Almost a year and a half in the making, Devuan no longer is an Alpha-stage Linux distribution. A major site overhaul salutes the rollout of the first Beta release:
https://beta.devuan.org/
Here is an excerpt from an article from The Register on the release:
The effort to create a systemd-free Debian fork has borne fruit, with a beta of "Devuan Jessie" appearing in the wild.
Devuan came into being after a rebellion by a self-described "Veteran Unix Admin collective" argued that Debian had betrayed its roots and was becoming too desktop-oriented. The item to which they objected most vigorously was the inclusion of the systemd bootloader. The rebels therefore decided to fork Debian and "preserve Init freedom". The group renamed itself and its distribution "Devuan" and got [to] work, promising a fork that looked, felt, and quacked like Debian in all regards other than imposing systemd as the default Init option.
[...] Kudos, though, to the group for getting it out there! Now to see if there's really a groundswell of support for the cause of "Init freedom", as the greybeards name their cause.
The inclusion of systemd appears not to be holding rival Linux distros back: our review of Ubuntu 16.04 suggests it will be a speed bump for most users. Our Debian Jessie review said it slices a few seconds off boot times but is removable with little fuss for those who would prefer to go their own way at startup time. ®
How many people have been using this distro out of their worry over systemd's voracious appetite of everything standing between the kernel and the user? What are others using who share similar worries but have turned to other distros?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by devlux on Friday April 29 2016, @05:06PM
Brand new laptop for Christmas. Booted and ran Ubuntu 14.04 LTS just fine. Xenial will not run despite 2 weeks of my life wasted on it. Something to do with tsc, or at least that's where it freezes solid requiring a hard reboot that means removing the battery.
Nor will it boot any other recent linux distro I've tried.
I can't be 100% certain, but I do believe systemd is doing something screwy. It will be good to get away from the madness that is systemd.
If I had wanted something like systemd I'd install Windows.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 29 2016, @05:19PM
There's not much that Slackware won't run on.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by devlux on Friday April 29 2016, @06:32PM
Reminds me of an old joke
"Ubuntu, swahili word meaning I couldn't figure out Slack". :D
In all seriousness I tried Slack it worked, well it booted anyways; But wireless didn't and I couldn't sort the problem. Arch looked promising, but my 2 years with Gentoo kind of warned away from any distro that requires I compile my packages in order to get them to run and IIRC that was Arch's main selling point. Last time I ran Gentoo was 2007 so YMMV.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 29 2016, @07:39PM
Gentoo guy from the other comment here. Sorry about your experience with Gentoo. It's not for everybody, but I still love the crap out of it as my distro of choice. Hopefully Devuan will solve your dilemma.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 29 2016, @08:42PM
What are you talking about? Slack is a communications tool for groups, not an operating system.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Nerdfest on Friday April 29 2016, @08:51PM
Q: How can you tell if someone is running Arch?
A: Don't worry, they'll fucking tell you.
I'm not a fan of systemd as I have a very serious problem with its design (SVHost.exe. basically), but I've only run into a couple of minor problems with it so far. I'm actually looking to get away from Ubuntu derivatives and move back towards Debian, perhaps with Siduction or something similar.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday April 29 2016, @09:37PM
I wish i had more time on my hands: i'd love to try to get systemd out of arch. I may have to FIND some time and go either with
http://systemd-free.org/install.php [systemd-free.org]
or
manjaro-openrc, although manjaro keeps getting further and further from arch compatibility as time goes on from what i've read, so probably the first option will be it. (using Antergos Arch and enjoying it, except i can't seem to get steam working properly....)
(I've found that i seem to be able to get the Arch i3wm to behave the best: even with the i3 repo in ubuntu, it doesn't seem to 'behave' like the arch one).
So many distros, so little time....
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday April 30 2016, @04:19AM
manjaro keeps getting further and further from arch compatibility as time goes on from what i've read,
Not from what I see. They are seldom more than a few days behind Arch itself, and Arch packages can be directly installed.
See https://manjaro.github.io/Update-2016-04-26_(stable)/ [github.io]
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday April 29 2016, @10:27PM
Newp, Arch doesn't require that you compile your packages. It's a binaries package management system just like most. Unlike most though it's rolling release and much closer to the bleeding edge than say Ubuntu or Debian.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday April 30 2016, @04:11AM
I've been playing with Manjaro, which is an Arch derivative, which stays conveniently behind most of the bloody edges of Arch, and I gotta say its one of the most polished and trouble free distros I've used in a while. Being a susephile, i had just a couple days of finding my way around in the Arch world, but other than that Manjaro is a very nice distro (regardless of which DE you install).
From what i hear, Arch gets that compile it rap is that they will kick packages out of their binary repositories if there are no maintainers for that package any more, but you can still get them from the source repositories.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 29 2016, @07:35PM
Have you tried Gentoo? The Live CD also happens to be the Installation CD. (I think that's more the case with most distros these days anyhow but that's always how Gentoo's done it.) Yeah, it takes a bit more effort and if you have an SSD I would recommend symlinking /var/tmp/portage either to a ramdisk or regular hard drive (or just mounting the other filesystem there). /var/tmp/portage is where packages get compiled assuming you keep the Portage package manager and don't switch to Paludis (outside the scope of the install guide/handbook). SSDs have probably gotten better but I was stupid enough to nearly wear out the SSD in my tablet (about 5 years old) by doing a Gentoo install side-by-side with Android.
The install guide/handbook [gentoo.org] is pretty good (link is for x86_64, but arm7 was not that different and x86 is pretty much the same) . I mean, I've done it a few times so usually I just follow it as a checklist to make sure I don't forget anything. There's some extra instructions for systemd during different steps if you want to try to prove/disprove that systemd is the wonky component, but I usually just skip those. I'm happy with OpenRC, which has been Gentoo's default for a while now, back before systemd even when every distro was flailing about with upstart.
I would recommend following the instructions for genkernel (like systemd iirc it's all part of the guide and just one way to do a system among many that Gentoo supports). I compile my own kernel, but I'm guessing you want to engage in as little configuration as necessary.
