As long time SoylentNews community member Marand observed during some recent discussion of severe systemd boot problems, it turns out that systemd disables the magic SysRq key.
The magic SysReq key is described at Wikipedia as:
[...] a key combination understood by the Linux kernel, which allows the user to perform various low-level commands regardless of the system's state. It is often used to recover from freezes, or to reboot a computer without corrupting the filesystem.
A Fedora user who logged a bug report for this issue back in 2013 described the problem with systemd's unexpected and harmful default setting:
As systemd depends on many files on a rootfs, in case of any problems with rootfs, it is not able to do its basic function - control processes and (cleanly) shutdown/reboot when crtl-alt-del is pressed on local keyboard. As this is a feature, I'd like to ask to enable the sysrq by default on Fedora, otherwise it is not possible to reboot system even locally in case of emergency situation.
While that Fedora bug report is set to CLOSED NOTABUG, other Linux distros, like Mageia and Debian GNU/Linux, have restored the proper behavior.
Now that this problem has come to light, all Fedora users should evaluate whether or not they need to fix their systems to work around systemd's incorrect default setting. Users of other Linux distributions using systemd should also evaluate their systems, too, in case their distro has not yet fixed this unexpected bug.
Related Stories
A Debian user has recently discovered that systemd prevents the skipping of fsck while booting:
With init, skipping a scheduled fsck during boot was easy, you just pressed Ctrl+c, it was obvious! Today I was late for an online conference. I got home, turned on my computer, and systemd decided it was time to run fsck on my 1TB hard drive. Ok, I just skip it, right? Well, Ctrl+c does not work, ESC does not work, nothing seems to work. I Googled for an answer on my phone but nothing. So, is there a mysterious set of commands they came up with to skip an fsck or is it yet another flaw?
One user chimed in with a hack to work around the flaw, but it involved specifying an argument on the kernel command line. Another user described this so-called "fix" as being "Pretty damn inconvenient and un-discoverable", while yet another pointed out that the "fix" merely prevents "systemd from running fsck in the first place", and it "does not let you cancel a systemd-initiated boot-time fsck which is already in progress."
Further investigation showed that this is a known bug with systemd that was first reported in mid-2011, and remains unfixed as of late December 2014. At least one other user has also fallen victim to this bug.
How could a severe bug of this nature even happen in the first place? How can it remain unfixed over three years after it was first reported?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 22 2014, @02:38AM
systemd, the prize in your cereal box.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday December 22 2014, @02:45AM
s/prize/cat turd/
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 22 2014, @03:16AM
A cat turd has never prevented my Debian system from booting properly. Systemd has, on several occasions.
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Monday December 22 2014, @06:49AM
Amazingly worse with every revelation. If these guys just want Android, written in C instead of Java, why don't they go ahead?
Leave us a POSIX system like God and Linus intended.
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 22 2014, @06:58AM
More like trying to rewrite OSX...
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Monday December 22 2014, @02:47AM
Certainly the prize in someone's cereal box. At this point I can't figure out if it's the NSA or Microsoft. Of course, there does seem to be some overlap there.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 23 2014, @02:20AM
Aren't you ashamed of yourself trolling with such incredible FUD?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 23 2014, @03:44AM
I'm feeling FUD, that's for sure!
Whenever I look at any of the systemd bug reports, I feel FEAR because my Linux system might be (or is) vulnerable to whatever stupidity systemd engaged in. I feel UNCERTAINTY as to why the fuck Debian would include systemd, knowing how fucking awful it is. I feel DOUBT about whether or not I can depend on Debian any longer. Yeah, there's FUD here, and systemd and Debian created it all.
(Score: 2) by danomac on Tuesday December 23 2014, @04:27PM
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 22 2014, @02:46AM
Soylentnews.org and long time user, viva relativity!!!
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 22 2014, @03:13AM
So this weekend we learned that:
1) Systemd prevents boot-time fsck runs from being canceled while in progress. [soylentnews.org]
2) Systemd (or the pid 1 part of it) can segfault, which is something that should never happen to pid 1. [soylentnews.org]
3) Systemd forces binary logs, but the log viewing utility doesn't display long lines properly. [soylentnews.org]
4) Systemd disables the Linux sysrq magic key. [soylentnews.org]
I couldn't believe 1). I wasn't surprised by 2) and 3). But 4) leaves me utterly shocked.
How can Debian justify pushing such obviously broken software into Debian 8, and thus onto all of its users?
Why aren't all of these problems throwing up red flags left and right within the Debian leadership and among the Debian maintainers?
Why isn't Debian 8 being delayed until systemd can be completely removed?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 22 2014, @04:29AM
Why isn't Debian 8 being delayed until systemd can be completely removed?
I'm a Debian Developer (though I have nothing to do with systemd). Right now, you can install SysV, Systemd, or upstart as your init. You are not required to install systemd. You are not required to install any graphical login daemon either - just have X installed and your desktop environment you'd like, and login via console and use `startx`. I do that, and it doesn't make my system any more difficult to use.
