Re: [DNG] Devuan compared to AntiX

[Isaac Dunham]

On Sun, Aug 09, 2015 at 01:43:36AM -0400, Steve Litt wrote:
> On Sat, 8 Aug 2015 22:10:13 -0700
> Isaac Dunham  wrote:
> 
> > Try Alpine Linux (alpinelinux.org).
> > Install docs are here:
> > http://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Installation
> 
> [snip]
> 
> > 
> > -init is Busybox init, with OpenRC on top.
> 
> Fascinating! The Busybox PID1 with the OpenRC process adminstration is
> enough to make me install it. I'd love to learn Busybox init.

It's pretty much the same as sysvinit, with a few small differences:
-sysvinit inittab uses the format:
id:runlevel:action:process
Busybox init uses the format:
[tty]:[ignored]:action:process

So to start getty on tty1, use
tty1::respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty1

If there's no tty desired, remove the first field.

-Additionally, runlevels aren't supported by Busybox init.
OpenRC provides its own runlevels, with non-numeric names; these are no
longer built on sysvinit runlevels.

-(internal details) Busybox init doesn't use utmp for runlevels, nor does
it use /dev/initctl.
The only way of communicating with it is modifying inittab or signalling;
it knows at least these signals:
HUP reload inittab
INT ctrl-alt-del pressed
QUITreexec self
USR1halt
USR2poweroff
TERMreboot

HTH,
Isaac Dunham
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Re: [DNG] Devuan compared to AntiX

[Steve Litt]

On Sat, 8 Aug 2015 22:10:13 -0700
Isaac Dunham  wrote:

> Try Alpine Linux (alpinelinux.org).
> Install docs are here:
> http://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Installation

[snip]

> 
> -init is Busybox init, with OpenRC on top.

Fascinating! The Busybox PID1 with the OpenRC process adminstration is
enough to make me install it. I'd love to learn Busybox init.

SteveT

Steve Litt 
July 2015 featured book: Rapid Learning for the 21st Century
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Re: [DNG] Devuan compared to AntiX

[Isaac Dunham]

On Sun, Aug 09, 2015 at 10:13:45AM +0800, Robert Storey wrote:
[snip]
> My next review will probably be about Void Linux. Jesse wrote a very brief
> review of Void a few months ago, in which he basically said it didn't run
> on his machine, so he dismissed it as "not ready." That was actually a
> piss-poor review. I'm particularly interested in Void since there is a
> version that runs on the Raspberry Pi 2. The main OS for the Raspberry Pi
> is Raspbian, which is essentially Debian, now infected with systemd. Since
> I'm a fan of the Raspberry Pi, I definitely want to see another distro
> available for it that is systemd-free. There is also FreeBSD for the Pi,
> though I understand it is very much a work in progress, but I'm interested
> in anything not systemd so I'll keep it on the back burner.
> 
> Other suggestions for non-systemd software are welcome. The main criteria
> is that it actually has to be something useful, something that I might
> install and use daily. Thus, far-out stuff like Minix is not a
> consideration, even if it's fun to play with.

Try Alpine Linux (alpinelinux.org).
Install docs are here:
http://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Installation

I use it as my everyday system, though the limited compatability with
standard (glibc) binaries may be problematic for you.

Quick tips that will probably save a little trouble:
-the package manager is "apk"; it's somewhere between dpkg and apt.
Basic subcommands are 
update  update repository indexes)
upgrade upgrade packages
infoshow info about a specified package
add install a package (and add it to /etc/apk/world)
fix install the version of a package that's in the repos;
all modified files are replaced.
del remove package
search  search for a package (by regex); with -d, search description

-If you use the installer to install to the hard drive, it wipes everything.
I use the chroot install method; if you're comfortable with debootstrap,
that should be fine.

-make sure to install a kernel (linux-vanilla | linux-grsec on x86).

-init is Busybox init, with OpenRC on top.

HTH,
Isaac Dunham
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Re: [DNG] Devuan compared to AntiX

[Gregory Nowak]

On Sun, Aug 09, 2015 at 10:13:45AM +0800, Robert Storey wrote:
> Since
> I'm a fan of the Raspberry Pi, I definitely want to see another distro
> available for it that is systemd-free. There is also FreeBSD for the Pi,
> though I understand it is very much a work in progress, but I'm interested
> in anything not systemd so I'll keep it on the back burner.

Supposedly M$ is coming out with a port of win10 for it as
well. Probably not what you're interested in, but since you mentioned
FreeBSD, I figured I'd throw that in too.

Greg


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Re: [DNG] Devuan compared to AntiX

[Steve Litt]

On Sun, 9 Aug 2015 10:13:45 +0800
Robert Storey  wrote:

 
> My next review will probably be about Void Linux. 

Excellent choice!

> Jesse wrote a very
> brief review of Void a few months ago, in which he basically said it
> didn't run on his machine, so he dismissed it as "not ready." 

You mean http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20150406#void ?


> That
> was actually a piss-poor review. 

In a way it was kind of accurate. He correctly identified the
documentation problem. Lots of distros have inadequate documentation,
but Void goes the extra mile by having misleading, outdated, and just
plain wrong documentation scattered all over the web as well as on its
own website. It took me an hour of research, with suitable
misdirections, to find out the name of the executable you run in order
to install to the hard disk. That's just inexcusable.

