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Devuan's Systemd-Free Linux Hits Beta 2 (theregister.co.uk)
Long-time Slashdot reader Billly Gates writes, "For all the systemd haters who want a modern distro feel free to rejoice. The Debian fork called Devuan is almost done, completing a daunting task of stripping systemd dependencies from Debian." From The Register:
Devuan came about after some users felt [Debian] had become too desktop-friendly. The change the greybeards objected to most was the decision to replace sysvinit init with systemd, a move felt to betray core Unix principles of user choice and keeping bloat to a bare minimum.
Supporters of init freedom also dispute assertions that systemd is in all ways superior to sysvinit init, arguing that Debian ignored viable alternatives like sinit, openrc, runit, s6 and shepherd. All are therefore included in Devuan.
Devuan.org now features an "init freedom" logo with the tagline, "watching your first step. Their home page now links to the download site for Devuan Jessie 1.0 Beta2, promising an OS that "avoids entanglement".
Devuan.org now features an "init freedom" logo with the tagline, "watching your first step. Their home page now links to the download site for Devuan Jessie 1.0 Beta2, promising an OS that "avoids entanglement".
I'm not sure if that's a serious question or an attempt to troll, but regardless...
Speed is not why you should want (or not) systemd. It's Linux. How often do you expect to reboot the thing, anyway?
In the spirit of "Do one thing and do it well", systemd's goal is "manage services and dependencies". To that end, the only real interaction you normally have with systemd is to start or stop a service, and view the associated logs if some service is misbehaving. In my opinion, them, I don't really see the point in changing one's distro (including support lifecycles, development trust, and organization philosophy) just to swap out init. It's just not that big a deal.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Speed is not why you should want (or not) systemd. It's Linux. How often do you expect to reboot the thing, anyway?
Well, on my home rolled NAS appliance, I really like the ability to reboot all of my VMs very quickly when applying security updates, because I'm not the only one that uses it.
In the spirit of "Do one thing and do it well", systemd's goal is "manage services and dependencies". To that end, the only real interaction you normally have with systemd is to start or stop a service, and view the associated logs if some service is misbehaving. In my opinion, them, I don't really see the point in changing one's distro (including support lifecycles, development trust, and organization philosophy) just to swap out init. It's just not that big a deal.
I personally don't have a problem with systemd. The thing is, there's so much damn drama over it that I'm curious what its detractors want to use in its place. And why are some people going to go out of their way to say "you don't need a faster boot time" when they don't know my use case? Furthermore, with the way I hack my Android smartphone, I'd love it if it booted faster.
Well, on my home rolled NAS appliance, I really like the ability to reboot all of my VMs very quickly when applying security updates, because I'm not the only one that uses it.
A fair point.
The thing is, there's so much damn drama over it that I'm curious what its detractors want to use in its place.
Typically sysvinit or mostly-compatible equvalents. From my perspective, they don't want to learn something new, and they don't see the existing system as broken.
And why are some people going to go out of their way to say "you don't need a faster boot time" when they don't know my use case?
The obligatory XKCD applies. Most boot processes are fast enough now that it's not really worthwhile for an end user to shave a few seconds off the time. On the other hand, doing something as a hobbyist is entirely about wasting time, so I won't hold that against you.
The biggest improvement over antique boot systems is going to parallel boot chains. Rather than running scripts one at a time, in order, a tree is built to determine what services are dependent on what other services. For example, it doesn't make sense to start the SSH server until the network is live. There are several init systems that do this, differing mostly in how they define dependencies. Some rely on specific services ("openssh-server relies on network") while others work on more generic capabilities ("remote-shell relies on network, and openssh-server is what we'll use for remote-shell").
After parallelism, it gets tricky and subtle. Maybe we don't need all of a service to start before its dependencies. For example, we don't necessarily need all of our DHCP leases assigned before we know which network interfaces are connected. That requires a more granular service definition, but provides a lot more power, especially for systems with very complicated startup procedures. With that power, we can shave a few more seconds off the boot time, because we aren't required to wait while services settle, improving our overall parallelism. That's useful for me (professionally, I build systems that boot with a strict time limit, and may reboot every few hours), but most folks don't really benefit with the added complexity.
Furthermore, with the way I hack my Android smartphone, I'd love it if it booted faster.
I don't know much about Android init, but I think it uses its own system unrelated to systemd, sysvinit, or any of the alternatives listed in TFS.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.