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Musing about Debian alternatives

Off-Topic discussions about science, technology, and non Debian specific topics.
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golinux
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Re: Musing about Debian alternatives

#16 Post by golinux »

Definitive answer from Adam Borowski:
Hmm, lemme take a look:
dig -t soa withoutsystemd.org
NXDOMAIN
whois withoutsystemd.org
NOT FOUND

I'm afraid that stuff _currently_ available on that domain is not a viable
anything. I see nothing on archive.org, too.

As for the repository itself: I've removed only buster/unstable packages,
jessie and stretch are still there -- but that's probably useless or
possibly even harmful as there were security issues that I have not updated
the packages for. Thus, it's probably time to remove them completely.

Alternatively, I can update some packages for stretch, but redirecting
people to Devuan or something would be a better idea.
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Re: Musing about Debian alternatives

#17 Post by Bulkley »

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:The debian-user mailing lists have a FAQ that includes details on how to run Debian with sysvinit as PID1 (just like MX): https://wiki.debian.org/FAQsFromDebianU ... _Jessie.3F
Thanks for that. I did the

Code: Select all

apt-get install sysvinit-core systemd-shim systemd-sysv-
as recommended and everything seems to be working. I do like that verbose boot.
Head_on_a_Stick wrote:No, not at all, the guide should still work with stretch (and buster) although I haven't actually tried it.
There may be a problem with the systemd-shim requirement. Isn't it deprecated in Buster?

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golinux
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Re: Musing about Debian alternatives

#18 Post by golinux »

Bulkley wrote:There may be a problem with the systemd-shim requirement. Isn't it deprecated in Buster?
Yes. I'm pretty sure it's unmaintained and going away. So either start removing the deps that require it and re-packaging or start using devuan. ;) It was obvious from day one where this was going with systemd - lockin.
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Re: Musing about Debian alternatives

#19 Post by stevepusser »

I wonder if the Bunsen Labs script to convert a Debian installation to it would work on MX. Then it would just be a matter of uninstalling whatever you feel you don't need, such as that heavy, heavy xfce, Libre Office, VLC, etc. and the dependencies, and making a respin with the snapshot tool.
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Re: Musing about Debian alternatives

#20 Post by Bulkley »

stevepusser wrote:I wonder if the Bunsen Labs script to convert a Debian installation to it would work on MX. . . .
Devuan had a similar script. Maybe it still does.

Side note: I'm typing this using the MX live-USB.

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Re: Musing about Debian alternatives

#21 Post by golinux »

Bulkley wrote:
stevepusser wrote:I wonder if the Bunsen Labs script to convert a Debian installation to it would work on MX. . . .
Devuan had a similar script. Maybe it still does.
There are migration instructions for jessie to jessie and stretch to ASCII here

I'm also going to post the list of automatically banned packages with hard systemd dependencies which cannot be installed on Devuan and packages requiring libsystemd0 which for the moment is "harmless" but at some point, who knows . . .

https://pkgmaster.devuan.org/bannedpackages.txt
https://pkgmaster.devuan.org/libsystemd.txt

You will notice the increase in number of pkgs tied to systemd from jessie to beowulf. The noose is tightening.
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xepan
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Re: Musing about Debian alternatives

#22 Post by xepan »

CwF wrote:... But I typically try not to assume old ways are best,
...
I did say I skipped whatever prior goodnees existed, so I'm ignorant.
...
Neither in the past nor in in the presence there is/was only a single alternative.
(Gentoo usually uses openrc, Slackware's init is called rc, i think, Void uses runit, Dragora uses perpd, tiny core linux uses busybox, i think, the BSD operating systems also use neither sysv nor systemd, perhaps rc too).