Jesse taught me a lesson I sort of knew, but his review really drilled
it in: Install on a Qemu VM first. On the Qemu VM, you can take
snapshots, you can boot three times quicker, it's much easier to "boot
a CD to bust back in", and you have a very well defined piece of
hardware. Now that I've installed and explored it on a Qemu VM,
installing it on metal won't have nearly the frustration potential as
having my initial installation on metal.

My impression of Void is that once you know it, it's outstanding and
can be used for a daily driver desktop. Or server. But its slapstick,
rake-and-banana-peel documentation make it just what Jesse said it was,
at least for the average user: Not ready.

SteveT

Steve Litt 
July 2015 featured book: Rapid Learning for the 21st Century
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Re: [DNG] Devuan compared to AntiX

[Adam Borowski]

On Sun, Aug 09, 2015 at 10:13:45AM +0800, Robert Storey wrote:
> what exactly does systemd-shim do? Is it just
> a package to trick other packages with dependencies on systemd, without
> actually installing systemd?

It allows running parts of systemd (logind, some power management functions,
etc) without systemd being pid 1.

-- 
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(https://github.com/kilobyte/braillefont for this hack)
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Re: [DNG] Devuan compared to AntiX

[Robert Storey]

As (bad) luck would have it, I just received an email from Jesse Smith (who
writes the DistroWatch Weekly Review) informing me that he already wrote a
review of antiX and it will be published this Monday. It would be too late
to withdraw it now, since that would leave him without a review for this
coming week.

That doesn't mean that I won't be writing a review of antiX eventually. But
it does mean it will have to wait at least a few months, since it wouldn't
do to publish two reviews of the same distro back-to-back on DistroWatch.
Of course, if antiX comes up with a new release, that would change matters.

All that said, I want to thank those who responded. I did pick up some good
tips, especially the one to use "updatedb" plus "locate" to track down any
systemd cruft. Don't know why I didn't think of that. On the other hand, it
is not clear to me though how much it matters when there are subdirectories
labeled /etc/systemd, /lib/systemd, and /var/lib/systemd. Running "dpkg
--get-selections grep systemd" shows nothing on antiX. The developer,
anticapitalista, says that systemd-shim is not installed on antiX. That
leads me to another question: what exactly does systemd-shim do? Is it just
a package to trick other packages with dependencies on systemd, without
actually installing systemd? I don't really know, but it's something I need
to explore if I want to write intelligently about this subject.

My next review will probably be about Void Linux. Jesse wrote a very brief
review of Void a few months ago, in which he basically said it didn't run
on his machine, so he dismissed it as "not ready." That was actually a
piss-poor review. I'm particularly interested in Void since there is a
version that runs on the Raspberry Pi 2. The main OS for the Raspberry Pi
is Raspbian, which is essentially Debian, now infected with systemd. Since
I'm a fan of the Raspberry Pi, I definitely want to see another distro
available for it that is systemd-free. There is also FreeBSD for the Pi,
though I understand it is very much a work in progress, but I'm interested
in anything not systemd so I'll keep it on the back burner.

Other suggestions for non-systemd software are welcome. The main criteria
is that it actually has to be something useful, something that I might
install and use daily. Thus, far-out stuff like Minix is not a
consideration, even if it's fun to play with.

cheers,
Robert
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Re: [DNG] Systemd Shims

[James Powell]

G'evening,

On Sat, Aug 08, 2015 at 08:30:58PM +0100, Dave Turner wrote:
 From the look of Mark's website I was a bit disappointed not to find a link
 to www.davidicke.com!

Well... I'm fine with what I saw, I mostly don't care because his beliefs
are his own business. Yeah, even praising Ruby as the best lang is a personal 
belief, so transeamus. Off-topic.

 But, if the quick'n'dirty pragmatic solution is systemd shims then so be it
 as far as I am concerned.

Are we talking about systemd-shim the software by Canonical, or shims for 
systemd
compatibility?
The systemd framework is a byzantine pile
of features, so I can't say for sure whether stub functions added to 
init-neutral-to-be programs are hacks that
should be replaced ASAP with snippets of more unixy, maybe ad hoc components 
or with calls to a uniform API, or not.
logind is very difficult to emulate for example, but sometimes
you mightnt just add stubs, ending with applications full of holes or 
regressions...

--
Teodoro Santoni

Something is wrong. I don't wanna compile 20 KB of Go code to list files.
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Re: [DNG] Mission Creap

[Adam Borowski]

On Sat, Aug 08, 2015 at 08:42:49PM +0100, Dave Turner wrote:
> Devuan Alpha worked perfectly well for me, but not for the normal
> people that use my iMac. They expect to click shutdown and have the
> computer shutdown, no asking for passwords, no rebooting instead of
> shutting down.

That happens if you try to use systemd-shim.  You need to get rid of systemd
completely, recompiling affected packages to use consolekit instead.  This
is done in my repository:
deb http://angband.pl/debian nosystemd-jessie
or
deb http://angband.pl/debian nosystemd-stretch
but for some reason not in Devuan yet.

-- 
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⠢⠤⠃⠪⠭⠇⠇⠀⠇⠀⠣⠀⠀⠣⠄⠨⠭⠃⠣⠀⠬⠭⠂⠀⠀⠀⠸⠀⠀⠣⠤⠃⠇⠀⠀⠣⠄⠇⠀⠇⠫⠭⠁⠀⠀⠀⠣⠣⠃⠫⠭⠁⠪⠭⠇⠏⠢⠄⠀⠄⠀
(https://github.com/kilobyte/braillefont for this hack)
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Re: [DNG] Systemd Shims

[Teodoro Santoni]

G'evening,

On Sat, Aug 08, 2015 at 08:30:58PM +0100, Dave Turner wrote:
> From the look of Mark's website I was a bit disappointed not to find a link
> to www.davidicke.com!

