Devuan 2.0 Reaches Beta, Debian Without Systemd & Now Based On Stretch

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Devuan 2.0 Reaches Beta, Debian Without Systemd & Now Based On Stretch

It's been a while since last having anything to report on Devuan, the Debian derivative focused on "init freedom" by shipping the Debian packages without any dependence on systemd. But just in time for Valentine's Day, Devuan 2.0 Beta is now available...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Devuan-2.0-Beta

[dungeon]

Great, i have Devuan 1.0 installed on one partition somewhere... feels more fast and more responsive for some reason

Didn't tried other inits yet.

edit: Have no time now, didn't spotted that Moritz pushed retpoline-enabled GCC 4.9 build for jessie... so i might compile some kernels there to test that backport

http://debian.2.n7.nabble.com/retpol...td4276973.html

[jacob]

I just hope that after "init freedom" they will do something about the equally pressing problem of "cp freedom". Once that is resolved, they should focus on linux itself: how does Linus dare forcing everyone use his kernel? The distro should have no less than 10 different incompatible kernels and you must be able to install them all at the same time or else.

Finally we should also focus on the absolutely unacceptable notion that the motherboard forces you to use one particular type of CPU and that that CPU forces you to run one specific type of binaries. I want to put an ARM Cortex A72 into my Intel motherboard and run SPARC code on it. Choice choice choice! Don't tell me that doesn't make sense, Devuan devs! You evil Poettering co-conspirators!

[dungeon]

Choice choice choice! Don't tell me that doesn't make sense, Devuan devs! You evil Poettering co-conspirators!

Ha, ha, go home Poettering



Isn't that wallpaper beautuful...

[grok]

I just hope that after "init freedom" they will do something about the equally pressing problem of "cp freedom". Once that is resolved, they should focus on linux itself: how does Linus dare forcing everyone use his kernel? The distro should have no less than 10 different incompatible kernels and you must be able to install them all at the same time or else.

Finally we should also focus on the absolutely unacceptable notion that the motherboard forces you to use one particular type of CPU and that that CPU forces you to run one specific type of binaries. I want to put an ARM Cortex A72 into my Intel motherboard and run SPARC code on it. Choice choice choice! Don't tell me that doesn't make sense, Devuan devs! You evil Poettering co-conspirators!

Actually :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerPC_600#PowerPC_614

The "PowerPC 615" is a PowerPC processor announced by IBM in 1994, but which never reached mass production. Its main feature was to incorporate an x86 core on die, thus making the processor able to natively process both PowerPC and x86 instructions.^[26] An operating system running on PowerPC 615 could either chose to execute 32-bit or 64-bit PowerPC instructions, 32-bit x86 instructions or a mix of three. Mixing instructions would involve a context switch in the CPU with a small overhead. The only operating systems that supported the 615 were Minix and a special development version of OS/2.^[27]

It was 330 mm² large and manufactured by IBM on a 0.35 µm process. It was pin compatible with Intel's Pentium processors and comparable in speed. The processor was introduced only as a prototype and the program was killed in part by the fact that Microsoft never supported the processor. Engineers working on the PowerPC 615 would later find their way to Transmeta, where they worked on the Crusoe processor.

[garegin]

The same people that rag on about init freedom have no problem that sysv init was the only choice for decades. Even after that openrc was only for gentoo.
You want choice, use BSD.

[dungeon]

You want choice, use BSD.

So Linux is not about choice? See this:

DeVUAn:~$ cat /proc/sys/kernel/osrelease
4.14.19-gnu
DeVUAn:~$ cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/*
Not affected
Mitigation: __user pointer sanitization
Mitigation: Full AMD retpoline
DeVUAn:~$ xdriinfo
Screen 0: fglrx

Backported retpoline GGC 4.9 compiled linux-libre 4.14.19 kernel and FGLRX on top and guess what? This is weird as it could be but "everything" works, i am sure BSD can't do this.

[Cape]

Linux is not about choice. That's just a consequence of being LIBRE Software.

[dungeon]

Linux is not about choice. That's just a consequence of being LIBRE Software.

Exactly, Windows is about choice. That's just a consequence of not being LIBRE Software.

Truth (as a choice) is always somewhere in between

[jacob]

So Linux is not about choice? See this:

From Linus' side, Linux is about the kernel's technical merits. From the GNU side, it's about FLOSS. "Choice" in the sense of arbitrarily replacing any component with anything (and its corollary, nothing ever integrating consistently with anything) is a Unix thing that, in the Linux mainstream, has now become a tangential interest at best. By the way Linus never really cared much for Unix as such and as for GNU, as we all now, it's *NOT* Unix (RMS initally even thought of writing it in LISP).