they produce another release, soon, with newer application versions.
3 • Devuan and MATE (by GNUser on 2017-06-05 01:26:09 GMT from United States)
MATE in *Devuan's* repository does *not* depend on systemd, but MATE in Debian's repository does. That's why the reviewer had issues with MATE in the Debian-turned-Devuan trial.
4 • Devuan Test - included software (by Guido on 2017-06-05 01:40:31 GMT from Philippines)
Ex Falso is a very usable audio tagger software, which is installed with Quodlibet. It can also be used without this player. On launchpad is the latest version for Ubuntu etc.
5 • Review: Devuan 1.0.0 -- Debian without systemd (by Marcus Coles on 2017-06-05 01:48:25 GMT from Canada)
I think your opinion of the fresh install of Devuan 1.0.0 might have been more positive if you had installed from one of the "install" disks rather than the live one.
I would suggest the DVD using the "Graphical Expert Install" it is the familiar Debian installer with minor changes and one wishing to install more modern applications can select to check the enable "backports" repositories box. Using Synaptic or apt-get update and apt-get upgrade after the install to freshen up the packages with more modern versions.
I found what was written was a very reasonable review, but feel the whole picture was not observed.
In all fairness I think a proper DVD install would paint a somewhat different picture and eliminate most if not all of the criticisms.
6 • Devuan (by gekxxx on 2017-06-05 01:53:25 GMT from Belgium)
Do not get me wrong. I will not use Devuan as I trust Debian in their decision to change to systemd. My Debian Sid runs like charm so why changing?
7 • Devuan and Debian (by bison on 2017-06-05 02:29:42 GMT from United States)
> If Devuan 2 can be launched shortly after Debian 9 comes out later this year ...
Does Devuan plan to continue tracking Debian, or do they intend to diverge? I've heard both, but I'm not sure which one is correct.
8 • Debian-turned-Devuan (by Tran Older on 2017-06-05 02:43:07 GMT from Vietnam)
1. Install deepin 15.3
2. Follow the migration instructions provided in the Devuan release notes.
Choose LightDM and not Devuan's Slim DM.
3. You will have a Devuan system with Google Chrome, WPS Office (no prospect for an upgrade) and some cool icons and wallpapers.
9 • Silly Devuan Tricks (by bigbenaugust on 2017-06-05 03:07:32 GMT from United States)
I installed Devuan in a VM the other day (using the regular graphical install) and added the BunsenLabs repositories, then installed bunsen-meta-all for the OpenBox desktop and all. Worked like a champ. I may yet retry it on hardware to see if everything really works.
10 • Devuan and non-systemd distros. (by Bobbie Sellers on 2017-06-05 04:03:58 GMT from United States)
I tried out Devuan and an error in my booting trashed my test bed's setup of Grub2
on my salvaged Dell E6420. That will take me several days work to remedy.
Now apparently systemd takes a lot of adjustment to the rest of system because I have
noticed that systemd distros take longer to get out.
Finally someone asks if non-systemd distros are sustainable.
That depends on whether or not the uses support these distribution
and the coders who put them together. I used to spend $50/year
to get my Mandriva PowerPack editions (with some non-free software.
Now I am spending about $60/year in donations to support
the PCLinux efforts. I would happily give more but due to a life
wasted at low-paying and volunteer jobs I am living on Social
Security.
Support the distributions you believe in is my point,
Presently I am using PCLinuxOS64 2016.03 and will be using,
when KDE finishes the finer points of the DE, the PCLinuxOS64
with KDE 5 and both these systems are on my Dell as well as
Peppermint 8, Mageia 6 RC1, Open Mandriva which was trashed
by the first updates, Debian 8.8.0, and Grub2 trashing Devuan
While on my work machine a HP Pavilion with AMD 10 and 12 GiB of
ram I am still having a good time with PCLinuxOS64 2016.03
bliss "running (fast as well) and light" on PCLinuxOS64-2016.03
GNU/Linux 4.11.3-pclos1 #1 SMP Thu May 25
11 • using Devuan (by david esktorp on 2017-06-05 04:04:34 GMT from United States)
I used Devuan's graphical install (not the live disc) and it went well.
I found a few bugs, but nothing show-stopping for me:
Audacious crashes when I try to use visualizations.
The flash plugin provided by the repository (flash-plugin-nonfree) does not work. Possibly installing it in the wrong location, but I didn't really investigate since I don't need flash. Definitely a show-stopper for normies.
Flushed pulseaudio down the toilet but that didn't fix any of the abnormal problems.
I basically must agree with the conclusion that it feels dated (feelsdatedman.jpeg?) but I suppose we can't spell stable without stale. I don't know why I expected Xfce 4.12-- I really miss the middle-click to close feature. :(
I will probably keep using it for a while and I will definitely keep it on my radar if I switch.
Despite its tardiness, it's working way better than I expected. I hope they completely diverge and stop forking Debian. It's a burnable bridge at this point, because the integrity of the final product is weakened by the systemd removal surgery. Like with pulseaudio, it's removable, but it'd be better if it were never there to begin with.
12 • Devuan impressions (by Brenton Horne on 2017-06-05 04:15:31 GMT from Australia)
Seems like a decent distro, although honestly from a typical end-user (i.e., one that seldom, if ever, tweaks with the init system and doesn't really care, from a philosophical or practical point of view, which init system is being used) point of view the only real difference from Debian is possible stability issues (never noticed one myself but only used for ~20 mins in a VM by now) and a more limited array of desktop environments (DEs) from which to choose from the installer. Although the DEs the installer doesn't offer (that Debian does have) can be installed with APT after the system is installed.
13 • Devuan review (by rambling robin on 2017-06-05 04:55:53 GMT from United Kingdom)
As stated in @5 the best way to install is from the traditional installer iso rather than the live media. I think if you are using a fresh/empty disk the refracta image thingy may work, but on a disk with data in separate /home the installer failed to create the user name I required and insisted on creating one called devuan - also broke grub. By no means the first time it has happened with a live installer so not too bothered. Using standard Debian install it just works.
After basic install of xfce ran tasksel and installed LXDE, then added Trinity Desktop repos and added Trinity - my normal working world via Q4OS - and it just works.
Installed wine/playonlinux and stuff I use is all OK
@11 there's a general problem with flash-plugin in Jessie at the moment. I don't use it but best solution is Chromium + pepper-flash (or don't use it at all which is even better)
The only area I've found a bit weak is the init tools for controlling services which resulted in LXDE throwing errors about object ownership????
Other than that I'd say it's just doing exactly what it says on the tin - Debian Stable, no systemd - so I'm quite happy to do another rebuild then carry on using it.
14 • Devuan (by Gary W on 2017-06-05 07:24:37 GMT from Australia)
I tried Devuan, and it was OK. I also tried a couple of its derivatives (notably Refracta) and they were OK too.
Its biggest problem is the same as Debian's biggest problem: stale packages. A desktop user would have to be very conservative to want either one. If Devuan can put together a "testing" variant like Debian does, I'd be happy to try that.