Well... I'm fine with what I saw, I mostly don't care because his beliefs
are his own business. Yeah, even praising Ruby as the best lang is a personal 
belief, so transeamus. Off-topic.

> But, if the quick'n'dirty pragmatic solution is systemd shims then so be it
> as far as I am concerned.

Are we talking about systemd-shim the software by Canonical, or shims for 
systemd
compatibility?
The systemd framework is a byzantine pile
of features, so I can't say for sure whether stub functions added to 
init-neutral-to-be programs are hacks that
should be replaced ASAP with snippets of more unixy, maybe ad hoc components 
or with calls to a uniform API, or not.
logind is very difficult to emulate for example, but sometimes
you mightnt just add stubs, ending with applications full of holes or 
regressions...

--
Teodoro Santoni

Something is wrong. I don't wanna compile 20 KB of Go code to list files.
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Re: [DNG] Systemd Shims

[James Powell]

 From the look of Mark's website I was a bit disappointed not to find a 
link to www.davidicke.com!
But, if the quick'n'dirty pragmatic solution is systemd shims then so be 
it as far as I am concerned.

DaveT


On 08/08/15 18:14, Go Linux wrote:
 On Sat, 8/8/15, Mark S Bilk m...@cosmicpenguin.com wrote:

   Subject: [DNG] Systemd Shims
   To: dng@lists.dyne.org
   Date: Saturday, August 8, 2015, 11:49 AM
   
   [cut]

   So please drop the fear of contamination, and consider the shims as a 
simple, inexpensive
   and effective wall of defense against systemd.
   
    Mark

 

 Interesting first post.  I don't see how becoming entangled forever with 
systemd is a solution.  Get to know Mark better at the URL implied in his email 
before embracing his 'wisdom'.

 golinux
   
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Re: [DNG] Mission Creap

[Edward Bartolo]

What is wrong in using "shutdown -h now"? I use it whenever I boot my
Devuan installation 64 bit. Don't tell me opening  a terminal, typing
'su' and the root password, is geeky stuff!

On 08/08/2015, Dave Turner  wrote:
> On 08/08/15 13:58, Rainer Weikusat wrote:
>> Dave Turner  writes:
>>
>> [many words]
>>
>> This seems to boil down to: In its present state, I consider Devuan
>> unusable. Was that what you actually meant to say?
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>
> Not at all!
>
> Devuan Alpha worked perfectly well for me, but not for the normal
> people that use my iMac. They expect to click shutdown and have the
> computer shutdown, no asking for passwords, no rebooting instead of
> shutting down.
> None of us on this mailing list are what the rest of the world thinks
> of as 'normal people', we are sad-techie geeks one and all.
>
> DaveT
>
>
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Re: [DNG] Mission Creap

[Dave Turner]

On 08/08/15 13:58, Rainer Weikusat wrote:

Dave Turner  writes:

[many words]

This seems to boil down to: In its present state, I consider Devuan
unusable. Was that what you actually meant to say?
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Not at all!

Devuan Alpha worked perfectly well for me, but not for the normal
people that use my iMac. They expect to click shutdown and have the
computer shutdown, no asking for passwords, no rebooting instead of
shutting down.
None of us on this mailing list are what the rest of the world thinks
of as 'normal people', we are sad-techie geeks one and all.

DaveT

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Re: [DNG] Systemd Shims

[Dave Turner]

From the look of Mark's website I was a bit disappointed not to find a 
link to www.davidicke.com!
But, if the quick'n'dirty pragmatic solution is systemd shims then so be 
it as far as I am concerned.


DaveT


On 08/08/15 18:14, Go Linux wrote:

On Sat, 8/8/15, Mark S Bilk  wrote:

  Subject: [DNG] Systemd Shims
  To: dng@lists.dyne.org
  Date: Saturday, August 8, 2015, 11:49 AM
  
  [cut]


  So please drop the fear of contamination, and consider the shims as a simple, 
inexpensive
  and effective wall of defense against systemd.
  
   Mark




Interesting first post.  I don't see how becoming entangled forever with 
systemd is a solution.  Get to know Mark better at the URL implied in his email 
before embracing his 'wisdom'.

golinux
  
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Re: [DNG] How real is this?

[Nextime]

On August 4, 2015 11:05:04 PM CEST, Rainer Weikusat 
 wrote:
>Steve Litt  writes:
>> On Tue, 04 Aug 2015 12:45:19 +0100
>> Rainer Weikusat  wrote:
>>
>>> I'm looking for an upgrade path for a Debian wheezy installation I
>>> can't keep forever. I wouldn't mind some rough edges as I'm
>perfectly
>>> capable of fixing any bugs I could conceivably encounter myself but
>>> I'd prefer having a workable base to start from over "Linux From
>>> Scratch".
>>
>> I think you're asking where to go after Wheezy. My research tells me
>> the following.
>>
>> * If you can wait for Devuan to go stable, that's your easiest route
>>   forward.
>
>I was asking if Devuan is complete enough that it can be used by
>someone
>willing to put work in fixing bugs.
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Yes, it is. I personally use it in production right now on all my machines.
-- 
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Re: [DNG] Mission Creap

[Miles Fidelman]

Nextime wrote:

On August 8, 2015 4:12:23 PM CEST, Miles Fidelman  
wrote:

Riccardo Boninsegna wrote:

On Sat, Aug 8, 2015 at 2:39 PM, Dave Turner
 wrote:

various XFCE irritations for normal people made me do a full debian

jessie install with systemd and all. I s wish I hadn't!

