Systemd-Free Debian "Devuan" Planning Their First Developer Gathering This Spring

[ynari]

I'm sure if you're running a desktop environment swapping between wireless and wired, Network Manager probably works very well. However, I tried getting it to work with wired connections and a bridge, and it was a damned nightmare. I switched to Salix, as I'm also not a fan of systemd and wanted a minimal installation, and it's all been plain sailing ever since (OK, LILO has been a bit of an annoyance).

For server systems, I'd say that swapping out network cards is a rarity. This isn't the really old days of all (Intel) networking being discrete, most server systems contain enough integrated interfaces for their lifetime.

[NateHubbard]

With all the crazy comments from everyone attacking Devuan because it doesn't use SystemD, I guess I'd better install it on everything I have.
You'd think this is some sort of religion or something, the way everybody is treating them like heretics.

[pgoetz]

It is a technical fact that Redhat reinvents the wheel with poor quality software. They make windows like operating systems and software. Hiding things, slow, buggy, resource hog, bad software design are common features. The Gnome3 desktop is horrible, pulseaudio and networkmanager are badly designed and buggy as hell and systemd is a monolithic monster that does its own things.

I agree with you about Gnome3, but what evidence is there that pulseaudio is badly designed and buggy? And networkmanager might be buggy, but provides an incredible convenience for non-systems administrators. Finally, when people say systemd is monolithic that's a tip off that they don't actually know anything about systemd. Just saying.

[Britoid]

I agree with you about Gnome3, but what evidence is there that pulseaudio is badly designed and buggy? And networkmanager might be buggy, but provides an incredible convenience for non-systems administrators. Finally, when people say systemd is monolithic that's a tip off that they don't actually know anything about systemd. Just saying.

You still have people that can't even type its name properly or don't realise systemd is an umbrella of programs that includes an init program, rather than a large fat binary.

[starshipeleven]

I am looking forward for the day PulseAudio and NetworkManager gets replaced with something else. They are options which (mostly) works and fulfills my requirements, but that there exists people who actually think they are well designed projects just boggles my mind.

I'm fine with Pulse (as I'm not a major audiophile or anything, and Pulse has "just worked" for like the last 5 years or so on any linux-supported hardware I tried), but I replaced NetworkManager with Connman (that has an user-friendly CLI interface) + cmst Qt GUI.

I lose all the advanced stuff (bridging and such) but normal networking is actually working reliably now. It does not suddenly delete and lock up my /%("£/%/(%$ ethernet connection when used with VMWare so the VM can't access the outside world until I reboot the system and pray the Red Hat gods.

[starshipeleven]

but what evidence is there that pulseaudio is badly designed and buggy?

He used it a long time ago when it was buggy.

To be fair, Pulse isn't amazing design-wise but there is only so much you can do given the crap that is ALSA if you want to actually get the job done.

[cybertraveler]

He used it a long time ago when it was buggy.

To be fair, Pulse isn't amazing design-wise but there is only so much you can do given the crap that is ALSA if you want to actually get the job done.

Doesn't ALSA just provide a low level API? What's wrong with it? Obviously being low-level shouldn't make it crap. Pulse & Jack can (and probably typically do) use ALSA right?

[starshipeleven]

Doesn't ALSA just provide a low level API? What's wrong with it? Obviously being low-level shouldn't make it crap. Pulse & Jack can (and probably typically do) use ALSA right?

ALSA, like many Linux "drivers" is made of 2 parts, kernel drivers for the hardware with a low-level interface, and userspace lib with a unified API.

Pulse and Jack work with kernel drivers directly, replacing ALSA userspace, and use the low-level API that is kinda driver-specific (also in the sense of workarounds and such for driver issues).

ALSA drivers have very wild levels of quality, and don't have a particularly cohesive low-level interface beyond some basic stuff. ALSA userspace lacked software mixing for a long while (I think that now there is some plugin to add it), which means that unless you had a card that could mix multiple sounds in hardware (older cards usually could do it) you could only hear sound from ONE application at a time. Think of notifications, or running multiple applications.

Plus, I do remember fondly how ALSA always required some manual config here and there to work on a lot of hardware and this is usually arcane and wondrous stuff for most people. Actually this is one of the main reasons I call it "crap".

[Britoid]

Doesn't ALSA just provide a low level API? What's wrong with it? Obviously being low-level shouldn't make it crap. Pulse & Jack can (and probably typically do) use ALSA right?

ALSA isn't crap at all and Pulse sits on top of it, but it's basic. It's just the way the kernel exposes the sound devices to the userland.

But it's tied to hardware, you can't move streams from one device to another or individually control applications that don't natively support it (Flatpak if not already can prevent applications from accessing the mic using pulse audio).

Pulse Audio can also do noise cancellation but last time I tried it it works badly.

[cybertraveler]

ALSA, like many Linux "drivers" is made of 2 parts, kernel drivers for the hardware with a low-level interface, and userspace lib with a unified API.

Pulse and Jack work with drivers directly, replacing ALSA userspace, and use the low-level API that is kinda driver-specific (also in the sense of workarounds and such for driver issues).

ALSA drivers have very wild levels of quality, and don't have a particularly cohesive low-level interface beyond some basic stuff. ALSA userspace lacked software mixing for a long while (I think that now there is some plugin to add it), which means that unless you had a card that could mix multiple sounds in hardware (older cards usually could do it) you could only hear sound from ONE application at a time. Think of notifications, or running multiple applications.

Plus, I do remember fondly how ALSA always required some manual config here and there to work on a lot of hardware and this is usually arcane and wondrous stuff for most people. Actually this is one of the main reasons I call it "crap".

I'm still not seeing what's "crap" about ALSA. Are you saying the low-level, ALSA driver, kernel APIs should be better standardized? If they're not well standardized and there are arbitary differences between different drivers, I think that's a reasonable complaint.

I remember using GNU/Linux systems before Pulse. I remember what you describe where applications would play sound via ALSA and it would block all other applications from playing sounds. I remember using Jack back then too, but found that many programs didn't support Jack. IDK if the situation with Jack is any better now.

I've had a pretty positive user experience with Pulse personally. I have had problems, but less than before Pulse. I can see why some people don't like Pulse though. I can also see why some people are quite satisfied with just using ALSA directly when they have a working mixer allowing multiple apps to play sounds at once. If I was running a super lightweight desktop, I'd probably prefer to just use ALSA directly and perhaps combine it with apulse