 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 871, 22 June 2020 |
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Welcome to this year's 25th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
One of the great strengths of open source software is the ability to take one project's code and modify it, making it into something different. Often developers want to add features or customize settings to make a distribution function better and this allows for a great deal of diversity in the Linux ecosystem. This week we begin with a look at Devuan GNU+Linux, a project which takes Debian and strips out the systemd software in favour of alternative init software and other low-level tools. Read on to hear how the latest version of Devuan performs. Devuan is one of a few Linux distributions which attempt to support multiple init implementations and we would like to hear what you think of projects offering different init systems in our Opinion Poll. In our News section we discuss Fedora making the upgrade process between versions safer and we talk about DragonFly BSD gaining automatic filesystem snapshots. We also share a notice for Tumbleweed users about a potential wireless issue in the latest kernel. Then we talk about how the BSDs vary in their approach to operating system development compared to Linux distributions and how some flavours of Linux are now taking a similar approach. Plus we are pleased to welcome Rescuezilla, a fork of Redo Backup & Rescue, to our database. We wish you all a terrific week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: Devuan GNU+Linux 3.0.0
- News: Fedora to make upgrades more secure, DragonFly BSD automates HAMMER2 snapshots, openSUSE warns of wireless issues in kernel update
- Questions and answers: BSD versus Linux distribution development
- Released last week: CentOS 8.2.2004, FreeBSD 11.4, Emmabuntus DE3-1.02
- Torrent corner: Absolute, Calculate, CentOS, Emmabuntus, FreeBSD, KDE neon, Redo Rescue, Rescuezilla, Robolinux, Star
- Opinion poll: Distributions supporting multiple init systems
- New additions: Rescuezilla
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (17MB) and MP3 (13MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Devuan GNU+Linux 3.0.0
Devuan is a Debian-based distribution which removes systemd, along with dependencies on systemd, from the operating system. Devuan uses SysV init software by default and the release notes mention OpenRC is available as an optional service/runlevel manager while runit is in the repositories as an alternative init implementation.
Devuan 3.0.0 is based on Debian 10 and has builds available for the 32-bit (x86), 64-bit (x86_64), armhf, arm64, and ppc64el architectures. The project further makes available Desktop, Server, Minimal, and Net-install editions. We are also offered Live and Install flavours of media for most editions. In other words, Devuan follows Debian's example in having a lot of download options before we even begin the install process.
I thought it worth noting that while Debian's default install media does not include non-free firmware which is often used for wireless networking, and users who require non-free firmware need to download alternative media. In contrast, Devuan's editions all ship with non-free firmware and provide the option of removing it.
All Devuan 3 Beowulf install media make non-free firmware packages available at install time. These are only installed if your networking hardware requires them in order to function. You can avoid the automatic installation of non-free firmware by selecting the "Expert install" option in the installation menu.
Devuan 3 Beowulf desktop-live and minimal-live images come with non-free firmware packages pre-installed. You can remove these packages after boot using the "remove_firmware.sh" script available under /root.
I downloaded both the Live and Install media for the project's Desktop edition. The Live media is a 1.1GB download while the Install media is 3.6GB in size. I began with the Live build which boots directly into the Xfce 4.12 desktop. There is a panel placed along the top of the screen. The application menu is located to the left, the system tray to the right, and a task switcher takes up the middle of the panel. A second panel which houses quick-launch icons for starting commonly used applications sits at the bottom of the screen.
The Xfce's default wallpaper is dark red. On the desktop we find icons for launching the system installer, opening documentation, and launching the Thunar file manager. There are also icons which, when clicked, enlarge and shrink the desktop's font size. I found Xfce worked very quickly from the live media and my hardware was all detected so I dived into the installer.
Devuan GNU+Linux 3.0.0 -- Customizing the disk layout
(full image size: 102kB, resolution: 1360x768 pixels)
Installing
I experimented with three different approaches to setting up Devuan. When working from the Install media, I launched a text installer which appears to be Debian's installer with little to no changes. I talked about Debian's installer when I reviewed Debian 10. I also tried running the installer from Devuan's Live media, which I am about to discuss. Later in my trial I experimented with the Expert Install option on Devuan's Install media and I will cover the highlights of that experience later.
Launching Devuan's installer from the Live media kicks off an unusually long procedure for setting up the operating system. At first we are presented with a graphical application that displays a list of checkboxes and we can select which options we wish to enable. Most of these options deal with partitioning layouts (such as whether to have separate /boot and /home directories and whether to use swap space. There are other options though which toggle whether we wish to enable features such as automatic logins.
The next screen of the installer warns us the operating system needs at least one partition to be set up ahead of time and it offers to launch either GParted or cfdisk to help us partition local disks. The installer then asks us to pick the name of the disk we will be using for the installation. We are given the chance to pick which filesystem to use for Devuan, though options are limited to the ext2/3/4 family.
The installer then walks us through picking our time zone from drop-down lists. Then we are asked to pick our language locale from a cryptic list of language abbreviations (the default option is American English), and then we can pick our keyboard layout from another list. Then the installer confirms it should continue and begins copying its files to our local hard drive. A terminal window shows each file being transferred.
Once the files finish copying we are offered the chance to install a boot loader and pick the location where it will be set up. We then create a username and password for ourselves and, optionally, enable sudo access. We are also given the chance to disable the root account. When the installer is done it returns us to the Xfce desktop where we can restart the computer.
Early impressions
When my new copy of Devuan first started up I noticed it identified itself as Debian in the boot menu. This can be changed, but it's a minor cosmetic detail. The system then booted to a graphical login screen where I could sign into the Xfce 4.12 desktop again.
The desktop is fairly clean, with no pop-ups or other distractions. I often find myself adjusting font sizes to better fit in menus or to make documents easier to read so I liked having the Enlarge/Shrink Font icons on the desktop.
Early on I noticed there was no volume control in the system tray. We can work around this limitation by launching the audio mixer from the application menu or by installing a system tray mixer such as pnmixer.
Hardware
Devuan performed very well in both of my test environments. When running in VirtualBox the operating system was stable, booted quickly, and Xfce was highly responsive. I did need to manually adjust the desktop resolution through the settings panel as Devuan was unable to dynamically resize its desktop to match my VirtualBox window.
Devuan GNU+Linux 3.0.0 -- Running Thunar and Firefox
(full image size: 169kB, resolution: 1360x768 pixels)
When running on my laptop, Devuan performed beautifully. It started up quickly, ran smoothly and detected all of my hardware, including my wireless card. This was a pleasant change from Debian which was unable to access my wireless card until I had manually tracked down the missing firmware package.
When installed from the Live media, Devuan required 285MB of memory to sign into Xfce and consumed 4.1GB of disk space. These amounts varied depending on how I installed the system and I will talk more about that later.
Applications
Devuan, with the Xfce desktop installed, ships with a collection of common, and less-common yet lightweight, applications. The Firefox browser and LibreOffice are included along with the Parole media player and the Quod Libet audio player. The distribution includes codecs for playing popular media formats.
The Ristretto image viewer, Atril document viewer, and Xfburn disc burning software are included too. There is a utility for performing bulk file renaming operations and the Thunar file manager. The mutt e-mail client is included along with Java, a text editor, and a system monitor.
By default Devuan uses the SysV init software, though the release notes promise alternatives. Behind the scenes the distribution runs on version 4.19 of the Linux kernel.
While I was exploring the available software I noted the Xfce settings panel works nicely. It provides a clear approach to customizing the look and behaviour of the desktop. Lower level system settings are not accessible through the Xfce panel and generally require a trip to the command line.
Devuan GNU+Linux 3.0.0 -- The Xfce settings panel
(full image size: 150kB, resolution: 1360x768 pixels)
There were a few minor issues I ran into. For instance there is a launcher called Mail Reader in the application menu which, when clicked, fails to launch any program. However, the mutt e-mail client is installed and can be opened through another launcher. In a similar fashion, pressing the Print Screen button does nothing even though there is a screenshot tool installed.