Until recently, I did not have systemd installed at all. My computer starts up a little faster with systemd, though that doesn't really matter. Systemd produces lots of noise on the console during startup, but otherwise I don't notice it much. If you don't run GNOME, or even KDE, you can pretty much select any init system you'd like.
On server side, systemd has benefits. It simplifies some tasks that are Linux specific, like cgroup configuration for your processes. It tracks daemons a little bit more reliably than a dumb PID, so you should no longer get "X not running" while you can clearly see it with `ps`. Or worse, you have lxc (linux containers) setup, and stop script for some daemon uses `killall` to kill all those daemons, including those started in containers (different namespace).
Anyway, systemd will not be removed from Debian. Maybe in next-next release of Debian it will play nicely with other init systems, where systemd could run as a daemon, not tied to PID 1.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 22 2014, @04:53AM
I did a Debian testing installation recently. Perhaps I just missed it, but I do not remember seeing anywhere where I could choose my init system. I'm sure I would have remembered this had I been presented with this choice, because I surely would not have chosen systemd! If the option isn't presented by the installer, and instead requires some manual intervention during or after the installation, then as far as I'm concerned systemd is the only option.
But even if I can choose alternative init systems now, how long will they be available for? Will they be deprecated in the near future (say within a year or two), causing me to have to switch to systemd then? What about when software I need to use ends up depending on systemd, forcing me to switch?
Systemd is obviously broken software. I don't see how you or anyone else can suggest otherwise. It needs to be removed from Debian immediately. If it will not be removed from Debian, then I will remove Debian from my systems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 23 2014, @02:22AM
You probably just aren't technical enough to be making low-level decisions like which init to run, so you didn't know about how to make choices.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Monday December 22 2014, @07:05AM
Anyway, systemd will not be removed from Debian. Maybe in next-next release of Debian it will play nicely with other init systems, where systemd could run as a daemon, not tied to PID 1.
You can already do that in Debian Jessie by installing the systemd-shim package. In Debian, systemd is split into different packages, with systemd providing the various apps but not setting it up to run as init. Installing systemd-sysv sets it up as init, and if you want a different init you install systemd-shim instead.
With the shim installed, you can install sysvinit-core if you want the old init, or even something else like runit. It provides whatever crap the non-init parts of systemd expect, like the cgroups stuff, so systemd just acts like yet another obnoxious desktop component like HAL or dbus.
If this were a standard part of systemd, people probably wouldn't be as opposed to it, but it's not. It's something made by either Debian or Canonical people to re-introduce free choice into systemd's vertical integration strategy. Hopefully it stays maintained for a very long time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 22 2014, @12:42PM
Unless you're working for Google or doing VPS hosting, who ever bothered with cgroups?
Or worse, we don't have "X not running" messages or hipster bullshit like containers yet some unwanted daemon has done killall on the userspace we've been using for 20 years.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 23 2014, @02:27AM
You don't use it, or know why it is useful, so I should not be allowed to choose it. Great logic there, man.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Marand on Monday December 22 2014, @06:53AM
1) Systemd prevents boot-time fsck runs from being canceled while in progress.
According to one of the messages [debian.org] in the mailing list thread about the fsck problem, systemd actually prevents using ^C to break out of any in-progress task, not just fsck. Definitely bigger than just "deal with it it's only fsck". It seemed like a big deal, so I mentioned it in a follow-up comment in the fsck discussion.
It might not be hopeless, though; another person pointed out that when Debian first introduced parallel booting with sysv-init, they had to temporarily disable ^C in the same way because you couldn't reasonably guarantee the process you wanted to close was the one ^C was going to close. It's since been fixed and re-enabled, so maybe the same thing will happen with systemd. Of course, based on previous behaviour of systemd's leading people, it's just as likely to get closed as NOTABUG,STFU
(Score: 3, Insightful) by FatPhil on Monday December 22 2014, @09:46AM
But all these "yet another systemd fuckup" stories just look like masturbatory public grieving.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Marand on Monday December 22 2014, @11:34AM
But all these "yet another systemd fuckup" stories just look like masturbatory public grieving.
You're probably right, though it also might be someone attempting to bring attention to this stuff because it tends to be buried in mailing list discussions and bug reports where people won't generally find it. A common argument used in defense of something (not just systemd) is to accuse detractors of lacking knowledge and declaring them unable to list faults in the discussed thing, so bringing attention to problems could be someone's attempt to counter that.
Still, I agree that it wasn't exactly a news item -- like you said, the bug reports themselves aren't recent -- so when I checked my RSS feed I was pretty surprised to find my comment turned into the basis for a story submission. I can't speak for the submitter's motivations, but I'm guessing the editor accepted the submission because he had the same sort of "that's insane, I should probably mention this in case it helps someone" reaction that prompted me to mention it in the previous discussion.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 22 2014, @01:22PM
Until these bugs are fixed, their existence will be news to anyone who happens to install pretty much any major Linux distribution but Gentoo or Slackware.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday December 22 2014, @03:27PM
No.
