Security Updates Released for Debian 8 and 7 (debian.org) 76
An anonymous reader writes: The Debian Project just released Debian 8.5, which adds 65 security updates to the stable release. They're also releasing the final update to Debian 7 (codenamed 'wheezy'), which includes "all other security updates released during the lifetime of 'wheezy' that have not previously been part of a point release."
They're emphasizing that each of the new updates "does not constitute a new version...but only updates some of the packages included. There is no need to throw away old...CDs or DVDs but only to update via an up-to-date Debian mirror after an installation to cause any out of date packages to be updated."
They're emphasizing that each of the new updates "does not constitute a new version...but only updates some of the packages included. There is no need to throw away old...CDs or DVDs but only to update via an up-to-date Debian mirror after an installation to cause any out of date packages to be updated."
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Re:Is the systemd problem fixed? (Score:4, Insightful)
One major bug affecting Debian 8 is how systemd is the default init system,
You might not like it, you might think it's a stupid decision, you might call it a misfeature, but it's not a bug.
and it's not at all easy to switch to another init system (like sysvinit, or OpenRC, or one of the many other alternatives).
Switching to sysvinit is very easy: apt-get install sysvinit-core and reboot. While I personally use systemd and am quite happy with it, I've done this many times to test stuff.
OpenRC was never really supported in Debian (also not previous versions), because nobody did the work to get it there. They can still do so for Stretch btw., if they are really interested. Nobody has stepped up enough yet, though. Only switching to Upstart is non-trivial, but that's mainly the fault of the Upstart maintainers in Debian not caring about it anymore. (And that doesn't surprise me: as much criticism as systemd gets, there are quite a few people that actually like it; and I have yet to meet a single person that likes upstart, save for its developers.)
There have been many serious problems affecting systemd.
Like many other core pieces of software, any problem in there will have serious consequences. I've had far more trouble with the kernel and Xorg than with systemd, and I still use those.
For example, about a week ago we learned how a systemd change broke critical programs like screen and tmux [slashdot.org].
Which will never affect Debian stable, because Debian stable will keep the systemd version with which it was first released, with potential bugfixes backported - like any other package in Debian stable.
That said, the example you chose is not really clear-cut: I really want there to be a mechanism to clean up after user sessions (I've had enough software misbehave in stupid ways and leaving processes running around that caused trouble), so the change in systemd there is not a bad thing in and by itself. The problem here is that you should be able to explicitly leave some processes running in the background. But any solution to that (regardless of whether it has to do with systemd or not) would mean that you'd need to modify the legitimate use cases to use some hook to say "yeah, I need to stay around", whereas all the other programs should then be killed. (Alternatively, you can stick your head in the sand and pretend that left-over processes aren't a legitimate problem, which is what I've seen a lot of people do, because they reflexively react to the name "systemd".) Btw. just because systemd upstream changed a default setting, doesn't mean distributions have to follow. (And I'm not saying that systemd upstream is necessarily right here; it might have been better to first get support for this into screen, tmux etc. and then switch the default.) The current systemd package in Debian unstable doesn't change the default, btw.
Clearly a large segment of the Debian community is troubled enough by systemd and its implications, given how the Devuan distribution was forked from Debian [slashdot.org].
To me that looks more like a small, but very vocal, minority. I had the impression that most Debian users just don't care that much about the init system. But perceptions can vary, obviously.
If other Linux distros, like Gentoo, can easily support multiple non-systemd init systems [gentoo.org], then why doesn't Debian?
You're shifting the goal post: first you complain that systemd is the default, then you complain that Debian doesn't support alternatives? By virtue of definition something that is the defau
Re:Is the systemd problem fixed? (Score:5, Insightful)
systemvinit is far from perfect, especially from the point of view of many maintainers, so it can equally be called a bug plan and simple.
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honest question, what's wrong with sysvinit?
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honest question, what's wrong with sysvinit?
Its a bunch of unstructured shell scripts with little in the way of dependency management.
its a bit like the Debian pre-inst/post-inst system used in the dpkg packages, which are very primitive compared to the rpm format. For example, in rpm you can get a list of all the permissions and ownerships of the files installed, what they are supposed to be and this comes from the package management system itself, 'for free'. To figure this out in dpkg its a shell script debugging problem. I imagine that the system
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systemvinit is far from perfect, especially from the point of view of many maintainers, so it can equally be called a bug plan and simple.
But its imperfections are very well understood. That counts for a LOT.
