Devuan 4.0 Alpha Builds Begin For Debian 11 Without Systemd

[skeevy420]

Even though I don't like the "system in the system" philosophy of systemd that was X's philosophy, sticking with the "industry standard" would mean we'd stay with Windows and IE. Not sure it is that great... The real problem with systemd is that everybody else is plugged on it, so the main desktop environments won't work without it. So yes from one standpoint the init freedom is a waste of resources, but on the other hand it is not that bad. But it won't make me switch to Devuan, I'm much happier with Debian.

The real problem, I feel, is IBM Hat. Everything they push becomes "industry standard" and they don't like to deviate from what they think Linux should be -- systemd, Wayland, GTK3+, CSD, GNOME. It's like the only thing they can't agree on is a file system or storage strategy; Stratis, what Silverblue does, btrfs, systemd-homed, etc either not really jiving or being compatible with each other makes me think that.

To me a lot of distributions seem to basically be Red Hat and Fedora clones with a different package managere, some plugins on top of GNOME, and DIY storage strategies. Sometimes you get KDE and other non-GTK options, but, unless you're on OpenSUSE or Neon, they feel like 2nd class citizens when the system tools are in GTK3+...and Neon is a stretch since it's Ubuntu based and Ubuntu does GTK3+ system tools. At least in the GTK2 era we could theme everything the same and have a more unified looking desktop damn-near regardless of our desktop environment, minimalist WM environment, installed programs, etc. The GTK3+ era sucks in regards to a unified looking desktop if you're not a fan of that style.

[dragon321]

At least in the GTK2 era we could theme everything the same and have a more unified looking desktop damn-near regardless of our desktop environment, minimalist WM environment, installed programs, etc. The GTK3+ era sucks in regards to a unified looking desktop if you're not a fan of that style.

They didn't remove themes support in GTK3 so why it would be impossible to have unified desktop with GTK3+? I think KDE clearly proves that it's still possible to have pretty nicely integrated desktop with different toolkits.

Yes, GTK is closely related to GNOME but that doesn't mean every GTK3 application will follow GNOME style. If you write application in the GTK3+ you can still design it in traditional way with menu bar, tool bar etc. If some GTK application follows GNOME style - it's because developer decided to follow GNOME style.

[skeevy420]

They didn't remove themes support in GTK3 so why it would be impossible to have unified desktop with GTK3+? I think KDE clearly proves that it's still possible to have pretty nicely integrated desktop with different toolkits.

Because KDE actually tries to work with other toolkits to make them look good in their environment. GNOME doesn't. GNOME doesn't even offer its own theme controls let alone QT theme settings.

But GTK3+ (CSD) programs don't behave the same as other programs...their window management isn't the same as QT5 or EFL programs. It is what it is. Those SSD/CSD differences that the GNOME/GTK3 teams don't want to play ball with others on. People have tried over the years; gtk3-mushrooms for example. It just seems like all the effort everyone else does to cater to GNOME/GTK3 isn't reciprocated by the GNOME/GT3K team to everyone else.

[cynic]

that's a great achievement. If you'd asked me, I would have bet that they'd survived 6 months.
I'm never going to use it but kudos to the developer for the effort!

[RahulSundaram]

It's like the only thing they can't agree on is a file system or storage strategy; Stratis, what Silverblue does, btrfs, systemd-homed, etc either not really jiving or being compatible with each other makes me think that.

This conflates a lot of unrelated things and it is helpful to start with the understanding that the path chosen by Fedora and Red Hat for RHEL can and is different, in major part because the goals and lifecycle is very different.

* Btrfs effort in Fedora is largely driven by Facebook because they rely on CentOS stream for their production workflows and integrating better with Fedora is useful for them.

* Stratis - Red Hat has on the other hand invested heavily into XFS and Stratis is just a userspace tool that integrates a lot of the existing components into a new userspace tool. It is not a new filesystem.

* systemd-homed is not a filesystem, in Fedora it uses Btrfs and is not integrated into either Fedora or RHEL. It is a purely upstream component.

* Silverblue uses ostree which is underlying userspace component for among other things, Flatpak and it is not tied to any specific filesystem.

[bison]

What a crook.

I think you meant "crock."

[tuxd3v]

In a world Ibm hat dominated, Its nice to see Devuan progressing in its path..

[Grinch]

What a crook. I really don’t understand this non sense around init system freedom. All Devaun is, is a waste of developer resources.

I agree that the nonsense about 'freedom' is ridiculous, nobody is saying that you have to use systemd, it's just that someone has to step up and provide support for alternatives. This project is doing the latter, so good on them for actually stepping up to the plate, but I could do without the propaganda.

I have no problem with systemd, and so I use Arch, for those who do not want to use systemd, it's great that distros exist to cater for them (Devuan, Gentoo etc), but again complaining about 'freedom' being taken away because distros won't support alternatives makes no sense.

The freedom you have is that which is provided by either yourself or someone else, support for X does not magically appear, nor is it something you can demand that someone else provide you with.

Eventually systemd will be considered too old, bloated and crufty, and a new leaner, cleaner system will emerge and start replacing it, and we'll have this whole cycle repeat...

[andyprough]

Eventually systemd will be considered too old, bloated and crufty, and a new leaner, cleaner system will emerge and start replacing it, and we'll have this whole cycle repeat...

That new, clean, lean system is already here - s6. Runs so fast it will make your head spin. I run it on the antiX distro, but it works best right now on Artix and Obarun.

[k1e0x]

What a crook. I really don’t understand this non sense around init system freedom. All Devaun is, is a waste of developer resources.

"They aren't working on something I like, what a waste for me."

They just don't like it and they aren't hurting you. Those developers wouldn't work on Systemd anyhow and they aren't your resources. If it wasn't Debian they would just go work on something else that also didn't have systemd like FreeBSD. People can have different opinions on things and that is perfectly fine and ok.

The war is over man and I'm looking forward to systemd's future thin and lean replacement. Devuan's flexibility may very well put them at the forefront of that project.