XFCE doesn't work at all.

Devuan Testing installs systemd by default, but it's easy to remove
without breaking anything,
and after installing pm-utils XFCE works perfectly on my computer!


Wait, what

I thought a primary motivation for Devuan was to NOT install systemd by

default.

Miles Fidelman



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Actually devuan install sysvinit by default in pid 1… anyway systemd, not in 
pid 1, still present cause of some dependencies not yet updated in devuan. 
Starting from beta 1 systemd will not be installed by default


Good to know.  Thanks.

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Re: [DNG] Systemd Shims

[Go Linux]

On Sat, 8/8/15, Mark S Bilk  wrote:

 Subject: [DNG] Systemd Shims
 To: dng@lists.dyne.org
 Date: Saturday, August 8, 2015, 11:49 AM
 
 [cut]

 So please drop the fear of contamination, and consider the shims as a simple, 
inexpensive 
 and effective wall of defense against systemd.
 
  Mark



Interesting first post.  I don't see how becoming entangled forever with 
systemd is a solution.  Get to know Mark better at the URL implied in his email 
before embracing his 'wisdom'.

golinux
 
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Re: [DNG] Systemd Shims

[Alberto Zuin - liste]

IMHO, if an external program calls a systemd API, does it because want 
that systemd does something.
Write 10-100-1000 systemd shims that don't do anything, simply returns 
"true" is not a solution: in case, we have to "translate" the systemd 
api call to the "real" daemon in execution and this could be an effort 
bigger than evacuate systemd to 10.000 packages.



On 08/08/15 17:49, Mark S Bilk wrote:

It seems to me that it's good to have shim programs that satisfy
dependencies of apps on systemd, each shim performing some systemd
function.  Here's why:

Suppose there are 10,000 application programs (apps) for Linux,
and their developers foolishly insert dependencies on systemd.

If Devuan developers write 50 simple shims to fulfill those
dependencies, then Devuan users can run those 10,000 apps
as they are, directly from the Debian repos.  And when the
apps are updated, they will still run.  The Devuan devs
don't have to deal with those 10,000 updates at all.  And
the shim programs only have to be updated when the systemd
API that they are emulating changes.

Now suppose that systemd shims are not used.  That means that
all 10,000 apps have to be patched by Devuan developers so they
don't depend on systemd.  And all the 10,000 patched apps have to
sit in a Devuan repo that has to be maintained.  And every time one
of those 10,000 apps is updated, the Devuan devs have to repatch
it to remove the systemd dependencies and recompile it.  The
Devuan devs can request the app devs to remove the systemd
dependencies, but that has a low probability of success,
because the app devs have lemming-consciousness rather than
Unix-consciousness, and think that systemd is fine because
the major distros have adopted it.

So using a relatively small number of shim programs in Devuan
will save an enormous amount of work for the Devuan developers,
which will allow them to use their time for more productive
purposes -- making Devuan more generally useful and attractive,
thereby gaining far more users.

Now I realize that the idea of having those shim programs is
going to make some Devuan people scream, "Unclean!  Unclean!".
But the shim programs will be under our control and will
save us a huge amount of constantly ongoing work of updating
apps.  And Devuan will succeed with only 25 developers and
administrators instead of needing 500.

So please drop the fear of contamination, and consider the
shims as a simple, inexpensive and effective wall of defense
against systemd.

   Mark

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Re: [DNG] Mission Creap

[Nextime]

On August 8, 2015 2:39:15 PM CEST, Dave Turner 
 wrote:
>If the developers of devuan are paying a lot of attention to the
>various 
>discussions on here about init systems, audio, getting rid of
>pulseaudio 
>and other 'pet-hates' then it slows down the implementation of
>Plan A:-
>get rid of systemd. Preferably all references to it such as
>systemd-shim 
>will be gone too.
>
>If things such as vdev _have_ to become part of devuan to make that 
>happen then so be it.
>
>Only when there is  a proper release of devuan so that anybody who
>wants 
>to can build a working devuan server for use in a production
>environment 
>is Plan A complete.
>
>And then all those 'wants' and 'pet-hates' and 'can XFCE be the default
>
>desktop' become relevant and the developers can decide on their
>priorities.
>
>Meanwhile, the Alpha release works, feel free to use it. I have been 
>using it but various XFCE irritations for normal people made me do a 
>full debian jessie install with systemd and all. I s wish I hadn't!
>desktop-file-utils, thunar and other packages don't install properly
>but 
>do actually work.
>At every update upgrade cycle dpkg complains about them not being 
>configured.
>XFCE doesn't work at all.
>There were the same unconfigured problems with mate, I won't install 
>gnome or kde so I used twm (it is a good job I am so old I can remember
>
>when twm was about all there was!), but now my old iMac and me are 
>happily working with ctwm.
>What fun! (But not for the normal people that have to use my computer)
>
>DaveT
>
>
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All those changes will not slowdown release as they will enter in devuan, first 
in ceres and then in ascii, only after jessie release.
-- 
nextime
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Re: [DNG] Mission Creap