I don't think issues should go unreported. Especially issues which are old and actively being ignored or referred to as features. I am not 100% against systemd or a new init system but give us the freedom to safely ignore it without breaking an entire fucking system that has been working for decades.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 23 2014, @02:30AM
"as much as any" yeah, because you totally speak for everybody else. Except, you don't. And many old sysadmins love systemd. You're trying to co-opt the large number of experienced people who disagree with you, just by pretending they don't exist and that everybody agrees with you.
The problem with being anti-systemd is that nobody is forcing you to run it, or to use distros that use it. Freedom is about being able to do what you want, not about forcing other people to also do it your way.
You can just make a different choice, there is no reason to be against my Freedom to choose differently than you. Nor is there any reason to be against knowing what the benefits of systemd are and appreciating them, or having use for them.
(Score: 1) by NickFortune on Tuesday December 23 2014, @10:26PM
It does rather seem as though pressure is being brought to bear for distros to adopt systemd as the default, and in some cases only, init system. And the systemd camp also appear to attempting to make many other packages dependent on systemd. It's easy to get the idea that they'd like to make it difficult, if not impossible, to use anything other than systemd in major Linux distro.
Well sure. Of course the only freedom I really want is to have my chosen distro give me the option of not using your chosen package. I mean, you know, without having to start my own distro and rewrite half the source code to code around systemd dependencies. I don't see why you can't run systemd and I run sysvinit on the same distro. One the other hand, judging by the actions of the systemd team, they seem to think that they only way they can have their freedom is by trying to deny that choice to others.
Are you sure you're backing the right horse in this race? Your team don't seem to care about the values you just cited.
Honestly? By this point I don't much care about the technical issues. I feel like someone is trying to force me accept this thing. I don't want it. That should be sufficient reason.
Similarly, if enough people feel as I do (and there certainly seem to be a few of us) then that should be sufficient reason not to adopt systemd as the sole and mandatory init system in a long established distro, particularly when doing so against widespread and vigorous opposition.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 22 2014, @02:43PM
Well, maybe "we" learned that stuff, but you, the obsessed systemd submitter, knew all of that already.
I just can't wait for the next nugget to be pulled out of the bug reports and posted as a story here.
(Score: 2) by meisterister on Monday December 22 2014, @06:32PM
I'm noticing a trend here. It looks like previously useful operating systems completely go to shit once they hit version 8...
(May or may not have been) Posted from my K6-2, Athlon XP, or Pentium I/II/III.
(Score: 4, Informative) by novak on Monday December 22 2014, @03:51AM
How often do these idiots refuse to fix bugs? Seems like they pretty much won't admit that any shortcoming in their software exists. Like that time when they broke kernel logging and tried to say it wasn't a bug, and Linus had to scream at them and refuse to accept code by Kay until he fixed his shit (http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1404.0/01331.html).
I mean, even if you hit your head and think something like systemd is a good idea, you probably don't want software made by these guys.
novak
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Monday December 22 2014, @04:04AM
you probably don't want software made by these guys.
Yup, that is a big part of the objection. Nothing in the past performance of the key people inspires confidence they have the skills or personality to be essentially taking sole responsibility for the the userspace side of GNU/Linux. (Note I'm normally first in line to say RMS's insistance on the GNU/Linux naming is bogus but I can't see another way to distinguish the GNU/Linux flavor of Linux from other Linux based products like Android/Linux and the busybox/Linux embedded products, etc.)
Even if you think System Manager and Event Logger is the star to guide by, these idiots aren't the right navigators.
(Score: 1) by ghost on Monday December 22 2014, @03:02PM
heh, I wonder if RMS will insist Linux with SystemD NOT be called GNU/Linux.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 23 2014, @02:25AM
Exactly, the key part of the "problem" is that a group of loudmouths have taken a known pattern of logical fallacy and are using it is their basis for campaigning against the inclusion of choices they don't like. Not just advocating against people choosing the "wrong" thing, but advocating against things they disagree with even being allowed to be included in the choices.
I guess that is Software Freedom, right? Taking away choices made by people Somebody Doesn't Like.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 23 2014, @03:46AM
The only people I see taking away choice are the systemd developers and Debian.
I was never asked if I wanted systemd on the Debian testing system I just installed. It was selected for me by default, and the installer presented me no option for selecting another init system.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jackb_guppy on Monday December 22 2014, @04:31AM
Following the thread down some you find this about segfault: (Note: Linus post was on April 1, 2014)
http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1404.0/01435.html [iu.edu]
> While we are here, can we please also talk about the !cgroup situation?
> https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=74589 [freedesktop.org]
> A segfaulting systemd on CONFIG_CGROUPS=n is no fun.
