Devuan Jessie Announces Stable Release:
Our April 2017 gift to you is the long-awaited release of Devuan Jessie stable release candidate (1.0.0-RC). If all goes as planned, this will be our first Devuan stable release and our first long term support (LTS) release as well.
Two and a half years have passed since our initial Debianfork declaration (https://devuan.org/os/debian-fork/) and not even one year since our first beta release (http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/devuan-beta-release).
This Devuan Jessie release candidate is as close as we can get to a "long term support" universal base distribution free from systemd, in the original spirit of Debian.
The final Devuan Jessie release will follow shortly and then we will turn our attention to "Ascii", the current testing branch.
We wish to thank all of you for the incredible support given to this development effort, and for engaging in the process of making Devuan a useful and reliable base distro, as well as a pleasant, cooperative community.
Happy hacking ;^)
(Score: 4, Informative) by jmorris on Sunday April 23 2017, @09:23AM (7 children)
As far as I know, the only issues have been in the installer for awhile now. If you don't get bit installing, or you upgrade across from Debian it has been solid for quite some time now.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Unixnut on Sunday April 23 2017, @09:53AM (6 children)
Indeed. I switched to them pretty much when they released the first beta, and even that was pretty solid. Only had a few issues with apt repos and the initial migration from Debian to Devuan, and some issues with the installer on a clean machine.
Things only got better from there really. I ended up transitioning over to Devuan for all my Debian machines, including the production servers. All are working, and all without having to even think about systemd and its crap (so when I see things like the rm -rf bug or the BIOS corruption bug, I can find it funny rather than worry about my estate going titsup).
I can't recommend it enough as a solid systemd free distro. still got all the benefits and ease of use/upgrade/install of Debian, but without the systemd infection.
So now run a mix of FreeBSD, Devuan and Gentoo, and am happy. Thank you Devuan guys!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 23 2017, @10:06AM (1 child)
It works with almost all third party debian repos since it is built from mostly the same packages, so you can bring over all your regular repositories (for now, at least.)
I've found it quite helpful for running i2p on devuan. Maybe you can too :)
(Score: 3, Informative) by hendrikboom on Sunday April 23 2017, @11:49AM
Beware of third-party Debian repositories on Devuan. They may have packages that depend on systemd. Without systemd, they won't work.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by hendrikboom on Sunday April 23 2017, @11:23AM (2 children)
I switched to Devuan on my laptop at their second *alpha* release, and never had a problem except when I added a third-party Debian repository by mistake. That was recoverable without a re-install.
Shortly after, on my server, I copied the Debian installation into another partition, then upgraded the copy to Devuan. I had Debian to fall back to in case of trouble (dual boot), but I've never had to.
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Sunday April 23 2017, @01:49PM (1 child)
Agreed, I was an early adopter as well, and the only time I've had issues was when I screwed up and got myself mixed up in a cross between ascii & ceres. So far it's really been the Debian I used to know & like.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hendrikboom on Sunday April 23 2017, @05:06PM
I had screwup between Devuan Jessie and a third-party repository for Debian testing (whatever they call it -- the one after Jessie) I ended up with aptitude having a huge number of unsatisfied dependencies -- hundreds of them
Not good to mix distros. The problem originated with a third-party repository that contained some ocaml packages and others.
None of those Debian testing packages were installed, and I managed to clean it out by purging aptitude and reinstalling. apt-get was never affected.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 23 2017, @08:34PM
In the Soylentnews.org is Moving to Gentoo story, NCommander mentioned that the team had considered Devuan and rejected it. [soylentnews.org]
In that (sub)thread, Bot (3902) mentioned antiX, another doesn't-use-systemd-by-default distro.
Those who are having problems with repos with systemd dependencies might look in that direction. [google.com]
a solid systemd-free distro
Having choices is the spice of life.
As with so many things in life, it's all about your use case.
To paraphrase what Gary Mule Deer's grandpa told him, If we all liked the same thing, everyone would be bird-dogging your grandma.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by requerdanos on Sunday April 23 2017, @02:07PM (1 child)
Devuan Jessie Announces Stable Release:
What??? Devuan has never done such a thing, and they aren't doing it now. They are announcing an RC--a release candidate that isn't a stable release, but a release candidate.
Even in TFS they say that "This Devuan Jessie release candidate is as close as we can get".
I'll take them at their word on that, usually not a good idea with Devuan [devuan.org] ("This distribution should be ready about the time Debian Jessie is ready" is one of the gems there--from 2014.)
I am not saying it will never happen. But I am pointing out that taking from 2014 to 2017 to get to RC is not great progress for something billed as drop-in replacement for (mature, stable, maintained) Debian.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Wednesday May 03 2017, @03:17AM
They were extra cautious in deciding when they would announce their official stable release, because they were expecting a *lot* of flack from systemd fans and promoters, who would pick any flaw and magnify it out of proportion. Devuan has behaved quite stably for a long time now.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 23 2017, @02:13PM (5 children)
First step after switching to Devuan
root@asshat:/# apt-get -y systemd
(Score: 5, Touché) by Aiwendil on Sunday April 23 2017, @02:20PM (3 children)
E: Invalid operation systemd
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 23 2017, @02:44PM (2 children)
E: Invalid operation systemd
root@asshat:/# sudo apt-get -y systemd
(Score: 4, Funny) by Gaaark on Sunday April 23 2017, @03:19PM
Now, make me a sandwich...
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 23 2017, @03:59PM
E: Invalid operation systemd
Hmm, maybe you should RTFM? Nah, lets just throw sudo at it until it works.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by hendrikboom on Wednesday May 03 2017, @03:13AM
Systemd is not a package on Devuan.
Devuan does believe in choice, though, and recommmends that if you want Devuan with systemd, you should use Debian's installer and Debian's repositories.
Debian is, after all, Devuan with systemd.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 23 2017, @03:14PM
avoiding biterrant attack?