Devuan Jessie 1.0 RC | Hacker News Reader

Devuan Jessie 1.0 RC

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38 pointsausjke33 comments

Isn't systemd still optional in Debian? I know there is worry that since it's the default, packages won't necessarily be well-tested without it, but afaik you can still remove it, just by installing sysvinit: http://without-systemd.org/wiki/index.php/Debian_Stretch

I had the same reaction to the initial announcement of a fork, and it's taken three years to get to an RC.

(The whole systemd tempest in the tiniest, most awkward of teacups never made a lick of sense to me--in no small part because, like 99% of people, the only time I ever interact with it is when I throw a service declaration out there, and Noah Kantrowitz's fantastic `poise-service` Chef cookbook abstracts that away for me.)

I spent a day fighting to get systemd to properly handle bind mounts on boot. It doesn't reliably mount them and there are tons of blog and forum posts complaining about it. It also surprised us that it doesn't obey the "bg" flag for NFS. You have to use "nofail" instead.

I have been informed today that a new MySQL cluster built at work on CentOS 7.3 doesn't reliably start MySQL on boot.

We have none of these problems with our FreeBSD servers. systemd eats away at my time every week and I loathe it. It might not be a nuisance for endusers but it's a nightmare for sysadmins.

MySQL is a topic of discussion on the systemd-devel mailing list right now, coincidentally.

* https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/systemd-devel/2017-Ap...

The finger pointing in this thread is astonishing

it's a nightmare for sysadmins

Many times this.

As a Devuan user (not a dev), it's more than just the init system though. Devuan is also doing lots of heavy lifting to keep udev separate from systemd, as well as other things (consolekit and polkit come to mind, as does dbus).

At this point systemd is a whole lot more than an init system. Most people don't have a complaint with regards to systemd units or how fast it boots, it's more to do with the amount of dependencies it seems to be sucking in (at least from my experience).

> Devuan is also doing lots of heavy lifting to keep udev separate from systemd

So they do nothing as udev and systemd already are separate packages in Debian?

udev is part of the systemd code repository, and is not supported in systemd-less setups by upstream.

"Separate packages" does not imply "no dependencies".

And what does Devuan do?

Hint: udev in Devuan is just the unmodified Debian package. So much for the "heavy lifting" done by Devuan in the last years.

And udev w/o systemd is still supported upstream, just not building only udev (one also builds the systemd binaries and throws them away).

You both need to see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11609980

You mean the "This system is mothballed."?

So, one person tried to write a replacement for udev and gave up. What should that tell me?

it is "optional". unless you run a headless server or a barebones desktop system with very carefully selected packages it is impossible to not install systemd because logind & pam dependencies are littered everywhere. Using sysvinit as pid 1 is achieved by installing systemd-shim, which still depends on systemd and uses systemd files and systemd is still run anyway, just not as pid1.

so yeah, there is practically no way to escape from systemd in Debian using vanilla packages.

I've been running Jessie without systemd on my laptop for a couple years now. Never had to worry about packages not working, except for vbox not building it's driver. But that's probably some issue with backports, and I don't care enough about vbox to actually look into it. Systemd is installed though and apparently used for udev and logind.

Edits: I should review before posting.

Sounds like your laptop isn't "without systemd" in that case.

Theoretically, yes. In reality, not so much.

I blocked the install of systemd way back. Recently I tried to upgrade postgres+postgis. Turned out that postgis had a dependency on a package with had a dependency on a package which had a dependency on another package which had a dependency on systemd.

So I tried compiling it myself. One of te build dependencies had a dependency on a package which had a dependency on a package which, you guessed it, had a dependency on systemd.

I finally gave up and moved the database over to a jail on my freebsd box.

Background information on how Devuan came to existence can be found here: https://devuan.org/os/debian-fork/

Having run Debian both with and without systemd, I'm keen to try this out. Every time I hit an issue with systemd, the fix seems to involve a script anyway so experience has pushed me back to sysvinit (admittedly I'm biased in having a preference for systems simple and transparent enough I can be reasonably sure I can fix them without recourse to outside help).

Whether Devuan works better than Debian with the usual systemd removal remains to be seen, of course.

What problems have you hit?

Does anybody really care? It took a long enough to get an RC out (3 years).

Exactly. I hope this doesn't gain traction because last thing I want as someone just writing services is dealing with sysvinit

You hope this doesn't gain traction because you're selfish? Devuan people aren't forcing you to write anything other than unit files. Support whatever you want and let other people freely developing their own distributions. because free software.

Watch your attitude. I'll take a bet that the person you're replying to contributes to foss far more than you do.

If GP were "selfish" he wouldn't give a rat's arse about sysvinit in the first place, but in this community you clearly don't know the first thing about, there is such a thing as compatibility-friendly development. If a config you don't like is popular, you still end up having to support it; that is why all the popular python projects I wrote are still Python 2 compatible. If I wanted to have it my way, it'd all be Py3.6 only.

They can do whatever they want, I just hope nobody follows their path because as a user sysvinit is objectively worse than systemd.

The nonsense in your thinking is your belief that the two choices are System 5 rc and systemd, and that therefore "their path" must be the former. You need not have even read the headlined page too far to have found https://devuan.org/os/init-freedom/ which gives the lie to that. The Devuan people are quite wrong about Debian and OpenRC, but the point here is that they don't force upon you that binary choice any more than anyone else does and what they themselves outright tell you about their path contradicts your thinking.

The whole it-is-a-binary-choice-between-systemd-and-system-5-rc idea is bunkum, a myth. It wasn't true on Debian, where the hoo-hah had votes amongst upstart, OpenRC, systemd, and System 5 rc. It wasn't true on Ubuntu and Fedora, which had both been using upstart for years before their respective switches to systemd. It isn't true on Devuan, per what is right in front of you stated by the Devuan people theirselves. It is discussed amongst several other myths at http://uselessd.darknedgy.net/ProSystemdAntiSystemd/ . You are propounding it.

That is just the WWW site root. The announcement proper is at https://devuan.org/os/debian-fork/stable-candidate-announce-... .

Anyone care to explain why SystemD is so contentious to the point it's worth forking Debian?

People who oppose SystemD dislike the fact that it takes on two much responsibilities and unneeded complexity as an init system. People who like it accept the added responsibilities and complexity because it has widespread adoption and works .

They disapproved the development model like vacuuming too many linux parts, and the design, many people said you could replace systemd with other simpler and more unixy bits like djb rc (IIRC).

It's broken.

Where have you been for the past 5 years? (-:

(By the way, the mis-spelling "SystemD" has become a shibboleth over those years. Spell the name properly, lest you find yourself lumped in with the pot-stirrers and provocateurs by the rest of the world.)

There was a whole hoo-hah in Debian over what to replace System 5 rc with: upstart, OpenRC, systemd, or something else. It got raised to the Technical Committee, sparked several resignations, went to a vote of the entire Debian Developer membership, and lasted for a long time.

* http://jdebp.eu./FGA/debian-systemd-packaging-hoo-hah.html

Contrast Debian with Arch:

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11834348

I think the main problem is tight udev and kdbus integration with systemd, and applications that use either of those components implicitly depending on systemd.

That, and systemd having large scope creep, absurd ways of dealing with bugs ("this old system is broken because it does not use our interface"), and generally behaving in a dominating and lock-in-promoting manner.

I found this list on the way: http://without-systemd.org/wiki/index.php/Arguments_against_...

I like it, but it's been a long wait.

It seems only x64 at first.

Devuan will do okay. Simple and stable distros will always have loyal users.

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