Slashdot Mirror
Systemd-Free Devuan Announces Its First Stable Release Candidate 'Jessie' 1.0.0 (devuan.org)
Long-time reader jaromil writes: Devuan 1.0.0-RC is announced, following its beta 2 release last year. The Debian fork that spawned over systemd controversy is reaching stability and plans long-term support. Devuan deploys an innovative continuous integration setup: with fallback on Debian packages, it overlays its own modifications and then uses the merged source repository to ship images for 11 ARM targets, a desktop and minimal live, vagrant and qemu virtual machines and the classic installer isos. The release announcement contains several links to projects that have already adopted this distribution as a base OS.
"Dear Init Freedom Lovers," begins the announcement, "Once again the Veteran Unix Admins salute you!" It points out that Devuan "can be adopted as a flawless upgrade path from both Debian Wheezy and Jessie. This is a main goal for the Devuan Jessie stable release and has proven to be a very stable operation every time it has been performed. "
"Dear Init Freedom Lovers," begins the announcement, "Once again the Veteran Unix Admins salute you!" It points out that Devuan "can be adopted as a flawless upgrade path from both Debian Wheezy and Jessie. This is a main goal for the Devuan Jessie stable release and has proven to be a very stable operation every time it has been performed. "
is for D lovers
thankfully Ubuntu lets you easily switch back to Upstart, permanently
apt-get install upstart-sysv; update-initramfs -u
Most Linux users don't have a strong opinion on systemd either way, because the system boots up reliably without systemd, and it also boots up reliably with systemd. Overall it's barely noticeable and doesn't matter (right now, anyway) for most users.
There are people who write startup scripts for Linux, and they tend to have a stronger opinion, because it affects them more directly. Some really like systemd, some really don't. Some (like Patrick Volkerding) are fairly neutral about the whole thing but see no pressing need to switch.
Then there are people who are system designers, who are ok with systemd as an init system, but see it as horrid when it's a platform for building an entire OS. As long as it stays as an init program, it's fine because it can be swapped out easily. But if it starts becoming a required component for turning up the volume, that is clearly a sign of poor design.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Now can we please stop the flaming and can all those systemd haters just go use a distro for them and leave the rest of the internet alone please?
This was the whole point of open source. If something is wanted then it is usually developed. If it doesn't work for some reason, support the guys who are trying to make it work rather than bitching that someone moved your cheese.
I think the should've called it 'Jevuie'.
And when we get linux telemetry or 1 app at a time gnome I suppose we should stop complaining too? Why should we support the guys who are trying to make it work in their favor and giving us the finger?
Just because its open source is no argument. You can still run whatever on your PC. If you don't like the current OS offerings feel free to code your own? If you don't like some hardware, feel free to make your own... if you don't like the laws, move somewhere else and start your own country? Don't like your doctor, go to med school and be one yourself.
I'm going to need 5 lifetimes to even try to follow your advice.
"But your shirt says 'Die,Bart! Die!!"
Sideshow Bob: "It is German; for The Bart, The!!"
FYI SystemD is not German.
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
I am missing Fedora without systemd.
Is this like "2A rights"? What do Init Freedom lovers stock up on, in place of guns?
Wasn't Open/Free/whatever software about choice ?
I can understand that systemd brings some improvements.
In specific contexts.
For example, when your profession is sysadmin, when you have more than, let's say 4 or 5 servers to administrate, OK, may be systemd brings improvements over scripts. Real sysadmins are responsible of dozens, hundreds of servers.
What about other people like me ? I'm in computer programming since 1982, very well, but I'm no sysadmin.
A very kind friend told me once that, as a programmer, I'm a good sysadmin (I'm not sure I translated this properly from French), but I'm no sysadmin; first, I'm a programmer.
I mean that it's OK for me to have a Debian FW+many services at home, or to have one or two "shadow servers" at work to help me do my programmer job.
It's OK for me to install and configure services on a recent Debian, with systemd. As long as it's working. Magically.
What's not OK :
- few years ago, when Debian forced the change : it broke my system after an apt-get dist-upgrade. Before that, when a Debian had boot problems, I could handle them as long as I could dig in the scripts and trace the sequence. Suddenly, Debian replaced those scripts by systemd. At the first reboot, systemd was not pleased with something. The boot was interrupted with some cryptic error message, asking my to look at some logs, or run some new commands. What ? No ! No time, Internet connection broken, go to hell ! OK, I preferred to re-install a Debian from scratch, it was faster.
- this kind of problem still happens from time to time. Today, I'm afraid I still can not handle every situation. Most often : when a drive is missing, what will systemd do : a) timeout and continue ? b) timeout, put me in a shell that I can quit and continue ? c) timeout, put me in a shell, leaving me helpless because, with or without knowing what's wrong, I cannot (try to) correct the problem.
You could answer : RTFM.
Yes, but I have better things to do. I cannot read every man page of the world. And systemd manual is not small, and it needs practice. Reading alone is not enough.
So give me back the choice, give me back my scripts and let systemd to those who have time, or to those which profession it is to learn that monster !
And now that systemd has become a synonymous for Godwin point, let me ask : I've been told that systemd takes care of the network config by itself ? Or that it makes binary logs ? Seriously ? It cannot be, this is not the UN*X spirit, is it ?
Totof
How is it that nobody has brought up that Debian still has sysvinit available, including for the upcoming Debian 9 "stretch".The release notes for Debian 8 "Jessie" included instructions for how to stick with sysvinit if you didn't want systemd. That was two years ago, and sysvinit is still an option in Debian today.