One simple example of the difference, of someone who isn't biased against systemd, au contraire: http://mywiki.wooledge.org/SystemdNoClear
Not necessary an "issue", but for sure a difference, as in: a completely different mindset. It thinks it knows better what the user wants than the user.
I for one am not that much in the technical details, but debian/kFreeBSD and debian/Hurd sure are an "issue" (for me, for some), that is: systemd as the default debian init system probably will be the end of those subprojects of debian.
In this short time I have seen the notion of corporatism increase and a bias towards handhelds
Looks like it to me too, though i started to see it a bit earlier (the focus on handhelds).

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Re: Musing about Debian alternatives

#23 Post by Head_on_a_Stick »

golinux wrote:
Bulkley wrote:There may be a problem with the systemd-shim requirement. Isn't it deprecated in Buster?
Yes. I'm pretty sure it's unmaintained and going away.
Didn't you tell us that Devuan & Debian were working together to maintain sysvinit and the shim?
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Re: Musing about Debian alternatives

#24 Post by Head_on_a_Stick »

stevepusser wrote:I wonder if the Bunsen Labs script to convert a Debian installation to it would work on MX.
That depends on how MX handle the configuration files in $HOME, the BL install script copies stuff over from /usr/share/bunsenlabs/skel to configure the desktop, which is quite unusual.
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Re: Musing about Debian alternatives

#25 Post by llivv »

Thanks for the links golinux

Sid can run sysv with only libsystemd0 for a little more than a year now
Buster can now run sysv with only libsystemd0

although customizing the config, even on a minimal system using Debian defaults, is dangerous, as I'm finding out with the level of automation now present. One also needs a steady eye to avold systemd creep.

I was able to get sysv stretch running yesterday with only libsystemd0 libpam-systemd systemd needed to start X
It does take a bit of juggling with package installation order to lower the package count as with any minimal system installation.
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Re: Musing about Debian alternatives

#26 Post by golinux »

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:
golinux wrote:
Bulkley wrote:There may be a problem with the systemd-shim requirement. Isn't it deprecated in Buster?
Yes. I'm pretty sure it's unmaintained and going away.
Didn't you tell us that Devuan & Debian were working together to maintain sysvinit and the shim?
They were working on an elongind solution etc. but that list was so prolific I didn't have time to keep current. The weeks that I did follow it, I never heard mention of a systemd-shim. And I just searched the titles of all those hundreds and hundreds of posts and still no shim. There was mention of hurd though.
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Re: Musing about Debian alternatives

#27 Post by xepan »

llivv wrote: One also needs a steady eye to avold systemd creep.
Yup.
I for one am done with that. To me the init system isn't a subject interesting enough to always keep up to date, fiddle, repair, workaround.
So i switched the distro, and i might well switch to any of the BSD's, if i need to.

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Re: Musing about Debian alternatives

#28 Post by golinux »

xepan wrote:To me the init system isn't a subject interesting enough to always keep up to date, fiddle, repair, workaround.
If systemd were only init, there wouldn't be a problem. But systemd isn't just an init system. It has wormed it's way into every corner of userspace locking things into a systemd OS that limits user freedom.
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Re: Musing about Debian alternatives

#29 Post by stevepusser »

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:
stevepusser wrote:I wonder if the Bunsen Labs script to convert a Debian installation to it would work on MX.
That depends on how MX handle the configuration files in $HOME, the BL install script copies stuff over from /usr/share/bunsenlabs/skel to configure the desktop, which is quite unusual.
Buckley said they didn't want the MX xfce desktop, they wanted openbox, so I though that the BL version on top of the MX base might work.

Jesse Smith over at Distrowatch also said that he's working on updating sysvinit.
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Re: Musing about Debian alternatives

#30 Post by golinux »

stevepusser wrote:Jesse Smith over at Distrowatch also said that he's working on updating sysvinit.
Yes, he is maintaining sysvinit upstream and active on the collaborative list. Unfortunately, there is still a fair amount of politics there even though it is tucked away from the main Debian dev list(s) where the conflict made collaboration extremely difficult. I applaud those involved for trying and wish them every success.
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