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Debian Open Source Linux

Systemd-Free Devuan Linux Announces A Second Release Candidate (devuan.org) 122

Posted by EditorDavid from the Init-Freedom dept.
An anonymous reader quotes The Register: Devuan Linux has released its second release candidate... A 1.0.0 release candidate emerged just under a fortnight ago and today the developers announced Devuan Jessie 1.0.0 RC2. New in this cut of the code is a systemd-free version of network-manager, new versions of reportbug, desktop-base and xfce4-panel. GNOME, KDE, and Cinnamon have been removed from tasksel, but can still be installed although they "are known to suffer from some glitches due to the lack of systemd."
The Devuan web site says this series of release candidates "marks an important milestone towards the sustainability and the continuation of Devuan as a universal base distribution." And their announcement describes Devuan as "the Debian that was and could have been. Our goal is to provide a viable and sustainable alternative...a new path, nurtured with your help and support."
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Systemd-Free Devuan Linux Announces A Second Release Candidate More

Systemd-Free Devuan Linux Announces A Second Release Candidate

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  • systemd (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Graybeards yelling at clouds

    Like... I understand not wanting all the cruft that comes with systemd, but as an init system it's absolutely fabulous! I know Debian tends to be the bastion of never change anything ever and I'm hardly surprised that "Debian makes decision to change something" was met with hostility. Regardless I think this whole thing is a bit ridiculous. Rather than forking ALL OF DEBIAN so you can keep sysvinit, why not fork systemd to use only the init? Hell, you could even have it use the h

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by dreamchaser ( 49529 )

      Sometimes people have valid reasons to not like change or anything different than their favorite [fill in the blank], and sometimes it's just akin to religious zealotry. Mac vs PC vs Linux is another good example. I find it all to be vaguely amusing.

      • Re:systemd (Score:4, Insightful)

        by yeupou ( 785585 ) on Saturday May 06, 2017 @10:32AM (#54367661) Homepage

        And sometimes people using GNU/Linux since 20 years and know what they want and are not up to some change that decreased their productivity for benefits that does not matter to deal.

        What is even a Mac vs PC vs Linux since all these are PC-based nowadays? I find bad choice of words vaguely amusing.

        • Re:systemd (Score:4, Insightful)

          by TWX ( 665546 ) on Saturday May 06, 2017 @11:15AM (#54367825)

          This is where I'm at, my first Slackware box would be old enough to drink at this point.

          On top of the issue of experience, I've got actual dead-tree books describing UNIX SystemV and BSD inits, which Linux's inits were derived from or outright copied from. In other words, documentation. I can actually RTFM if I need to, as I have the "FM" on my shelf.

          • This is where I'm at, my first Slackware box would be old enough to drink at this point.

            #metoo. Slackware 2.0 on a 386DX25 with 8MB/120MB. A, N, D, and most of the X set would fit with room left over for 8MB of swap. And it was plenty :) I just bumped my carputer up from 2GB to 8GB because 2GB was too little...

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by TWX ( 665546 )

              Mine was a Cyrix clone, a 40MHz 486 with math coprocessor and 8MB RAM, a partition on a 420MB hard disk shared with DOS and Windows. The motherboard was unusual, it had sockets for both 386 pinout and 486 pinout processors; and if I'm remembering right the Cyrix processor went into the 386 socket and there was a placeholder chip in the 486 socket.

              For several years my normal process was to upgrade the Linux box with the old Windows box's hardware when I'd build a brand new Windows box. So the Linux box bec

            • Those were the daze... I started with Slackware in 1994, on a 486DX2-66 with 8Mb of ram, Hercules mono video and an amber monitor. After I got the scads of floppies made and got the basic OS installed using the Herc mono video, I scrounged up a EGA monitor and if I remember correctly a Tseng Labs EGA card, and *tried* to get XFree86 configured correctly and get a GUI up and running.. What Fun!! I'll admit I managed to "release the magic smoke" on the first monitor trying to get the modelines set right.. Aft

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Kazymyr ( 190114 )

              486DX50 (yes not DX2) on Octek Hippo DCA2 motherboard with 16MB RAM and a total of 5 HDDs (3 IDE and 2 SCSI) salvaged from older computers in a RAID0 configuration for a total of 1.3GB, with Slackware 3.6

          • This is where I'm at, my first Slackware box would be old enough to drink at this point

            Nicely aged perhaps but likely still rather undrinkable...

