Devuan 2.0 As Debian Without Systemd Hits Release Candidate Stage

[Guest]

Candy, flatpaks use runtimes (think of those as specific copies of a standard /usr/lib/ that's not binary compatible with your distribution).
Distributions other than Fedora switching from native package managers to Flatpaks is pretty much redundant. Do you think debian or arch linux will start shipping Fedora runtimes/packages?

I, personally, panicked as well when flatpak was being agressively pushed but then I tried it and I saw it was no different than installing a Fedora chroot and running apps from there. It's nothing to worry about.
When ubuntu introduced snap packages, they were trying to appeal to today's kids who like to install "apps" on their phones and are likely to think installing snaps is the same thing.

Again, I wouldn't worry about flatpaks taking over ever.

[tobias]

Also, AFAIK Debian only defaults to systemd but still support other init systems, has this changed ?

If Debian had stopped support for other init systems, then Devuan would not be possible.

All devuan does is block the systemd package (and for some funny reason also file-rc:-) from their package repository and then they "fix" the packages that no longer work in such a setup. Note that for ASCII libsystemd0 (the wrapper library provided by systemd that enables software to take advantage of systemd-PID1 without breaking support for other init systems) dependency is fine, as is a dependency on systemd-logind (they have elogind now, which is a drop-in replacement for logind-systemd), so the task is very manageable.

[kaprikawn]

[USER="97028"]...Do you think debian or arch linux will start shipping Fedora runtimes/packages?....

I don't think this is right. I've got flatpak stuff on Arch, and I'm pretty sure it's updated by some Gnome software thing.

[Candy]

Applications magically became non-portable due to systemd providing the system startup?

Are we talking about the same thing?
I was referring to the issues that BSD had, trying to get GNOME3 running. I don't want to go into technical details here but from what I know they had some issues and had to provide some own masked libraries to cover the missing functionality.

I doubt that many of the main software vendors, e.g. Mozilla, XFCE, KDE, GNOME, LibreOffice, would suddenly go "Linux only" for their whole product space, let alone single-product vendors like Inkscape, Scribus, GIMP, VLC, etc

That's not what I intended saying.

Of course none of these vendors will go "Linux only". But they likely will provide one single "Linux only" package, that will most likely be Flatpak.

Gimp offers Flatpaks
LibreOffice offers Flatpaks
Firefox offers Flatpaks

And the list continues. This doesn't mean that they go Linux only. This only means that they go one direction on Linux by only providing Flatpaks. What they offer on other systems is subject of the other system itself.

Wasn't the intention behind Flatpaks to offer a secure boxed environment for executing programs ? A binary compatible runtime below it, so all Flatpaks will run the same way on all distributions ? So you can download and install e.g. Gimp.flatpak on Debian, Fedora, Suse, Arch etc. and have it run the same exact way ? Having the same binary (by checksum) and same runtime (by checksum). So the package will be packed once (reducing administration and package management requirements) and offered as flatpak ? So all the package maintainers can focus on supporting only this one flatpak instead brewing their own packages ? This was told to me around 1-2 weeks ago here on Phoronix in the SilverBlue thread. One point of contact (flathub) in case the binary fails rather than having dozens of bugzilla set up around the world where all the bugs for one package gets tracked. Where the developers of said programs can focus on getting the programs fixed for the underlaying flatpak eco-system ? Developers complaining that packagers are messing up their software by breaking packaging (e.g. missing icons, linking to older libraries etc).

I don't talk about Windows here! There is just "the Windows" one Windows! It's binary compatible on all Systems and thus the programs keep operating. Same applies for macOS. There is only "the macOS" it's binary compatible on all hardware Apple sells.

It only looks differently on Linux with it's variety of Linux distributions, different underlaying libraries and library versions used. This is one reason why flatpaks exists. To take care of this and to provide a binary compatible eco-system for all distribitons so the packages can operate the same way. Packaged the same way.

So why do you think the regular packaging model won't go away if this stuff is intended to solve a major issue on the Linux eco-system ? Grab a package and have it still run in 20 years because of the eco-system that it was aimed for. Rather than the binaries that we have now and that may cause issues in 2 years if no one re-compiles or maintains it anymore ?

Right ?
Wrong ?

Correct me if you wish.

What about proprietary Software ? Game industry ? They may get the idea by not providing any deb or rpm packages for Linux anymore and go flatpak only. In their case this would make a lot of sense. They don't need to worry about distro specific bugreports anymore.

[bison]

I get the feeling this childs tantrum of a distro gets a lot less support than they were expecting.

This is not surprising, or shouldn't be -- it's human nature for people to want more, bigger, faster, etc. It's the default path. There are people who appreciate simplicity and good design, but that's always a much smaller group. So I don't expect Devuan to displace Debian, but they do seem to be sustainable as a project, which is good news for the people who use their distribution.

