back to article Systemd-free Devuan Linux looses version 2.0 release candidate

Devuan Linux, the Debian fork that offers "init freedom" has announced the first release candidate for its second version. Dubbed "ASCII", Devuan 2.0 uses Debian Stretch as its base, doesn't use Systemd, and reached beta in February 2018. This week, the developers behind the distro announced ASCII's first release candidate, …

  1. Ole Juul

    so far so good

    I've been using Devuan on a number of boxes for a while now, including a laptop, and it's been working very well. I guess it's time to do some updating soon.

    1. ghp

      Re: so far so good

      You mean you're still on Jessie?

      1. Nate Amsden

        Re: so far so good

        still getting updates on debian 7 myself on my main personal servers, devuan looking like a good upgrade.

  2. Long John Brass
    Angel

    good news everyone

    Had Devuan on a few machines for a while... Looks like it's time to rip out the Debian build & repo masters and replace with Devuan! *Happy Days* :)

  3. jake Silver badge

    I have a box with Devuan on it.

    It's a good all-round distro. If Slackware didn't exist, I'd probably use it as my primary answer for desktop systems.

  4. Gene Cash Silver badge

    I don't understand...

    Er, I have Debian Buster/Testing, and it's got SysV init on it, simply by blacklisting systemd in /etc/apt/preferences and installing sysvinit. Works fine. So I guess I'm missing something...

    1. stephanh

      Re: I don't understand...

      ...and then you tested all packages and fixed the ones which are now broken?

      1. Mr Youmustbe Fuckingjoking

        Re: I don't understand...

        > ...and then you tested all packages and fixed the ones which are now broken?

        You would only do that if you were building a distribution. I guess the OP has tested all the packages the OP is using. Devuan are doing the test-all-packages thing and look how long that is taking.

    2. Kabukiwookie

      Re: I don't understand...

      So what's the added value aside from having to additonally maintain a blacklist (if that's your thing) and constantly having to deal with systemd dependency issues as systemd swallows up more functionality over time.

      Along with the fact you'd be making a statement when dropping Debian, there seems to be no reason for not switching to Devuan.

      I've been a rabid Debian fan up until they adopted systemd.

      Now it's Devuan all the way. At least that distro's maintainers seem to be concerned with stability and manageability of the OS, instead of attempting to make themselves seem more important by adding new unnecessary features and with new security holes and then slowly increasing the scope of their project.

      1. Long John Brass
        Linux

        Re: I don't understand...

        I've been a rabid Debian fan up until they adopted systemd.

        Preach it brother; I'm another ex Debian FanBoi.

        I'll will also have to have switched out the RHEL/CentOS/OEL 6 machines before it EOLs on November 30th, 2020. Not sure what will replace em. most large $corporations get twitchy when they can't buy support contracts :(

      2. HieronymusBloggs

        Re: I don't understand...

        "So what's the added value aside from having to additonally maintain a blacklist"

        No blacklist maintenance needed so far on my Debian 9 systems with sysvinit, just 3 short lines in /etc/apt/preferences to disallow systemd reinstallation and another line in /etc/X11/Xwrapper.config.

        So far the Debian developers have done a good job of making it fairly painless to work with other init systems. I fully expect it to get more difficult, which will at some point bring nearly 20 years of Debian use to an end for me.

        Devuan looks interesting, but last time I checked the Devuan repositories didn't have a lot of the packages I use on Debian.

        1. onefang

          Re: I don't understand...

          "Devuan looks interesting, but last time I checked the Devuan repositories didn't have a lot of the packages I use on Debian."

          Devuan repositories use Debian repositories as their upstream. The mirrors either host all of Debian as well as all of Devuan, or use rewrite rules to redirect you to Debian servers for the stuff that is not in Devuan. It should all be there. Which packages that you use are not there?

          Sure some things that rely on systemd that the Devuan developers haven't managed to remove that dependency are likely to be blacklisted, but if that's the sort of package you need, you might as well use a distro that uses systemd. I don't think there are many of those.