But in the meantime, I'm getting much more enjoyment and modern software (excluding systemd) from MX Linux.
15 • devuan does have up-to-date packages (by ac-1958 on 2017-06-05 07:57:06 GMT from United States)
Jesse's review and some comments mislead readers about the availability of up-to-date packages in devuan. My experience is that devuan does have testing and backports branches almost identical to debian's. Jesse complained about the old kernel version, but devuan offers multiple 4.x kernels up to 4.9 (one of which I'm using).
I've been following the hiccups in devuan for over a year and have been using it on my main laptop since December. My only concern during that period stemmed from two or three lapses in stuff like updating certificates. My only reservation about using devuan is that they get reliable support for their infrastructure to cover demand.
16 • Devuan (by zephyr on 2017-06-05 08:45:25 GMT from United States)
Devuan is everything that Debian should be!
cheers
zephyr
17 • @Devuan by Gary W (by zcatav on 2017-06-05 09:52:14 GMT from Turkey)
>> If Devuan can put together a "testing" variant like Debian does, I'd be happy to try that.<<
"Devuan aliases its releases using minor planet names as codenames. Devuan file names follow this release naming scheme.
current stable is “Jessie” (planet nr.10464)
current testing is “Ascii” (planet nr.3568)
unstable is “Ceres” (planet nr.1)"
Devuan contains Debian variant except Experimental!
You will be happy.
18 • Devuan Jessie Review (by RJules3 on 2017-06-05 10:28:41 GMT from Germany)
The description 'Devuan - Debian without systemd' is neglecting the most important difference between these two distributions. Devuan's motto 'Software Freedom Your Way' is meant seriously (as far as I can see it). The most important difference is the freedom of choice. Devuan (better the Veteran Unix Admins) didn't accept the removal of choice of the init system. Hopefully this 'idea' will succeed and Devuan as well.
19 • @13 and @5 (by OstroL on 2017-06-05 11:00:25 GMT from Poland)
> As stated in @5 the best way to install is from the traditional installer iso rather than the live media.<
Can you explain why?
If the live iso has an installer, all it does is copying the files in the live folder, creating a user, adding the new user's password, adding where you live, taking off the live part of the live iso etc. If the installer is good, it'd even help to partition your drive.
You can simply do all these manually. Its the installer, not the squashed file that troubles you. If the installer asks questions, and you can answer them, and it finally installs the distro for you, then it is a good installer. It doesn't matter, if the installer is eye-candy one or a text one, as far as it is doing its work well.
20 • @14 Devuan Testing (by lenn on 2017-06-05 11:08:01 GMT from United States)
Just download Nelum-Dev1-XFCE-64-Testing.iso, install it and update and upgrade it. And you have a up to date Testing Devuan.
21 • Devuan developers' opinion of systemd (by Alexandre Dumas on 2017-06-05 11:22:19 GMT from Australia)
Jesse wrote: "Some people were unhappy with the transition from the previous init implementation (SysV) to the newer systemd software."
LOL, Jesse Smith, master of understatement!
22 • Devuan live media installer (by rambling robin on 2017-06-05 12:21:07 GMT from United Kingdom)
@19
It's not a case of eye candy - it's a case of functionality.
The live-media installer does not seem to be able to cope with a drive which has existing partitions one of which you want to retain and not format.
When I have tried it by using the don't create home option it keeps the drive structure but messes up the user install and breaks grub when it installs it. If you use the create home option it wants to format it.
Like I said - it probably works fine on a blank/reformatable disk - I can't be bothered messing with it as I've seen too many of these things just not work outside their one trick. I suppose the standard installer is also far more familiar - cos it woks
23 • Devuan (by Jordan on 2017-06-05 12:22:39 GMT from United States)
Looks very interesting, and am glad there is ongoing effort out there to develop non-systemd distros.
No "plans" to try Devuan, but I'm open to it happening at some point down the line. I wouldn't mind putting it in one of my laptops and sending in bug reports and feedback etc.
24 • Devuan (by a on 2017-06-05 12:55:10 GMT from France)
I’m very glad that Devuan exists, as well as the other systemd-free distros. That said I had to answer "other" to the poll because while I have no "plan" to use it, I may very well use it in the future when/if I stop using Gentoo.
I tried Devuan 1.0 in Virtualbox and I very quickly noticed an issue: no support for my keyboard layout in the installer. So I thought I’d report the issue to them. Should be a very quick fix and make Devuan better. But… No link to a bugtracker on devuan.org. What? I then searched the web for "devuan bugtracker" and found a page that seemed to imply Devuan bugs are reported and tracked with… emails. Urgh. They should really set up a real web bugtracker.
25 • Devuan (by kc1di on 2017-06-05 12:58:13 GMT from United States)
Tried it and found it to be too much out of date for my needs. back to mint.
26 • @22 (by OstroL on 2017-06-05 13:17:11 GMT from Poland)
>Like I said - it probably works fine on a blank/reformatable disk - I can't be bothered messing with it as...<
Its all about "messing with" here in Linux--that's te beauty of it. With the "other OS" installs, either you throw the computer away, if the Win doesn't install, or throw lot of money away buying a Mac. Here its just fun.
Anyway, about the installer, talk to this guy fsmithred at Dev1 Galaxy forums. He's friendly guy and would happily help you out.
Also, it'd be much fun to install without using the installer, any installer...
27 • Bug reports in Devuan, the live installer, stale packages (by KatolaZ on 2017-06-05 13:59:56 GMT from United Kingdom)
@24
> out in the installer. So I thought I’d report the issue to them. Should be a very quick fix
> and make Devuan better. But… No link to a bugtracker on devuan.org. What? I then
> searched the web for "devuan bugtracker" and found a page that seemed to imply
> Devuan bugs are reported and tracked with… emails. Urgh. They should really set up a
>real web bugtracker.
Concerning bug reports: I understand that many people have probably never used the Debian Bug Tracking System, which has been based on email reports since 1994. The very same software is used as a BTS by different projects (including the GNU Project: http://debbugs.gnu.org) and Devuan is using it as well (http://bugs.devuan.org). You know, that same BTS has managed to deal with just about 800K bug reports for Debian so far, and will probably manage the next few millions as well. This is the reason why Devuan opted for it. Being "new" is not always a guarantee for being "adequate", or "stable", or "fit-for-purpose", or "reliable".
Concerning the live installer, or any other bug you might encounter using Devuan Jessie 1.0.0: please report issues to http://bugs.devuan.org, using the usual "reportbug" tool. It would be great to receive as much feedback as possible, in order to fix glitches.
Concerning stale packages: this same critics could be moved to Debian Jessie, form which Devuan Jessie is derived :-) Devuan is already actively working on ASCII,the next stable, and the backports repos in Jessie are usable and provide upgrades for many packages.
28 • Re: Devuan live media installer (by eco2geek on 2017-06-05 15:21:39 GMT from United States)
@22:
> The live-media installer does not seem to be able to cope with a drive which has existing
> partitions one of which you want to retain and not format.