On modern hardware, it's feasible to complete a Gentoo install in the space of a lazy Saturday. It used to take a lot of "hurry up and wait" time while your packages get compiled from source with the features you've elected to turn on or off, but when I did my gaming rig (not even top of the line--it's a 3 block/6 integer core Bulldozer) there was so little hurry up and wait that I installed half my system (XFCE, X Windows, Chromium, etc) from chroot before booting into my fresh install.
I mean, heck, Gentoo even supports the BSD kernel from what I understand.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday April 30 2016, @03:56PM
If you have time to experiment try antix, if it works try mxlinux. The first is systemd free the second doesnt use systemd to boot but has many related stuff.
And then remember to file a bug against systemd, without your support the systemd devs cannot make systemd/linux great again. (JK)
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Demose on Friday April 29 2016, @05:17PM
Sys-V isn't maintained anymore. There aren't any init systems other than SystemD that don't have Sys-V as a dependency that I know of. Systemd is currently the only game in town if you want security updates.
(Score: 4, Informative) by tibman on Friday April 29 2016, @05:33PM
Here you go: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Comparison_of_init_systems [gentoo.org]
Also, if i remember right, Subsentient (a SN user) is the author of Epoch.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday April 29 2016, @10:29PM
You do indeed remember correctly. He was thinking of rewriting it in C++ last I paid attention.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Informative) by pTamok on Friday April 29 2016, @05:41PM
Does runit fit the bill for no SysV dependency?
http://smarden.org/runit/ [smarden.org]
or maybe minit
http://www.fefe.de/minit/ [www.fefe.de]
There are links to others off those pages.
(Score: 2) by Demose on Friday April 29 2016, @06:06PM
I'm not sure how I missed these when I went looking... ehm, three years ago.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 29 2016, @07:01PM
Sys-V isn't maintained anymore.
[citation needed]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by linuxrocks123 on Friday April 29 2016, @07:53PM
It's not that sysvinit isn't maintained; it's that it doesn't need maintenance. Booting a Unix machine has been a solved problem for 30 years, so the code to do that doesn't often need to be changed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 29 2016, @09:14PM
Exactly! systemd developers found one piece of code that worked well and came up with a solution for a problem that didn't exist. Which itself later became a problem, but hey it solved their job security problem :) which everybody else have to pay for it.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Hairyfeet on Friday April 29 2016, @09:58PM
That is something I really don't understand when it comes to software, this "We're not adding new bells and whistles so its bad"...well if it fricking works and is solid and stable...why the fuck would I WANT you adding a bunch of damned bells and whistles that will probably be as buggy and brittle as...well pretty much everything else Larry Potter has put out? We're talking about operating systems here, not some Miley Cyrus fan site, if this shit ain't stable? Yeah that computer might as well be a damned doorstop, so just stop it okay devs?
Of course the sad part is we know what this is really about and it ain't got shit to do with booting, its got to do with turning Linux into nothing more than a VM that runs on Red Hat(tm) SystemD virtual machines. All RH cares about is "the cloud", they have the money as well as a good chunk of the devs at the major distros (seriously look up how many Ubuntu and Debian devs are also former RH employees) so they are basically gonna pull a EEE on Linux by having SystemD just keep gobbling up functions like fricking Pacman. I wish nothing but luck to the Devuan guys along with any other distro that is trying not to get gobbled up because they are really in a David vs Goliath situation here, complete with the burying of discussion and "embrace the innovation luddite!" levels of cheerleading that frankly reminds me of nothing more than when MSFT tried to ram home Metro but its gonna be worse for these guys because everyone could see what MSFT was doing was shit, SystemD is like a quietly spreading cancer and if Larry Potter has its way there really won't be anything in Linux that isn't tied into SystemD somehow.
So good luck Devuan devs, you have a long and hard road ahead.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 03 2016, @07:15AM
Its the curse of commercialization, basically.
Businesses need people to constantly replacing/upgrading, be it software, washing machines or cars.
Thus they keep adding new stuff in the hopes of attracting people to toss the old kit for the new and shiny.
Sadly this thinking has wormed its way even into the FOSS world.
And the most striking manifestation of it can be seen with the churn of constantly rewriting libs and whatsnot from scratch, or as JWZ put it: CADT.
(Score: 5, Informative) by canopic jug on Friday April 29 2016, @05:18PM
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Kymation on Friday April 29 2016, @05:36PM
The torrent link in the parent is currently returning a 404 error. You can use the magnet link instead: magnet:?xt=urn:btih:9b0fa597ab8bdd89a57434876947dbe378a79aad&dn=devuan_jessie_beta&tr=udp://tracker.dyne.org:6969
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Friday April 29 2016, @05:51PM
Link to torrent not working, getting a 404 as of this posting.
Even going to the downloads page and trying to get it from there I'm getting a 404.
The magnet link they provide should still work. Sadly I have not been able to get magnet links to work with my OS/torrent app combination so I will not be able to help them out by seeding it without a regular .torrent file.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Friday April 29 2016, @05:53PM
The torrent file the link points at is 404.
You can still get the .torrent file here;
https://files.devuan.org/ [devuan.org]
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday April 29 2016, @09:14PM
torrent works for me.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday April 29 2016, @09:01PM
I have absolute no intention of installing this, but I launched a torrent fetch and will seed that for a week or so.
It will be interesting to see how long it takes before my upload exceeds my download.
It took exactly 30 minutes for that to happen when I grabbed the torrent of the Raspberry Pi Jessie, (complete with systemd which has not caused me the slightest problem).