          1. HieronymusBloggs

            Re: I don't understand...

            "Devuan repositories use Debian repositories as their upstream. The mirrors either host all of Debian as well as all of Devuan, or use rewrite rules to redirect you to Debian servers for the stuff that is not in Devuan."

            Ah, thanks for that information. I missed that. Might be time to try Devuan on a spare drive.

        2. nauved

          Re: I don't understand...

          Systemd is about more than init and those three short lines that you boast about. How can anyone not understand that after all these years. systemd has invaded user space with dependencies that tie user-space applications to systemd. It is in effect becoming a monolithic systemd OS where systemd will be required to run your favorite apps. This is not freedom.

          Devuan is removing those "hooks" and restoring freedom to the Debian ecosystem.

          Devuan supplies the complete Debian repositories except for the blacklisted packages and those that have been forked. IOW it is almost entirely Debian so should contain any apps that you are currently using. If those apps have been contaminated with systemd, feel free to come over, clean up the package and maintain it in the future.

          1. HieronymusBloggs

            Re: I don't understand...

            "Systemd is about more than init and those three short lines that you boast about."

            If that was directed at me I was merely pointing out a fact, not boasting. I'm quite aware of the insidious nature of systemd. I'm pleased to see I was mistaken about the range of packages offered by Devuan, and will give it a try when I get time.

    3. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

      Re: I don't understand...

      So I guess I'm missing something...

      Yes - Gnome (probably). It's pretty inextricably tied to systemd..

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I don't understand...

        > Yes - Gnome (probably). It's pretty inextricably tied to systemd..

        Thankfully. Gnome can die in a fire.

        1. Will Godfrey Silver badge
          Unhappy

          Re: I don't understand...

          I wasn't surprised the Gnome devs jumped in bed with systemD - they obviously recognised a kindred spirit (we know best - you know nothing).

          Oh and I recently dumped Gparted - guess what, it now requires SystemD

          1. picturethis

            Re: I don't understand...

            "Oh and I recently dumped Gparted - guess what, it now requires SystemD"

            Say it isn't so!

            This is bad. I liked Gparted, but I guess it's time to move on. SystemD is just a cancer that needs to be cut out.

            Thanks for the heads up.

          2. g00se

            Re: I don't understand...

            >>Oh and I recently dumped Gparted - guess what, it now requires SystemD<<

            I don't get it:

            goose@t410:/tmp$ apt-cache depends gparted

            gparted

            Depends: libatkmm-1.6-1v5

            Depends: libc6

            Depends: libgcc1

            Depends: libglib2.0-0

            Depends: libglibmm-2.4-1v5

            Depends: libgtk2.0-0

            Depends: libgtkmm-2.4-1v5

            Depends: libpangomm-1.4-1v5

            Depends: libparted-fs-resize0

            Depends: libparted2

            Depends: libsigc++-2.0-0v5

            Depends: libstdc++6

            Depends: libuuid1

            Breaks: udisks2

            Suggests: xfsprogs

            Suggests: reiserfsprogs

            Suggests: reiser4progs

            Suggests: jfsutils

            Suggests: ntfs-3g

            Suggests: dosfstools

            Suggests: mtools

            Suggests: yelp

            Suggests: kpartx

            Suggests: dmraid

            Suggests: dmsetup

            dmsetup:i386

            Suggests: gpart

      2. HieronymusBloggs

        Re: I don't understand...

        "Yes - Gnome (probably). It's pretty inextricably tied to systemd.."

        Not completely. OpenBSD has Gnome but no systemd. IIRC there is a library to provide some of the things that Gnome expects from systemd. Debian (and Devuan AFAIK) uses libsystemd0 to provide a similar function.

        Gnome is not something I'd be interested in using. Both my Debian 9 (sysvinit) workstations and OpenBSD desktop use cwm nowadays.

  5. PhilipN Silver badge

    Beowulf

    Name's taken, sorry. Or at least it was when I were a wee lad.

    It was the system for connecting and sharing two or more computers to apply multi-CPU brute force to a single program which needed it.