        • You have a valid reason and aren't acting like a zealot. I've been using Slackware since the 90s as well, though I have a Macbook and . Windows gaming rig as well.

    • Re:systemd (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 06, 2017 @10:12AM (#54367579)

      I dunno, I think they might be on to something.

      https://linux.slashdot.org/story/16/10/01/2155209/multiple-linux-distributions-affected-by-crippling-bug-in-systemd

      SystemD ties in to everything. Init scripts were more compartmentalized last I read. Seems like tying so much in to one magic black box isn't as smart a move as people might think it is.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      An all of what you just said is complete bullshit when looking at some actual facts. Pathetic.

    • > Rather than forking ALL OF DEBIAN so you can keep sysvinit, why not fork systemd to use only the init?

      That's the entire problem with systemd - it forgot it was supposed to be an init. Systemd has consumed more and more of the OS, and in ways that require *applications* to have dependencies on systemd.

      If it were just a bad init system, people would complain, but most would deal with it. Some would use a different init. Systemd doesn't work that way. Like a particularly nasty rootkit, you have to rep

    • I think it is pretty funny. I love systemd, but I really hate NetworkManager. If it is a laptop or something that is stuck on wifi then it is OK, but if I have a real network I can't imagine wanting that nonsense bouncing my connections.

      Even on Fedora you can run SysVinit if you want. People get their neckbeards all twisted up over the mere dependency that the packaging system has. I mean, they're so exclusive, they can't tolerate that the unused default software might have a few bits installed. As if any o

    • I'm not sure it's absolutely fabulous. All init systems basically work the same, when they work - when and how they fail is where they are measured. Sysv, openrc, I've had 0 problems with these over the last 20 years, something might not start up without a little intervention - but the system would, and it could be fixed. Systemd, on the other hand, currently running on maybe half my servers, generally works - but not all the time, and that's the big difference to my mind. For example, I had a netbook that

    • Systemd is certainly a radical change. It takes over everything. It completely throws away POSIX, and the UNIX philosophy. Systemd changes everything that made Linux, Linux.

      And for what? I see no substantial improvements. Just the opposite. I see a less stable system, more difficult to use, everything is hidden from the users.

      Systemd may benefit Red Hat, but it does not benefit anybody else.

      JMHO, of course.

  • Choice is good (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mx+b ( 2078162 ) on Saturday May 06, 2017 @10:17AM (#54367601)

    I'm glad to see Devuan gearing up for a release. While Debian is not my favored flavor of linux, and I personally don't see any problems with systemd, I also recognize that this is exactly why different distros exist: we all have different needs.

    So cheers to the Devuan team on this upcoming release, and best wishes for many more.

    I hope this will help end the systemd "debate". I get a little tired seeing the constant re-treading of which one is better. If you like systemd or don't care, you have distro options. If you don't like systemd and DO care, you also have at least one distro to choose from. Use the tech that makes most sense for you.

    • Actually at least two, the other being Slackware.. From what I gather, Pat Volkering, Slackware's head-honcho hates systemd with a burning passion......

  • for how long will it be viable? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    GNOME, KDE, and Cinnamon have been removed from tasksel, but can still be installed although they "are known to suffer from some glitches due to the lack of systemd

    Thing is, I consider KDE the only desktop GUI worth using anymore. (Notice I didn't say "only Linux GUI worth using". Haven't found a better one on another OS either). The way these things tend to unfold over time is the "glitches" become "bugs" and the "bugs" become "doesn't work at all without heavy merging work" and that becomes "impossible to keep working without people dedicated to the task".

    I wonder if this is going to be a viable thing to do over time as dependencies on systemd in upstream softwar

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by yeupou ( 785585 )

      That is unfortunately a serious concern. A question I asked in 2015 here https://linux.slashdot.org/sto... [slashdot.org] and I am afraid situation is only worse now.

    • "I consider KDE the only desktop GUI worth using anymore."

      That put a wry smile on my face. KDE is the desktop equivalent of the html blink tag, and Word's marching ants. Each new version I give it a try again, and each time its basic failing, of being far too intrusive, and having a UI design seemingly thought up by a drunkard on LSD, is still there.