[Nextime]

On August 8, 2015 4:12:23 PM CEST, Miles Fidelman  
wrote:
>Riccardo Boninsegna wrote:
>> On Sat, Aug 8, 2015 at 2:39 PM, Dave Turner
>>  wrote:
>>> various XFCE irritations for normal people made me do a full debian
>jessie install with systemd and all. I s wish I hadn't!
>>> XFCE doesn't work at all.
>> Devuan Testing installs systemd by default, but it's easy to remove
>> without breaking anything,
>> and after installing pm-utils XFCE works perfectly on my computer!
>>
>Wait, what
>
>I thought a primary motivation for Devuan was to NOT install systemd by
>
>default.
>
>Miles Fidelman
>
>
>
>-- 
>In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
>In practice, there is.    Yogi Berra
>
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Actually devuan install sysvinit by default in pid 1… anyway systemd, not in 
pid 1, still present cause of some dependencies not yet updated in devuan. 
Starting from beta 1 systemd will not be installed by default
-- 
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[DNG] Systemd Shims

[Mark S Bilk]

It seems to me that it's good to have shim programs that satisfy 
dependencies of apps on systemd, each shim performing some systemd 
function.  Here's why:

Suppose there are 10,000 application programs (apps) for Linux,
and their developers foolishly insert dependencies on systemd.

If Devuan developers write 50 simple shims to fulfill those 
dependencies, then Devuan users can run those 10,000 apps 
as they are, directly from the Debian repos.  And when the 
apps are updated, they will still run.  The Devuan devs 
don't have to deal with those 10,000 updates at all.  And 
the shim programs only have to be updated when the systemd 
API that they are emulating changes.

Now suppose that systemd shims are not used.  That means that 
all 10,000 apps have to be patched by Devuan developers so they 
don't depend on systemd.  And all the 10,000 patched apps have to 
sit in a Devuan repo that has to be maintained.  And every time one 
of those 10,000 apps is updated, the Devuan devs have to repatch 
it to remove the systemd dependencies and recompile it.  The 
Devuan devs can request the app devs to remove the systemd 
dependencies, but that has a low probability of success, 
because the app devs have lemming-consciousness rather than 
Unix-consciousness, and think that systemd is fine because 
the major distros have adopted it.

So using a relatively small number of shim programs in Devuan 
will save an enormous amount of work for the Devuan developers,
which will allow them to use their time for more productive 
purposes -- making Devuan more generally useful and attractive,
thereby gaining far more users.

Now I realize that the idea of having those shim programs is 
going to make some Devuan people scream, "Unclean!  Unclean!".  
But the shim programs will be under our control and will 
save us a huge amount of constantly ongoing work of updating 
apps.  And Devuan will succeed with only 25 developers and 
administrators instead of needing 500.  

So please drop the fear of contamination, and consider the 
shims as a simple, inexpensive and effective wall of defense 
against systemd.

  Mark

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Re: [DNG] Unmingling kdbus and the Linux kernel

[Rainer Weikusat]

"T.J. Duchene"  writes:
> On 08/08/2015 05:36 AM, Rainer Weikusat wrote:
>> to 'use of systemd', there are things which sound like they were to fear
>> more seriously, ie, the stated intention of at least one kernel
>> maintainer (Tejun Hejo, spelling probably wrong) that he wants to "break
>> userspace" in order to turn cgroups "into a private property of
>> systemd".
>
> I really do not think that you have anything to seriously worry about.

I didn't write that I was worrying about something.
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Re: [DNG] Devuan compared to AntiX

[Steve Litt]

On Sat, 8 Aug 2015 06:26:40 -0500
Thaddeus Nielsen  wrote:

> On Sat, 8 Aug 2015 15:02:07 +0800
> Robert Storey  wrote:
> 
> > Hi everyone. It's been a little while since I last posted.
> > 
> > Some of you might remember that I occasionally write reviews for
> > DistroWatch. Not too often, because it's my policy to only write
> > about a distro that I actually use (or would use) in everyday life.
> > Ever since systemd starting contaminating Linux, the number of
> > distros I consider usable has been drastically reduced.
> > 
> > Until a few months ago I was using Ubuntu 14.04, but finally
> > dropped it. The replacement was Manjaro OpenRC, which is pretty
> > good but has a little systemd contamination from dbus or udev (not
> > sure of the details). I wrote a DistroWatch of Manjaro-OpenRC which
> > you can view here:
> > 
> > http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20150601#manjaro
> > 
> > As you might have guessed from the title of this thread, the next
> > review I hope to write will be about AntiX. I just installed it
> > yesterday and I'm using it right now. All things considered, it's
> > very nice and functionally equivalent to Manjaro-OpenRC. The author
> > of AntiX, Anticapitalista, says that there are no systemd libraries
> > or systemd-shim in AntiX. The following command produces zero
> > output:
> > 
> > dpkg --get-selections | grep systemd
> > 
> > So my big question here: in what ways will Devuan differ from
> > AntiX? I'm guessing that vdev will be part of the answer, but
> > surely there is more. I think that the DistroWatch readership will
> > be interested, and any thoughts that you all have along these longs
> > will be greatly appreciated. I will try to incorporate the best
> > informed comments into the review, in the hopes of piquing
> > interested in both Devuan and AntiX.
> > 
> > Thank you all in advance,
> >  - Robert
> 
> I installed antiX on my wife's old machine about five weeks ago.
> Though I obtain the same results as you when using your dpkg command,
> I get different results when I simply run locate systemd.  You might
> want to try that before writing your review. RPTN