That was not my experience. I like to try out new distros, so I have over a dozen partitions on my hard drive. I reformatted one of them prior to running the Devuan installer. (I installed Devuan 1.0 rc 1, actually, not the final release.) I didn't tell it to use a separate /home partition. I also told the installer to put GRUB on the partition, not the MBR.
The installer didn't install GRUB to the partition like it should have, but it did leave the GRUB that was already installed to the MBR alone. (I was ready with a boot repair disc just in case.) I installed GRUB to the partition manually post-install. The installer didn't do anything to any of the other partitions on my computer.
(FWIW, after a "dist-upgrade", I can tell you that the "Slim" login manager does in fact prompt you for your username and password. It's not just an empty box on an otherwise blank screen.)
29 • Debian Flash (by luvr on 2017-06-05 15:26:12 GMT from Belgium)
@11 The flash-plugin-nonfree package in Debian Jessie wouldn't be particularly useful, even if it could successfully be installed in the first place, because as it stands, it will not automatically keep the flash plugin updated anyway.
I had to install the flash plugin because www.schooltv.nl requires it. Ubuntu has a working flash plugin package, so I installed it there. Out of curiosity, I then took a closer look at how I could get the flash plugin under Debian--see my earlier comment at http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20170417&mode=67#comment-39.
I have since cobbled together a shell script that mimics the behaviour of the Debian package as closely as possible, including integration with the Debian Alternatives infrastructure.
Recently, I got an error when viewing one of the schooltv.nl pages, in that it complained that "er is iets fout gegaan bij het laden van de NPO Player" ("something went wrong while attempting to load the NPO Player"). Turned out that the Firefox ESR version (i.e., 45.9.something) under Debian testing is too old to view the page. I therefore downloaded Firefox 53.0.3 directly from Mozilla, and now it works. I'm looking into integrating this copy of Firefox into the Debian Alternatives infrastructure as well, and I would like to make it available system-wide (i.e., for all users), while still being able to update it (using the built-in Firefox update feature, instead of having to download a fresh copy from the Mozilla site for each update) without having to run Firefox as root.
30 • Irony - Distrowatch "no systemd" search results do not include Devuan... (by Hoos on 2017-06-05 16:33:57 GMT from Singapore)
...because there are systemd packages in its repositories and it avoids using systemd for the init service by having system-shim.
This is ironic when one considers how strongly Devuan felt about coming up with a no systemd version/fork of Debian.
Similarly with Debian-based MX Linux which also eschews systemd init the same way, yet does not show up in said search results. They may be various other distros in the same boat,
This shows up the inadequacy of DW's current search method for displaying distros that don't use systemd for init. It merely searches for distros that do not have systemd packages AT ALL, and you can see this doesn't paint an accurate picture.
https://distrowatch.com/search.php?pkg=systemd&distrorange=NotInLatest#pkgsearch
May I request that DW rejigs its search page to have an additional section where one can search by init service used - there's sysvinit, systemd, runit, openrc, and possibly more (???) which I don't know anything about.
31 • *Mint and Cinnamon (by Corentin on 2017-06-05 18:34:08 GMT from France)
> "Cinnamon was upgraded to version 3.4"
Mint, the 'creator' of Cinnamon has not the last version of its baby yet??? Manjaro has already v3.4.x...
32 • Cinnamon Releases (by M.Z. on 2017-06-05 20:41:08 GMT from United States)
@31
"Mint, the 'creator' of Cinnamon has not the last version of its baby yet???"
Of course not, they release the Cinnamon Desktop well before the release of the next version of their main edition & then try to do a fair amount of additional polish. The only thing odd to me is that LMDE didn't get version 3.4 before Manjaro. I just checked & my copy of LMDE is still on 3.2, which is odd given that 3.4 was released weeks ago; however, if more cutting edge 'rolling' distros are helping to get extra polish on Cinnamon & I still get it before the main edition then all is good.
33 • Devuan Poll (by cykodrone on 2017-06-05 21:26:20 GMT from Canada)
I've been using Devuan since the first beta release and have had very few problems, that being said, I still don't find it as 'pure' as antiX, if Devuan gets more residual systemd files polluted, I will definitely be switching to antiX, the jury is still out but I'm not holding my breath. I voted "I am currently using Devuan and plan to continue"...with conditions.
34 • Stretch (by Bob Anderson on 2017-06-05 21:27:16 GMT from Finland)
As the planned Debian 9 release is a few weeks away I already upgraded to Devuan Ascii on my HTPC - a very simple upgrade for my particular setup.
35 • List of systemd-free distros (by Alexandre Dumas on 2017-06-05 23:17:59 GMT from Australia)
@30, see http://without-systemd.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page for a growing list of systemd-free distros.
For a rolling-release distro with NetworkManager working fine, all Gentoo packages available and helpful developers, try Calculate Linux!
36 • @32 (by Corentin on 2017-06-05 23:27:43 GMT from France)
> " The only thing odd to me is that LMDE didn't get version 3.4 before Manjaro. I just checked & my copy of LMDE is still on 3.2, which is odd given that 3.4 was released weeks ago"
I agree, I was thinking about that...
> "however, if more cutting edge 'rolling' distros are helping to get extra polish on Cinnamon"
Eh eh... In Manjaro, Cinnamon is quite good and relatively well polished...
37 • Devuan Jessie is just Debian Jessie without Systemd (by Antonio Gallo on 2017-06-06 00:08:00 GMT from Italy)
I don't understand why to publish a full review. Devuan Jessie is just Debian Jessie with 200/300 packages recompiled to avoid systemd.
It will really start to become something different, i think, with the next release: Ascii.
Meanwhile its good to migrade Wheezy servers directly to Devuan.
For desktop usage i've never been a Debian fans because stable has too old outdate packages, so the same goes with Devuan plus the lack of systemd has not been compensated yet.
I hope they get rid of pulseaudio too with the next release.
38 • Lay the systemd issue to rest at last (by MVaz on 2017-06-06 01:59:42 GMT from United States)
First, nice review.
Second, with comments like:
a. "The boot times of both systems were identical, to within a second. In short, boot times, disk usage and memory footprints were near enough to being the same as to make no practical difference."
b. "The distribution offers users an operating system virtually identical to Debian 8, but with systemd replaced with SysV init"
We can only hope those non-sense systemd rants will come to an end.
Like the reviewer points, releasing a Debian derivate based on the current (and soon to be old) release, instead of hold it a little longer and released a simultaneous Debian 9 based distribution would have been better imo. My other concern is the longetivity due to the project already mentioned that some desktops have some issues due to lack of systemd. And that incompatibilities will only get worse as more software gets ported to it. Practically all major Linux distributions had made the switch, only leaving small hobyst ones and FreeBSD. And the later is working on their own systemd style replacement las time I checked. So pardon me, but don't see any future in non-systemd systems in the long term.
39 • Systemd free devuan (by Antonio on 2017-06-06 02:03:14 GMT from United States)
I have downloaded it in case it is needed later on. I do not have experience with debian itself, but used Knoppix and Kanotix a few times they were awesome. I also used Mandrake before it became Mandriva. As of know, I would question why is it not more known about the distro called Guix which has alternate startup/init scripts? I have tried heads 0.2 like Tails but without systemd. It works very well!