Wow, the attitude there is amazing:
"To make this work we'd need a patch, as nobody of us tests this."
Rule #1: systemd maintainers worldview is always correct
Rule #2: In the unexpected case that you think the worldview of systemd maintainers is incorrect, apply rule #1.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Monday December 22 2014, @05:00AM
Out of curiosity, what is Linus' opinion of systemd?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 22 2014, @05:11AM
He hasn't taken a strong stance against it. I think this is perhaps the biggest mistake he has ever made.
It became clear some time ago that systemd just isn't a viable option. Its implementation is broken, as the various bugs we've learned of recently show. But more importantly, the philosophy and architecture behind it are broken. These are things that can't be easily fixed. They define what systemd is.
Linus should have taken a very strong and very public stance against systemd. He should have shown true leadership skills and put an end to this systemd nonsense. He should have done this before Debian, the most important Linux distro and the most important Linux community, was damaged beyond repair thanks to systemd. And, no, light anger directed toward Kay is not sufficient.
By not speaking out against systemd, Linus has enabled systemd to irreparably harm the entire Linux community. As one of the major leaders of the Linux community, if not the entire open source community, it was his duty to stop this before it blew up. But he didn't. He let it happen, even when it was more than obvious that systemd is just not acceptable.
I hold Linus responsible for this systemd disaster nearly as much as I hold Lennart and Kay responsible.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 22 2014, @07:14AM
Sadly he see himself as "just" the kernel guy.
Also, his distro of choice is Fedora. The very Fedora where Systemd has slowly been bloating itself.
And the last time he voiced an opinion about Fedora user space, polkit requiring root password to change a wifi setting, it got fixed asap.
All in all, i don't think it has bitten him personally yet...
(Score: 0) by SDRefugee on Monday December 22 2014, @04:03PM
I'm betting the abortion that is systemd just hasn't gotten around to biting him in the ass yet... If he uses Fedora, he's already deep into it.. Once he gets screwed by it, you can BET we'll hear about it.. And I DARE any of the systemd fanbois to accuse Linus of any of their favorite excuses.... I look forward to hearing Linus blasting the abortion that IS systemd... I have NO doubt it WILL happen... I've used Linux since 1995, started with Slackware, and frankly, I'm looking into going BACK to it, due to all of my favorite distros (Debian/CentOS) shoving this abortion down their users throats.. I strongly suspect Pat V. isn't gonna go down THAT road....
America should be proud of Edward Snowden, the hero, whether they know it or not..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 22 2014, @12:23PM
While I understand this point of view - I've said similar things in the past - I think it is important to not over-inflate Mr Torvalds' responsibilities (and our expectations of those responsibilities) simply because we (random community members) wish he had taken a larger role. From another perspective, it is absolutely amazing that Mr. Torvalds had been able to hold the line against stupidity being put into the kernel. We may wish that he had also fought in other battles like the current systemd problem, but any expectation that Mr. Torvalds should have done some additional for us - for free, on top of the important services he has already freely given. - is something that we are imposing on him.
I highly recommend watching this video [youtube.com], which is a very good explanation of this phenomena.
that said....
It certainly would be nice if Mr. Torvalds decided to speak out about the systemd problem.. He may want to stick to the kernel, but systemd is so intimately tied to the kernel avoiding it may not be possible.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 22 2014, @07:46PM
>any expectation that Mr. Torvalds should have done some additional for us - for free, on top of the important services he has already freely given. - is something that we are imposing on him.
Linus doesn't do what he does for free. He's paid--quite handsomely.
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Monday December 22 2014, @01:06PM
It seems like there are a few genuine advantages to systemd, so perhaps the way to get rid of it is to invent something with those advantages but none of the things people hate about systemd. You could even fork systemd itself. It seems like there are good reasons why Linux could do with a better boot system, and systemd is taking advantage of that because there is nothing else.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 22 2014, @09:48PM
Sysv-init already supports anything that isn't totally broken with systemd. Why do we need yet another init system, when the one we've been using for years works fine?
(Score: 1) by Wrong Turn Ahead on Monday December 22 2014, @04:53AM
Regarding SysReq, it would seem that Debian fixed it, however, not with out a lot of resistance first. I think the comments in this bug report are quite telling...
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=725422 [debian.org]
(Score: 2) by jbernardo on Monday December 22 2014, @05:48AM
In particular this one [debian.org] is particularly damning of the "nanny mentality" of systemd proponents:
Also, this is a basic system setting, where it makes sense to change the kernel default by default, so it is natural that systemd does that. The goal of the systemd project is to take care of the basic system setup.
