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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."
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.
Every claim for systemd seems to be that it solves things that are simply not real issues.
Anyone?
The one real problem it seems to solve is: how does RedHat become the company that controls the architecture of all Linux distros.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Real world example:
https://www.digitalocean.com/c...
This howto tells you to disable firewalld and enable the iptables service because it is easier to set up.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
apt-get install upstart-sysv; update-initramfs -u
upstart-sys is not available anymore (*buntu 17.04)
> 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.
The real problem with systemd is that Poettering has no experience managing servers so he just doesn't grok the importance of logging. Several times most months, I have a problem that would be trivial to fix if systemd didn't swallow the log message. We leave SELinux enabled on servers so we often make mistakes that break things, and systemd makes it hard as hell sometimes to troubleshoot. We often have to resort to using strace and looking through thousands and thousands of lines of output to try to find the problem that would have only taken a simple "tail /var/log/messages" pre-systemd.
Nice example, but I've noticed the guys working for me just can't grasp the concept of this:
systemctl start openvpn@server.service
The @ sign? server? .service? You can't use tab completion to find the name of the service like you can with /etc/init.d/something. Plus, it's confusing that Poettering decided to call the system systemd while the command name is systemctl. We use four different Linux distributions and six other UNIXes, so that small inconsistency turns into a big thing.
Yes, there were multiple votes. Debian's technical committee voted for systemd, OpenSuSE committee voted for systemd, Fedora (that was independent from RedHat at that time) adopted systemd before RHEL.
Oh, and had there ever been a vote for sysv-init?
It wasn't a free choice. The fact that Gnome3 requires systemd was a significant influence.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
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
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.
It wasn't a free choice. The fact that Gnome3 requires systemd was a significant influence.
The choice was made long before any mention of the fictitious Gnome dependency on systemd. It IS ficticious by the way. Gnome has a dependency on one thing: something that provides a DBUS API. systemd-logind is now shipping on many systems so it made sense for Gnome to use it. Notice however Gnome is still available for all non-systemd systems, and BSD, and simply reverts to using gnome-session instead of systemd-logind. The whole dependency thing was just another out of control rage induced verbal vomit out of the echo chamber.
Which organisation is the 400 lb gorilla when it comes to Linux development?
You can follow them and have an easy life. Or you can spend it on the treadmill constantly trying to peel out the shit you don't want, while they're adding it ten times as fast.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
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.
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!
I've got it on a few desktop systems, test machines and my home PC. I've seen it hang when it shouldn't (one USB mouse stopped it dead half way every time - so much for parallel init) and had all kinds of trouble trying to work out what is wrong on others due to the very poor logging behavior (which may get fixed some time, but not yet). I've been though plenty of documentation, bug reports and Lennart's smug blog about linux domination.
So I've got some reason to write what I've written even though you want to call me a liar after I've written something as mild as the post above. What's with the thin skinned fanboys?
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.
I don't hate the idea, just the implementation leaves a bit to be desired and fucking stupid ideas growing out of an urge for total linux domination (like killing all of a users background processes) keep on cropping up due to inexperience in the project and an unwillingness to take advice.
There are still a lot of servers around the world stuck on RHEL6 and CentOS6 - the slow software vendor that is messing me about is not alone. People are having trouble with the change, you may dismiss them as idiots but there are aspects of this project that are causing real problems.