40 • Pulseaudio and friends (by Kragle von Schnitzelbank on 2017-06-06 02:23:14 GMT from United States)
I suggest pulseaudio would never have gained a hold if ALSA (or OSS) developers had provided a user-viable GUI (even if ugly), plain-text self-documenting scripts, or even a comprehensible (un_obfuscated) Full_Manual - and kept up with well-documented hardware developments.
Of course, many projects stagnate once the glow wears off. Developers have at least made it functional for common use_cases, pushing through agony to clean up the original buggy snarl somewhat.
Likewise, don't expect people to eagerly settle for retreating to nothing more than tinny 70's stereo in a single-process system.
…
The challenge with defenestrating systemd this late is that any upstream projects that have begun to assimilate XML-based process_management (aka intertwine systemd inter_dependencies) have also become that much more (grating) work to detangle. An uphill push, perhaps, but extremely valuable to the community - at least, anyone not automating server_farm management, unless you regard everyone else's circuits as (at least potentially) part of your farm? Better late than never.
41 • Devuan (by Scuttlebuck on 2017-06-06 02:53:59 GMT from Nicaragua)
I have installed Devuan and run it for 2 days.....it worked ok had no issues and it's great that there is another non systemd distro ........(I don't have an issue with Systemd apart from it being forced on people)
Will I keep Devuan ..probably not i have never been a Debian man
I use Gentoo and Calculate, as mentioned @35 above ...i have Void and Slackware and Salix
@40 Oh Yes i totally agree ALSA was terrible to work with ....Then i've never been too lucky with Pulseaudio but it has improved ...Just as well i don't use my comp for anything that requires quality audio
42 • Devuan (by Ronald Buckman on 2017-06-06 03:53:33 GMT from United States)
I had Devuan beta 2 on two computers for a while. One with Xfce, and the other with LXDE. It, worked well for the most part, except I had to install Google Chrome to get Flash to work and keep it updated. The desktops are more lightweight then the same desktops on an Ubuntu base. I since switched my installs to Slackware 14.2, one with Xfce 4.12, the other with Openbox 3.6.1. It's working well for the most part, but I couldn't get KDE Frameworks 5 apps to display icons in Openbox, But, that would probably apply running KF5 apps in Openbox in other distros.
43 • Poll (by 2damncommon on 2017-06-06 04:54:09 GMT from United States)
You left off "I have been contributing to Devuan in Beta and again as it goes to 1.0".
44 • @35 - list of non systemd distros (by Hoos on 2017-06-06 05:47:54 GMT from Singapore)
I am very aware of the list but wanted to point out that DW could improve their own list/search function. After all, many people read DW and get introductions to some distros through this site. It would be helpful if DW's list was more accurate since it really is hilarious that Devuan of all distros is not considered "no systemd" in searches made here.
I do have Calculate Linux running in a VM, but keep to MX and Void for my main non-systemd distros in the metal. Upgrading is so much faster in MX and Void!
On the other hand, I also have systemd distros as I don't avoid them.
45 • Void linux no of packages (by Khyber on 2017-06-06 07:22:32 GMT from India)
What is the number of packages in void linux currently?
46 • non-systemd - what's the point? (by Bob on 2017-06-06 09:58:47 GMT from Austria)
What is the point for the average Linux user avoiding systemd at all cost? Looks like I absolutely won't gain anything by using Devuan. Most of the more important distros are using systemd and most users don't give a damn. I don't know the statistics but it seems that the systemd critical part of the community is a minority but way louder than the rest of us. I'll use anything which works and systemd apparently does the job since quite some time now.
47 • MATE systemd dependencies (Devuan review and @3) (by curious on 2017-06-06 10:10:53 GMT from Germany)
These *fake* systemd dependencies are possibly the most annoying thing about systemd adoption.
With these dependencies, the "choice" that a modular open source system such as Linux basically provides its users with is effectively removed - anybody who wants to use a certain desktop environment finds that he/she is (unnecessarily!) tied to using the new init system.
Why on earth does a desktop environment depend on the init system anyway?
48 • SystemD - NOT just "init" any more, i'nit! (by Kragle on 2017-06-06 11:02:41 GMT from United States)
( @46 ) You likely won't notice anything at first, like a frog in a slow-cooker.
.
If systemd were like any other init system, no full-court-press would have been required, and likely no hue_and_cry would have resulted
.
As more software is converted to systemd XML_based process_management, system complexity will increase. Historically this has been considered poor practice; Keep it Separate and Simple, as in modular, is considered better practice
.
As updates and "upgrade" breakages affect more packages (code) due to increasing inter_dependencies, system reliability will increasingly depend on systemd_experts. Do you plan to become one, or hire one? Will your only alternative become (your computer) joining someone's automated server-farm?
.
One continual cost of Freedom is Constant Vigilance.
49 • Why I switched to Linux (by cykodrone on 2017-06-06 12:51:51 GMT from Canada)
The freedom, the lack of bloat, the lack of built in spyware, way less maintenance, less vulnerable to viruses, etc. Then comes along a barnacle-ware init being pushed by a populist style campaign to adopt it (much like that of the orange human). Just take the leap they said, it's good they said, naw, not really, it has now permeated many DEs and third party apps to the point of having to 'fool' them by using 'shims' so it 'thinks' systemd is installed and in use. I left that bloated and vulnerable proprietary OS because of nonsense like this, so to me, this corporate developed piece of software, which essentially takes over your whole system, is the ghost of nightmare of OSes past. I will never forget how the systemd team tried to bully Linus in to fixing their bugs and adding proprietary hooks in to the kernel itself in an attempt of cementing a permanent path in the very core of Linux. I have never been a 'sheep' or one to blindly follow the crowd and will resist corporate barnacle-ware until Linux becomes unusable, then I will move on to something else, hopefully the BSDs don't fall victim to this mess either. When a better init comes along that doesn't require third party software to write itself around it, systemd will be a bad distant memory.
50 • Re: SystemD - NOT just "init" any more, i'nit! (by Someone on 2017-06-06 13:02:44 GMT from Germany)
@48: "systemd XML_based process_management"
systemd doesn't have an "XML-based process management". Why do you have to make things up about stuff you don't know anything about?
51 • Search page and init software (by Jesse on 2017-06-06 17:25:22 GMT from Canada)
>> "May I request that DW rejigs its search page to have an additional section where one can search by init service?"
This is a work in progress and slowly getting better. If you visit our Search page this week and select the "not systemd" quick search link, or select "Not systemd" from the Init Software field, you will get better results. It's not perfect, but we're fine-tuning it.
52 • Systemd and Devuan (by vic on 2017-06-06 19:29:06 GMT from Canada)
I just dont feel good using systemd because I didnt choose to ever use systemd, it was forced upon me, and this goes against what I like the most about linux, the freedom to choose. Aside from political reasons, I prefer OpenRC to systemd any day of the week. Its easier for me to understand and get my head around init scripts and runlevels. I didnt mind gnome 3 at all when it came out but the systemd dependency killed it for me in a big way, and I still prefer mate to gnome 3 so I've been using mate for years now.
