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from the apparently-sysvinit-on-debian-works-now dept.
https://lwn.net/Articles/786593/
An April Fools joke that went sour seems to be at least the proximate cause for a rather large upheaval in the Devuan community. For much of April 1 (or March 31 depending on time zone), the Devuan web site looked like it had been taken over by attackers, which was worrisome to many, but it was all a prank. The joke was clever, way over the top, unprofessional, or some combination of those, depending on who is describing it, but the incident and the threads on the devuan-dev mailing list have led to rancor, resignations, calls for resignations, and more.
Quick summary:
- Nicosia (a core dev) posted to the mailing list saying Devuan was compromised.
- Nicosia kept up the joke for some time.
- Nicosia admitted it was a prank later.
- Mike Bird suggested legal action against Nicosia and auditing/rebuilding the affected servers.
- Nicosia stepped down on April 11.
- Roio (a core dev) accused CenturionDan (a core dev) of causing Nicosia to step down.
- Reurich (a core dev) commented on the divide between people who want to use Devuan professionally and people who use Devuan for fun.
- Roio objected to Reurich.
- Reurich considered stepping down.
Some facts (?) gathered from the comments:
- Many core devs were unaware of the joke. They thought the compromise was real, as everyone but Nicosia was blocked from logging in to the affected server. They worked to shut down their infrastructure and isolate it from the supposedly compromised machine.
- The Devuan continuous integration server is apparently still down.
Related: Devuan Site Possibly Hacked
(Score: 5, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday May 04 2019, @12:19AM (23 children)
We have those. They are called Slackware, Gentoo, Alpine, and my personal favorites, Void and Artix. Devuan always felt a little "off" to me, and it seems the climate of its maintainers transferred into the finished product itself. This explains rather a lot.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 04 2019, @12:44AM (7 children)
Yeah, you are some super cool bi/transsexual millenial.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday May 04 2019, @12:55AM (6 children)
Lesbian and cisgender, actually, and only *just* a Millennial by like half a decade. What does any of that matter to you anyway? It's not like you're ever going to have sex. With anyone. At all.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 04 2019, @01:00AM (2 children)
Apparently it matters enough to make it your .sig file.
(Score: 3, Touché) by maxwell demon on Sunday May 05 2019, @07:06AM (1 child)
You created her .sig file? The question was what it matters to you. Quite obviously it matters to her what she is.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 05 2019, @07:12PM
.sig file is created explicitly to show to others. You wear your red MAGA cap at me, and you ask why it should matter to me? Nazis with hitler salute is only for their own audience?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Farkus888 on Saturday May 04 2019, @01:04AM
Haha. That is one way to deal with trolls.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 04 2019, @01:20AM (1 child)
Since it refers to the decade, wouldn't being a millennial by half a decade mean you were smack bang in the middle?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 04 2019, @02:37AM
Depending on who you ask, actually. The most commonly accepted rule, according to demographers is 1981-96. Some do 1985-2000, some do 1993-2005, with a generation between millennial and Xers, which are sometimes referred to as Orgeon Trailers). Really, it depends on what particular experiences you consider to be most important in defining each cohort.
(Score: 3, Informative) by bobthecimmerian on Saturday May 04 2019, @12:49AM (1 child)
I can't speak for the others, but in Gentoo there are several supported init systems and systemd is one of them. You may know that already, I was just posting it for the sake of completeness.
There's also GuixSD, which uses GNU Shepherd as its init system.
I don't hate systemd, but choice is nice.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by hendrikboom on Sunday May 05 2019, @11:32AM
Devuan never stopped being available, and was never compromised. Only its website front page was affected by the April Fool prank, which was carried out with technical proficiency by a Devuan developer.
The mention of switching downloads to gopher was part of the joke. The pranker even went so far as to ensure that the gopher links he provided *actually worked* to obtain valid Devuan files.
Devuan still is as much a reliable systemd-free distro as it ever was, and remained so even during the time of the prank.
-- hendrik
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RS3 on Saturday May 04 2019, @01:14AM (7 children)
I'm primarily a SlackWare nerd from very long ago. Tried Gentoo and it's interesting. Love love Alpine. I've tried Debian / Ubuntu / Mint over the years; didn't quite grab me. Been running CentOS on live servers for 12 years and I've gotten used to it, but when CentOS 6.x support ends, so does CentOS in my life (unless someone wants to pay me big $). I've heard of but never tried Void nor Artix. If our Japanese muse likes them, I'm eager to try them, so thank you. (Arrgh, Artix requires X86_64 and Void SSE2. Was hoping to run one on an older but quiet low-power dual P3... Alpine it is, or maybe Gentoo. Everything points to Slackware.)
For anyone who's terribly bored: http://without-systemd.org/wiki/index.php/Linux_distributions_without_systemd [without-systemd.org]
I think really good package management is the most important thing for Linux to be adopted mainstream.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 04 2019, @03:22AM (6 children)
Really? You hate system D so much you won’t migrate to CentOS7? Sounds a Bit childish
(Score: 5, Insightful) by MadTinfoilHatter on Saturday May 04 2019, @05:42AM (4 children)
Given that there are options that comes without SystemD it's a simple - perfecly rational, non-childish - evaluation of the question: "Which option has fewer drawbacks: Upgrading to CentOS 7, and dealing with the problems of SystemD, or migrating to a different distro that doesn't have SystemD?" What your answer will depend a lot on context: What services are you running? What kind of experience do you have with SystemD? et.c. I don't blame the GP for coming up with the answer that a non-systemd distro is the way forward. There is also absolutely nothing childish about that. Claiming that it is sounds a lot like the Poettringisque rethoric of resorting to strawmen arguments, genetic fallacies, ad hominems and just plain "LA LA LA, I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" in defense of the tar baby that is SystemD...