Do "init freedom lovers" include people that like systemd? It seems to me that Debian gives you that freedom, and Devuan takes it away so that you cannot choose systemd.
There are valid criticisms of systemd. I understand that some people who have tried it don't like it. That's fine, people can and should use what they want. However I often doubt that systemd haters have really given it a chance, bothered to learn the new technology at all, or explored the new things that are possible and easy with systemd.
Personally I think systemd is the best thing on GNU/Linux since package managers with dependency resolution.
I test out quite a few Linux distros and even though I'm a systemd fan, I thought I'd give Devuan a try as a KVM virtual machine... something I would expect a lot of Linux users to do considering that KVM has been the native Linux kernel hypervisor since 2007. Anyhoo... no matter that I did, the partitioner would allow me to partition /dev/vda but when making the mount points it couldn't see anything because it was expecting /dev/sda. Wha, wha, what?
Doesn't seem ready for prime time.
Scott Dowdle
www.MontanaLinux.Org
but whenever i use linux i always try to use some distro that does not have systemd on it
see i once saw a picture of the guy that does systemd, his hair is too nice and slick and his glasses arent thick enough, that does not scream nerd to me, it was like a tv nerd, like big bang theory nerd, im sorry but i want to know that a guy with thick enough glasses, messy hair, a lot of armpit hair and oddor does the system, hell i might try a distro made by an autist before i use systemd. I dont see the point in typing obscure shit in a terminal if some hipster looking dude did it, if it was some kind of cyberpunk hipster dude like keanu in johnny mnemonic... maybe, but this systemd guy looks waaaaay to nice, all the autists from the internets say theres something fishy going on here, and i totally beleive in the power of unlimited autism since that kid in that bruce willis movie
I cared that i was "forced" into sysD when minor processes would now take down the entire system, or make it unusable and forcing a hard reset.
yes, i wasn't truly forced as i could go back to *bsd.. but you get the point.
While I have used current Debian mostly decontaminated from Poettering-infestation up to now (the broken startup process is easy to remove, but some cruft is still around), I think I will move completely over to this. Why people fall for "new = better" even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary is beyond me.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Jessie + Wheezy = Jizzy.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Are they working on removing systemd from Stretch? Also what's the performance difference between the two? Can someone benchmark both startup systems on modern nVMe ssds on same hardware? I'd be interested in some comparisons.
have really given it a chance, bothered to learn the new technology at all, or explored the new things that are possible and easy with systemd.
We have a full test lab (of VMs) running systemd based distributions our clients commonly use to test our software with. We understand the value of cgroups, systemctl, journalctl and many of the controllable systemd properties. We have concerns with the scope of systemd and potential for indirect downtime.
Personally I think systemd is the best thing on GNU/Linux since package managers with dependency resolution.
Well it does show that initd is short on documentation and that the functionality of systemd is useful on a desktop, just not the way it is implemented. When I first heard of systemd I thought it was the complementary event management daemon that initd has always needed.
I often doubt that systemd haters
I not about hating on systemd and more recognizing the value of initd as something stable, elegant and worth defending.
I don't get why people complain. Systemd can and will run your old scripts. Recently I had to install tons of servers and all of then ran Jessie. I've never had a single faulty application or startup. The old commands still work. And when there is an error I really appreciated how well information was laid out to me using journalctl
> solves things that are simply not real issues.
I've managed UNIX servers for over thirty years, and systemd config files are a hell of a lot easier to manage than complicated shell scripts. I now manage servers with Puppet scripts, and the first time I added a custom systemd start-up daemon, I thought I was doing something wrong since it was so simple. It just worked.
IMHO the problem is not (necessarily) systemD-as-init-replacement, but rather systemD-as-kitchen-sink.
If they had remained more focused there would have been less push back. At some point I'm guessing that systemD will fulfill JWZ's prophecy and start reading mail.
I don't actually agree that systemd actually improves on many of those points (and some of it is just bald opinion that I disagree with), a lot of it is really just a description of init systems in general, but it's good to get something other than insults and cheerleading.
Here's a few parts (but I could pick on a dozen):
Considering how incredibly verbose the commands are - sorry - nothing close.
Is that a joke or is it an aim for the future, because it's like a black box to work around now. Sure there are commands for that sort of thing but they don't seem to actually report anything when you need it.
Who wrote this incredibly unprofessional shit?
Come on kids - read it - and if you actually know something about the topic compare what is written with what you have observed instead of just blind cheering or ridiculous fanboy insults.
Indeed, and RHEL before them. I have not had so many linux boxes hang and not tell me why since before 2000.
As the proverb goes, one lesbian's bug is another transgender's feature.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
You're not making any sense. Try later after you sleep Saturday night off.
Is that distributions are still trying to be both for Desktop and Server users, even though headless server users and desktop users have completely different start-up requirements.
I totally get why maintainers, of a desktop release would love how systemd helps them solve the agony of getting all the X11, audio, mouse drivers, automount stuff going.
For enterprise systems, where each of my boxes basically launches one primary service, and a couple, unrelated services with few interdepencies, it solve no problems I have.
It is about time for separate desktop/server disributions.
Look at Amazon AMI. They focus just on headless servers, do it well, and it is systemd free (and arguably one of the most wildly uses linux distributions out there).
If you brought it back, why the old debian? Never mind, I hope the 50 people world wide that aren't smart enough to handle systemd use it and leave everyone else alone now. You have your toy now, go home and play by yourself.