I've been using Devuan for about a week, since 1.0 came out. I had a bit of trouble with creating my user, but thats because I just clicked through the installer without really reading xD so its my fault. Its been smooth though, I enabled the backports repo now I'm on Linux 4.9, and most of the software is pretty recent so I cant complain. I was surprised that sysvinit was the default init system and not OpenRC, but its no big deal as installing OpenRC was super easy, I just had to install it in synaptic, and reboot my system. So needless to say, I am using Devuan and will continue as long as the others are trying to force me to use systemd.
53 • Devuan (by Jessey F Lawson on 2017-06-06 20:19:59 GMT from United States)
I have not tried it yet, but I am interested. I use Linux Mint 17.3 and Mint 18.2. Mint 17 does not use SystemD at all. I have not noticed any diffrence in boot up speed from the two int systems. I am concered about the way linux is going though. SystemD and wayland are raping the linux desktop. I don't use X86 hardware so this is worrying. Does wayland even support my SGI Indigo 2 Impact yet? The reviewer must not use FreeBSD much at all. Many packages are much older then Devuan on FreeBSD. If Devuan goes beyond X86 and brings back PowerPC support in Devuan 2 then I will switch. FreeBSD, linux, Jnode it does not matter what ever OS offers me up to date packages on PPC I will support. Right now that is Linux with Debian 7/8 and Ubuntu 14.04/16.04, but when 14.04 and Debain 7 EOL's in 2019 and Debain 8/Ubuntu 16.04 EOL's in 2021 I am ether going to have to fork Ubuntu with my own repo or pay FreeBSD users to port over apps I use. Ether way it is a lose lose situation. Now back to watching youtube videos.
54 • Devuan (by DaveT on 2017-06-06 22:08:49 GMT from United Kingdom)
I'm a systemd refugee from debian so my iMac runs devaun, my laptop runs debian unstable, and my servers run FreeBSD. The laptop will get trashed and rebuilt without systemd once my current work project is finished.
Happily my debian desktop at work and all our servers are still debian wheezy so I'm systemd-free at work too! I use the command-line a lot so I can run old window managers like twm happily. Xfce4 was vexing me on the devuan iMac so that is now running twm too. Runs fast!
@53 NetBSD and pkgsrc are excellent fun for getting the most up-to-date software. Try it. My old PPC iMac is 'retired' now but NetBSD worked OK.
55 • Enough Systemd Hate (by lupus on 2017-06-06 22:55:29 GMT from Germany)
Comment deleted (bad language).
56 • systemd forced (by MVaz on 2017-06-07 01:30:03 GMT from United States)
systemd is as forced as any other init system. I'm pretty sure those here that said they prefer OpenRC meet that init system by a previous Gentoo/Calculate (and derivatives), or any other distro that defaults to it.
And defauting to it is not the same as forced??? In my eyes it is.
For gentoo it was the default (and only) choice for many years.
57 • More Systemd terrorism. (by Garon on 2017-06-07 12:50:00 GMT from United States)
lupus is right. People like cykodrone, or psychodrone, or whatever you want to call him, try to scare people with a lot of nonsense. They say, Linux is being destroyed, we are losing the unix way of doing things, bla, bla, bla. and a lot more rubbish. Systemd haters can hate all they want to but don't try to force your ideas on everyone else. When you screw a system up it's real easy to blame it on systemd. I just wonder how much these people really know about systemd or about any init system. The way some of these people rant I believe they just want to be part of a minority so they can feel special. Think about it. There is a reason that systemd haters are a minority. Most people don't feel their pain. Time to grow up.
58 • Then stop these fake dependencies! (by curious on 2017-06-07 13:00:59 GMT from Germany)
I think that lots of *unease* concerning systemd (I personally don't hate it) would disappear if people did not get the impression that they were being coerced to use it.
That has nothing to do with distro X deciding to use systemd or distro Y deciding to use something else - in that case one can switch to another distro.
This has everything to do with software that DOESN'T need systemd (such as MATE, or probably any DE) reporting that it DOES, so that uninformed users lose their choice.
59 • Devuan versus MX (by Winchester on 2017-06-07 13:47:17 GMT from United States)
So,what is the difference between Devuan and MX Linux (MX-14,15,16) ??
Both of them are without systemd as I understand it.
60 • Devuan and Blu-ray (by gee7 on 2017-06-07 15:26:06 GMT from United Kingdom)
Having fitted a Blu-ray player into my new computer's tower case last week, I tried getting it to work in Debian 9 Stretch but without success (Debian 9 being installed in case any experimental software needs up-to-date libraries). I much prefer distros without systemD creep, and have 3 distros on this particular rig: Devuan, Debian 9 Stretch and PCLinuxOS 2017 and am currently writing this from an old Lenova laptop using GhostBSD.
There is a little chance of me finding how to play Blu-ray disks on GhostBSD and when I tried in PCLinuxOS, I found missing dependencies. Yesterday I bought 3 Blu-ray disks for a quid each in a charity shop. I came back home and booted into Devuan, installed some Video software, and last night watched Bladerunner again and some of Supernatural Season 4 in Blu-ray. I believe it's no easy task to play Blu-ray in most Linux distros, so bonus points to Devuan. That's great, in it?
I will have another try with Debian next week.
61 • MX vs Dev1 (by FOSSilizing Dinosaur on 2017-06-07 15:42:28 GMT from United States)
(for @59 query by Winchester from U.S.)
MX is derived from DebIan, using optional (and "unsupported") non-defaults.
Devuan (and derivatives) are forked from DebIan, using different packages (aka subroutines) developed (and supported) separately.
Convergence may occur at some time in the future.
62 • fake dependencies... (by OstroL on 2017-06-07 16:37:43 GMT from Poland)
There are fake dependencies. The devs put them there, maybe to stop others from using their "creation", or to hinder, or even just for the sake. I've learnt from un-archiving lot of deb packages, that some of them could be "installed" without some of the dependencies. When I place the files of a given application in their respective directories without some of the dependencies, that are either no longer available, or cannot be installed as they are not in the repos or some other reason, that application works. By "developing" a distro into a newer one, some older applications stop working (lack of files - are "deprecated"). But, these older applications are good and should work. So, I keep some of those files that are "deprecated" and add them to the upgraded distro, if the application stops working. That way, I have applications coming even from Natty days (Ubuntu 11.04) in newest Ubuntu 17.04. Interestingly, I haven't changed the executive binary file, nor the binary dependencies of the given application.
The desktop environments are fixed to meta packages, so to install them you "have to have" those dependencies, even if you don't want them. If the Mate DE is "dependent' of systemd, but can be installed in Devuan without that dependency, means that is a fake dependency. It means the Devuan devs had taken off that systemd dependency from the control file and re-packaged to a .deb. It'd be nice, if the applications are not dependent of the desktop environment, and they should be available for any distro, or any installation.