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by meustrus on Friday April 29 2016, @05:21PM
I may lose some geek cred for this, but I haven't managed any Linux installations for a few years. Therefore I have no idea what it so wrong with systemd. Could somebody please link me to a few good explanations for why everybody seems to hate it so much? I would also appreciate arguments from the other side. Those that are pushing it so hard must have a reason and I'd like to know how they explain it.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 29 2016, @05:34PM
Check the green site and generally do a websearch on "systemd problems" or something similar. In a nutshell, it acts more like a Windows "wizard" and does things "for you". One of the major reasons I got into Linux 20 years ago was that I wanted full control of processes, startup, etc. I don't want or need the computer doing things for me. I don't hate kernel module autoloading. Even if one causes a problem, I can bar it or delete it, although I've never had a problem with one. But otherwise I don't like what little I've seen of systemd so I'm avoiding any distro that uses it. If I'm forced into it for work, then so be it- they're paying me for my time and effort, but I will lobby for switching away. An example is CentOS 6.x, which is init-based, versus 7.x which is 64 bit only and uses systemd.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 29 2016, @05:49PM
Init is a stupid idea anyway. I always boot Linux with init=/bin/bash which gets me straight to a root prompt. I don't have any configuration files either. I manually type all my configuration commands every time on every single boot because boot scripts are for pussies. I decide what processes I want to run on my rig. Because I'm a fucking rockstar, bitch.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday April 29 2016, @10:35PM
You should lobby long and hard against using an untried and still in development init system on any production box, period. If you wouldn't run beta kernels, you shouldn't run a beta init system. And systemd is still very much beta quality software.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 29 2016, @05:38PM
SystemD is evil. The greyneckbeards who say SystemD is evil don't know why SystemD is evil. It just is. If you use SystemD and SystemD works for you, you're an idiot. If you say you like SystemD, you're a troll. That's all you need to know.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by tibman on Friday April 29 2016, @05:48PM
IMO, the biggest reason is ideology. SystemD is not just an init system anymore. The Unix way of doing things is lots of simple, individual, and replaceable programs that loosely work together. SystemD is more like a MS windows approach. Lots of integration and dependencies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemd#History_and_controversy [wikipedia.org]
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 29 2016, @05:52PM
Fuck yeah, brother! Windows sucks and Microsoft sucks!!
sudo mod me up
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 29 2016, @07:36PM
Shut the fuck up and google it, troll.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 29 2016, @07:45PM
For me, the mask fell when they gave the middle finger to BSD contributions. It made pretty clear it was about control and not about collaboration. Business power grab vs FOSS principles.
(Score: 5, Informative) by bitstream on Friday April 29 2016, @08:42PM
The PoettmonD is bad because it tries to take control over all boot and system services. It puts a lot of infrastructure into one process just like Windows does. And causes incompatibilities with application software that just won't work with OS that don't use systemd. There's also problems with replacing specific services as with a modular structure because they are now integrated. There's also the political side of it. It's been pushed down the throat of too many people, some also suspect that RedHat etc tries to derail the FOSS community to their own financial gain and externalizing the disruption.
Other reasons why systemd is bad:
* Feature creep.
* Breaks with Unix philosophy of interconnected utilities with narrowly defined functionalities.
* Software bloat.
* Key systemd developer has bad attitude toward users and bug reports.
* Sloppy testing before shipping.
* Violation of the Unix philosophy, and to "enormous egos who firmly believe they can do no wrong".
* svchost.exe wannabe (a big blob where one service can take down all the other).
* Too many layers of indirection.
* Difficult to predict execution model.
* Non-deterministic boot order.
* Binary logs.
If something is incorrect. I don't mind a comment pointing it out.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by fritsd on Friday April 29 2016, @09:28PM
As a self-styled Devuan "greyneckbeard", let me first respond that I am happy for you, that you completely missed the acrimonious arguments for and against systemd last year(s).
Surf around, e.g. https://beta.devuan.org/os/init-freedom/ [devuan.org]. The emotions run very high on this issue, it's worse than vi vs. emacs.
The official Devuan website says: "At Devuan we’re more interested in programming them wrong than looking back." which I think is quite wise.
We know we're right ;-) but that doesn't mean anything without the goods to prove it.
As an intro I suggest you start with the following Wikipedia article, it's well worth it to read it:
The Unix philosophy [wikipedia.org]
"Do one thing, and do it well"
If you look at what a carpenter brings to his job, it's a heavy box filled with different simple tools. There is no single "MagicCarpentryDoesEverything" device. There is no "AllOtherToolsWontWorkIfYouDontUseThisOneFirst" device, either.
The same goes for people who try to actually accomplish work with computers. They use a toolkit with tools, because that's a useful intermediate interface between their brain and the computer.
If you want a personal anecdote from someone who's NOT an expert but a kind of "jack of all trades, master of none", here it is:
I hated systemd because I thought the design of the program was not good. In my opinion, it goes against the grain of the UNIX philosophy, which is a real thing, and actually runs an awful lot of the world's computer infrastructure 24/7 in such a way that, when it crashes, its maintainers can discover, reproduce, experiment and repair the problem. Even if the maintainers are not as smart as the programmers of the tools!!!
A computer system that is not discoverabale and repairable by its administrator is a dangerous computer system. When (not if) it goes titsup, who's going to study and fix it?
When I installed Debian Jessie I ran into issues. That's because they switched to systemd without warning. That was my first encounter with systemd.
So, I tried to resolve the issues, and couldn't.
Because systemd was far too deeply integrated into the Debian base system. Have you seen the scene in the film "Alien" where the alien attaches itself to John Hurt's face? It felt a bit like that, "WTF has this done to MY system".
Then, I became pissed off, and spent 3 days removing systemd dependencies. It was most interesting. I learned a lot about pieces of the Debian system I never looked at before.
Then I joined Devuan and helped them with the live-build and debootstrap scripts and with removing some unnecessary systemd dependencies.
Now, I don't hate systemd anymore, because I don't have anything to do with it. Problem solved! :-)
There are probably lots of good features in systemd. But that is actually not the point. This is an important point to stress.
Systemd is much newer and more modern than sysvinit. True, but that's not the point either (anyway, when you're responsible for something and it's turned to crap, do you wail to your boss, "but boss! I had to switch because the new system is MORE MODERN!11!"?).
Sysvinit is not a very good init system. Probably true, for large deployments. But that's not the point, either (and there are lots of better alternatives anyway, and you can use daemontools or equivalent for process supervision features that an init system doesn't need to have but you need).
Maybe it's an issue that only old farts worry about. Could be.
Have you ever written a program, complicated and complex, the bee's knees, and then you couldn't debug it 7 years later because you couldn't understand it anymore? This systemd issue feels a bit like that. It is complex where it shouldn't be, and you already have enough problems to worry about. Don't add to it.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Friday April 29 2016, @11:12PM
What init system(s) do you personally use?