I admit it is interesting that they finally admit the MCP goal, but I am not comfortable with it at all!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 22 2014, @07:22AM
It goes beyond that. Systemd will eventually make every distro that use it as Poettering and his followers envision the one true distro to be. And that looks to be containerized OSX...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 22 2014, @02:41PM
I'd like something like systemd (I don't like booting-on-scripts thing). But its code needs to be propery split and it really needs different kind of programmers *cough*
(Score: 1, Redundant) by Wrong Turn Ahead on Monday December 22 2014, @04:46AM
We just did our first install of FreeBSD on a new server that is replacing an aging system and it went much more smoothly than any of us expected. There are certainly some differences between Linux and BSD but faced with having to learn the BSD way versus a bunch of hacks, workarounds, and commands relating to systemd, the choice is clear; we're fully embracing BSD.
To the systemd apologists who like to claim that nobody is forcing systemd on the rest of us and that there is an abundance of distros without it, all I can say is you need to wake the hell up. I am extremely sad with the current state of the Linux landscape and didn't want to leave it behind. However, we are a small company and we don't have the resources to waste on babysitting systemd or rolling our own distro; we need something that's boring and works -- like Debian used to... This choice you speak of is nearly non-existent and growing smaller as systemd sucks more of the ecosystem down with it. If you don't see the negative effect it's having then you're part of the problem. Linux projects need to stop reinventing shit over and over and they need to really listen to the users. Until then, FreeBSD is my light at the end of a very dark tunnel...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 22 2014, @05:03AM
You aren't alone. Lots of us ex-Debian users have successfully moved to FreeBSD, or are in the process of doing so.
The Linux community is killing itself thanks to systemd. And for what? To make Linux more suitable for some hypothetical "normal user" that doesn't actually exist? To provide some "modern desktop environment" that nobody actually wants?
It will take some time to show due to the momentum that Debian has built up over the past two decades, but it's a dying project now. It has lost, or is losing, the most important members of the community: the die-hard power users who use it seriously and who promote its use.
I find it hilarious that despite the trollish claims that "*BSD is dying", the BSDs are actually thriving and doing better than ever, while it's Debian and the other Linux distros that are dying out!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Snotnose on Monday December 22 2014, @05:03AM
Yet Another SystemD Doesn't Fix Bugs Thread. It's pretty clear at this point the systemd developers have a take it or leave it approach to their code, don't bother reporting bugs. If the bug doesn't affect the systemd developers then it's irrelevant.
I run Kali linux on one of my laptops, dunno if it runs systemd or not (how can I tell?). But from what I've heard since last April, given the choice I'd be like Monty Python and "run away, run away!"
My ducks are not in a row. I don't know where some of them are, and I'm pretty sure one of them is a turkey.
(Score: 1) by Kunasou on Monday December 22 2014, @06:46AM
Just check pid 1. I have Fedora and I had to enable SysRq manually since it was disabled.
(Score: 3, Informative) by novak on Monday December 22 2014, @07:26AM
I often hear the complaint that users have no options besides systemd or BSD. Here is a quick list I got by browsing through distrowatch of linuxes which do not have systemd. I disallowed any distros based on Arch, Debian, and the like, as systemd is probably coming to them- by doing this I likely missed a few. Likewise, I used the page on distrowatch as my source of info on whether it runs systemd, so this list does not cover whether systemd is planned. Let me know if I made a mistake.
PCLinuxOS
Puppy Linux
Simplicity Linux
4MLinux
Slackware Linux
Gentoo Linux
Salix
Porteus
Alpine Linux
Tiny Core Linux
Absolute Linux
VectorLinux
LinuxConsole
SliTaz
Wifislax
Slackel
Zenwalk Linux
Pisi Linux
IPFire
CRUX
Legacy OS
AUSTRUMI
Quirky
GoboLinux
0linux
Kwort Linux
Devil-Linux
Slax
IPCop
Macpup
TouTou Linux
AgiliaLinux
Vine Linux
Thinstation
Turbolinux
Dragora GNU/Linux-Libre
Foresight Linux
openmamba GNU/Linux
Supurb Mini Server
Draco GNU/Linux
Ophcrack LiveCD
Plamo Linux
Burapha Linux Server
NuTyX
Zencafe GNU/Linux
Voidlinux
novak
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Monday December 22 2014, @09:43AM
And a huge percentage of these are minimalist distributions that are not easily expanded to the size, of, say, Fedora.
There isn't a huge amount of choice for full-blown-desktop users like myself.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 1) by schad on Monday December 22 2014, @03:29PM
For better or for worse, that's likely to be the case from now on. If you want to use Linux as a desktop machine, your best bet is to go for completely different paradigms. Stuff like the *boxes (fluxbox, openbox), Enlightenment, and so on. Those will probably always be systemd-free. I don't see much desire on either side to start sharing functionality with GNOME or any other "mainstream" DE.