63 • @57 Difference of opinion (by cykodrone on 2017-06-07 17:19:21 GMT from Canada)
Just because my experience, ideals and opinions are different than yours, do not make me a "terrorist, psycho, have weak Linux skills (far from it, 12 years on many different hardware formats, completely MS free for the last 7 years), a needy desire to feel 'special' or makes me a child", it means I don't like a so-called init that pretends to be an init but is really just a kernel/system enveloping version of Pulse Audio. If you want some blatant honesty, if systemd's main architect wanted to write an operating system or kernel of his own, then that what he should have done. My main issue is that it's developed and maintained by a leading COMMERCIAL distro, who's main goal is to get and keep as much market share as possible (I don't like the fact they can pull the GPL any time, which will put independent distributions in to a tail spin). Even if it was privately developed and maintained, I'm still not comfortable with an init having networking capabilities, non human readable log files (which it's selective about creating or keeping), among other things. If you are happy with what you prefer, that's good, but that does not give your the right to rain on my opinion or experience.
64 • SystemD Stuff & Other FUD (by M.Z. on 2017-06-07 18:09:31 GMT from United States)
I find it ironic that the distro being discussed this week was created entirely to give people the option of a systemd free version of one of the most popular versions of Linux; however, several people still complain of being 'forced' into using systemd. How does that work? It makes no rational sense to me. To take the high road all you have to do is recognize that you have the choice & be vocal about how good it is, rather than hating on systemd. Personally I'm glad the choice is there, I just wish people would accept that it exists rather than complaining about a problem that is being solved.
@58 & 62 - fake dependencies
To my mind, the problem you seem to be describing is entirely created by the devs of certain distros. For that reason it should be exclusive to those distros & a non issue. I know that PCLinuxOS has a MATE version available & it doesn't use systemd, much like their KDE 5 version. Neither DE truly 'depends' on systemd; however, it seems that certain distros that _Already_ use systemd want to use some of the functionality in that init system in the version of the DE they package. Apparently there are some interchangeable parts, but if you pick a systemd free distro you get the DE you want without any extra init dependencies.
My question is why complain when a distro you know uses systemd uses it for a desktop? If you didn't want that distro because of systemd & the other options already exist & work, why not use the distro you like & support it so the devs can keep your DE systemd free in the future? Sorry, I think this is another non-issue.
@53 Wayland? Really?
"SystemD and wayland are raping the linux desktop."
WOW. I mean, hating on Wayland when it barely exists out there in the wild? Also that was truly nasty.
Look, X11 is based on technology from the 1980s & many of the people on the inside doing development on it want a better alternative because they consider X to be both ancient & extremely complex. If the chief complaint about systemd is complexity, why are you complaining about being given the option to use a far simpler display server, that is also backward compatible?
Personally I would like to have a simpler, better performing, more secure, tear free, easy to maintain, & modern display server that is built with the future in mind while being backward compatible. I could care less about systemd, but I want Wayland & I want it to work well on as much hardware as possible & with as many desktops as possible.
All that being said, I can't see X11 going away anytime soon, especially give how few systems actually ship with Wayland right now. Why invent a threat? I think seeing the positive opportunity is far better than being stuck in the past complaining about how some ancient (by computer standards) code might be replaced one day.
65 • Bad FUD (by M.Z. on 2017-06-07 18:36:11 GMT from United States)
@63
So hating on Red Hat because they make a buck while giving away the code you use is your big issue? People need to eat & can't all code for free as a part of some crazy anarchist GNU/Software collective. Indeed the coders & devs that make Linux work deserve good pay. Given the very existence of Devuan, it seems apparent that Red Had code like systemd can be stripped out & removed just like any other & the code could also be modified under the terms of the GPL. As far as I'm concerned Red Hat is a good company who is trying to make money ethically. If you have proof that they did something worse than code some GPL software you didn't like, please give it.
"...I don't like the fact they can pull the GPL any time..."
You can't revoke the GPL retroactively. If it was released under the GPL in version 1.x, then that code stays under the GPL. Also who told you that Red Hat released any code under any license that wasn't open source? I have heard that kind of talk before, but the only thing I see that Red Hat has done with closed source software is release it under an open source license as soon as they buy a company that makes proprietary code. That is of course the exact opposite of what you are trying to claim they _Might_ do. That of course makes your fears look like they have very little credibility.
All that being said, Red Hat's strong support for Gnome has contributed to creating a useless monster of a DE & I wouldn't mind at all if Gnome died. So I guess nobody is perfect.
66 • @64 (by OstroL on 2017-06-07 19:19:59 GMT from Poland)
Read carefully.
" If the Mate DE is "dependent" of systemd, but can be installed in Devuan without that dependency, means that is a fake dependency. "
There is an "If" in the sentence.
If I am using an installation based of Ubuntu 17.04, then it has systemd, so I don't have anything against systemd.
If you have an application you like, and you don't want it to die because of the upgrade process, you have to make apt not see it.
If we are taking this Mate as an example, it is dependent on systemd in one distro/os, and in NOT dependent on systemd in another, then something is wrong in the "dependency" matter. In a way, one can deduce that there is a fake dependency.
If we are using Linux, we should be able to use any freely available Linux applications, but without any other applications we don't need. But, most of such applications have other "dependent" applications. Should that be?
67 • independenced (by Justin on 2017-06-07 20:02:12 GMT from United States)
(This is humor, people)
It seems national sovereignty will soon depend on systemd:
https://www.sudosatirical.com/articles/systemd-set-to-declare-independance/
68 • More FUD (by Someone on 2017-06-07 20:38:48 GMT from Germany)
@63: "I don't like the fact they can pull the GPL any time":
No, Red Hat can't "pull the GPL" as they are not the sole copyright holder and cannot change the license without agreement from other copyright holders. Also note that Red Hat doesn't hold the copyright for systemd, but individual people do.
The "Red Hat can change everything to a proprietary license" myth is just more FUD. (Aud given FUD is a Microsoft tactic: are systemd haters paid shills by Microsoft under the ideas from the Halloween documents???2?)
"My main issue is that it's developed and maintained by a leading COMMERCIAL distro":
I suggest stopping using Linux then: the kernel is mainly developed by COMMERCIAL companies these days.
69 • Systemd nation @ 67 are we independent? (by Antonio on 2017-06-07 21:33:44 GMT from United States)
Can we place some sanctions vs that new nation called Systemdistan?
Can we runit to /dev/null? The process of systemd was an init manager, but it has done much more than that. Some folks say it is a cancer, while others believe it is a fungus. It is a big momster slowly taking over everything. Why have a government and a president, just let systemd tule
70 • OSS arguments (by peaceable on 2017-06-08 06:22:27 GMT from Australia)
If you want to know why there are endless arguments here, this could explain why:
The open source community is nasty and that's just the docs:
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/06/05/open_source_developer_survey_2017/
71 • @59, 61 - difference between MX and Devuan (by Hoos on 2017-06-08 08:49:14 GMT from Singapore)
This is from Section 1.6 of the MX Linux manual. While the comparison is to Debian, it is also applicable to Devuan (except for the systemd part):
"Debian Stable is a wonderful solid distribution that can be upgraded in place from version to version automatically as long as the Debian Stable repos are used exclusively. MX uses Debian Stable as a base, but updates a lot of the userland programs & libraries, and backports newer programs from testing by building them against the Stable base. That gives a better user experience but interferes with Debian’s dist-upgrade path. Our current choice to stick with sysvinit instead of going to full systemd also interferes with that path.