Switching to runit or OpenRC
The Devuan release notes mention OpenRC is available as an alternative to managing services while using SysV init. The release notes also mention the runit software is available as an alternative to the /sbin/init program, also known as PID 1. However, I was unable to locate any tips on how to swap out these components in the release notes or in the project's documentation. I also didn't find any guide in the project's unofficial wiki or on the forums. The one reference I could find to performing the switch suggested choosing the init software was an option in the Expert Install process on the Install media.
I feel it worth mentioning that the Install disc has a number of options the Live disc does not. For example, we can use the default text installer, which works like Debian's installer. We can also enable an Expert Install option which is again similar to Debian's, with a few different options. Plus we can enable speech synthesis for either installer as an accessibility option.
The Expert Install is a long, tedious process. It took about two hours in my case as the installer stops after about every third screen to download packages or configure something and each of the many steps takes us back to a menu that lists all the available steps so we can do them out of order.
When I got to the screen that allows us to pick our init software, there were just two options: SysV init and OpenRC. There was no option for using runit. Both options install SysV init as the /sbin/init (PID 1) program, however, the latter uses OpenRC to manage services.
As far as I could tell, OpenRC was not faster (or slower) to boot or shutdown the system. OpenRC does have some nice features, though from a practical point of view it doesn't seem to matter to the end user which service manager is used, with one exception. Sometimes when using OpenRC my system would not reboot, Devuan would shutdown services, but not power off or restart. This happened rarely, but only when I was running OpenRC; the restart process always went smoothly when using a pure SysV init setup.
At one point I tried installing the runit package to see if it would replace SysV init, but it did not. Devuan continued to boot with SysV init as PID 1. I still have yet to find documentation on the Devuan website on swapping out one init for the other.
On the subject of trying different install methods, I noticed a significant difference when I set up Devuan from the Install media versus the Live media. Though I stayed with the default settings as much as possible and, in each case, ended up with the same desktop and applications, there was a big difference in resource usage. The Install media resulted in a system which used 40MB less memory and 1GB less disk space when compared next to the system I installed from the Live media. At the time of writing I'm not sure what accounts for the difference, but the Install media seems to create a system that is about 20% lighter.
Devuan GNU+Linux 3.0.0 -- Running LibreOffice on the Xfce desktop
(full image size: 212kB, resolution: 1360x768 pixels)
Software management
Devuan ships with the classic Synaptic package manager. Synaptic, while it takes a low-level approach to dealing with software, does its work quickly. We can check off packages we wish to download, upgrade, or remove and process these actions in batches. Synaptic may not be the most friendly package manager, but it was dependable and fast during my trial.
Devuan GNU+Linux 3.0.0 -- The Synaptic package manager
(full image size: 147kB, resolution: 1360x768 pixels)
We can also manage software from the command line using the APT collection of tools. The first time I ran APT it warned me there had been recent changes to the repositories, switching the repositories from Testing to Stable. We are asked to confirm this is okay and expected before APT will continue its work.
During my trial there were just 4 new updates, 41kB in size. These had to be checked for and downloaded manually as Devuan does not have any update notification system.
For people who wish to use portable package formats, Flatpak is not installed by default, but is available in Devuan's repositories. Snap depends on systemd being used as init and is understandably not in the repositories.
Conclusions
As we might expect, Devuan looks and feels almost exactly like Debian. The functionality is the same, most of the supported desktops and other packages are the same, just with the underlying init software replaced. Most people, I suspect, would not notice whether they were running Debian or Devuan, unless they had to manage background services manually.
The one practical difference I noticed during my trial was with firmware and hardware support. There are alternative downloads for Debian that include non-free firmware and therefore wireless support, but it takes some digging to find it, assuming you know to look for these alternative downloads. With Devuan, all possible hardware is supported from the start with the option to remove unused firmware later.
I was disappointed that while runit is listed as an alternative to SysV init, I could not find any practical documentation on performing this switch. Using the Expert Install option did not change init software, only the service manager, though the step in the installer is labelled as choosing the init implementation. I hope the steps required to switch to runit are made more clear in the documentation at some point.
Devuan, to my mind, is a solid operating system. It is fast, light, and stable. However, the steps to install the distribution are lengthy and likely to confuse newcomers. It was also released about a year behind Debian, which means most of the included software is now a year and a half old. Probably not a big deal for most people, in a practical sense, but if you crave up to date packages, Devuan's Stable branch will not appeal.
For most people, those who don't tinker with the underlying operating system, I don't think Devuan holds much attraction over Debian (apart from more accessible firmware). However, for people who like the classic init and OpenRC approaches to managing the underlying system, I think Devuan does hold appeal. It is essentially Debian, or what Debian would have been if it had not migrated to systemd.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a de-branded HP laptop with the following
specifications:
- Processor: Intel i3 2.5GHz CPU
- Display: Intel integrated video
- Storage: Western Digital 700GB hard drive
- Memory: 6GB of RAM
- Wired network device: Realtek RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast
- Wireless network device: Realtek RTL8188EE Wireless network card
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Visitor supplied rating
Devuan GNU+Linux has a visitor supplied average rating of: 9/10 from 174 review(s).
Have you used Devuan GNU+Linux? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Fedora to make upgrades more secure, DragonFly BSD automates HAMMER2 snapshots, openSUSE warns of wireless issues in kernel update
Ben Cotton has put forward a proposal which would make upgrading packages across versions of Fedora more secure and less likely to leave obsoleted packages on a user's system. The proposal suggests marking unmaintained packages as being obsolete so that it will not be carried across to new versions of the operating system when Fedora is upgraded. "If the user wants to preserve the package (e.g., because it moved to Copr), he simply uninstalls and protects the installation of fedora-retired-packages. But that will be an informed decision. The benefits are: We do not leave unmaintained packages on a user's machine. We make sure that archaic packages do not break upgrade between two
versions of Fedora." Other proposals can be found in the Fedora wiki.
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The DragonFly BSD team has introduced a new, optional feature which will take automatic filesystem snapshots when the HAMMER2 advanced filesystem is being used. "The first version of HAMMER took automatic snapshots, set within the config for each filesystem. HAMMER2 now also takes automatic snapshots, via periodic like most every repeating task on your DragonFly system." This change will make it easier for administrators to recover from accidental file deletion and broken software upgrades.
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People who run openSUSE Tumbleweed, the project's rolling release edition, way wish to proceed with caution when it comes to upgrading the kernel this week. The openSUSE team is warning that a new kernel update could cause problems with some wireless networking cards. "The arrival of Linux Kernel 5.7.1 came in snapshot 20200612, which is also trending unstable at a rating of 76, and could affect people relying on iwlwifi. The next update should correct the issue." This advisory and other news relating to Tumbleweed can be found on openSUSE's news page.
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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) |
BSD versus Linux distribution development
Comparing-apples-to-BSDs asks: I was reading one of the old articles from the archive. One of the things mentioned was how the BSDs have a distinct approach in terms of packaging the base system relative to userland apps, and that the Linux distros at the time were not following the same practice. Are there Linux distros that have adopted the same approach in modern times? If not, are there technical limitations that are preventing them from doing so, such as some distros supporting multiple kernel versions maybe?
DistroWatch answers: In the article mentioned above, I made the observation that Linux distributions tend to take one of two approaches when it comes to packaging software. Generally a Linux distribution will either offer a rolling release, where virtually all packages are regularly upgraded to their latest stable releases, or a fixed release where almost all packages are kept at a set version number and only receive bug fixes for the life cycle of the distribution. Projects like Arch Linux and Void are popular examples of rolling, always-up-to-date distributions while Fedora and Ubuntu offer fixed platforms.
Basically, with few exceptions, Linux distributions all fell into those two categories where the rolling releases were constantly changing and fixed releases tended to fall behind (or out of date).
The BSDs, in contrast, tend to take an alternative approach. Operating systems like FreeBSD and OpenBSD provide a fixed core (or base) operating system. The base tends to be small, stable, and only changes in small evolutions on a set schedule. The cores of the main BSD branches are fixed. Meanwhile most applications which you can install on the BSDs (LibreOffice, Firefox, the desktop environment, etc) are kept up to date with their upstream versions. The base operating system is fixed and stable while the applications the user runs can be kept up to date with the latest and greatest. This allows the BSDs to offer close to cutting-edge applications without risking a routine update breaking the core of the operating system.