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday May 04 2019, @05:55AM
Oh thank you for an awesome reply. I had already submitted my less calm rational reply. This AC moron has been trolling me for quite a while. I think it's time to start deleting idiocy- clean up this site.
You really nailed everything I would have written if I was in the mood. The moron has NO idea what systems they are, who owns them, what budget is, what runs on them, their purpose, etc., but he's always got to comment authoritatively. I also was going to write that I'm wondering if he's Poettering (sp? don't care) himself.
The main point is: I never wrote that migrating away from CentOS had anything to do with "system D" (as he spells it).
I'd happily explain it but maybe someday when ACs are somehow brought under control.
Thanks again!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bobthecimmerian on Saturday May 04 2019, @02:51PM (2 children)
I support init choice, but "Upgrading to CentOS 7, and dealing with the problems of SystemD" is absurd. I've worked in places that migrated hundreds of servers from CentOS 6 to CentOS 7 and all of the headaches were around software package changes and file locations (e.g. changes to the alternatives system we had to compensate for in our configuration management tools). The init system switch was transparent.
Don't like systemd? Fine. Don't want to use it? Fine. Problems? Debian derivatives and Red Hat derivatives are still the most popular Linux server distributions by far. systemd might have design choices you disagree with, and I respect that. But labeling it as unstable or difficult to learn is flat out trolling, it is neither.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday May 04 2019, @04:28PM (1 child)
I did not mod you down, and I only downmod posts that attack someone. Personally I don't think anyone should ever downmod because they disagree, but that's me and maybe someday I'll start a tech blog with my rules.
My reason for replying to you, besides that I completely agree with you and thank you for the informative post, is that I NEVER said my reason for migrating away from CentOS had anything to do with systemd. It's interesting how short-circuit-brain AC somehow made that leap of illogic, then people are responding in kind.
Frankly, systemd has nothing to do with it. It's a tiny company with a tiny budget with limited hardware that simply won't run 7 or 8. I'm just an occasional consultant. I enjoy the work, challenge, and atmosphere. The hardware works well, reliably, ain't broke. There's no Intel management engine or other worrisome hardware. If I push them to buy newer hardware, they'll move everything to godaddy, etc., and cut me out. It's just business. I have much bigger fish to catch. :-)
(Score: 2) by bobthecimmerian on Sunday May 05 2019, @01:57PM
Thanks. My response was aimed at MadTinfoilHatter, not your comment. You didn't say why you would not move to CentOS 7, he (/she/they/whatever) said "problems with systemd" and that was what got my reaction. Good luck with your business.
(Score: 3, Touché) by RS3 on Saturday May 04 2019, @05:45AM
Childish? Look in a mirror lately? You're the nitwit who keeps trolling me and you who needs severe shock therapy and full frontal lobotomy.
You don't know ANYTHING about my situation, but your mighty omniscience forces you to comment, revealing your true short-circuited brain.
Show me where I in any way conveyed that "system D" has ANYTHING to do with not moving to CentOS 7 or 8.
Go away. It's time to delete these moronic AC comments.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 04 2019, @02:05AM (4 children)
It's also called Debian, at least for servers and most desktops. A simple apt-get install sysvinit, reboot, apt-get remove systemd "stuff", and off you go.
Best way to deal with it:
- do a minimal install (you can tasksel later) NOTE: ONLY INSTALL SSH, NOTHING ELSE when tasksel comes up..
- apt-get install sysvinit, reboot, apt-get purge systemd
- add /etc/apt/preferences.d/systemd, with:
# this is the only systemd package that is required, so we up its priority first...
Package: libsystemd0
Pin: release stretch
Pin-Priority: 700
# exclude the rest
Package: systemd
Pin: release *
Pin-Priority: -1
Package: *systemd*
Pin: release *
Pin-Priority: -1
Package: systemd:i386
Pin: release *
Pin-Priority: -1
Package: systemd:amd64
Pin: release *
Pin-Priority: -1
You're done. Now systemd can't accidentally be pulled back in.
I have hundreds of servers, and dozens of desktops. I run sawfish as a WM, use trinity as a panel with its version of konsole, and I'm quite happy.
I had to recompile hplip at one point, but that's the only package I had to 'remove' systemd from.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 04 2019, @03:07AM
I've been a devuan user for I think two years now. A few days ago, I used debian ports to update my Alpha box to debian 10. So interestingly my closest to cutting edge debian box is a 21 year old machine that debian proper dropped a long time ago. I was surprised I wasn't being forced into systemd, although I don't run any gnomy shit.
What is the current state and projected future of systemd free debian?
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday May 04 2019, @04:15PM
Thank you for the detailed instructions. That makes it quite clear why it's better to prefer a distribution that doesn't assume the presence of systemd if you intend to avoid it.
I really like Debian, so I've been considering Devuan. I may give it a shot the next time I need to do a system re-install, but I don't dislike systemd enough that I'd reinstall the system over it. So far.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Bot on Saturday May 04 2019, @06:50PM
I dunno, last time I put a server online i started from antix, BTW had to compile virtio into the kernel for the vps to boot, installed Python and postgresql and voila libsystemd pulled in by postgresql. Edited the makefile to not require systemd, recompiled repackaged. It works, which shows how artificial the hard dependency on systemd was, and makes me think that an average user is going to get systemd required a lot of times.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Informative) by hendrikboom on Sunday May 05 2019, @11:42AM
Yes, that's how to install Debian without systemd.
The main differences between this and Devuan is that
(1) Devuan doesn't install systemd by default, so you don't have to get rid of it.
(2) A number of packages that require systemd in Debian have been changed (some might say changed back) so that they don't require systemd in Devuan. If those are what you want, Devuan is onviously preferred.