So it’s a trade-off: better desktop user experience at the expense of having to do a quick fresh install (which lets you save /home if desired) when the Debian base changes, typically every 2-3 years. "
MX does not just have newer packages from Debian Backports; it also has versions of packages and applications that may not be found in Debian at all. Plus it has a lot of its own GUI tools, live USB/iso tools, and pre-installed codecs and drivers to make things easier for users OOTB. This is very helpful for relative beginners and non-techy users of Linux.
And by the way, MX's wiki has a very balanced writeup on systemd and in fact gives the user a guide as to how to switch an MX installation to using systemd as init. They caution that it won't be a perfect switch (in particular some of MX's live/iso tools were designed to work specifically with sysvinit) but they give interested users the information for those who want to experiment and try stuff out.
https://mxlinux.org/wiki/system/systemd
My position is that MX Linux is a good distro, regardless of what init it uses. I also like their balanced approach. On the other hand, there are also quite a few systemd distros that I find good as well, e.g. Manjaro, Korora.
I am all for choice and keeping one's options open, so I'm glad there are good distros using different init managers.
72 • Previous Post (#71) (by Winchester on 2017-06-08 13:40:08 GMT from United States)
Yet,MX-Linux is not listed here in the "Beginner Friendly" category.
There are probably at least 5 or 10 distributions that I feel should be added to that category .... and maybe a few that could be removed from the category.
73 • Systemd fancy arguments and spin (by cykodrone on 2017-06-08 17:56:23 GMT from Canada)
The systemd developers work for RH, anybody knows anything made while in the employ of a corporation belongs to said corporation (GPL or not). Now I'll deal with the yanking the GPL spin, nobody ever mentioned "retroactively" cancelling the GPL, but if it were to be cancelled tomorrow, that would freeze it at its last known GPL version, unless some charitable souls were to take that version over and continue to maintain it (which would directly cause a 'Franken-fork), it would yes, wreak havoc among distros that have blindly become dependent on it, same with the third party DEs and programs that have caved to systemd and wrote their code around it. I don't make comments on this site unless I've researched anything I say thoroughly, so you are in reality, you're not calling me a FUD spreader, you are calling tech journalists and developers FUD spreaders. It's a well know fact RH has been approached by the NSA, and are NSA friendly, hence my disdain for systemd having networking capabilities. Why does a so-called 'init' need to 'phone' anywhere?
74 • Re: Systemd fancy arguments and spin (by Someone on 2017-06-08 18:22:15 GMT from Germany)
@73: "The systemd developers work for RH"
Not all of them. Which means RH cannot change the license (also not for new releases). Otherwise RH could also just change the license of the Linux kernel, after all some kernel developers work for RH.
"anybody knows anything made while in the employ of a corporation belongs to said corporation (GPL or not)"
Depends on your contract. Btw, systemd's source files don't say that RH owns the copyright.
"Why does a so-called 'init' need to 'phone' anywhere?"
The 'init' part doesn't. Please do your research and try to get your facts right.
That clients for DHCP, DNS or NTP speak to the network should not be a surprise. systemd provides those if one wishes to use them (but for example Debian doesn't use them by default).
75 • @73 - "cancelled"? (by Hoos on 2017-06-08 18:39:16 GMT from Singapore)
If by "cancelled" you mean the RH-employees working on systemd stop contributing to it completely, why would other developers still working on it need to fork it? It's still systemd, innit? (sorry for the bad pun!)
76 • systemd FUD (by Jordan on 2017-06-08 19:36:20 GMT from United States)
It occurs to me that no matter which end of the systemd discussion speaks to us and causes us agreement, the whole damned discussion itself is FUD, and sometimes Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt are well needed in making choices.
Portions of our attitudes about shopping for cars or houses etc come from FUD, good FUD. And yes, some FUD is good. My FUD about systemd is now causing me to read about RedHat and the NSA thing now.. and yeah, it's okay to do that, right?
Bad FUD is lies. I don't think we've seen much in the way of outright lying on this subject in here, have we?
77 • More systemd Stuff (by M.Z. on 2017-06-08 19:37:08 GMT from United States)
@66
"If we are using Linux, we should be able to use any freely available Linux applications, but without any other applications we don't need. But, most of such applications have other "dependent" applications. Should that be?"
Look, I see that sometimes dependencies can be created in a way that is far from ideal & unnecessary. That is still an issue caused by individual distros. If you want to avoid a specific package like systemd then running a distro that uses it by default may well pull in things like systemd even if you tried to avoid having it on the system. The way to avoid it is to not use a distro that defaults to systemd. It's a simple solution & no one is forced to use anything if they select a distro that does what they prefer.
All that being said, there is certainly room for improvement in how common dependencies are packaged by devs. It would certainly be nice to get better dependency handling & only get things that are truly needed, or be able to swap out one set of dependencies for another. That still doesn't mean systemd is coming to take away your children or kick your puppy or whatever, which was always my main point.
@73
"It's a well know fact RH has been approached by the NSA, and are NSA friendly, hence my disdain for systemd having networking capabilities. Why does a so-called 'init' need to 'phone' anywhere?"
That sounds highly speculative to me, possibly even outright FUD. It also sounds like if such an issue existed it would be relatively easy to both detect & track down. Many Linux distros ship with Wireshark & other network monitoring tools in their repos. Are we expected to believe that no one checks on these things even though the tools are in the repos? Such tools recently caught a 'Smart TV' manufacturer sending viewing habits back to themselves. Are we to suppose that the Linux community is incapable of doing a thorough enough analysis to detect such a privacy breech? Are we also supposed to believe that devs from Canonical and SUSE who also work on systemd are just as co-opted as you _Think_ Red Hat are?
None of that sounds very likely given the technical skill of the community & the international nature of Linux development; however, on the ever so minuscule chance that you are correct, chances are that such a scheme would be detected eventually & cause blow back that would make RH & others not want any part of what you speculate about.
"...but if it were to be cancelled tomorrow, that would freeze it at its last known GPL version, unless some charitable souls were to take that version over and continue to maintain it..."
Are we supposed to believe that the maintainers at both SUSE & Canonical that are already working on systemd are so incompetent that they can't figure out what they are working on? Are we to take it on your word that too few of the 788 contributors to systemd on GitHub would be willing to change employers to work on the project if RH went away? Are we also to believe that getting rid of systemd would be an impossible 'Franken-monster' job, despite the fact that work arounds already exist in other distros & Devuan already exists as a possible template for Debian based distros?