    1. Alister

      Re: Beowulf

      Don't know why you got a downvote for that, I remember playing with a Beowulf cluster back in the day, RedHat 5.1 I think it was we used.

    2. jake Silver badge

      Re: Beowulf

      "Name's taken, sorry. Or at least it was when I were a wee lad."

      Tell that to the "Slack" kids while you're at it.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    Good old boys can still learn new tricks - just keep it modular !

    Please design a better Installer & Bootmanager

    1] to directly install to removable drive (USB SATA or USB-STICK, etc) with out trashing the main partition's boot sector as there's no need to write to it at all.

    2a] Remember that Secureboot (GPT) mode does not mean you have to install a GPT partition and

    2b] remember that CSM boot(MBR) mode does not mean you have to install a MBR partition and

    so therefor offer separate GPT and MBR choices regardless of how the system is booted. GPT or MBR

    Linux and Windows bane is users not realizing these problems and having their partitions trashed by that Grubby shit of an boot manager GRUB.

    1. DuncanLarge Silver badge

      Re: Good old boys can still learn new tricks - just keep it modular !

      "Linux and Windows bane is users not realizing these problems and having their partitions trashed by that Grubby shit of an boot manager GRUB."

      Never had an issue. But I do apply the long known good practice of installing any OS to its own drive (for its boot partition at least) and unplug any Linux drives before installing windows so it does not trash the grub making the system only boot windows without a linux rescue disk.

      I can see how it can be an issue for dual booting on laptops however as laptops still only really support 1 drive and are not always the most user friendly for opening them.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Good old boys can still learn new tricks - just keep it modular !

      What are you talking about? I installed to a USB stick without trashing anything.

  7. ScissorHands
    Pint

    N900???

    Will the single N900 owner with a working USB port install this and take a screenshot? I want to giggle like a little girl.

  8. chasil

    inittab

    The article doesn't mention what init system replaced it - we have all assumed a clasic SysVinit. Is this so?

    I have some old systems that use respawn behavior in the inittab to keep some of my Oracle clients running. I have them all set up to run with init 4. Unfortunately, the inittab only respawns ROOT processes, so I needed a wrapper to setuid() and drop various privileges, then get the Oracle environment variables in place, erase any lock files, then finally execute the correct program. My C code that does this resembles duct tape and bailing wire.

    Moving these processes to systemd was VERY pleasant. I created units that ran as the correct users, read environment files and set them before executing, erased lock files before forking the main process, then ran final settings mods after the last program was up. I did not need any of my ugly C for this at all.

    I can do all of this under either system, but what I needed was much more straightforward with systemd. I understand why people don't like it, but it does work for me when I need it.

    1. onefang

      Re: inittab

      "The article doesn't mention what init system replaced it - we have all assumed a clasic SysVinit. Is this so?"

      The article quotes the release announcement - "offers a choice of SysVinit and OpenRC".

    2. Registered Register Registrant

      Re: inittab

      The article says Devuan offers SysVinit and OpenRC at install time. Is that what you meant, though? Prominent sentence in a short article.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Great news

    I wish Debian made the right decision, but unfortunately it didn’t so I guess I’m going to have to run this thing on at least one of my systems. Hope to help make Devuan better.

  10. Mike Tubby

    Devuan and sysvinit all the way!

    Devuan 2.0 RC now installed on several servers and 'just works'(tm) and likely to replace Ubuntu 16.04 as I also hate systemd for eating my servers!

    Consider a system with a run away process (Sophos sav-scan on a large mail server), loadave goes up to 27, attempt to login and kill the process and gets 'Failed to connect to systemd' ... throws server in skip ... and expletives to Mr. Shuttleworth.

    My systems now boot fast and clean, no silly animations, and everything works as it should ... especially Ethernet bonding which seems to have gone weird on Ubuntu 16.04 with identical boxes working, or more precisely not working, differently!

    Mike

  11. onefang

    Devuan 2.0.0 ASCII is now officially released.

    And is now the new Devuan stable.

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