A big part of why the BSDs have this stable core (and updated third-party applications) while Linux distributions tend to take an all-or-nothing approach to version upgrades is the BSDs are developed with all the core operating system components as part of one large project. The FreeBSD kernel, command line tools, filesystems, and base libraries are all handled by the same team. Third-party applications (typically called ports) are made available by another team. In other words, FreeBSD is a whole operating system with almost all the key parts made by one organization.
Linux distributions, on the other hand, are mostly collections of third-party components that are wedded together and managed by a package manager. Debian and Slackware, for the most part, don't develop much of their own software. Most of the work these projects do is to take separate components and weld them together to make an operating system out of independently developed parts. The Linux kernel is made by one team, the core libraries by other teams, the installer by another team, the userland tools by yet another team - all of them operating with their own separate goals and schedules. Linux distributions are made up of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of packages made by teams other than the one publishing the distribution.
This means that Linux distributions do not have one core operating system with key components managed by one team. The kernel, C library, init software, and userland tools come from separate places and their updates are generally not coordinated. This makes it hard for Linux projects to maintain a small, static core while end-user applications get updated.
While difficult, it is not entirely unheard of for some Linux distributions to attempt to maintain a small, stable core platform while regularly updating desktop applications. Some projects take a semi-rolling release approach. If you have used PCLinuxOS or Chakra GNU/Linux you will have seen this in action. The kernel, lower level graphics libraries, and core tools tend to upgrade slowly while desktop applications are updated as new releases come out. Semi-rolling releases can work for a while, but eventually the core components need to "jump ahead" occasionally to keep up.
Some Linux projects attempt to make an image of an operating system and add third-party bundles or containers on top of them. The Fedora CoreOS distribution does this. It maintains a fixed core on which people can add containers or package bundles. The core system in this case is not necessarily fixed, but because it is updated as a whole (rather than as individual packages) the idea is that the core image should always work. The core image approach allows for faster upgrades and keeps the core system somewhat isolated from the applications running on it, but lacks flexibility compared to the semi-rolling and BSD approaches.
A more flexible, and increasingly common solution, is to have a minimum Linux distribution that runs portable packages, such as Flatpak or Snap packages. Portable packages ship with their own dependencies, making them independent of the core operating system and therefore able to update separately from the base distribution and they can be frequently upgraded. The base distribution can then act as a long-term support (LTS), fixed release that is rarely upgraded, much the same way the BSDs handle upgrades. Unfortunately, portable packages are often very large, do not integrate with the host desktop properly, and managing them requires a second package manager to be installed on the operating system.
One more solution is backports. A backport is an updated program which is built to run on an older, fixed-release distribution. Generally backports are kept in their own, separate package repository and added to LTS distributions such as CentOS, Debian or Ubuntu. A backport can be handled by the distribution's default package manager, which is convenient when compared to portable package solutions. However, backports are rarely well tested (compared to the core package repositories), and in my experience, frequently break things on the parent distribution. This makes backports flexible but adds risk of breaking functionality or dependencies on the base operating system.
In short, while there are technical hurdles (such as distributed development) which make it harder for Linux distributions to provide the same sort of base platform isolated from third-party applications, it is possible for Linux distributions to offer this approach. There are several solutions available, each with their strengths and weaknesses. None of these approaches is exactly the same as the BSDs, but some of them are similar and offer some of the same benefits.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Emmabuntüs DE3-1.02
Emmabuntüs is a lightweight, Debian-based distribution featuring the Xfce and LXQt desktop environments. the project's latest release is Emmabuntüs Debian Edition (DE) 3-1.02. The latest version is based on Debian 10.4 and swaps out the LXDE desktop for LXQt. "The LXQt environment which replaces LXDE, and is natively installed in the ISO and no longer needs a additional post-installation step; the web browser Falkon , which consumes only 1GB of RAM under LXQt; the inxi / inxi-gui utilities to improve the user support through our forum; the gThumb image viewer / organizer, replacing Nomacs, which allows you to easily manage your picture library; the SMTube application as well as the font-manager, mediainfo-gui and mdadm utilities for a better handling of our distribution; the KeePassXC and Onboard utilities to replace their obsoleted equivalents (KeePassX and Florence)." Further details and screenshots can be found in the project's release announcement.
CentOS 8.2.2004
Brian Stinson has announced the release of an updated build of CentOS, a Linux distribution build from the source code of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The new version, labelled as CentOS 8.2.2004, is available for the aarch64, ppc64le and x86_64 architectures. "We are pleased to announce the general availability of CentOS Linux 8. Effectively immediately, this is the current release for CentOS Linux 8 and is tagged as 2004, derived from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.2 source code. Updates released since the upstream release are all posted, across all architectures. We strongly recommend every user apply all updates, including the content released today, on your existing CentOS Linux 8 machine by just running 'dnf update'. As with all CentOS Linux 8 components, this release was built from sources hosted at git.centos.org. Sources will be available from vault.centos.org in their own dedicated directories to match the corresponding binary RPMs." See the release announcement and the detailed release notes for further information and known issues.
FreeBSD 11.4
Glen Barber has announced the release of FreeBSD 11.4, the latest (and final) stable update in the product's legacy branch. It will continue receiving security support until September 2021. "The FreeBSD Release Engineering team is pleased to announce the availability of FreeBSD 11.4-RELEASE. This is the fifth and final release of the stable/11 branch. Some of the highlights: the Clang, LLVM, lld, lldb and compiler-rt utilities as well as libc++ have been updated to upstream version 10.0.0; OpenSSL has been updated to version 1.0.2u; Unbound has been updated to version 1.9.6; the pkg(8) utility has been updated to version 1.13.2; the KDE desktop environment has been updated to version 5.18.4; the GNOME desktop environment has been updated to version 3.28; support for renaming ZFS bookmarks has been added; the certctl(8) utility has been added; several feature additions and updates to userland applications; warnings for features deprecated in future releases will now be printed on all FreeBSD versions.... See the release announcement and the release notes for further details.
Rescuezilla 1.0.6
Shasheen Ediriweera has announced the release of Rescuezilla 1.0.6, developed by a project which has given a new life to the abandoned "Redo Backup & Restore" distribution. The 64-bit edition of Rescuezilla 1.0.6 is based on Ubuntu 20.04, while the 32-bit variant is still derived from Ubuntu 18.04; both flavours feature tools for backing up and rescuing individual files or complete operating systems through a simple user interface. From the changelog: "Version 1.0.6 (2020-06-17). Added 64-bit edition (this fixes the slow transfer rates issue on systems with more than 16GB of RAM); added support for booting on EFI-only machines (including with Secure Boot enabled, 64-bit only); switched ISOLINUX bootloader to GRUB affecting all boot approaches: BIOS, EFI and CD-ROM; upgraded OS base to Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 'Focal' from 18.04 LTS 'Bionic' (64-bit only); Ubuntu 20.04 has dropped 32-bit edition, so Rescuezilla 32-bit remains based on Ubuntu 18.04; fixed issue preventing backup/restore of partitions smaller than typically 40MB; fixed broken GRUB backup affecting some 1MB-aligned file systems on MBR-formatted disks.... Please visit the project's home page at Rescuezilla.com for a complete list of features, screenshots and other useful information.
Rescuezilla 1.0.6 -- Running the LXDE desktop
(full image size: 117kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Robolinux 11.02
John Martinson has announced the release of Robolinux 11.02, an upgraded build of the project's Ubuntu-based distribution which integrates VirtualBox to run various guest operating systems within the main host. Despite the bump in the version number, the new release of Robolinux is still based on Ubuntu 18.04; its major new feature is an option to purchase a commercial application called "Untracker" which updates a computer's MAC address at every reboot or at selected intervals: "The Robolinux 'Untracker' series 11 operating systems also come with an entirely new set of modern icons. After extensive Ubuntu 20.04 code base testing we found that it was not stable enough to use at this time, so the Robolinux Series 11 versions are built around the robust Ubuntu 18.04 code base with an upgraded 5.3 Linux kernel which provides users with the newest hardware drivers and other important upgrades. The most important and useful feature of our new Series 11 release is the built-in Robo Untracker which makes it impossible for a PC or laptop to be contact-traced or tracked because it automatically changes all of your MAC addresses every time you reboot." Read the full release announcement for more details.