  • how's the HW driver support? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Do the NVidia hardware drivers work OK on this? I'm wondering if my games collection would be OK on it. The open source graphics drivers aren't suitable for modern games, so it's closed source or bust for that. One thing about Ubuntu is they make getting the gfx drivers and keeping them up to date effortless.

  • Did try RC1, works fine as it is, glitch for KDE (Score:4, Interesting)

    by what about ( 730877 ) on Saturday May 06, 2017 @10:42AM (#54367697) Homepage

    Comments on the RC1

    Install for the default version works well

    installing the kde version was not available as install option but needs
    # apt-get install task-kde-desktop

    wicd integration works, but NetworkManager does not
    some issues on handling permissions smb4k does not work as normal user but needs to be run using kdesudo

    I am really looking forward to use it on all my machines.

    systemd surely is a NSA work

    Going to test RC2....

  • KDE and Cinnamon can run fine without systemd. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sombragris ( 246383 ) on Saturday May 06, 2017 @11:01AM (#54367751) Homepage

    GNOME, KDE, and Cinnamon have been removed from tasksel, but can still be installed although they "are known to suffer from some glitches due to the lack of systemd."

    Cannot say anything on GNOME, but KDE (both KDE4 and Plasma 5) run fine in Slackware. As for Cinnamon, there's also an excellent distribution for Slackware, Cinnamon Slackbuilds [github.com] . There are also implementations for Xfce, MATE, Lumina and LX-Qt, all up to date and fully functional. No glitches due to lack of systemd at all.

    I'm typing this on a Slackware64-current box, using the latest KDE Plasma with no trace of systemd.

    Since Slackware manages to avoid systemd like the plague even to this day, using modern desktop environments in a systemd-free environment should be no problem.

    • Didn't Pat Volkerung (sic) the Slackware "head-honcho" say systemd was evil and would NOT appear on Slackware as long as he controlled it??? Seems I heard something to that effect a while back...

  • MX Linux (Score:5, Informative)

    by supertall ( 1163993 ) on Saturday May 06, 2017 @11:49AM (#54367943)
    For those interested in a polished out-of-the-box distro that does not use systemd, MXLinux [mxlinux.org] is based on Debian Jessie and defaults to sysVinit. I'm a fan.

  • MATE (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    MATE works just fine without systemd

  • I'm on board (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Bruce Perens ( 3872 ) <bruce@perens.com> on Saturday May 06, 2017 @01:10PM (#54368249) Homepage Journal
    I installed Devuan on a laptop and will probably expand it to my other systems over time. I installed 1.0 and the absence of NetworkManager was a problem, so it's nice to see that this new version includes it.

  • Are all pro-systemd folks anonymous cowards? (Score:3)

    by shoor ( 33382 ) on Saturday May 06, 2017 @03:07PM (#54368635)

    From my (admittedly casual) perusal of these followups that is what it seems like. Come on, who is willing to say:

    I'm pro-systemd and I'm proud!

    and sign with their slashdot monicker.

    In case anyone is curious, I would like to avoid systemd myself, and I resent that it's getting hard to do that. As for why I'm opposed, I don't have any facts I can cite as clinching arguments. I do see mysterious things happening on my latest Ubuntu and Mint distros that I don't know the cause of, but they don't happen on slackware. As an old time Unix guy (going back to BSD 4.2), the whole principle of systemd, not having init scripts that can be broken down and fixed with an editor, just seems wrong to me, and the claims I've seen about the advantages of systemd seem to have a suspicious amount of hand-waving, and a lot of "we know what we're doing you ignorant, backward luddite twerp!" to them. That's all.

    • I'm mostly pro systemd, but I see no reason to be "proud" about init system preferences. I refuse to become partisan about it.

      I didn't like systemd at first, but I made the effort to start learning it, and I've come to like a lot of its features.

      I don't bother engaging in these "discussions" (more like Two Minutes Hate), because most of the anti-systemd commenters are so rabid and irrational that they are impervious to facts or reason. I expect I'll be called an NSA shill or Pottering's cock-holster just fo

      • Re:Are all pro-systemd folks anonymous cowards? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Kabukiwookie ( 2677869 ) on Saturday May 06, 2017 @08:23PM (#54369531)

        I'm all for choice, though, so I'm glad that there are non-systemd distros available. I'd like to think it would mollify the anti-systemd folks, but I'm sure they'll still reflexively foam at the mouth every time systemd is mentioned.