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Maybe you have the ability to understand all the imperfections of all the systemvinit packages scripts across all the distribution. Kudo to you, because very clearly the vast part of the packages maintainers have given up with systemvinit and applause loudly the huge architectural progress that systemd bring on the table.
As a user and as a embedded system designed I also found systemd far more in line with my expectation about how a system should work. In fact I have see for more than 10 years different emb
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When your design a embedded system you will be more than happy to have a standard file format to manage all the applications that the system run, including the application provided by the distribution, the applications you code, and the application provided by others parties. This not only make a common language but allow to manage globally all the applications with a simple and powerful tool. Because systemd take care of the dependencies, the reliability is far better and if something go wrong there it's e
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What's count even more against systevinit is there total inability to understand and fix there decades long imperfections even when users and maintainers have loudly complained about since so many years !
Even the creation of upstart was not taken seriously by systemvinit fans. It was a full red master alarm: if systemvinit don't move it will be dead in a few years. Systemvinit hasn't moved at all. Enjoy systemvinit death, at least on major Linux distributions.
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And I've had numerous cases in the past where due to the fact that the bunch of scripts that come with sysvinit don't have any kind of limits behind them (especially time limits), a system (headless, to make it worse) would get stuck during shutdown and never properly reboot.
At least from my experience, booting has been much more consistently reliable with systemd than without. I used to dread having to reboot headless servers before systemd, just because I was never quite sure whether they'd come up again.
Re: Is the systemd problem fixed? (Score:4, Insightful)
The saddest thing about systemd is not systemd itself, but rather how it highlights the big problems of the Linux "community". People, init systems were a solved problem more than a decade ago. Can we spend all this wasted time and effort on something that actually does need major improvement and that a significant amount of users actually care about instead? Pretty please?
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People, init systems were a solved problem more than a decade ago.
Really? Best I can tell people have been spending the best part of several decades attempting to fix systemd, from the numerous programs to combat the fact that it was missing functionality, to the many groundup re-writes. It is only 2015 when people finally standardised on one of the very VERY many replacements that have been attempted.
People who say the problem was "solved" long ago, don't understand the problem, don't understand the context of the requirement, or just plain want to stick their fingers in
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As pretty much an end user and small time admin of two or three boxes, I don't care what init system my distro of choice (Debian for servers, Mint for desktop/laptop fwiw) cares to use, as long as a proper job is done of configuring it so it actually works.
My only concern was for the binary logging, simply because that seems so "un-linux-like" but since Debian ships things to be dual logged or have the logs redirected to their traditional plain text locations/format it is really a non-issue. At least for m
Re: Is the systemd problem fixed? (Score:5, Insightful)
I could agree with this, but my problem is upstream. The systemd folks keep breaking or changing things that were once standard, documented and could be counted on. Most recent on slashdot was breaking the backgrounding of processes. Given the creation of an 'su' function I'm waiting for su, sudo and the like to be declared broken and for the accompanying posix calls to be superseded by function in libsystemd.
My product had our (once) portable init script broken in RHEL7.2 by a systemd change that now declares that the init.d script cannot be a symlink to the product installation area. This worked in RHEL 7.1 with systemd and with prior releases and other (pre-systemd) distributions. Yet another gentle nudge to doing things the systemd way, or else.
If I trusted upstream to maintain a interface that could be made portable I'd be less resistive to systemd. It provides some good features, even if the architecture is awful. A sane, portable re-implementation for be made once the current architecture shows its problems. But a re-implementation won't be possible with an upstream that breaks compatibility without a second thought.
The fact that the community has accepted this so willingly makes me dread the day that Linus gives up the reigns of the kernel. It's not unlikely that we'll wind up with the kernel being led by a twit, a push over or a committee.
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Most recent on slashdot was breaking the backgrounding of processes.
Which is disabled by a simple option in the config file. Which Debian has done, btw.
My product had our (once) portable init script broken in RHEL7.2 by a systemd change that now declares that the init.d script cannot be a symlink to the product installation area
Really? Are you sure? I just tried that and it works.
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Most recent on slashdot was breaking the backgrounding of processes.
Which is disabled by a simple option in the config file. Which Debian has done, btw.
Yes, but I won't how long until this non-default config breaks something else. I don't trust them.
My product had our (once) portable init script broken in RHEL7.2 by a systemd change that now declares that the init.d script cannot be a symlink to the product installation area
Really? Are you sure? I just tried that and it works.
Yes. From https://bugzilla.redhat.com/sh... [redhat.com]
"Note that the real location of the init script must be on the partition that is mounted in the initial ramdisk (initrd)"
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My product had our (once) portable init script broken in RHEL7.2 by a systemd change that now declares that the init.d script cannot be a symlink to the product installation area.
