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

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."

Comments

systemd

[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 horrible sysvinit script system if you like!

Re:systemd

[dreamchaser]

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

[Anonymous Coward]

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:systemd

[yeupou]

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

[TWX]

I have had to fix a couple of rackmount servers over the years with nothing more than my laptop, minicom, and a null modem cable to get into the TTY. I know I can manually edit init scripts and it's also very easy to back up or replace the init scripts, they're just scripts!

Re:systemd

[TWX]

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.

Re:systemd

[SirCowMan]

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 I couldn't get a systemd distro on, as it go into a loop - start up bluetooth, bluetooth would fail for some obscure driver reason, I imagine it was some sort of dependency as systemd would try to start it again, over and over - leaving the system essentially hung. That's the sort of way systemd fails, and why my primary laptop runs gentoo without it.

Choice is good

[mx b]

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.

for how long will it be viable?

[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 software become deeper.

Did try RC1, works fine as it is, glitch for KDE

[what about]

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.

[sombragris]

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 . 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.

MX Linux

[supertall]

For those interested in a polished out-of-the-box distro that does not use systemd, MXLinux is based on Debian Jessie and defaults to sysVinit. I'm a fan.

I'm on board

[Bruce Perens]

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?

[shoor]

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.

Re:Are all pro-systemd folks anonymous cowards?

[Kabukiwookie]

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:Are all pro-systemd folks anonymous cowards?

[jimbo]

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 like I've happily used several different init/system management systems.

I wouldn't bring pride into, pride is often a bad thing but I enjoy using the systemd system management environment. It's no biggie either way though.

I hope that there is a lot of people out there who are relaxed, open minded and for whom it works and for that reason simply don't have reason to get involved in these flame wars.

Then I understand there's a minority with real problems with systemd in production environments and I'm happy they have other options.

Live and let live.

That's the problem with systemd, not just an init

[raymorris]

> 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 replace half the system to get rid of systemd.

IMO: Radical changes are for radical improvements

[walterbyrd]

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.