        Well, one of the reasons, people who don't want system-D foam at the mouth is that initially this choice was taken away. Quite a lot of people had to put in a lot of work to make sure that there was a choice, something pro-system-D people didn't appear to actually give one shit about when they were pushing hard to move all distros to use system-D.

        It's funny that, people getting upset because they have to do (a lot of) extra work, just because some other group of people push their agenda and don't give a damn about the consequences for anyone else as long as they benefit themselves. Who could have imagined that would upset people.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by mvdwege ( 243851 )

          Well, one of the reasons, people who don't want system-D foam at the mouth is that initially this choice was taken away.

          Poppycock. Everyone lived with SysV shortcomings and either did nothing and bitch about it, or tried to paper it over with bandaids like daemontools. Lennart & Co did the work to build an alternative, as did Ubuntu, and systemd won fair and square in the marketplace of those who matter: distribution builders.

          You always had a choice if you didn't like what your distribution did: do it

          • nicely put... they put "no choice" when they should say "too lazy to learn something new or change distros"

    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      by Aighearach ( 97333 )

      I'm pro systemd and proud!

      Activating services when a network connection comes, and without sucking at it, is a hugely good feature. And just a tiny example.

      People whine and cry, whine and cry about loving their SysV init scripts. Personally, I think they're disgusting. Almost everything about SysV is disgusting and that was always true. That was even true when it was the best option, which is simply no longer true.

      Systemd is modular and anybody who tells you differently is an idiot who didn't check, or can'

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by jimbo ( 1370 )

      I'm the spawn of Satan; I'm happily using Ubuntu with KDE, systemd and whatever audio subsystem it uses.

      I really don't have strong opinions. I've created and set up daemons on systemd and it was easy and logical. I've done the same for decades before systemd was a thing. In both cases I first had to learn how it was done.

      I've also used numerous desktop environments and I always made things work without harming my precious productivity. These days I find most desktop environments are just fine for me, just l

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mvdwege ( 243851 )

      I like systemd. It is the only viable alternative right now to the old mess of SysV, and my primary use case is resource control: systemd can control process resources from the equivalent of setting a nice(1) value up to complete containerisation. In fact, I think it takes less from Windows (as the haters maintain) as it takes from Big Iron systems in terms of process isolation and management capabilities.

      It has warts: it feels overengineered, and using dashes in unit file names to represent / was a dumb id

    • Most of us get tired of seeing the same whiny old ignorant posts against systemd and as devuan is getting closer to a full release maybe we can hope the anti's take their ignorance there and stop polluting the forums with total crap and lies.

    • No we're not.

    • I was thinking about the James Brown song "Say It Loud! I'm Black and I'm Proud!" when I put in the "I'm pro-systemd and I'm proud" remark. Maybe I should have included the "Say It Loud!" line. Then again, how many of y'all are old enough to remember that song.

      For myself, I wanted to show honestly my position that I'm wary of systemd but not an expert and not trying to present myself as somebody who 'knows'. But one of the things that makes me wary is that while a lot of people who make anti-systemd posts

  • I have 3 Distros installed all systemd infection free. Slackware, PCLinuxOS and Devuan, all 3 have no problems at all, and it's just nice to use, oh and yeah i do serious work with all 3, my friend on the PClinuxOS kind of things even runs the PCLinuxOS website, forum and other nice things from it. Slackware to keep my hand in the "old" ways of doing things, for example PCLinuxOS you can literally configure everything from the GUI which can be nice to get some things up and running fast, but slack lets my c

  • Is anyone using launchd on Linux? If I recall correctly it's modern like systemd, but primarily in it focused like it should be.

  • Everything that is great about systemd, is even better in ms-windows.

    Want an OS that is controlled by a single for-profit corporation? A corporation that cares more about it's shareholders, than end users.

    Want everything hidden from the users? Everything in binary.

    Want an OS that has all kinds of mystery crap going on in the background?

    Want a less stable OS, and mysterious changes forced on you all the time?

    Want an OS designed by people who hate the UNIX philosophy, and have deep contempt for UNIX grey bea

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