I do recommend trying alternative DEs like LXDE or E. The key to success is to use them the way they're supposed to be used. Don't try to take your existing workflow and make it work in them. For LXDE, I was happiest when I stopped trying to avoid the CLI. I had this idea in my head that if I was using a DE I shouldn't ever have to use the command line. Well, that's the way Windows users think. In Windows, the CLI is awful, so of course you never want to use it. In Linux, though, the CLI is amazingly powerful and has an incredibly rich suite of tools that's been developed (and polished) for nearly 30 years. Don't run away from the CLI, embrace it! Use it for all the things it's good at, and use the GUI for the things it's good at. That's when you really see the power of Linux (or, really, Unix generally). Everything you do in Windows must fit into the GUI paradigm, because it's the only one Windows does even remotely well. In Linux you have no such limitation.
(Score: 2) by novak on Monday December 22 2014, @05:20PM
No, unfortunately. If you want to replace a desktop OS try either a slackware based distro like Zenwalk or Salix, or PCLinuxOS if you want something a little bigger.
novak
(Score: 2) by Hyper on Monday December 22 2014, @10:37AM
Debian is dead. Long live Debian.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by RedBear on Monday December 22 2014, @10:43AM
Posting a list of alternate Linux distros that just happen to still be systemd-free right at this exact moment is completely missing the point. Besides the fact that a lot of these minor Linux distributions are made for narrow, specialized purposes, they are often based on a snapshot of a larger, more established distribution like Debian. They share "DNA" with one or more parent distributions, so to speak. As many have said, systemd is spreading out and rapidly infecting things exactly like a cancer. The next time any of those minor distros feel like taking a new snapshot of their base distro, they will become infected with systemd as well. And this is even before taking into account the inevitable encroachment of developers who have bought into systemd as being a good idea, who will soon start to only maintain the systemd-requiring versions of their software, thus forcing many minor "from-scratch" Linux distros to eventually contemplate adding systemd just to maintain some relevance in the overall Linux scene.
No, there is good reason why so many people are talking about completely walking away from Linux as a platform, because unlike other platforms like BSD, the Linux platform has failed to reject the very idea of what systemd is doing to the platform. Eventually I believe it will take monumental effort to avoid systemd anywhere in the Linux world, and people just don't feel like wasting that kind of time when they can just jump over to a BSD or even Windows and end up getting more productive work done. It is my considered opinion at this point that systemd is eventually going to end up basically being the death knell of Linux as a popular desktop/server platform. It may not become blindingly obvious until several years from now, but I believe that we will all look back and collectively agree that the advent of systemd was the inflection point in Linux's popularity. Unless of course Linux can somehow reverse course and divest itself of systemd completely and be reborn, but I don't foresee that happening. That's the only possible thing that will bring back any of the folks who are "jumping ship" right now to other platforms. But it would require a very deep and fundamental reevaluation of the core principles of the entire Linux platform.
¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 22 2014, @01:51PM
This AC is one datum in exactly the scenario you described. I'm a happy Mint user, but its increasingly looking like I'll be better off going back to Win7, or relearning BSD once systemd becomes integrated into Mint to the point where I can't avoid it.
(Score: 2) by novak on Monday December 22 2014, @05:12PM
they are often based on a snapshot of a larger, more established distribution like Debian.
If you read my post you'll see that I explicitly did not post any distros based on Debian or any other systemd-ified linux. These are all either independent or based on one not yet using systemd.
Besides the fact that a lot of these minor Linux distributions are made for narrow, specialized purposes
Many are, but you may have missed popular distros like PCLinuxOS, or quality slackware based distros like Salix and Zenwalk.
systemd is spreading out and rapidly infecting things exactly like a cancer.
Yep, there aren't a whole lot of usable distros left, unfortunately. Hence, this list. I won't be leaving linux just yet, though I will be migrating more systems to BSD. Linux is very hackable. It may be difficult to avoid systemd in the future, but I think there's enough hatred for it that people are going to have good distros for a very long time.
novak
(Score: 2) by RedBear on Monday December 22 2014, @08:13PM
I was replying to the implication I read into your post that systemd will not really be a problem. I see that you did not really mean to imply that, and we are essentially in full agreement about systemd being an issue that will be increasingly problematic going into the future. However I believe you still underestimate the peripheral poisoning effect of systemd-requiring third-party software, and how quickly it will help to spread the infection even to distros that are built from scratch and fully intend (at the moment) to remain systemd-free. Eventually, most of them will have to cave.
In order to survive, the Linux platform and community will be forced to split into two branches. One branch will embrace systemd, the other will reject it and anything resembling it (i.e., monolithic, sprawling, un-UNIX-like software). The only real question is which branch will continue calling itself "Linux".
¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
(Score: 2) by novak on Tuesday December 23 2014, @10:20AM
Yeah, I didn't mean to say that systemd isn't a problem, so much as help people avoid it. I have a whole lot invested in linux and if it's going to split into minimalist and systemd factions, I'll do my best to help those on the minimal side. I will probably start using BSD entirely for servers, but for embedded, desktop, and HPC I get a lot of mileage out of linux. I'm not going to be forced out by anyone, and especially not some redhat jokers.