This was a bug that had been fixed: https://github.com/systemd/sys... [github.com]
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I can see how if you are supporting/developing a package for internal or public use that dealing with that type of change would be problematic.
But it is also the same situation hardware manufacturers who don't provide completely open (or do, but don't maintain) code are in regarding Linux kernel code and having a standard ABI to work against. For an example of this look at NVidia proprietary drivers. And sure, you can argue that they are proprietary drivers, but as a non-Stallmanite I'm OK with a closed dr
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I guess I've always assumed the bar for maintaining interface stability for users space was much higher. The interface line has always been between kernel and users space. I'm not ready to give that line up to the systemd team. But we have to support our users so we don't get to choose. So I try to make sure lapses don't go unnoticed in the hopes that systemd culture might change with enough "gentle nudging" from the community.
And I've never been what I would call a Stallmanite either, but seeing where
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One major bug affecting Debian 8 is how systemd is the default init system, and it's not at all easy to switch to another init system (like sysvinit, or OpenRC, or one of the many other alternatives).
Its very easy to remove systemd from Debian 8
http://without-systemd.org/wik... [without-systemd.org]
I do this ALL the time, never have problems.
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The problem is not as so much as systemd being the "default". The problem is in upgrades or installations, being forcefully "upgraded" or having systemd installed without recourse or choice. Lets see if pinning will keep on working in Debian 10...
I haven't seen any problems with things getting 'unpinned' so far, it works fine. It is possible Debian 10 may have no sysvinit at all but hey by that time I hope my network will be mainly docker containers and I won't have to worry about the hosts so much.
Thank You! Debian team(s) (Score:3, Insightful)
A heart-felt Thank You to all contribuitors of the Debian project - your work is driving many platforms all across the world.
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except they've chosen to go the path of stupidity and needless complexity by switching to systemd. what a shame, giving idiots megaphones
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"Everybody" ? It's your personal nickname ?
Time for the FreeBSD migration to begin. (Score:1, Interesting)
If this is the final update to Debian 7, then it's just about time for the FreeBSD migration to begin.
It's no secret that many Debian users have experienced significant problems with systemd since it became the default in Debian 8 "jessie".
These problems include Linux installations which no longer boot properly due to various problems with systemd.
So some Debian users have chosen to remain on Debian 7 as long as possible in order to avoid systemd.
Now that the days of Debian 7 appear to be coming to an end,
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Sounds like the niche of devuan is exactly the requirements of those dissatisfied with the introduction of systemd. It gives security updates, is based on jessie and is as mature as that is, more so as it doesn't include systemd (which is far from mature).
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Hmm, but has Devuan found any reasons why systemd is bad [archive.org] (Devuan's VUAs recommend this thread and this particular author in their interview with Distrowatch [distrowatch.com])?
I mean, sure, many Devuan users found these convincing, but I would prefer some fact-based discussions.
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100% Completely agreed. My company has been almost purely a Debian house for over a decade now, but we started to integrate FreeBSD into the mix a couple years back because of better ZFS support. And now with Debian becoming more and more of a problem for us to maintain now, we're exploring the option of migrating 100% over to FreeBSD. We only have 2 or 3 packages that are not ported over at this time that we use, and that's all that is holding us up now, the biggest of which being Galera support for MariaD
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Ha, interesting, troll and funny. I'd have modded you insightful. I'll probably have to stay off /. for a few days to avoid the responses I'm going to get but what the heck.
I've started using slackware at home for hobby stuff, slackware at work where simple is enough and OpenBSD where I need security. I have a few Debian 7 boxes around still but they are all due to be phased out and replaced by OpenBSD. I love slackware and will continue to use it as long as I can, it always was closer to BSD than a lot of
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Score 0 is what ACs get by default.
I guess there just isn't much to say about this story, debian point releases are not exactly massively interesting things. So all that's left are those with an axe to grind about Debian in general.
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at least two civilized/on-topic/relevant/informative/insightful comments [that one [slashdot.org] and that one [slashdot.org]] have been modded down to -1 for some unknown reason.
If you don't understand why obvious trolls get modded the way they do when discussing off topic garbage that is not at all relevant to the article then there's no helping you.
Something is clearly wrong when a story has 10+ comments, yet none are shown by default
No the comment moderation system works as intended. When people start posting stuff relevant, informative, and interesting and others start modding it up, then you can see it. Someone needs to post something worth reading for that to happen. Plus it's Sunday, all you get here is bored shitposters today while sensible people are out enj
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