(Score: 3, Informative) by fritsd on Saturday April 30 2016, @02:36PM
Just sysvinit, but when Devuan switches to something else then I'll try that. I'm not particularly attached to sysvinit.
Devuan Jessie was especially made to have only minimal differences with Debian Jessie.
For the next version, Devuan Ascii, the plan is to replace systemd-udev (systemd swallowed udev) by a new program called vdev.
There is also a replacement for Network-manager in the works.
I don't speak for the rest, but our ambitions are nothing spectacular. We greatly appreciate what Debian has achieved and want to keep and continue that good work.
It's Debian that chose a detour, hence the fork in the road. Maybe one day it will merge back, who knows?
You might have to give up on GNOME though: at least in 2012, this LWN.net article said:
GNOME and/or systemd [lwn.net]
We can't keep removing dependencies if the upstream authors keep putting new ones back in, of course. It's their choice and their desktop environment, ultimately. If they want to make a "NIE VIR SYSVINITS" desktop environment because it's somehow more cool, then more power to them.
I've got Devuan running with the LXDE environment, and the official version has the XFCE environment. Maybe everything works including GNOME and KDE 4 in Jessie beta, but I haven't checked lately.
There was also someone else on the Internet who kept a branch of KDE 3 alive (Trinity project). I really liked KDE 3, so if I have time or get paid for it I'll try to integrate that in Devuan.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 03 2016, @07:19AM
Talking about network manager, have the Devuan community considered working on Wicd?
(Score: 1) by mvdwege on Tuesday May 03 2016, @11:49AM
Good grief. Is a lobotomy a prerequisite for hating systemd? You had plenty of warning, you incompetent git.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by LoRdTAW on Friday April 29 2016, @10:46PM
In addition to several good replies above, my take:
Before Systemd Linux was pretty much a Unix clone. Software could easily be shared between Linux distros and even entirely different Unix and Unix like operating systems. For example, you could run KDE or Gnome on a BSD or even commercial Unix system like Solaris. Why? They all obeyed the POSIX standard of operating system interfaces. In fact, POSIX stands for Portable Operating System Interface (the x probably means Unix). Basically, POSIX is the API and shell standard of Unix. So all of the Unix and Unix like operating systems could freely share most user-space code like Xservers, desktop environments and utilities. Thing were good and everyone is Unix land was happy.
Enter systemd. The creator Lennart Poettering dislikes POSIX. Linux added more systems calls and interfaces than POSIX specifies. Some of which improve performance over the old POSIX calls or introduce new functionality that POSIX never anticipated like 3D graphics (DRM layer). Poettering concluded that the Linux specific syscalls were better and systemd is built around those. This is strike 1 since systemd is now bound to the Linux kernel architecture.
Next up is a lot of functionality that things like dbus and other technologies bring to modern desktops are now moved into systemd. Not a bad thing but systemd has it own calls and libraries for controlling these things. So in order for a desktop environment like KDE to control certain systemd things, it needs to integrate systemd. Strike 2.
Here is strike 3: Core desktop libraries like Gnomes glib are now dependent on systemd because they need to integrate systemd functionality. You cant compile Gnome on Solaris, FreeBSD, etc without systemd. Now simple desktop applications like a music player or video player are systemd dependant. It has wormed its way down to the application level where IT DOES NOT BELONG.
The only way non Linux operating systems can now build Gnome and Gnome library applications is to write what are called systemd shims. Extra code, which was never needed, to emulate systemd just so FreeBSD can run a fucking music player.
This is why systemd is a huge disaster. If it stuck to its original supposed goal: init system, people wouldn't care. But it is breaking sompatibility with every other Unix and Unix like OS out there for no good reason other than "it's better". It isn't.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday April 30 2016, @01:32AM
Well, this isn't an analysis of "The Biggest Problem", but I have two different systems installed in two different partitions. After I recently installed the second partition, the first partition stopped booting. Fortunately the second partition installer was Debian, and so the boot system had an "advanced options section". When I went into it and switched to a SysV boot system, the boot continued properly after reporting an error. It seems that the installation of the second system had changed that disk's UUID, so systemd wouldn't let the first system boot, because it believed in the old UUID, but SysV would allow the boot after reporting an error. I fixed this by editing fstab to the proper locations (actually, I used named folders rather than UUIDs, but I could have done either....except if I did, and I reinstalled the second partition again, then the first partition would again experience problems with booting.
Others have reported other problems, but this is the one that *I* have, so far, found most annoying. It caused me to totally give up on the latest Ubuntu before I tracked the problem down...but it was so ugly that I didn't mind giving up on it.
P.S.: I'm one of those who find Gnome3 to be essentially unusable. I used it to install KDE, but the KDE that got installed was so ugly that I regretted bothering to do so. This was before I found that it had borked my ability to boot into my second partition.
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 Magic Oddball on Saturday April 30 2016, @06:19AM
The "let's change the UUIDs then silently fail to boot with no fucking explanation" bug was what (eventually) alerted me to the existence of systemD after a Debian upgrade a couple of years ago. Holy shit, what a headache... Since there was (as I quickly discovered) no way to toggle over to the usual system messages while booting, I booted into a liveCD only to find that there were also no readable (text) error logs. I told GRUB to start it into the Emergency Shell, but just ran into one bizarro systemD-specific bug after another — the ones I remember involved it demanding a password when it shouldn't, not accepting input from my wireless keyboard (I had to use the one built into the laptop), not showing my keyboard input on-screen, timing out really quickly, and my finally getting into the damned shell only to find most of the commands were broken.
I gave up entirely at that point and used (I think) SimplyMepis for a few months before somebody here pointed me towards PCLinuxOS. Of course, when I looked up a few of the bug reports, I found that the systemD guys had marked them WONTFIX. Fucking figures.
I used it to install KDE, but the KDE that got installed was so ugly that I regretted bothering to do so.