None of that sounds very likely to me. Also, here is the GitHub page with the number of contributors:
https://github.com/systemd/systemd
78 • @77 dependency matter (by OstroL on 2017-06-08 22:09:29 GMT from Netherlands)
I am not talking about systemd. It stays out of the way, so not a problem for me. I use Ubuntu based installation, so systemd is there. If Ubuntu considers its a good app, a behind the scene app, its quite okay by me. I'm talking about other apps, those you use, and those you see.
Take a nice app like Thunar, which I like better than Nautilus. But, if I want to install it, I have to have the Xfce4 panel too, which I don't need. Its not heavy, but for Thunar to work, the panel is not needed. This is just an example, and I don't have anything against XFCE. I actually like XFCE as a DE, and also use XFCE apps, without XFCE DE. I usually manually delete the unnecessary apps, while keeping what I need. But in the next upgrade, all those deleted would be installed again. And, because I like Thunar, I let it happen, but can go without the hassle.
The thing is, the devs most probably add these "fake" dependencies to make people use their apps my default (or by force). Bit untoward in the Linux world. (I am not saying anything against XFCE, which I consider as one of the best desktop environments available today in the Linux world.)
79 • thunar, and baggage (by tim on 2017-06-09 04:28:32 GMT from United States)
Perhaps you wind up with "panel too" because you've installed the xfce4 metapackage rather than the alacarte "thunar" package?
https://packages.debian.org/stretch/thunar
See? As packaged for debian, the only other xfce packages which thunar depends on are "libexo" and "libthunar"
For ubuntu, the package maintainers declare more depencencies
https://packages.ubuntu.com/yakkety/thunar
but, still, you would (should) not have xfce4-panel forced onto your system.
*IF* your apt preferences are set to "treat RECOMMENDED packages as dependencies"... that's about the only way (and explanation why) the panel is being "forced" (per your comment "in the next upgrade, all those deleted would be installed again")
80 • @79 dependency baggage (by OstroL on 2017-06-09 05:59:09 GMT from Poland)
Mentioning Thunar was just an example, nothing else. Even with "dependencies," I'd still install Thunar, as its an excellent file manager.
You mentioned, "the package maintainers declare more dependencies," and that's the problem. Those dependencies are not exactly needed for the application to work, so they should not be forced upon the users. It won't happen, but it would be nice, if a standalone application would come with as less as possible "dependencies."
81 • @79 • thunar, and baggage (by mandog on 2017-06-09 13:49:51 GMT from Peru)
Thunar only needs the panel to have a waste bin, you can still delete OK with out it but then things are lost forever.
82 • Ein reich, ein wolk, ein init ! (by Today the init . . . on 2017-06-09 15:04:03 GMT from United States)
Regarding Systemd:
"First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."
- German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984).
83 • Avoiding (inter-)dependency creep (by FOSSilizing Dinosaur on 2017-06-09 15:07:49 GMT from United States)
Some distro packaging tools sort dependencies into (at least) required and optional; not a solution to creep, of course, but somewhat helpful. In the longer run, build tools could also help mitigate. DIY packaging, as it were.
…
Some apps stand best alone, possibly as restricted subsystems (like a virtual jailed appimage). Surely some web browsers aspire to be worlds unto themselves?
84 • because I like Thunar, I let it happen (by tim on 2017-06-10 01:56:00 GMT from United States)
"just an example" and I attempted to explain why it stands as an incorrect example. It "happens" due to your system config (which you are free to change) and due to the decision(s) of your distro's package maintainers. YOUR situation with thunar is __NOT__ due to the xfce "devs" adding fake dependencies.
Yes, I have noticed unwarranted dependencies, but they seem to be due to "laziness" moreso than anything else. Like, instead of shipping a (one, or a handful) icon imagefile for the program... an author or pkg maintainer draws from (depends on) icon from an existing multi piggabye-sized iconset packagefile.
@81
kudos for mentioning that. I don't use .Trash, so that consideration didn't occur to me.
85 • Yawning While Arrows Bounce Off (by Arch Watcher 402563 on 2017-06-10 09:33:58 GMT from United States)
@38 "Lay the systemd issue to rest at last"
Translating: stop educating on corporate maneuvers to capture FOSS and related s/w degradation. The answer is no. I will educate at every chance I get.
Skarnet says systemd will eventually die over shoddy workmanship. He's building a well engineered init suite that doesn't also phone home, wash your dishes, etc.
Apple Computer began as a hobby vendor. Linux began as a nerd hobby. RedTeamBlackHat would not exist financially but for government contracts. It has no consumer demand like Apple. It's set up for procurement bureaucrats who underwrite $5k toilet seats and still run official departments on Windows XP. Having worked on defense contracts, I know. What procurement cares about s/w quality I could scribble on my thumb.
@40 "I suggest pulseaudio would never have gained a hold..."
Read this potted history.
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3rbsrj/eli5_what_is_pulseaudio_and_why_does_it_get_such/d1epkh0/
Substitute.
http://git.r-36.net/pressureaudio/tree/README.md
86 • No JACK!? (by Kragle on 2017-06-10 14:20:32 GMT from United States)
@85 ref.1: "The problem it was designed to solve was already solved, but they needed a GUI for it." Indeed. (They also needed a Full Manual.) Thank you for supporting my point. Excellent article.
…
Apulse is not a substitute; it's an emulation; as noted in ref.1, PA is a poor substitute … for JACK.
…
I've seen one ALSA GUI - alsamixer - via ncurses, or gtk (prettier); it's been incomplete for years. If people can't use a "solution", it's not solved.
…
(Wouldn't a standalone version of JACK - well-documented, with a full GUI - help?)
87 • Takeover FUD (by M.Z. on 2017-06-11 19:25:13 GMT from United States)
@85
"...corporate maneuvers to capture FOSS..."
People talk about this FUD from time to time, yet no one can explain how software that is GPL can be 'captured' or otherwise taken over. Here in the real word the GPL has a strong court record of defending the rights of the users & the community & is seen as both a legally binding contract & a well proven software license.
"RedTeamBlackHat would not exist financially but for government contracts."
Obvious ad hominem weasel words aside, Red Hat claims a very different story about who their customers are. According to their web site 100% of airline, 100% of commercial banks, 100% of healthcare companies, and 100% of telecom companies in the global fortune 500 rely on Red Hat to some extent. But never mind that they have a big diverse base of customers with many different agendas & expectations, we're supposed to assume they are totally cooped & pure eval because of some government contracts?
https://www.redhat.com/en/about/trusted?intcmp=7016000000155feAAA
@82 - Today the init . . .
So you have a proven choice in init systems available from distros like PCLinuxOS & Devuan & you chose to compare the init situation to the holocaust? That just isn't right.
88 • XML (by Fairly Reticent on 2017-06-11 23:04:31 GMT from United States)
Last search for XML in systemd at github yielded just under 300 results
.
Sad how many are sidetracked instead of focusing on the new distro.
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| • Issue 1092 (2024-10-14): FunOS 24.04.1, a home directory inside a file, work starts of openSUSE Leap 16.0, improvements in Haiku, KDE neon upgrades its base |
| • 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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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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