Oracle Linux 8.2
Oracle Linux, an enterprise-class server distribution built from the source code of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, has been updated to version 8.2. The announcement was actually made on 6th May, but the product's installation ISO image only appeared on public download servers yesterday. This release is the first in the 8.x series that installs Oracle's Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel (UEK) by default: "Oracle is pleased to announce the general availability of Oracle Linux 8 Update 2. Individual RPM packages are available on the Unbreakable Linux Network (ULN) and the Oracle Linux yum server. Starting with Oracle Linux 8 Update 2, the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 6 (UEK R6) is included on the installation image along with the Red Hat Compatible Kernel (RHCK). For new installations, UEK R6 is enabled and installed as the default kernel on first boot. UEK R6 is a heavily tested and optimized operating system kernel for Oracle Linux 7 Update 7, and later, and Oracle Linux 8 Update 1, and later." See the release announcement and the release notes for further information.
Calculate Linux 20.6
Alexander Tratsevskiy has announced the release of Calculate Linux 20.6, a new version of the project's Gentoo-based, rolling-release distribution set available in KDE Plasma, Cinnamon, LXQt, MATE and Xfce editions: "To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Calculate Ltd, we are pleased to unveil the new Calculate Linux 20.6 release. This new version provides numerous optimizations, namely shorter boot-up time, reduced memory requirements, and added pre-configured web browser extensions for Nextcloud support. Main changes: by default, Zram is used instead of the physical swap partition; Zstd compression for the kernel, the modules and initramfs; Linux kernel modules installed as packages come as Zstd archives too; PulseAudio is used by default, but you can choose ALSA if you like; Chromium comes with the pre-configured uBlock Origin plug-in; the Passman and FreedomMarks can be also added to your web browser...." Continue to the release announcement for a full list of changes and fixes.
Calculate Linux 20.6 -- The KDE Plasma desktop and application menu
(full image size: 699kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
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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. To share your own open source torrents of Linux and BSD projects, please visit our Upload Torrents page.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 2,032
- Total data uploaded: 32.3TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
Distributions supporting multiple init systems
We talked about the latest version of Devuan this week, one of a few distributions which strives to support using multiple init implementations. Some other distributions, such as MX Linux and Artix Linux also support running a variety of init systems. Some people appreciate the flexibility of these projects and how they can provide a number of ways to manage the boot process. Others see supporting multiple approaches as providing little benefit as most users do not interact directly with the init software and its low-level tools.
What do you think of projects like Devuan striving to offer a variety of init implementations for users to run?
You can see the results of our previous poll on tagging files in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Supporting multiple init systems
| I like being able to choose which init is installed: | 560 (37%) |
| I like having multiple init options at boot time: | 119 (8%) |
| I prefer to have my distro focus on one init: | 855 (56%) |
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| Website News (by Jesse Smith) |
New projects added to database
Rescuezilla
Rescuezilla is a specialist Ubuntu-based distribution designed for system rescue tasks, including backups and system restoration. It was forked from the "Redo Backup & Rescue" project which was abandoned in 2012. Like its predecessor, it allows a "bare-metal restore" after any hardware failure directly from the live image. Some of the features include: works directly from the live CD/USB image; works with Linux, macOS and Windows; automatically searches a local area network for drives to backup to or restore from; recovers lost or deleted data files; includes configuration tools for managing disk and drives. Rescuezilla uses a simplified LXDE user interface.
Rescuezilla 1.0.6 -- Running the LXDE desktop
(full image size: 117kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 29 June 2020. 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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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Devuan/Debian (by Myrtle on 2020-06-22 00:44:26 GMT from United States)
They both ran hot on my laptop and I could not resolve it despite a lot of searching and queries.
Had to go back to Arch.
2 • Poll options (by Anon on 2020-06-22 00:44:42 GMT from United States)
I’m curious how many prefer the ‘focus on one int’ option, as I do, but with the notable caveat of it not being systemd.
3 • Poll options (by bison on 2020-06-22 01:00:22 GMT from United States)
@2 I'd be OK with that, but I voted #1,
4 • Devuan Review (by Newby on 2020-06-22 01:01:58 GMT from Canada)
- Appreciate the timing of the review. Was going to download Devuan and have a look, but the review answered my questions about the distro and so saved a download and some work. Probably stick with Salix, MX, and occasionally Slackware.
- Which brings up question: Isn't Slackware waaaaaaaay overdue for a new release?
- Also, Devuan review mentions an "automatic update notifier". I see that in regular Salix install, but not Slackware. Not certain how that is implemented in Salix, so as to add same function to Slackware?
- And speaking of automatic update notifier, Salix has a nice feature where when something new is plugged in, an icon pops up confirming this, but it is NOT auto-mounted; you have to click to mount.
In MX, such items are automatically mounted. This can be disabled and one can manually mount a device, but it would be nice to know how to do it the Salix way in MX (ie- have an icon popup when a device is plugged in, but NOT automount it).
Any advice/suggestions appreciated
5 • init options (by Jeffrydada on 2020-06-22 01:13:00 GMT from United States)
I'm one of those guys who just doesn't care what init system my distro uses. Does the OS boot properly? Does it do what it needs to do so I can get to work and be productive with my chosen OS? If the answer is yes then I'm ok with whatever might be under the hood. There are many other criteria that I look at with an OS. I usually find myself running from a Debian/Ubuntu base because my recording studio software tends to run the best on that base. Systemd works for me, it boots my Ubuntu Studio into a Kde Neon desktop and Traction Waveform 11 runs flawlessly amd I record music. Mission accomplished. I don't ever ask myself "golly would sysvinit be a better option?" nope never crosses my mind. Sorry just not a deal breaker for me.
6 • Init systems (by Keith Stoneman on 2020-06-22 01:55:56 GMT from United States)
I prefer OpenBSD for a lot of reasons, including the code transparency and ability to understand exactly what is going on. I do use Linux distros also, and prefer anything but the systemd mess because it is so opaque and has sucked in so many subsystems and made them opaque as well. So the Linux distros I use generally either use SysV init or offer it as an option.
It's too bad Red Hat has taken over the Linux world to the point that it's almost impossible to escape their products. They have the same tendencies that made me abandon Windows over twenty years ago.
7 • Boot time init option (by Andy Prough on 2020-06-22 01:57:09 GMT from United States)
I really like the ability of MX to switch init systems at boot time, I wish we would see more of that from other distros.
8 • @4 MX like Salix (by Angel on 2020-06-22 02:09:24 GMT from Philippines)
"it would be nice to know how to do it the Salix way in MX (ie- have an icon popup when a device is plugged in, but NOT automount it)."
Menu > Settings > File Manager Settings > Advanced. Make sure "Enable Volume Management" is checked. Click on the "configure" link. Uncheck "mount" options. Keep "browse" option checked. Removable drive will show on Thunar side panel, but won't mount.
For a desktop icon: Menu > Settings > Desktop > Icons tab and check the box for Removable Devices below. You may have to scroll to see it.
9 • Poll question, Devuan (by randomly generated entity on 2020-06-22 03:32:57 GMT from United States)
I voted #1, but honestly I'm an agnostic when it comes to init. Like @5, as long as it works I'm fine with it, and I'm not an anti-systemd zealot, though I do understand some of the concerns. I've learned how to work with systemd now to the extent that I'm actually more comfortable juggling services, etc., with it than with other init systems. That said, I do appreciate those distros that doggedly stick to their way of doing things, particularly Gentoo, Void and Slackware, though the first does give the user the choice of systemd.