I was initially unhappy to learn that KDE 5 was to require systemD and thus wouldn't be available for PCLinuxOS, then I saw a bunch of screenshots and promptly changed my mind. *g* I wonder how long it will take before we see a project continuing KDE 4's development that's along the same lines as MATE & TrinityDE.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 03 2016, @07:28AM
That is perhaps the nastiest part about systemd. When it works, it works. But when it breaks, its like being back using Windows, staring blankly at the BSOD with a sprinkling of hex and memory address ranges.
Many who adopted Linux in the past did so because they were tired of trying to "fix" Windows by doing "raze and pave over" reinstalls at irregular intervals. Linux offered them a system where if something broke there was multiple ways to get back in there and find out what broke, and how to avoid it in the future.
Frankly the systemd way is the epitome of the devops/cloud way. There uptime is not about keeping individual servers running, they come and go at the whim of the load balancer, but by basically firing "instances" at the task like a machinegun fires bullets.
It feels like in the end ol' Murky won the debate, and Linux turned into Windows.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday April 30 2016, @05:21PM
Dunno why you were moderated "flamebait".
You ask, "Those that are pushing it so hard must have a reason and I'd like to know how they explain it."
I offer a non-specific answer - that is, it doesn't apply to systemd alone. In business offices, people vie for the opportunity to create a new form. In politics, they compete to have laws named after themselves. In medicine, people compete to create new cures with which to associate their names. Etc, ad nauseum, each field has it's "forward thinkers", who feel the need to "make their mark" in that field.
Systemd? Poettering and associates may or may not believe (as individuals) that systemd is an improvement on the old Linux way of doing things. What's important is, that they make a name for themselves, and hopefully, at least a small fortune. Wouldn't it be really cool if you could introduce some improvement to Linux? Such a great improvement, that people started to call Linux by your name instead? "Oh, we gave up on Linux, now we run Meustrux!" Getting your name used like that - better than big bucks, to many people!
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday April 30 2016, @06:01PM
I have bad news for you, mr. "I had not managed linux installation for a while".
Your sysadmin skills is now a minefield of deprecated knowledge.
chroot? cron? fstab? mount options meaning and application? reading logs? networking? containers?
boot order? being able to reboot? posixly correct stuff?
Prepare to be surprised by... systemd!
But, wait, instead of trusting us, why did you not go to wikipedia?
"Poettering describes systemd development as "never finished, never complete, but tracking progress of technology". In May 2014, Poettering further defined systemd as aiming to unify "pointless differences between distributions".
Do you trust this guy, employed by RedHat, a corporation whose business model revolves around linux systems needing maintenance, to put a mediator between kernel and userland in charge of booting login logs and a dozen other aspects of your system?
If so, then go with the flow, use systemd. Most people do like that, after all. Just like they flocked to windows some years ago. My parent process liked this haiku.
You glistening drop of intense summer rain,
go with the flow.
End up in the drain.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 4, Funny) by canopic jug on Sunday May 01 2016, @05:15AM
Do you trust this guy, employed by RedHat, a corporation whose business model revolves around linux systems needing maintenance, to put a mediator between kernel and userland in charge of booting login logs and a dozen other aspects of your system?
.
Brian Stevens, CTO of Red Hat back in 2006 said this to Matt Asay:
Complexity is the enemy of both sysadmins and security. But it helps Red Hat. It makes the system so complex underneath that people will pay Red Hat extra just to wash their hands of it, in addition to making it very inflexible and, worse, unpredictable. Behaving other than expected is a capital crime for a production system.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by mmcmonster on Friday April 29 2016, @05:25PM
I'm certainly not a big time Linux administrator. Just my own home boxes.
What I've noticed is that when I do a system upgrade which involves switching to SystemD, thing behave funny/badly. Maybe the boot doesn't happen cleanly or samba or another service doesn't get started every time the system boots.
...But, if I do a clean install of the OS and SystemD is installed, everything works entirely fine.
Now, I know I should be more upset that the system upgrade should work smoothly, and if not I should be able to troubleshoot the issues. But frankly, who's got time for that? It's generally faster for me to just nuke the partition and reinstall everything.
I keep copies notes of all the modifications I do on a system anyway, so after a clean install I just read my notes on how to get everything the way I like it.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday April 29 2016, @09:11PM
What I've noticed is that when I do a system upgrade which involves switching to SystemD, thing behave funny/badly. Maybe the boot doesn't happen cleanly or samba or another service doesn't get started every time the system boots.
...But, if I do a clean install of the OS and SystemD is installed, everything works entirely fine.
But how much of that is actually systemd related?
Upgrading often gets you totally new software (samba has had massive changes of late) that doesn't always work with your old config files. But I bet you retained you old config files when upgrading (cuz that's why people upgrade after all).
I've had the same struggle for 10 years when updating in place, well before the advent of systemd. Fresh installs are just about always better.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by fritsd on Friday April 29 2016, @05:36PM
It's going to be interesting to see the issues multiply now that the project will get more exposure.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by opinionated_science on Friday April 29 2016, @05:47PM
There have been many pages written on why systemd. I don't mind it (no alternative really, but it does work).
I would say one of the thing missing from systemd (as it is init) is multithread support - being able to segregate the various user processes would be useful (I get soft lockups and systemd is not always in the thread, but there is not way to restart it).
The reason why systemd is a *necessity* is to be able to provide per-image sessions to Linux. The author (LP) spoke at some length about this on his blog (some 2 years ago).
If you have an old system with dependencies, this SysV port might be useful. For the rest of us, systemd is the future....
(Score: 4, Insightful) by tibman on Friday April 29 2016, @06:35PM
Nah, there are several good alternatives. As systemD expands i think we'll end up with two very different style linux systems. One that is mono-culture and corporate leaning and the other one hacker friendly. When the systemD system has an issue you'll just wipe and reinstall. When the hacker friendly one has an issue you'll have to dive into configs and forums (like usual). Issues are rare but shit happens. Bad shutdown, hardware issue, data corruption, cosmic rays, or whatever.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 01 2016, @07:52AM
Yes, we will end up with two very different kinds of Linux: One that all the big projects target and test on and another with a small community of maintainers, patching up all the big projects onto their unsupported stack entirely on their own.