[Grinch]

Let me play devil's advocate.

If I were Candy, I'd posit that developers providing Flatpaks of their own package provides a disincentive for package maintainers to maintain packages leaving Flatpak the only option.

Is that a problem though ? The only downside I can think of is if you distrust the actual upstream of said Flatpak, but if so then there is a good opportunity for your distro to maintain (as in validate) upstream Flatpaks and then push them through the distro package management.

What I personally find most attractive with a Flatpak solution is as a alternative for user repositories (like AUR), particularly due to (at least theoretically) better protection due to sandboxing and the ability to run said package alongside a official package from your distro (not having to choose between stable and 'git' versions as is usually the case).

However, should distros limit their package maintenance to say core packages (low level system) and have a Flatpak solution for the rest, that's not something I'd have an issue with.

[Candy]

However, should distros limit their package maintenance to say core packages (low level system) and have a Flatpak solution for the rest, that's not something I'd have an issue with.

What's the purpose of a distribution then, if there is no unique selling point anymore ?

Wasn't one of the reasons for devuan to continue the classic Linux path ? No systemd, classic init scripts, light and maintainable packages ? Control, Re-compilability of packages etc.

Wasn't one of the reasons for LFS or Gentoo, to have full control of the system ? Compile the stuff with the own flags, keep the dependency list low by skipping dependencies when compiling stuff ?

What remains if Flatpaks show up everywhere ?

Nothing!

All the unique selling points of a specific distro goes away. You can't even binary and checksum re-compile the chroot environment of the flatpak eco-system that you depend on. How do you re-create the binaries for debian for example ? You rely and depend on what flathub offers. You are (just guessing), forced to download the pre-compiled binary Core system and have it installed on your debian to execute e.g. whatever there is. The "one size fit's all" approach.

This brings me back to my initial post on page 1. In 2-3 years no one talks about systemd anymore because there is a new black cloud marching towards us.

[anda_skoa]

That's not what I intended saying.

Of course none of these vendors will go "Linux only".

Ok, then I must have misinterpreted what you said.

For me you seem to suggest that applications would somehow depend on Flatpack, which would make them Linux-only, which I found not very likely.

But they likely will provide one single "Linux only" package, that will most likely be Flatpak.

Yes, they might add that download option or replace their current custom installer with that.

Neither has any impact on the distributions' packages.

Gimp offers Flatpaks
LibreOffice offers Flatpaks
Firefox offers Flatpaks

Makes sense.
More common ground than each having their own custom installer.

This doesn't mean that they go Linux only.

Right. As I said above your original comment sounded like you were suggesting some kind of dependency on Flatpak.

Wasn't the intention behind Flatpaks to offer a secure boxed environment for executing programs ? A binary compatible runtime below it, so all Flatpaks will run the same way on all distributions ? So you can download and install e.g. Gimp.flatpak on Debian, Fedora, Suse, Arch etc. and have it run the same exact way ?

That's my understanding as well.

Having the same binary (by checksum) and same runtime (by checksum). So the package will be packed once (reducing administration and package management requirements) and offered as flatpak ?

Right, allowing software vendors to offer binary downloads in a cross-distribution way.
Like AppImage does now, just with additional features like sandboxing.

So all the package maintainers can focus on supporting only this one flatpak instead brewing their own packages ?

Well, the package maintainers will still want to package the software for their package repository, just like they package software that has vendor provided custom installers or AppImage packages.

So why do you think the regular packaging model won't go away if this stuff is intended to solve a major issue on the Linux eco-system ?

Well, distributions package software that is already offered as a vendor download for various reasons, so how likely is vendors offering those downloads in a different format going to make these reasons obsolete?

What about proprietary Software ? Game industry ? They may get the idea by not providing any deb or rpm packages for Linux anymore and go flatpak only. In their case this would make a lot of sense. They don't need to worry about distro specific bugreports anymore.

That would be great!
Having to trust some random proprietary RPM/DEB with root level access always gives me a bad feeling.

Cheers,
_

[anda_skoa]

Wasn't one of the reasons for LFS or Gentoo, to have full control of the system ? Compile the stuff with the own flags, keep the dependency list low by skipping dependencies when compiling stuff ?

What remains if Flatpaks show up everywhere ?

Why would a source based distribution like Gentoo suddenly discards its main goal just because software vendors switch from one way of providing binaries (e.g. AppImage), to another (Flatpak).

Neither old nor new vendor option delivers what Gentoo users require, so they will always prefer the Gentoo package, no?

Cheers,
_

[Guest]

I don't think this is right. I've got flatpak stuff on Arch, and I'm pretty sure it's updated by some Gnome software thing.

The runtimes it installs in /var/lib/flatpak/ are actually snapshots of /usr/lib/ of another distribution. You are technically installing a portion of another distribution to run the flatpak packages.