As for Devuan, I thought Jesse got it exactly right. It does what it does well, which is pretty much Debian without the supposed abomination of systemd. The default use of the barely maintained yet still functional wicd is unique, but that's about the only other difference between the two. I agree that the live Devuan installer is unnecessarily complicated and unfriendly. I probably would have opted for the DVD had I known that that essentially uses the Debian installer.
Mainly I wonder what the user base is for Devuan. Can there really be more than a few thousand folks planet-wide that refuse to use systemd yet demand a Debian-ish experience? Will this project have the momentum and manpower to survive? I wonder...
10 • Multiple init systems (by Wellenjäger on 2020-06-22 04:02:27 GMT from Russia)
I have Artix Linux installed on my PC. During several months I used it with s6 as it seemed to be faster and less greedy in resourses than other inits. But several crashes after updates prompted me to change to OpenRC. So I like the option to choose which init system to install.
Besides Artix, I have Void with runit and Devuan with SysVinit.
11 • choice of init systems (by Bobbie Sellers on 2020-06-22 04:14:33 GMT from United States)
As long as systemd is not the only choice.
Whether it is good or bad for Linux depends on ones point of view as i am a hobbyist who uses computer for practical things and who does not care for the complications which systemd seems to create..
An Enterprise which must demand absolute accountability and which is willing to pay for support and special projects might be happier with systemd.
bliss
12 • why switch inits (by Adina on 2020-06-22 04:29:36 GMT from United States)
Am I the only one that's not just ambivalent, but actually happy with systemd? Stats say no, but comments sections always beg to differ. If I switched to another init now, I'd have to figure out how to recreate a bunch of my startup scripts and timers without systemd. sure it's got a lot of code and does some things I don't need, but configuring it and writing new unit files is really easy and I have plenty of space on my drives (and real problems). Despite my history as a developer, I happily identify as a knowledgeable end user today, and at the end of the day I just want something that works and is easy to support, the same reason I use Arch.
13 • Devuan Review (by Darren on 2020-06-22 05:34:17 GMT from New Zealand)
I have used the Beowulf release and it was pretty nice to use. However like Buster which is the Debian equivalent su is really messed up because the paths are different which you will find in the release notes.
There is a work around but in its untouched state mucks up things like dpkg-reconfigure tzdata and gdebi-gtk.
Quote"The su command in buster is provided by the util-linux source package, instead of the shadow source package, and no longer alters the PATH variable by default. This means that after doing su, your PATH may not contain directories like /sbin, and many system administration commands will fail. There are several workarounds: "
Source: https://wiki.debian.org/NewInBuster
I do not understand the change as I can see no benefit. Wasted a lot of hours trying to find out how to fix it until I found the answer. To be honest I am disappointed in this release.
14 • Devuan 3.0 Look & feel (by Devuan 3.0 Look & feel on 2020-06-22 05:50:48 GMT from Singapore)
I understand Devuan does n't care much about look & feel. Still they spent effort on that to make it a boring red like color.
I wonder, why don't they try to make it look *good* when they are putting some effort on that, instead of making a dull color scheme.
15 • devuan vs debian (by Gary W on 2020-06-22 06:55:39 GMT from Australia)
I often wonder if there is any practical difference between running Devuan, and running Debian with one of the recipes for removing/replacing/disabling systemd.
Disclaimer: MX user.
16 • Devuan and runit (by Sondar on 2020-06-22 07:12:07 GMT from United Kingdom)
Always nice to have choices - even if they're irrelevant for the great unwashed. Voted 2., but 1. would also suit. Could be wrong, but thought the runit option flashed by when doing a web install?
17 • backports (by Reuben on 2020-06-22 07:14:57 GMT from United States)
Jesse notes that backports can introduce bugs into the system. Is this less likely to happen than with a rolling release?
18 • Linux and BSD core system packaging (by harbl on 2020-06-22 07:49:23 GMT from Philippines)
First of all, thanks to Jesse for the elaborate response. I emailed 2 different questions and didn't expect both of them to get featured on the weeklies. It's much easier, for me at least, to learn these things when I get an answer directly rather than gathering info from multiple sources and making my own interpretation about it.
The answer on the Q&A mentioned Fedora CoreOS. Is this different from Fedora Silverblue? From what I understand, it seems to me like Fedora CoreOS is more oriented towards server use, while Silverblue mentions that it's "a variant of the Fedora Workstation". Is CoreOS just a "server version" of Silverblue?
19 • @17 backports (by DaveT on 2020-06-22 08:18:20 GMT from United Kingdom)
With a rolling release any bugs in a package are hopefully found quickly and fixed quickly.
You use backports when you are running an LTS or similar stable release but there is some whizzo feature in the most recent release that you simply must have. Bug fixes might be a bit slower in backports.
If you find yourself running too many backported packages that is generally considered a bad thing.
Just upgrade your system to the latest version.
20 • devuan (by peer on 2020-06-22 08:28:34 GMT from Netherlands)
I just downloaded devuan-live and tried it on my old toshiba laptop.
Unfortunately my wifi adapter was not recognized (intel 2200BG).
But it run great.
21 • Devuan (by Rick on 2020-06-22 11:03:07 GMT from United States)
You said: "Devuan, to my mind, is a solid operating system." Really? I found it to be old and archaic with a very complicated and confusing installer which broke at the beginning of the install. To me it is completely unusable. There are much better distros to choose from!
22 • Devuan (by César on 2020-06-22 11:15:33 GMT from Chile)
¡Saludos a todos!
Well, i tried Devuan Beowulf (because i don't like "systemd" distros) the last days but...¡PROBLEMS!...first, the bluetooth never works, Gdebi don't works too, some repos are down (sometimes not), my Brother printer never recognize...well, is lightweight and fast, but is unable to use in my everyday HP computer, more problems than satisfactions. I hope the Devuan team fix this and others problems in the next future, because is not a "bad" distro, but must be polish for the average user.
Greetings from Santiago de Chile.
23 • @14: (by dragonmouth on 2020-06-22 12:36:59 GMT from United States)
"why don't they try to make it look *good*"
Define "look good". "Look good" is a matter of personal Taste. What looks great to you may look like an absolute abomination to someone else. Considering how easy it is to change the look of any DE or distro, it is irrelevant how they are configured initially.
24 • @8 MX like Salix (by Newby on 2020-06-22 12:44:53 GMT from Canada)
Thanks for tips. Looked at icons page several times, but kept missing that "Removable Devices" icon option. Didn't realize till you pointed it out, I hadn't scrolled to end of page. Problem solved.
25 • systemd (by Myrtle on 2020-06-22 13:42:30 GMT from United States)
The percentage of poll questions which inevitably lead to comments about init systems seems to be very high. And it began years ago. Sin embargo, no matter the poll question in dw weekly, the conversation here will quite likely have systemd discussion laced through it.
I find this interesting, and @6 (the last sentence) seems to supply us with a rather dark dynamic in the linux world having to do with that particular init and its influence on not just distros, but us.
26 • Voting (by Friar Tux on 2020-06-22 13:54:55 GMT from Canada)
I didn't actually vote as there was no 'It Doesn't Matter To Me' category. As mentioned by some others - so long as the OS works and works well, I don't really care 'what's under the hood'. I HAVE noted, however, that most of the non-systemd distros I've tested seem to have issues during and post install, while most of the systemd distros tend to run smoothly out-of-box. At my age, you tend to go by experience as opposed to what others say is good or bad.
As always, Linux is about choice. There's something for everyone - and if there isn't, you can build it. That's why I use Linux.
27 • @26 - You said it! (by Van Penguin on 2020-06-22 14:19:24 GMT from United States)
Man if there was a way to pin @26 to the top, we should do it.
When I get a call from my work, or a call in the middle of the night to fix an outage, I don't care whats under the hood. I just need a system that boots up and get me doing my job. So whatever my favorite distro decides to go with and they feel they can support that one the best, I'm onboard.
28 • @13, Darren (by barnabyh on 2020-06-22 14:51:39 GMT from Germany)
Thank you for that, last year I was wondering why Gdebi failed but didn't persist to check it out. My personal workaround was either to use the command line or fully log in to the root account, possibly both, for this one manual install.
Nice to have an explanation at last.
