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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. "
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."
"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."
Except it wasn't wanted, and many people feel like it was rammed down their throats. It's not that it does or doesn't work (sometimes it does, sometimes it causes trouble). It's that open source is not about 'supporting the guys' who are making something you don't want, and who are making it more and more difficult to opt out.
If it was designed properly we wouldn't have to go to another distro.
It's like saying if you don't like the radio go buy a different car.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Except it wasn't wanted, and many people feel like it was rammed down their throats.
Horseshit. Systemd won on all technical ground. It was chosen to fit the vast majority of use cases. A few people wanted an alternative and Devuan was born. The system works. Get over it and move to the distro which suits you.
What technical ground? Was there a vote or consensus reached? Redhat switched because they are Redhat and everyone else said sure whatever. If anyone wanted a new feature for systemd Poettering shit out some code overnight and they were happy. This is like claiming McDonald's is the best restaurant because they sold the most hamburgers last year. What is the deal with binary logs? I know AIX has them but why Linux? What's next, all the config files are stored in a flat binary database? Brilliant!
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Personally, I am still trying to figure out what real problem it solves.
Here's one: sysvinit is unable to manage services.
You don't see the short comings of sysvinit? The people who work with linux do. The people who create distributions do. Upstart, openrc, smf, ... systemd is just the latest and most successful in a long history of the attempts to address the many shortcomings of sysvinit. Hell Apple decided to use Unix as the core basis for their OS, what's the first thing they do? Launchd, a replacement for the dumb init system, and dumb is the only way to describe sysvinit which can trivially be confused as to the running state of the software it manages because ... it doesn't manage them, just writes a placeholder file and fires up a hundred line script.
Hundred line scripts. Yeah one of those for each program that needs to be started. Makes perfect sense to need a long bash script just to start Apache. I suppose 100 lines of scripts could be justified for managing many conditions in the system an OS may experience. Oh wait sysvinit has no event driven capabilities, and even if it did it would just screw up the running state as there's no dependency tree.
If you don't see what problems are being solved, you've never actually looked.
What is the deal with binary logs? I know AIX has them but why Linux? What's next, all the config files are stored in a flat binary database? Brilliant!
This sounds like a great idea. I propose we call it The Registry. We can even make tools to convert the binary into an almost-human-readable format. It will be glorious.
I don't know about the other distros, but it's almost silly to call what Debian did a "vote." It was a 2-2 tie and was over-ruled to force a pro systemd outcome. Considering how many people develop for and use Debian and that systemd was decided based on 2 or 3 people, it's hardly worth calling it a vote.
I've used systemd about 4 years or so now (mostly from Arch). It definitely has some pros, but the thing I don't like is Pottering himself. You should see some of the YouTube videos of him where he was pointed out to be wrong and instead of talking about the technical merits of the suggestion, he attacks the man. I've read a decent amount of his writing segments on posts and things and I will admit, he is smart, but he is seriously incapable of admitting when he is wrong.
When systemd was first being developed a lot of the bug reports were around problems with system crashes that resulted in corrupted and unreadable binary logs. They were all closed as WON'T FIX and some basically said "it's your problem."
systemd unit files, I will admit, are nice and clean. But if you actually look into the code and the systemd-itself unit files and dependencies it's really a nightmare waiting to happen. I think that's one of the biggest problems. A lot of the people commenting about systemd have only used it at the surface level. It would be like buying a used car that looks nice on the outside but never looking at the engine and realizing it's all duct-taped together.
"If it is not broken, do not fix it." That and KISS is something the systemd-team is too stupid, too inexperienced and too arrogant to understand. Or they are just riding over it because they believe they are god's gift to Linux. They are not. They are a force of destruction, exactly because they fight choice, compatibility, simplicity and reliability. Sure, in some situations their approach may make sense, but that means systemd should be a specialized init-system (and nothing else) for specific situations. If anything, the systemd strategy reminds me strongly of all the ways Microsoft is now trying to push Win10.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Many of those issues did not require something so intrusive as systemd to solve. OpenRC solves most of them.
Yes, the init.d files are long, but so what? Most users never look at these files, let alone edit them and even for the creators of the files, they are rarely changed.
Most of the int.d scripts on my Gentoo system are less than 100 lines, with a lot of them 20-30 lines.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
The culprit of the problem is not discussing the `new = better paradigm. A much better discussion is why the installation of several distributions, and namely Debian, does not allow us to both select system and SysV, and each one will install what it does see fit effortlessly.
You can choose your own web server ; nobody forces Apache upon you ; likewise you can choose your DHCP software, or your DNS server ; in pretty much any solution you can choose alternatives; gosh nowadays you can even chose in Debian between Linux and a FreeBSD kernel....so why not an easy choice between systemd and other competing systems that were already implemented for decades.
As I said, the indignation of most people is that Debian and developers went out of their way to impose systemd to everybody, as if there is some ulterior motive for it. (NSA backdoors is an interesting conspiration theory).
The fact that most of the systemd proponents seem to inconveniently ignore that nobody likes to be sodomized, it yet another monumental damning thing. Why for instance, why in a thread about Devuan, about choice, there will be idiots whining that they do not understand the systemd "hate"...the fact is they do not accept nor phantom that in open source there can be a choice.
The choice for me is clearly *BSD...thanks for all those years and for betraying us, Debian.
So long, and good luck.