The following is what I got on a Qemu VM installed Void Linux with LXDE
and no lightdm or any other kind of desktop mangler:

http://dpaste.com/1H8BMND

==
[root@voidlinux ~]# updatedb
[root@voidlinux ~]# locate systemd
/usr/lib/systemd
/usr/lib/systemd/system
/usr/lib/systemd/system/wacom-inputattach@.service
[root@voidlinux ~]#
==

SteveT

Steve Litt 
July 2015 featured book: Rapid Learning for the 21st Century
http://www.troubleshooters.com/rl21
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Re: [DNG] Init scripts in packages

[Steve Litt]

On Sat, 08 Aug 2015 09:46:07 +0200
Jaromil  wrote:

> 
> 
> On 8 August 2015 09:28:42 CEST, Miles Fidelman
>  wrote:
> 
> >If, instead, they start removing the sysv scripts, and including 
> >homebrew systemd units - then we're in for a mess of rework.
> 
> both me, Franco and other VUAs are literally aiming to a fork, either
> after Jessie or Ascii as infrastructure will grow and consolidate
> organically, as well the maintainer base will grow with usage.


   * *
\ o /
 \|/ 
  |   A W   R I I I G H T ! ! !
 / \  _  
/   \/
   /
  -

This is great news. To be honest with you, I was never a fan of "we'll
keep on forever being Debian but removing their cruft.

SteveT

Steve Litt 
July 2015 featured book: Rapid Learning for the 21st Century
http://www.troubleshooters.com/rl21
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Re: [DNG] Unmingling kdbus and the Linux kernel

[T.J. Duchene]

On 08/08/2015 05:36 AM, Rainer Weikusat wrote:

to 'use of systemd', there are things which sound like they were to fear
more seriously, ie, the stated intention of at least one kernel
maintainer (Tejun Hejo, spelling probably wrong) that he wants to "break
userspace" in order to turn cgroups "into a private property of
systemd".


I really do not think that you have anything to seriously worry about.

Every FOSS programmer ever born has their particular pet projects, 
thinking that they know better than everyone else.  The community as a 
whole has a vested interest in *not* breaking the Linux userspace for 
the sake of one person's vanity project.  (You might argue that systemd 
does that. 90% of the Linux community does not think so.)  A broken 
Linux userspace means that huge amounts of code would have to be 
changed, and you can bet with some certainty that it is not in the best 
interests of the wider majority to tolerate that kind of disruption.



I can't see how cgroups would become "a private property of systemd" 
without a serious kernel rewrite.


As for the rest, I can't imagine it being a huge problem.  Cgroups are a 
Linux specific process feature, which actually has very little affect on 
userspace outside of some Linux specific utilities that use it, like 
systemd.   Cgroups not part of the POSIX standard, so the vast majority 
of the FOSS software does not use the feature at all.




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Re: [DNG] Mission Creap

[Dave Turner]

Miles,

Remember that devuan is still at Aplha2.
Perhaps Beta 1 will be free of systemd, but until then, aptitude is your 
friend!


DaveT

On 08/08/15 15:12, Miles Fidelman wrote:

Riccardo Boninsegna wrote:

On Sat, Aug 8, 2015 at 2:39 PM, Dave Turner
 wrote:
various XFCE irritations for normal people made me do a full debian 
jessie install with systemd and all. I s wish I hadn't!

XFCE doesn't work at all.

Devuan Testing installs systemd by default, but it's easy to remove
without breaking anything,
and after installing pm-utils XFCE works perfectly on my computer!


Wait, what

I thought a primary motivation for Devuan was to NOT install systemd 
by default.


Miles Fidelman





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Re: [DNG] Init scripts in packages

[Isaac Dunham]

On Sat, Aug 08, 2015 at 09:43:47AM +0200, Laurent Bercot wrote:
> On 08/08/2015 03:43, Isaac Dunham wrote:
> >Which, fortunately, is pretty easy to do: I wrote an environment
> >sanitizer yesterday, because I was curious how easily solved that is.
> >Usage is
> >cautenv [-c DIR] [-u] [-x] COMMAND [COMMAND_ARGS...]
> 
>  Would you mind linking it ? I'm interested in trying to break it. ;)

Not a problem, now that it's online.
Here's the command:
https://github.com/idunham/bits/raw/master/cautenv.c
Repository:
https://github.com/idunham/bits

CC0, so do what you wish with it.
The rest of that repository is also CC0, but almost all of it is only
useful for someone who wants an example of using some less-frequently
seen functions.

Thanks,
Isaac Dunham
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Re: [DNG] Mission Creap

[Miles Fidelman]

Riccardo Boninsegna wrote:

On Sat, Aug 8, 2015 at 2:39 PM, Dave Turner
 wrote:

various XFCE irritations for normal people made me do a full debian jessie 
install with systemd and all. I s wish I hadn't!
XFCE doesn't work at all.

Devuan Testing installs systemd by default, but it's easy to remove
without breaking anything,
and after installing pm-utils XFCE works perfectly on my computer!


Wait, what

I thought a primary motivation for Devuan was to NOT install systemd by 
default.