As always in the free software world: The developers decide where stuff is heading. So far I am not aware of a single competent programmer in or around Devuan. If they can not attract a couple, then they will go under again... Admins can not maintain an ever increasing set of patches in the mid- and long-term and without upstream backing.
KDE and Gnome both have closed bugreports from non-systemd distributions with "ask your distribution to fit their stack".
(Score: 2) by tibman on Sunday May 01 2016, @06:01PM
You haven't done your research : ) There are already/still non-systemd distros out there with maintainers and programmers. However they are not Debian based, which seems to be the part you are misunderstanding.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by linuxrocks123 on Friday April 29 2016, @07:57PM
The reason why systemd is a *necessity* is to be able to provide per-image sessions to Linux.
What the hell does that even mean? Google turns up nothing for that term. Are you talking about virtualization or Docker or something? Because I can guarantee you OpenVZ doesn't require SystemD. So what do you mean?
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Friday April 29 2016, @10:52PM
LP (the author) mentioned how BTRFS can provide many different views of the filesystem based on volumes. Hence, every user logging in could get a unique set of applications/version/desktop. But also , the machine could boot with any number of different configurations.
When BTRFS is as good as ZFS of course....!
(Score: 2) by VLM on Saturday April 30 2016, @12:41PM
This is the design problem of solve the problem once it no longer exists...
If we go back to everybody at work logging into a PDP-10 via dumb terminals, this will be awesome. Or if trends reverse and unix boxes continue their decline from $20K when I started to $2K to $200 to $20 and soon enough to $2 microcontrollers (Sure the BSD port to PIC32 technically works but isn't really useful)
Also elaborate computational methods to save megabytes of disk space was important back when drives were tens of megs, but now that multi-terabyte drive ship...
(Score: 2) by linuxrocks123 on Saturday April 30 2016, @03:16PM
I'm currently waiting on a compile of a GCC cross-compiler so I can compile a linux kernel so I can create a SquashFS image to put on a router with 4MB flash because the stock build of OpenWRT was about 100K too large to fit.
Space optimization is still important in quite a few situations :)
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Sunday May 01 2016, @11:36AM
Right, then I have a technical question for you w.r.t. the live-build scripts:
Debian has three different ARM architectures called arm, armhf and armel.
mksquashfs has a compression option -Xbcj with an architecture as argument.
Now can you give me a table mapping the "Debian arm" to the "mksquashfs arm" where the latter is called either arm or armthumb?
Debian arm => mksquashfs x
Debian armel => mksquashfs y
Debian armhf => mksquashfs z
where x, y, z are either "arm" or "armthumb"
I haven't got much experience with ARM, and I'd imagine most ARM machines are small embeddd machines and could benefit from a smaller squashfs image size.
I thought thumb was only for really tiny computers so x,y,z = arm probably, but I wanted to make sure.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 03 2016, @07:34AM
Freakin' pipe dream...
One may wonder if RH has SUN envy.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ticho on Friday April 29 2016, @05:49PM
Why does https://git.devuan.org [devuan.org] require creating an account? I refuse to sign up just to browse some (supposedly open source) code, sorry.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday April 29 2016, @05:56PM
Enforced popularity contest?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Informative) by nextime on Friday April 29 2016, @05:58PM
Ehm... Try again. There are links to docs, packages and all the rest. You don't need to sign to browse things.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 29 2016, @05:59PM
https://git.devuan.org/explore [devuan.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by ticho on Friday April 29 2016, @07:13PM
Oh, wow, egg on my face.
I only tried https://git.devuan.org/jcnelson/vdev, [devuan.org] linked to from their "Init Freedom" page. That link forwarded me to the signup page, with a red "You need to sign in or sign up before continuing."
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 29 2016, @11:11PM
They count any account there as one more active devuan developer.
Check https://youtu.be/uEyUVmdKIEI [youtu.be] at around 8:50.
(Score: 3, Informative) by fritsd on Friday April 29 2016, @06:11PM
It was on my TODO list :-(
Is anyone interested in a jigdo file for the install CD or DVD, I'll see if I can make one this weekend and get them to put it up.
After all it's 99% Debian Jessie, so if you have already downloaded that, an upgrade should be easy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 29 2016, @08:01PM
Yes, please.
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Monday May 02 2016, @10:41AM
I've made jigdo files for i386-cd, amd64-cd and amd64-dvd.
I'll report back here once they're available from beta.devuan.org
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 29 2016, @06:48PM
I want a simple system that will get security updates promptly.
Is there even an answer in Linuxland anymore? Or should I turn to BSD?
I worry that the smaller non-systemd options will not be maintained. I'm not into rebuilding OSes every 4 months, or even yearly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 29 2016, @07:50PM
OpenRC is officially supported by Gentoo. It will not go away any time soon.
(Score: 3, Informative) by tempest on Friday April 29 2016, @07:54PM
If you want simple, it's hard to beat BSD due to the base system being packaged together. In FreeBSD security releases are very prompt. Upgrades are released on a schedule, and generally boring and unexciting events. See the release schedule [freebsd.org]. As far as I know both Slackware and non systemd Gentoo (which I also use) will continue to be maintained for the foreseeable future.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 29 2016, @11:54PM
I want simple, as in people are managing security updates openly who are smarter and have more time and dedication than I.
I understand that tools and applications I use in userland can be problems. But I want the base system to have openBSD-like cleanliness. Cruftlessly spartan. Easy to upgrade.
So no devuan recommendation. http://docs.slackware.com/howtos:slackware_admin:systemupgrade [slackware.com] is a bit sketchy - is this really how security updates for slack roll out? If I don't have time to roll up my sleeves when an upgrade might fail, should I use slackpkg as https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/slackware-update-548295/ [linuxquestions.org] suggests?
(Score: 2) by novak on Saturday April 30 2016, @12:22AM
There are some good linux options as well, including:
slackware
gentoo
void
crux
pclinuxOS
pclinuxOS is probably the most n00b friendly but I can speak relatively highly of all of them from personal experience except void, which I'll get around to trying one of these days. It just depends on what you want out of your system.