29 • SystemD - Not for everyone, but likely here to stay. (by Somewhat Reticent on 2020-06-22 16:26:24 GMT from United States)
SystemD is not an "init system", it's a system-management paradigm.
It's aimed at management of large numbers of systems.
That's normally a large-business use-case.
For some unusual cases, it also provides unique functionality.
(I have yet to see a human-readable implementation of the XML it uses)@21 So, just like DebIan, better you look at derivatives.
30 • Init systems and OSs (by TheTKS on 2020-06-22 16:30:43 GMT from Canada)
@26 “ I HAVE noted, however, that most of the non-systemd distros I've tested seem to have issues during and post install, while most of the systemd distros tend to run smoothly out-of-box.”
Once again, more evidence to me that everyone’s experience is highly dependent on their specific combination of hardware and software.
My experience is different. Both systemd and non-systemd distros/OSs have given me few but different installation and post-installation problems. I haven’t seen an advantage of one over the other in my usage.
I’m inclined to dislike systemd, but the systemd distros I use (Xubuntu and elementaryOS) function just fine for what I use them for.
On the other hand, the non-systemd distros/OSs (Slackware, OpenBSD, sometimes Puppies, occasionally TinyCore) are the ones I most enjoy using.
Didn’t vote since none of the options applied.
TKS
31 • Devuan (by curious on 2020-06-22 17:06:35 GMT from Germany)
I think those people that don't like systemd (for whatever reasons) would not see Devuan as a waste of time and energy.
No one is being forced to use Devuan. But there are obviously enought people interested to develop it. In Linux, that is reason enough for it to exist.
I am very glad that it exists, even though I don't use Devuan (or "pure" Debian). Having an alternative that works and does not use the latest corporate project is always a good thing, especially since so many distros have adopted systemd without questioning it.
32 • Devuan beowulf with runit-init as PID1 (by Head_on_a_Stick on 2020-06-22 17:57:27 GMT from United Kingdom)
@Jesse, I've written up a guide for you on the Devaun forums:
https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=3628
Great review btw, good work sir!
33 • systemd (by whoKnows on 2020-06-22 17:59:47 GMT from Switzerland)
@ curious
Maybe you'd better be learning than questioning.
You should look at it from another perspective: Init systems in Linux are just like species.
Inferior disappear and superior survive — just like with dinosaurs.
Will see if systemd is here to stay — the rest didn't.
By the way, does this help?
https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-use-journalctl-to-view-and-manipulate-systemd-logs
34 • runit (by Jesse on 2020-06-22 19:26:18 GMT from Canada)
@32: "@Jesse, I've written up a guide for you on the Devaun forums:"
That's great. I hope your guide makes it into the project's official documentation. I tested it out and it works like a charm.
Side note, the forum post makes a cheeky comment about how installing the runit-init package must have been "far too complicated" for me to figure out. Which is all in good fun. However, I'd like to point out my issue wasn't with the process being complicated, just that it was undocumented. And if someone tries to install "runit" instead of "runit-init" it doesn't work, which is likely to confuse people.
35 • Apology (by Head_on_a_Stick on 2020-06-22 19:55:52 GMT from United Kingdom)
@34: "Side note, the forum post makes a cheeky comment about how installing the runit-init package must have been "far too complicated" for me to figure out."
Ah, sorry about that, I shouldn't have posted that and it has been removed.
36 • @33 whoKnows: (by dragonmouth on 2020-06-22 21:32:22 GMT from United States)
Your analogy is not quite accurate. Species disappear or survive on their own merits. The existence, or lack thereof, of init systems is heavily influenced by whims of the developers. Many distro developers replaced their init systems with systemd in a lemming-like rush because it was a new shiny, not because the other init systems sucked.
37 • Devuan with runit-init (by Andy Prough on 2020-06-22 21:46:23 GMT from United States)
@32 - I left a response on the Devuan forum, but just wanted to say thanks - installing runit-init did it for me very easily. Seems to be working fine so far.
38 • @33, 36 lemmings and dinosaurs (by WhatMeWorry on 2020-06-22 22:02:12 GMT from United States)
So it's agreed. The anti-systemd developers are dinosaurs and the pro-systemd ones are lemmings. Glad we got that worked out.
39 • Init system preferences of lemmings and dinosaurs (by TheTKS on 2020-06-22 22:15:29 GMT from Canada)
@38 Well, that might be a milestone in the whole init-system... whatever it is.
Someone actually made a funny about it. Is that possibly the first humourous reference to it all?
I’m still inclined to dislike systemd, but that made me laugh.
40 • Lemmings and dinos (by Friar Tux on 2020-06-22 22:27:37 GMT from Canada)
@38 (WhatMeWorry) Actually, I was thinking it was the other way around. Lemmings were all following each other into systemd, and the dinos were the other, old, 'early age' inits . Still funny, either way.
41 • runit on Devuan (by nauved on 2020-06-22 23:53:02 GMT from United States)
runit as an init option on Devuan along with some other enhancements that didn't make it into 3.0 will be featured in a Beowulf point release hopefully coming soon. :)
42 • Probably #1 philosophically but #3 in practice (by Young Dinosaur on 2020-06-23 00:40:09 GMT from United States)
Have been working with Linux based systems for just over 20 years now and never had any problems debugging network issues until systemd showed up. Things that "just worked" on sysvinit seem to throw up obtuse and extremely hard to diagnose errors in my experience. I think sysvinit is old, insecure and needs to be phased out entirely if no one is willing to maintain it, but choice is a good thing and won't criticize someone for using systemd as long as they are happy. I work exclusively with OpenRC now and have had very few issues.
43 • BSD vs. Linux (by Jyrki on 2020-06-23 03:32:02 GMT from Czechia)
I use both.
My server, htpc and my prime laptop run Artix Linux (with OpenRC init). I am Artix users from the day it got created. And it's the reason why I am still running Linux.
And my other laptop runs OpenBSD and I like it more and more. If one day it would be impossilbe to switch from systemd to any other alternative on Linux, I will give up on it and use OpenBSD everywhere.
44 • Init Wars (by whoKnows on 2020-06-23 07:10:34 GMT from Switzerland)
@ 36
I hope that you noticed that you're saying nonsense. Your favorite init system was also created “by whims of the developers” and was also adopted “in a lemming-like rush” sometime in the past.
Some were used by few, others by many and some others disappeared.
It's all about the evolution — if species or init's.
Stronger will survive.
@ 38
“So it's agreed. The anti-systemd developers are “past” and the pro-systemd ones are “future”. Glad we got that worked out.”
There's nothing you (or I) can do to change it — can't stop the progress, can't stop the evolution ...
If systemd proves bad, it'll disappear and get replaced with some other, new init again.
However, it'll not happen just because you “love” it or “hate” it.
The time will tell.
@42
https://www.linux-magazine.com/Issues/2017/199/Systemd-Graphical-Tools
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/systemd
45 • Evolution? (by curious on 2020-06-23 09:55:55 GMT from Germany)
Darwinism is dangerous nonsense if applied to anything except biology.
Init systems are not "surviving" because they are weaker or stronger (whatever that may mean). The traditional init - as well as all the alternatives - will "survive" as long as somebody is willing to maintain it. However, that has nothing to do with strong or weak or evolution.
And please stop the name-calling. "Dinosaurs" and "Lemmings" were fun the first time, but its getting old already.
I find it quite odd that, although we're talking about free open-source software, some people seem very insistent that choice is unnecessary and that some kind of corporate-guided "evolution" must be followed by everyone.
If you like the newest toys from Redhat, thats fine - but respect those that don't.
46 • @44 and co-religionists (by WhatMeWorry on 2020-06-23 11:14:34 GMT from United States)
“So it's agreed. The anti-systemd developers are “past” and the pro-systemd ones are “future”. Glad we got that worked out.”
Please be so kind as to not put words in my mouth. For those suffering from humor deprivation, my post was meant to highlight the uselessness and silliness of this arguments, not to advance them. Yes, present company is included.
What next? Whether Gnome devs are a hostile alien species? Whether Arch forum members lurk in digital caves waiting to jump and bite unwary passing newbies in the ass?