Miles Fidelman



--
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.    Yogi Berra

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Re: [DNG] Init scripts in packages

[Miles Fidelman]

Jaromil wrote:

Jaromil wrote:

Its early to say, but this thread is just prospecting. I believe that
on a longer term we can hardly do worse tha Debian when untangling
dependencies that right now constantly drag in desktop oriented
stuff, like avahi and other similar nonsense that we almost got used
to swallow all these years.

on the mid - long term it won't be just systemd to make the
difference between Devuan and Debian.

On Sat, 08 Aug 2015, Miles Fidelman wrote:

But now we get into the question of can Devuan really attract a full
set of package maintainers?




IF what we do turns out to be useful for all those professionals
preferring GNU/Linux to *BSD (and realistically, the latter is today the
best pro- alternative to the amateurial mess Linux is becoming) then
there won't be need for an horde of mediocre package maintainers, but a
pack of few good ones.

There is much more to be said, for instance the emergence of new
packaging systems which will be surclassing old ones in 2-3 years
maximum, for instance see Guix and NixOS with the smart adoption of a
declarative language for the task.


Well yes - but that raises the question of why not just Guix on day 
one?  It strikes me that the primary value of Debian has always been 
dpkg and apt.


Cheers,

Miles

--
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.    Yogi Berra

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Re: [DNG] Mission Creap

[Dave Turner]

On 08/08/15 13:46, Riccardo Boninsegna wrote:

On Sat, Aug 8, 2015 at 2:39 PM, Dave Turner
 wrote:

various XFCE irritations for normal people made me do a full debian jessie 
install with systemd and all. I s wish I hadn't!
XFCE doesn't work at all.

Devuan Testing installs systemd by default, but it's easy to remove
without breaking anything,
and after installing pm-utils XFCE works perfectly on my computer!


I removed systemd from Devuan Testing without breaking anything.
The XFCE user problems such as not being able to shutdown or only able 
to shutdown after inputting your password despite 'sudo' being setup 
correctly seems to be a result of installing XFCE 4.12 on my iMac no 
matter which linux distro it is...

and pm-utils is installed!

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Re: [DNG] Mission Creap

[Rainer Weikusat]

Dave Turner  writes:

[many words]

This seems to boil down to: In its present state, I consider Devuan
unusable. Was that what you actually meant to say?
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Re: [DNG] Mission Creap

[Riccardo Boninsegna]

On Sat, Aug 8, 2015 at 2:39 PM, Dave Turner
 wrote:
> various XFCE irritations for normal people made me do a full debian jessie 
> install with systemd and all. I s wish I hadn't!
> XFCE doesn't work at all.

Devuan Testing installs systemd by default, but it's easy to remove
without breaking anything,
and after installing pm-utils XFCE works perfectly on my computer!
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[DNG] Mission Creap

[Dave Turner]

If the developers of devuan are paying a lot of attention to the various 
discussions on here about init systems, audio, getting rid of pulseaudio 
and other 'pet-hates' then it slows down the implementation of

Plan A:-
get rid of systemd. Preferably all references to it such as systemd-shim 
will be gone too.


If things such as vdev _have_ to become part of devuan to make that 
happen then so be it.


Only when there is  a proper release of devuan so that anybody who wants 
to can build a working devuan server for use in a production environment 
is Plan A complete.


And then all those 'wants' and 'pet-hates' and 'can XFCE be the default 
desktop' become relevant and the developers can decide on their priorities.


Meanwhile, the Alpha release works, feel free to use it. I have been 
using it but various XFCE irritations for normal people made me do a 
full debian jessie install with systemd and all. I s wish I hadn't!
desktop-file-utils, thunar and other packages don't install properly but 
do actually work.
At every update upgrade cycle dpkg complains about them not being 
configured.

XFCE doesn't work at all.
There were the same unconfigured problems with mate, I won't install 
gnome or kde so I used twm (it is a good job I am so old I can remember 
when twm was about all there was!), but now my old iMac and me are 
happily working with ctwm.

What fun! (But not for the normal people that have to use my computer)

DaveT


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Re: [DNG] Init scripts in packages

[Rainer Weikusat]

Miles Fidelman  writes:
> Rainer Weikusat wrote:

[...]

>> Also, to re-iterate this: What an init script needs to do is really only
>> 'start a process'/ 'stop a process'. Most of the other code which crept
>> in there during the last 15 - 20 years will fall into one of two
>> categories
>>
>>  1) Never did anything useful
>>  2) Should never have been implemented in this way.
>
> It can be a bit more than that, for example, the sympa mailing list
> package consists of multiple programs that are started in order, and
> includes
> - start (all 4)
> - stop (all 4)
> - restart (stop, in order; start in order)
> - status
>
> Most server scripts do some setup and cleanup.  There's also typically
> a reload config files option.

I'm aware how existing init scripts look like but that's just another
example of 'coral reef' coding: Some code is needed (or believed to be
needed). Where's the most convenient place it can be added? The init
script, obviously! It's just a shell script and thus, easy to
modify. For simple modifications, this is even a good idea, because
after all, the intent is not to create a statue but to make something
work. This gets problematic when there are, say, 5 different people who
always work in this way whose small hacks keep piling up over the course
of a few years (I have some specific code in mind): The inevitable
result is a horrendous mess which doesn't work almost all of the time
and nobody can still tell which parts of it are doing what and how they
all interact.