Systemd's infection is indeed deep, and if just a couple more distros go then nearly all will require systemd, or be derived from one that does (What's even left that people know? Maybe puppy, PCLinuxOS, and slackware?). The vast majority are already gone, and though I do hope that some deriving from debian try to stand up against it, I have no doubt that will prove increasingly difficult.
novak
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 23 2014, @02:33AM
Please, please, please... if you don't like the choices that software makes, don't campaign against the existence of things you didn't choose. Don't threaten to walk, just walk. The grass is greener, and you'll be happier. You can have the software you want, you just have to stop worrying that systemd exists in the world, and choose the OS you want to run. Go, be Free. I will stay, and remain Free, and remain pleased at the progress that is systemd.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday December 22 2014, @11:42AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 22 2014, @01:25PM
TurboLinux?! Jesus Christ, I didn't realize it was still around. The last time I remember hearing about it was... 1999!
Seriously, most of those are useless Linux distros, aside from maybe Gentoo. Even Slackware is a relic these days. A minimalist Linux distro isn't going to be able to replace Debian.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 22 2014, @03:25PM
This is beginning to annoy me. You guys/gals have not done your research. I am using, and have been using, on about 6 or 7 machines, and for a good few years, Salix: a Slackware derivative, which has a built in package manager - slapt-get, and if it isn't in that repository you can use Sourcery or spi for slapt-src which will build anything in a SlackBuild repository (similar to Gentoo). I suspect the issue is here that many are not prepared to learn new things on either side of the debate. Slackware is a damn sight easier to configure than Ubuntu, Redhat and Debian IMHO. I have tried all these and have always had problems with nis, nis+ remote nfs, ldap, etc. and invariably return to Slacking. Slack is rock solid, stable and EASY. Saying that though, if Slack gets the Systemd virus, then I will myself be moving to a *BSD. but I have been using Slack since 96 and so hope I never have to so. Other than my long history with Slack, it is also seems to be the case that device drivers are just nowhere near as comprehensive in the *BSD. However, one good side-effect of the Systemd debacle, is that this will probably change in the next few years, as more of us move over.
(Score: 2) by Blackmoore on Monday December 22 2014, @02:29PM
dig a little deeper..
sadly according to http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=gentoo [distrowatch.com]
gentoo is also infected with systemd
(Score: 2) by digitalaudiorock on Monday December 22 2014, @04:30PM
Not sure what you even mean by that. Gentoo has it disabled in the default profile. I'm against systemd about as much as anyone you'll find, but I certainly don't have a problem with allowing it as an option, just as with anything else available out there.
Gentoo has always been about choice in that way...unlike those behind systemd who create unnecessary artificial dendencies, such as Gnome etc in a malicious attempt to force their approach on the world. Systemd has in fact infected many binary distros which have decided against supporting other init systems, ONLY because these artificial dependencies have made it prohibitively difficult. How anyone wouldn't be incensed by all that is beyond me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 23 2014, @02:37AM
If you're willing to allow me to have systemd, if your goal is not to pry it from my cold dead fingers... you're not even against it. You're just not choosing it.
You're not even mildly against it. Read the other comments. Most of these people feel that it should be stripped away from me, that I should not even be allowed to have it; that I should not have Software Freedom.
(Score: 2) by digitalaudiorock on Tuesday December 23 2014, @03:50PM
That's complete and utter fucking bullshit, and you, and everyone reading this knows so. There's only one side here trying to force anything on anyone.
(Score: 2) by novak on Monday December 22 2014, @05:17PM
Gentoo does include systemd optionally, but gentoo is better described as "a set of tools to build your own OS" than an OS itself. Of course you can have systemd in it- by definition you can have anything at all in it.
novak
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 22 2014, @11:40PM
Even just optionally supporting systemd means that Gentoo is infected by it.
The only responsible thing any Linux distribution can do is take a strong stance against systemd. The distributions leadership and maintainers need to publicly say, "We will never support systemd in any fashion." And then they need to do whatever is necessary to ensure that systemd is never supported.
Linux users and distributions need to treat systemd as malware, much like they would for other malware running on a Windows system. It shouldn't be "optionally supported". It should be banished, and preventative measures put in place to try to prevent it from infecting computer systems.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Nerdanel on Monday December 22 2014, @09:23AM
Back when my X kept freezing randomly for seemingly no reason (it was a bad power supply, but that one was tough to figure out), I was using the magic SysRq daily. That prevented a whole lot of filesystem corruptiion. It's a good thing systemd wasn't there to interfere. I wouldn't have needed for systemd to add another problem to solve on top of my existing problem.
Maybe the reason I enabled the magic SysRq when I compiled the kernel was because I wanted it to be there for a reason. I don't need my init system silently disabling useful features, even if Lennart Poettering in his great wisdom thinks that ignorant users mashing every keyboard button at once and potentially accidentally rebooting their system are a serious problem. That's the same sort of user-contemptuous mindset that makes Gnome decide that the middle click paste is deprecated now even though it's the more efficient way to copy-paste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 23 2014, @06:40PM
So? Edit the config file and enable the key again.