As a self-styled hacker hobbyist myself I can tell you that alternate init systems will never go anywhere- maybe on server systems, or desktop systems, but linux goes so deep into so many areas, including embedded up to and including uclinux that the system is just too well designed to prohibit init system choice- though you may forfeit features if systemD proponents can ever get their shit together well enough to get their code into the kernel.
I have suspicions that people who think like me will keep linux choice alive and well (if not mainstream) for a long time yet. systemD may have nice features but it has very limited flexibility- especially as compared to the rest of linux.
novak
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Friday April 29 2016, @07:25PM
I've been using devuan for about a year now, since the second alpha release. It just worked.
The reason many people may have difficulty accessing the devuan sites is that they are suddenly overloaded. It seems there's a lot of demand for devuan. This is probably good for devuan, but bad for the servers. Use the torrent if you can.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 29 2016, @08:18PM
Does devuan get security updates by now? Last time I checked it did not.
There is still quite a bit of way to go before devuan is a serious distribution. So far it is mostly a toy OS, made by people with little understanding of how Linux actually works. But it's highly entertaining watching them struggle through the wonderland.
Highlight so far was the website that was misconfigured for weeks so that nobody that had visited devuan.org was allowed to download the distribution (the file server was HTTP only, but devuan.org told browsers to only ever use HTTPS on any site below devuan.org). Guess that can happen to any venerable unix admin:-)
https://mobile.twitter.com/ShitDevuanSays [twitter.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 30 2016, @12:34PM
The https:// breakage was awesome, right. For those lurking: the Devuan junior admins enabled HSTS (HTTP Strict Transport Security) for devuan.org and *all* subdomains and forced users to use HTTPS everywhere, however their download page had no HTTPS, so people failed to download. I helped them with that problem as it was too sad to see them struggle to understand the issue.
They also managed to not be able to renew SSL certificates for a good month around the same time :D
(Score: 2, Informative) by nextime on Saturday April 30 2016, @07:32PM
Yes, it has security update, under deb http://packages.devuan.org/merged [devuan.org] jessie-security repo.
As for the HTTPS, the issue was an expired certificate from startssl and we encountered the weekly limits for letsencrypt, that doesn't allow you to get more than 5 certificates per week, and, as we were in alpha stage, deliberately choosed to wait.
Anyway, if you prefer to continue your trolling and hate speech, do that, we are working for what we think is the right way to do.
DISCLAIMER: i'm one of the "VUA" collective and devuan developer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 01 2016, @07:37AM
Just for the record: The security repository was added *after* the AC asked whether there is a security repository.
There was none for the beta release and if you install the beta you need to add the security repo manually after the install.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 01 2016, @07:43AM
Stand by your fuck-ups and occasionally have a laugh about them. That reduces stress and makes for a longer life.
Looking at the fuckups made by a distribution and how those are handled is important to me when deciding what to install. Maintainers that are open about their minor fuck-ups are more likely to actually admit their big ones, too.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday April 29 2016, @09:34PM
Likely has nothing to do with SystemD, just awful QA in general...but Ubuntu 16.04 itself is far more than a speed bump. I just spent a full week trying to get that damn thing installed on my new media center system, only to eventually give up and switch to Fedora (which I got fully installed and configured in two or three hours). We're talking about a release with multiple bugs, known for *months*, that cause the entire installer to just lock up if you choose certain very common options. Things like "Install updates from the internet while installing" or "Install 3rd party software and drivers" or "Erase entire disk and automatically partition" -- choosing any of those (some of which are DEFAULTS) can cause the entire installer to lock up. And then you've got features just totally missing -- no RAID support, for example. And I don't just mean it's not in the installer; you can configure it manually then run the installer, but the install will fail.
I keep trying Ubuntu again and again because everyone always insists it's best supported...and every damn time I regret it. Wish Devuan had released this a week ago though, I might have preferred that over Fedora. Not too concerned about the SystemD stuff on my media center; but I've been planning on FreeBSD for my laptop. If that doesn't work out Devuan may be plan B...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 30 2016, @12:13AM
Systemd is written by an incompetent, 30 something German who appears to excel in douchebaggery. He is supported by red hat and a bunch of other arseholes who also seem to excel in douchebaggery.
Anyone who thinks systemd is a good thing is a fucking incompetent douchebag. Nothing about what systemd stands for makes a single fucking difference to SERVERS.
Note to Ubuntu users: I don't give a fuck that you run Ubuntu and "have no problem with systemd". Your use case is why systemd exists - for basic desktop systems.
Parallel startup? Binary log/journal? Unpredictable startup?
Or how about the biggest issue: systemd violates the simple rule: do 1 thing and do it well.
Why does systemd start both the computer and every users logon session? This, quite literally, makes ZERO FUCKING SENSE. Systemd appologists claim systemd is modular. What the fuck is systemd --user, you fucking clueless cunts?
Systemd is clearly written by a bunch of highly immature, inexperienced Linux users who probably use apple products more than Linux. These stupid fucks think their software is so good it helps everyone. It's the sheer naivety of these turkeys that is mind blowing. Systemd is for BASIC desktops only. It's not for servers.
Now the fact that every single distro runs systemd shows that distro makers also don't run servers. They aren't system administrators. It's these distro makers who ran straight to systemd just because it made their job easier - despite it being fundamentally incompatible with common sense, logic, reason, and common sense.
The problem with all of this. Lennart is FAR from the best person from the job. Those who build fedora, red hat, Debian, Ubuntu, etc, are also not good at their jobs. These people have all failed, repeatedly, and the time is coming to take our distributions back.
(Score: 2, Informative) by gnampff on Saturday April 30 2016, @08:52AM
How can such a bag of insults with almost no real reasoning and false information on top be Score:4, Insightful?
I agree with the first three lines lamenting the way some things were done or communicated. But the way these "arguments" are presented is NOT insightful at all. It is insulting. It is some random idiot(AC) being mad on the internet. Ask Steve Ballmer if he wants to throw some chairs with you while you are at it.
-
So lets start the usual fact check although it does become a bit boring:
Monolithic/1-thing-well/bla: No. It is like blaming coreutils for doing multiple things. There are no forced dependencies between the modules of systemd in systemd. The feature set outside of the init part just appealed to other packages so they used it. Blame them for not wanting to reinvent the wheel.