Linux is a gift. Enjoy the variety, quitcharbellyaching and maybe offer thanks to Torvalds and the other Linux Gods for the unearned bounty, whether you be dimosaurishly or lemmingly inclined. (Thanks of the monetary variety are also welcomed by all sides of the "init wars," by the way.)
47 • Iinsistent that choice is unnecessary? (by whoKnows on 2020-06-23 11:22:13 GMT from Switzerland)
@45
"I find it quite odd that, although we're talking about free open-source software, some people seem very insistent that choice is unnecessary and that some kind of corporate-guided "evolution" must be followed by everyone. If you like the newest toys from Redhat, thats fine - but respect those that don't."
Where did I insist on using systemd or prohibiting you to use something else?
"Many distro developers replaced their init systems with systemd in a lemming-like rush because it was a new shiny, not because the other init systems sucked."
That quote comes from @36 • @33 (by dragonmouth)
"Evolution instead of revolution"
https://en.leica-camera.com/Photography/Leica-M/Leica-M10/Designed-and-made-in-Germany
evolve - to develop gradually, or to cause something or someone to develop gradually
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/evolve
https://www.discovertec.com/blog/evolution-of-technology
dinosaur (Synonym) - antiquated, archaic, out-of-date ...
https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/dinosaur
48 • systemd and choice (by Kerry on 2020-06-23 13:38:48 GMT from United States)
I object to the fact that systemd gets its hooks into everything to the point where you cannot switch it out without breaking your system. Debian and Arch no longer support any other init system. So yes, I choose to use Artix, MX Linux, Devuan, Gentoo and easy to install derivatives like Exgent, Redcore, Calculate Linux, Sabayon.
49 • The Arguments & The Verdict (by whoKnows on 2020-06-23 14:40:06 GMT from Switzerland)
Might be interesting reading for some.
The Arguments:
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/5n069y/why_do_people_not_like_systemd/
The Verdict
https://fossforce.com/2020/02/the-verdict-on-systemd-is-in/
"The resistance to systemd has not died with this decision, of course. Distrowatch continues to list one hundred distributions that do not use systemd — a minority, but a large and determined one. Those opposed to systemd still have plenty of choice, including Debian derivatives like Devuan and Knoppix.
But if cautious, ultra-democratic Debian can opt to retain systemd, then it seems here to stay for the foreseeable future."
50 • 25 • systemd (by Myrtle) non-Systemd (by Vern on 2020-06-23 17:00:03 GMT from United States)
Yes, I agree. the init debate will never end. Its not much different than your favorite sports team, or politics.
I tried a few of the non-Systemd distros. I dismissed them not because of non-Systemd , but the distro didn't preform as expected or the "frond end" was not for me or any other areas I didn't like or were just so-so.
I use my computer to actually do things. I spend ZERO amount of time thinking how glad I am using this init over Systemd.
I run Office for various tasks, VLC for my video, or MPV. I play a few board games. Check up on my finances, among countless other ventures.
Which begs the question: Do those that harp on Systemd actually USE their computer for any productive work!
If they name a non-Systemd distro their using, in the same breath they feel the need to berat Systemd. People that I find using Systemd, just use their system without further comment, or they don't comment at all.
All my systems use Systemd, but I'm not disrespecting any other init system. I'm much more interested in how the distro I use performs. I'm not in the least interested in the boot process, what PID is running, what process is now running.
All my Systemd OS's run as fast or faster than the other init systems I've tried. In the end, I use my computer to do work or play.
51 • init wars..... (by Titus_Groan on 2020-06-23 19:24:05 GMT from New Zealand)
and here I was, thinking that we had groan up a bit and agreed to disagree over systemd (pun intended)
looking forward to next years init intermittent warfare.
if it works for me, great, if something else works for you, great too.
have I used both (sysV and systemd), yes, and that is not a problem either.
52 • Iinit system, whatever (by OstroL on 2020-06-23 19:45:37 GMT from Poland)
I agree with Vern @50, I use my computer to do work or play. Of course, I sometimes tinker with a distro, creating a live iso, but that's play more than work. Also, my laptop boots in 13 seconds to the login screen and the login is instantaneous. So, who cares about an init system that I don't even notice. For fun, I once played around with Devuan, when it started happening, even created an live iso, which is even noted at the Devuan web site. One of the first such live isos. Then, I dropped the idea, for it is much easier to create with Debian. Oh, sure, I use my computer for work and play.
These all the work is done on the 'net, except for few installed apps such as GIMP, VLC. I use MS Office online, when the need arises. take screenshots straight from the web browser. Most of the installed apps are just taking space, rarely used. There's always an equivalent app in the web. All I need is a fully fledged browser like Opera or Vivaldi, and the keyring to encrypt the passwords.
Google was right in creating the Chromebook that web is the future, but was wrong in not allowing other browsers in.
53 • Devuan Review: Broken SU (by Darren on 2020-06-24 05:20:43 GMT from New Zealand)
@barnabyh
The Refracta Dev (A Derivative of Devuan) came up with this fix.
Create a file called su in /etc/default
add this line
ALWAYS_SET_PATH yes
su will work as normal once you reboot.
Yes I sympathise I wasted a lot of time on this wondering wtf. Again Debian never have released Buster with this breakage.
54 • congratulations (by Tim on 2020-06-24 11:10:04 GMT from United States)
I have to congratulate the DW community for one of the tamest discussions of systemd in recent years. I thought that poll question was going to blow up.
At the end of the day I just want distros like Devuan to be looked at as other options. I don't really care about my init system, but the strength of open source software is that we have options. I don't use MATE because I hate GNOME 3, I use it because I like GNOME 2.
55 • Why hate? (by noClue on 2020-06-24 11:37:56 GMT from Switzerland)
I find all those pro/against systemd discussions quite unnecessary. It kinda reminds of religious wars.
The situation is actually pretty clear: every important Linux Distribution adopted systemd with reason.
Big companies are financing the Linux development and are developing what they need.
People who must or need to use systemd, learned how to use it.
Most ordinary users usually don't need to fiddle with init's and don't care much what init their Distro is using.
The small number of those who need to fiddle with init's, but refuse to learn are the minority.
They have a choice either to learn on how to use it or to install something non-systemd.
I can hardly understand, why does it need so much hatred.
56 • why not have the best of both worlds (by fonz on 2020-06-24 11:54:41 GMT from Indonesia)
selected #2, i like having mult opts. thankfully mx linux works well with dodging bullets. ive tried multiple systems, and honestly i felt systemd worked the best for me, but im leaning towards not liking systemd. mx really does great at juking here, since ive also tried a bunch of network managers, and none (ime) worked as easily as gnome network manager thing...
sooner or later systemd might patch the hell out of the workarounds antix/mx do -_-
57 • Missing poll options (by CS on 2020-06-24 13:13:24 GMT from United States)
(4) I avoid systems (and people) who have not adopted the systemd standard.
58 • "evolution" (by Otis on 2020-06-24 13:51:55 GMT from United States)
Yeah, let's assign the evolution concept to the things and changes we agree with and like, leaving those OTHERS to the trash heap of primitive ideas long since discarded.
The inventors of modern marketing and weapons have always done that; let's do it with systemd, too.
59 • Web is the FUTURE! and Chromebooks (by TheTKS on 2020-06-24 14:07:12 GMT from Canada)
@52 OstroL
"all the work is done on the 'net, except for few installed apps such as GIMP, VLC. I use MS Office online, when the need arises... Most of the installed apps are just taking space, rarely used. There's always an equivalent app in the web... Google was right in creating the Chromebook that web is the future"
I sure hope web is not the *only* future. I expect there will always be demand for devices with local apps that work when unconnected, sometimes on devices that are always unconnected.
I use Microsoft online (Office365), too, for work. Some of its apps and features are very good for my needs, but many aren't, or are often slow or cumbersome even though our network at the office is almost always fast enough and not bottlenecked. They also make unexpected changes to files and features that confuse users.