The news story is not "SystemD won't let you use the magic SysReq key". The news story is "SystemD manages the key, defaults it to off, and has its own config file to enable it."
This seems sadly typical of SystemD stories on Slashdot and here. This is a nothingburger of a story, and people are jumping to conclusions without evidence. Your conclusion seems to be that since SystemD defaulted the key to off, that you can never use it again ever. Why did you assume that?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 22 2014, @10:52AM
Too bad devuan is a fucking scam where they took money and have done NO work.
They just talk about food and ban mysoginists and brooklyn jews and pat themselves on the back.
Fucking pieces of shit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 22 2014, @08:02PM
The guy who heads it (dyne.org) wrote a bunch of zsh scripts, and an all-free distro that he hasn't updated in years.
Here he is in action:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJNUUkx-_38 [youtube.com]
Completely unrelated stuff wounded in some greater narrative of why he is cool.
I think if I first heard about free software from this guy, instead of RMS, I wouldn't have listened, and wouldn't have become a contributor to it. The way this guy presents it, it just sounds, looks, feels and smells like hot air.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 22 2014, @08:39PM
First they say debianfork is 4chan people trolling. Turns out it is not.
Then you say it's a scam.
Well let's see.
(Score: 2, Informative) by aardvax on Monday December 22 2014, @02:03PM
The magic incantation to block apt from installing systemd when doing updates can be found at this link.
http://without-systemd.org/wiki/index.php/How_to_remove_systemd_from_a_Debian_jessie/sid_installation [without-systemd.org]
It currently works for me, though there is a reasonable chance of some new dependency stopping updates
from working in the future.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 22 2014, @05:17PM
W/e, sysvinit had the system key disabled by default because it was seen as a security issue by quite a few big distros. You guys are just thirsty.
(Score: 1) by dime on Monday December 22 2014, @09:16PM
Which distro is this?
I use OpenSUSE on my workstation. I use RHEL/Centos at work. I use Debian on travel laptop, and Mint/Ubuntu for computers that I set up for my roommates who are computer illiterate. Except for my workstation that I've never had to use it on, alt-sysrq works on all others.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 26 2014, @11:36PM
More and more it seems the head honchos working on systemd are security paranoid.
This to the point of potentially borking up the usage of su simply because it may violate the seat and session tracking performed by systemd-logind.
Perfect is very much the enemy of good when it comes to systemd, and they are attempting to reach perfection...
(Score: 1) by steveha on Monday December 22 2014, @07:15PM
I think we can all agree that whether SystemD is a good thing or not, it is designed to do init-type tasks.
The SystemD guys think that SystemD should legitimately be setting up the magic SysReq key. They picked a default value that "should be safe"... I don't know what that means but I guess it disables the magic SysReq key. I'll say it again: the default value disables the magic SysReq key.
Another guy thinks that the magic SysReq key is special, and SystemD shouldn't set it. Some other config file should set it. Further discussion of the bug showed that SystemD guys don't agree.
Okay, I'm trying to figure out why this is a top-level news story. If you have SystemD, you enable the magic SysReq key by editing a SystemD setup file. This is controversial... why?
IMHO if you are letting SystemD manage your system, it should be no big deal to enable the magic SysReq key by editing a SystemD config file rather than some other config file.
So, what have I missed here? Why is this a top-level story?
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Monday December 22 2014, @10:13PM
Obligatory SN Two Minutes Hate for systemd. Just as Poettering is fostering a cult of "My way or the highway", SN is fostering a cult of "systemd and Poettering are the devil".
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by tonyPick on Tuesday December 23 2014, @08:34AM
I think we can all agree that whether SystemD is a good thing or not, it is designed to do init-type tasks.
Much as I've been avoiding this discussion this time around... Several people would disagree with you, and one of those people is Poeterring:
It's not just an init system anymore, but the basic userspace building block to build an OS from
From http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/the-biggest-myths.html [0pointer.de]
See also: http://0pointer.net/blog/revisiting-how-we-put-together-linux-systems.html [0pointer.net]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 23 2014, @08:45AM
How do you go from "It's not just an init system anymore" to "it is not designed to do init-type tasks"?
Even if "it's not just an init system anymore" it's still an init system.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 22 2014, @07:32PM
Submit this and/or the other systemd articles to Slashdot? As an upset Debian user I find these systemd articles a lot more important than the current drivel articles there right now, this stuff needs to get known.
(Score: 3) by maxwell demon on Monday December 22 2014, @07:52PM
If you want to see them there, why don't you submit them?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1) by dime on Monday December 22 2014, @09:04PM
Retards Embrace Init System Utterly Broken
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 23 2014, @10:30AM
Has no-one else noticed exactly what systemd really is?