Logon handling: Yes, optionally until you decide to install a package that depends on it. I cant find the post just now but somewhere the KDE guys said that they could retire 15000 lines (I think) of code that nobody really wanted to maintain by relying on logind.
Binary logs: Yes, but additionally you can let the daemon dump it into a text file just like it has been done in the last decades so you can keep using your scripts and grep-foo and you can also use the extended searching capabilities for journalctl in your logs.
Unpredictable startup: Yes, to a certain extent. But it should not matter if your ntp, squid and postfix start in a certain order. And if you do have a dependency then you can/should express that VERY easily in the unit file. We put things in the boot/network/whatever runlevel to let them start after certain events before systemd. We are just able to express it a bit more fine-grained now.
-
So with this said I would like to ask for a slightly more rational tone in the discussion.
Because SHOUTING when MAD on the INTERNET does not help anybody.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by korger on Saturday April 30 2016, @03:39AM
The Debian leadership and package maintainers have been ignoring these goals for years. Systemd was introduced into Debian and every other distribution for one reason only: to please the package maintainers. Nobody else benefits from systemd significantly, and the systemd proponents know that; that's why they were campaigning on perceived benefits such as faster boot times, because they knew that end users would not be interested in anything else. But faster boot times are a red herring. And for the rest? I know that many people use systemd and have no problems with it, but the same people would not have any problems with SysVinit either. A massive change in the system is justifiable only if it yields massive benefits, and systemd clearly does not.
Unfortunately Devuan doesn't seem to fix the political issues either--there are too many people among them who just want to have their own way, and damn everyone else. But at least they make the technically sane decision, and that's something. I could continue this rant, but my Devuan ISO has just downloaded, and I have to go. I have some installation to do.
(Score: 2, Informative) by krait6 on Saturday April 30 2016, @09:41PM
The Debian design process is open to ensure that the system is of the highest quality and that it reflects the needs of the user community. [...] a distribution is created based on the needs and wants of the users rather than the needs and wants of the constructor.
The Debian leadership and package maintainers have been ignoring these goals for years.
I don't personally think this is true, but I respect the opinion at the same time. As a package maintainer in Debian, making sure the damons I support work well with sysvinit is important to me, and systemd has introduced a number of problems that I'm still looking how to handle. One of the daemons I support has always started fine under sysvinit, but won't under systemd, because systemd doesn't wait for the network to be fully "up" before starting the daemon, so the daemon isn't able to listen on the "ANY" interface (0.0.0.0) because it doesn't yet exist. Additionally there's no good way of disabling a service based on the contents of an /etc/default/ configuration file:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SystemdForUpstartUsers#A.2Fetc.2Fdefault_files_which_enable.2Fdisable_jobs [ubuntu.com]
Systemd was introduced into Debian and every other distribution for one reason only: to please the package maintainers.
systemd was introduced into Debian because somebody wanted it and was willing to do the work to package it. It was in Debian for a number of years, slowly getting an increase in the number of users using it. Because packages often require some modifications to work with systemd this eventually got into some conflict between package maintainers concerning whether supporting systemd was required or not, so a developer brought the matter before the Debian Technical Committee... then the tech-ctte discussed it for 3 months and eventually decided systemd should be the default init system for the upcoming Jessie release. Each step of the way the maintainers and developers all had good intentions.
The discussion in the tech-ctte bug was well researched. Sticking with sysvinit was not considered a good option because checking whether a daemon was running in sysvinit only reports the contents of a PID file in /var/run that's placed there by the init script -- if a daemon crashes without removing the PID file then the daemon would still be reported as "running". This left three init systems to consider: systemd, upstart, an openrc. openrc was just being packaged for Debian and the documentation wasn't ready, so it wasn't seriously considered. Three (i.e. about half) of the tech-ctte members at the time were also upstart developers. upstart (stil) has a number of problems that lead to situations that are difficult to debug (more so than systemd) -- so the choice was systemd.
What I'm saying is that realistically I think systemd was always going to be "the answer" once the matter got seriously considered. I don't love that because I have a number of problems with systemd that I didn't have with sysvinit, but... shrug.
Unfortunately Devuan doesn't seem to fix the political issues either--there are too many people among them who just want to have their own way, and damn everyone else. But at least they make the technically sane decision, and that's something. I could continue this rant, but my Devuan ISO has just downloaded, and I have to go. I have some installation to do.
Yeah anyone in a group that isn't focused on teamwork and is more interested in their own gain than that of the group could be considered a "bad actor". However at the same time there are those such as Steve Jobs that "bucked the trend" so it's not a good idea to immediately dismiss dissenters either.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 01 2016, @01:32AM
cat /proc/$( /run/atd.pid )/cmdline should report .../atd. Maybe bashism, but you get the idea, things in /run and /proc should match.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by boltronics on Saturday April 30 2016, @01:14PM
I've wasted too much time on various breakages that have occurred on machines upgraded to Debian Jessie and received systemd as part of that roll-out. There's no one particular problem, but it's a variety of issues across different platforms such as laptops and Xen virtual machines. It doesn't provide something most users were asking for - aside from a few GNOME 3 devs and the like.
This guy I know was amazed when I booted a (non-systemd-based) Debian Wheezy Live ISO a year or so back in just a few seconds. This was booted from a free USB 2.0 stick I received from a conference, and at first he accused me of using a new USB 3.0 drive. The same person said some months earlier "something needs to be done" to improve startup times, and seemed to be looking forward to systemd. If systemd does provide faster boot-up times, it isn't noticeable on any hardware I've ever used. The main thing I do immediately notice is the lack of clarity on start-up progression as the OS is booting.
At this point, I've removed all traces of systemd from almost all machines I manage. This includes EC2 instances (using the debian-image-builder [github.com] no-systemd plugin). I have used systemd on a few non-critical systems to gain some exposure to it, but it looks like I'm slowly moving away from Debian to GuixSD for some or perhaps all of my personal machines anyway, and I might continue along these lines as the distro approaches a 1.0 release.
It's GNU/Linux dammit!