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Devuan “ASCII” 2.0 Release Candidate is now available

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Re: Devuan “ASCII” 2.0 Release Candidate is now available

#13
post #3

Devuan is basically Debian without systemd. While I still prefer to run Linux distributions with systemd (NixOS and Arch in particular), I'm increasingly worried about the complexity systemd brings in. I like how clean and standardized the init process is now. I don't like the bloat prize we've paid, though. I've been stracing my workstation for a few days. Journald starts eating a ton of RAM, ~100 MB upon boot, and…

Systemd is still a mess.

I've currently one machine that hangs on reboots because systemd is unable to shut down some service and another that gets its journals corrupted periodically.

Re: Devuan “ASCII” 2.0 Release Candidate is now available

#14
post #2

Great timing for me. Just got the last of the parts in to build a network audio player, waiting for the weekend to start on it. I'll use this instead of Raspian.

Why do you want to use sysvinit over systemd? Do you have init scripts already written that you don't want to port?

Well binary logs seem to be a good enough reason for me.

I use FreeBSD and Devuan feels like I am in control. Some commercial software won't work on FreeBSD so I have to use some Linux.

I also use Alpine because it uses OpenRC. With gLibc missing it is tough to compile some software.

Compared, Devuan seems to be very software compatible and offers the familiarity of Debian.

Over at FreeBSD we have loads of new users thanks to systemd.

Keep up the great work RedHat.

Re: Devuan “ASCII” 2.0 Release Candidate is now available

#16
post #8

I’ve been running the beta on my desktop. In this release, they have also established sane defaults for a wider range of window managers and desktop environments. The rough edges I’ve hit can all be attributed to systemd brain damage (like the fact that the linux kernel no longer has a working, synchronous, “probe the network cards and create a logical interface for each one” primitive). My only beef with devuan is t…

I think elogind is used because at least Gnome and KDE are dependent on logind.

Re: Devuan “ASCII” 2.0 Release Candidate is now available

#18
post #12
post #6

I appreciate that they named their release after a no longer suitable character encoding. It does seem like a lot of trouble to go to to troll the systemd haters though.

compare this to sysvinit, a no longer suitable init process.

I have yet to hear the argument that convinces me sysvinit (or openrc or runit) was "no longer suitable." In need of updating and revision? Sure. So broken that a completely new init that swallowed up a bunch of other processes and services was the best answer? Hardly.

Systemd was initially sold as providing faster boot times. Objections to its cancerous spread to other services beyond init were dismissed without providing any good reasons for why it was necessary or even desirable beyond "we're doing it, quit complaining." The changeover at Debian was handled so poorly and with such rancor that many from there still have a bad taste in their mouths.

Devuan was one response to that, and a good one. Artix was the response to Arch adopting systemd. Slackware and Gentoo and other older distros have stayed away from it. And as another commenter noted, lots of people have abandoned Linux for the BSDs.

The systemd fallout is demonstrating something I always thought was the weakest part of Linux compared to the BSDs, which is that the Linux userland is developed completely independently of the kernel. People do whatever the fuck they want, and frequently the relationships seem to be hostile.

I don't think systemd really solves that problem, either, but rather makes it much more complex and fragile. Hopefully the ecosystem will continue to support non-systemd distros in the long term.

Re: Devuan “ASCII” 2.0 Release Candidate is now available

#19
post #9

Why they use "ASCII" for a distro release? This is so confusing name for people who don't know what Devuan is. I firstly thought some wierd guys created their own character encoding and claimed 2.0 version of ASCII.

Devuan aliases its releases using minor planet names as codenames.

Re: Devuan “ASCII” 2.0 Release Candidate is now available

#20

Devan is an useful and important distro. I just hope they integrate back with Debian at some point (I don't know how, but I'd love o see that happen.)

That seems unlikely unless Debian drops systemd or the ecosystem becomes so dependent on systemd's ever-expanding reach that it becomes impossible to build a Linux distro without it.
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