Outlook Online doesn't come close in usability to the Outlook desktop app for me and for many others. I'm glad it's there to use as a backup if the Outlook desktop app loses its brains (happens once in awhile) or my main machine is unavailable.
Now a Chromebook rant. They have other problems, too, in my view.
First, while Chromebooks are very usable, I warned my family to consider anything they do on them as becoming co-owned by Google.
Second, limited OS lifetime of 6.5 years (I missed that in the list of "features" in their marketing material.) I didn't know when I bought my first (and last) one that it was already an "old" design, released 3¼ years earlier.
After 3¼ years, my Chromebook will no longer get security updates. So not to junk usable hardware, I am looking at how to install another OS that can get security updates, probably a Linux, maybe a BSD. The time that I will have to spend doing that is making the original price look much less attractive. Live and learn.
TKS
60 • Reality check of how the init war "victory" was engineered (by nauved on 2020-06-24 14:42:31 GMT from United States)
In this brilliant post on the Debian user forum - "Combatting revisionist history" - dasein crunched the numbers and put to rest the idea that systemd won the day with the first GR vote in 2014:
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=120652
"But here's the thing, and there is just no getting around it. Once you eliminate the ass-covering "no GR required" amendment, “systemd is a bad idea, the only real question is how bad” didn't place third.
It placed first. By a substantial margin.
Conversely, “systemd is a good idea” didn't place first.
It placed last."
And there you have it folks.
61 • DebIan GR (by Somewhat Reticent on 2020-06-24 15:15:51 GMT from United States)
Many DebIan code developers get $upport from large-Enterprise businesses.
Once a (pointy-hair?) boss was sold by some visionary on a new paradigm for automating system management, a putsch was pretty much inevitable.
The question wasn't if. It was about whether to burn bridges.
Whether the same disciplines Linus applies to kernel code will be brought to bear on the new system-management paradigm remains to be seen. Only time will tell.
62 • A variant of Godwin's Law (by Cheker on 2020-06-24 19:00:51 GMT from Portugal)
@25 @50
Poeterring's Law - as an online discussion about Linux grows longer, the probability of it derailing towards systemd approaches 1.
63 • Discussion (by M.Z. on 2020-06-24 22:33:08 GMT from United States)
I enjoy this discussion on init. It is indeed very tame by systemd related standards. As with some others, I just use whatever & rarely notice any difference. My one big tip on avoiding systemd related problems:
If you want to install a systemd based distro from one computer onto the hard drive of another make sure to disconnect all the HDD connections aside from the one you're installing on. This avoids a fat boring & ugly 90 second hang at the start of every boot caused by systemd looking for things on other hard drives (mostly swap partitions I think).
Other than that one caveat, use what works for you and have fun.
64 • @59 ex-chromebooks (by pengxuin on 2020-06-25 20:28:04 GMT from New Zealand)
have a look here:=> https://mrchromebox.tech/
I have 3 ex chromebooks, 2 with HDD and one with eMMC.
be aware that you may have to "tinker" with the Coreboot bios to boot up your installed system as some distros and Coreboot disagree as to where grub goes.
install of Coreboot bios is pretty straight forward, just be sure the device is supported before you start.
hardware wise, the ex chromebooks should be fully supported by a late model kernel.
most distros will just install and go, if UEFI capable.
good luckl
65 • ex-chromebooks (by TheTKS on 2020-06-26 16:26:12 GMT from Canada)
@64 pengxuin
https://mrchromebox.tech/
Thanks, I saw that site a few months back but had forgotten about it.
I was thinking of installing Debian, Slackware or OpenBSD, and wasn't thinking of Kodi, but will have another look at this and Kod's website.
I'm limited in OS choices, since it's 32-bit ARM, RK3288 based.
A couple of other sources I've looked at so far.
https://github.com/nikolas-n/GNU-Linux-on-Asus-C201-Chromebook
https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Asus/C201
Somewhere among those I expect I can find something that will work.
TKS
66 • SystemD (by fire breathing rooster on 2020-06-27 02:48:16 GMT from Austria)
I actually prefer distros with systemd. I've never experienced a problem with it. ( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡°)
67 • no systemd problems (by Otis on 2020-06-27 17:04:54 GMT from United States)
@66 Analogy: You likely noticed no problems with Bill Gates purchasing Best Buy shelf space once legitimately vied for by SuSeLinux, TurboLinux, RedHat, et al so that only Windows could be populated in those spaces, resulting in a 98% market share for an inferior operating system. Windows works okay, right?
68 • Who Needs Devuan. Use Star (by Sid the Kid on Star on 2020-06-27 21:40:18 GMT from United States)
I have been using computers before Debian came out. I knew some of the first geeks who started programming for Debian while I was still trying to figure out Yggdrasil Linux/GNU/X. Since that time I have used many Linux distros and some BSDs, so I have some idea of what I think is better that the next one down the road. I used Devuan when it first hit the scene, but then after a couple of updates (2.0), it didn't work out so well. For instance, it wouldn’t boot at all. I tried it on another laptop, and I got the same results, so not wanting to use Debian or the other systemD controlled distros, I decided to try the Devuan offshoots, and I settled on Star. No problem.
Some time later, more recently that is, out of curiosity, I tried Devuan 3.0, and lo and behold, it did the same thing as Devuan 2.0. I'm sticking to Star. It’s the bare essentials, and you can add anything you want from the Devuan repository without any hassle. Star shines bright. There are very few things of anything out there that do the trick outside of individual taste.
69 • Init (by Walt R. on 2020-06-28 18:57:07 GMT from United States)
Have never used SystemD, and from what I have read It seems to be multi-layered complication that I do not want to mess with. After using Slackware for many years I really like its BSD init. It took some time to get used to, yet is is less complicated than System V.
Not looking to start an argument!
Thanks,
Walt R.
70 • @69 • Init -Doesn't Slackware use SysV? (by Elcaset on 2020-06-28 20:25:46 GMT from United States)
According to Distrowatch, Slackware does use System V.
71 • Slackware Init (by Jesse on 2020-06-28 21:06:15 GMT from Canada)
@69: "After using Slackware for many years I really like its BSD init. It took some time to get used to, yet is is less complicated than System V."
Slackware does use SysV init. However, the scripts/configuration are arranged differently than on most other Linux distributions. If you have used SysV init on Debian and on Slackware they might feel entirely different. SysV is very flexible and you can do all sorts of different configurations with it. It can use shell scripts, BSD-style init, run executables directly, run jobs in parallel...
Usually when people talk about SysV complications or limitations they're talking about the approach one specific distro (like Debian or Fedora) used. Not limitations or features caused by SysV itself.
For example, two of the big features people see as selling points of systemd are cgroups and parallel service starts. SysV has had parallel service starts for ages. And you can use cgroups with SysV, it just isn't baked into PID1. Likewise, some people don't like that SysV uses shell scripts, but that's a feature of the individual distro, you can use unit files, BSD-style config files, or run executables directly from SysV if you want. It's just most distros do not.
72 • SysV init (by Elcaset on 2020-06-28 23:30:36 GMT from United States)
Thanks, Jesse. I had no idea how flexible SysV init is.
73 • Init (by Jesse on 2020-06-29 00:01:16 GMT from Canada)
@72: "Thanks, Jesse. I had no idea how flexible SysV init is. "
My pleasure. To be fair one of the reasons SysV init is so flexible is that it doesn't really do much. When SysV switches runlevels (usually a fancy way of saying it is starting up or shutting down), it basically just runs a program specified in its configuration file. That program could be, and usually is, a script. But it can be an executable program, a service manager (like OpenRC) or anything, really. SysV init doesn't care, it just runs the program/script and considers its job done.
SysV init tries to be very small and simple. All the logic of running scripts in parallel or working out dependencies or cgroups is handled by other, helper programs. Typically "startpar" to run jobs in parallel, "insserv" to work out dependencies, and scripts or a service manager to handle starting/stopping services. SysV init's strength (and weakness) is in being so small and uninvolved that it doesn't so anything, allowing the distro developers to throw in whatever logic or tools they like. The init process just signals start-up, shutdown, and reaps zombies.
Number of Comments: 73
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