For the example you're using, if these 4 programs really belong to the
same package, the obvious idea would be to write a script starting them
and a script stopping them and let the init script execute
these. Restart can be implemented as stop followed by start but that's
already a convenience compromise. The others have no business in the
init script as they're not about starting or stopping programs.

Dito for setup and cleanup: For as long as these are simple, limited
task, eg, something like this

CONFIG=/etc/config-file
. $CONFIG
: ${DEBUG:=3}

putting it into the init script makes sense. But not five such blocks in
a row, possibly even with some conditionals around them to execute or
not execute them in various combinations.
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Re: [DNG] Devuan compared to AntiX

[Ron]

On Sat, 08 Aug 2015 22:44:41 +1200
Daniel Reurich  wrote:

> Devuan may have been born out of anger at the decisions of the TC, but 
> already it is shaping up to be more then just Debian with sysvinit. 
> Vdev is certainly a step away from systemd ties, but the discussions on 
> the mailinglist and in the irc channels indicate a desire to make the 
> init system just another choice.

Should the choice be offered within Devuan ?

Or should we tell people who want systemd "You have the choice of installing 
Debian" ?
 
Cheers,
 
Ron.
-- 
  A team effort is a lot of people doing what I say.
-- Michael Winner, British film director

   -- http://www.olgiati-in-paraguay.org --
 

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Re: [DNG] ideas for system startup

[Rainer Weikusat]

> On Fri, Aug 07, 2015 at 01:58:19PM +0100, Rainer Weikusat wrote:

[...]

>> The general idea would be
>> 
>> 1) Keep a relatively simple init which kicks off execution of commands in
>>response to 'change the system state' request and nothing else (get
>>rid of as much of /etc/inittab as possible at some point in time)
>
> This is something that systemd did, and one of the things about it
> that really ticked me off. Let me provide a couple of examples:
>
> 1. One of the things I did when playing with debian jessie was to
> install a virtual machine which would be accessed only via serial
> console and ssh (this is a real use case for me). I discovered that
> there is no /etc/inittab in debian jessie! Second, I discovered that
> while I can remove agetty on tty1, I can't do so on tty2-tty6, because
> systemd insists I should have a login console wherever possible.

sysvinit is already something which (unsuccessfully) tried to become a
univeral, monolithic service manager integrated with init. I also wrote
one myself, although that was for an embedded system so it erred rather
on the side of 'get rid of features' and meanwhile, I consider this a
bad idea: A getty listening on some (however defined) login port is just
another daemon process (it's not a server) and insofar some are needed,
they should be handled like all other servers.

> 2. I want ctrl+alt+del to do shutdown -h, instead of shutdown -r
> (another real use case on another virtual system). I couldn't figure
> out a way to do this in debian jessie.

[...]

I would like to get rid of the parser. Two ideas I've been playing
around with so far would be:

- move the parser into a program init executes which
  turns the configuration file into some kind of parameter
  structure

- just use a well-known command name

This means init would do something like execute /bin/cad-handler and
the behaviour could be changed by changing that.
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Re: [DNG] Devuan compared to AntiX

[Thaddeus Nielsen]

On Sat, 8 Aug 2015 15:02:07 +0800
Robert Storey  wrote:

> Hi everyone. It's been a little while since I last posted.
> 
> Some of you might remember that I occasionally write reviews for
> DistroWatch. Not too often, because it's my policy to only write about a
> distro that I actually use (or would use) in everyday life. Ever since
> systemd starting contaminating Linux, the number of distros I consider
> usable has been drastically reduced.
> 
> Until a few months ago I was using Ubuntu 14.04, but finally dropped it.
> The replacement was Manjaro OpenRC, which is pretty good but has a little
> systemd contamination from dbus or udev (not sure of the details). I wrote
> a DistroWatch of Manjaro-OpenRC which you can view here:
> 
> http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20150601#manjaro
> 
> As you might have guessed from the title of this thread, the next review I
> hope to write will be about AntiX. I just installed it yesterday and I'm
> using it right now. All things considered, it's very nice and functionally
> equivalent to Manjaro-OpenRC. The author of AntiX, Anticapitalista, says
> that there are no systemd libraries or systemd-shim in AntiX. The following
> command produces zero output:
> 
> dpkg --get-selections | grep systemd
> 
> So my big question here: in what ways will Devuan differ from AntiX? I'm
> guessing that vdev will be part of the answer, but surely there is more. I
> think that the DistroWatch readership will be interested, and any thoughts
> that you all have along these longs will be greatly appreciated. I will try
> to incorporate the best informed comments into the review, in the hopes of
> piquing interested in both Devuan and AntiX.
> 
> Thank you all in advance,
>  - Robert

I installed antiX on my wife's old machine about five weeks ago.  Though I 
obtain the same results as you when using your dpkg command, I get different 
results when I simply run locate systemd.  You might want to try that before 
writing your review.
RPTN

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Re: [DNG] Init scripts in packages

[Marlon Nunes]

On Sat, 8 Aug 2015 11:03:34 +0200
Jaromil  wrote:

> 
> > Jaromil wrote:
> 
> > >Its early to say, but this thread is just prospecting. I believe that
> > >on a longer term we can hardly do worse tha Debian when untangling
> > >dependencies that right now constantly drag in desktop oriented
> > >stuff, like avahi and other similar nonsense that we almost got used
> > >to swallow all these years.
> > >
> > >on the mid - long term it won't be just systemd to make the
> > >difference between Devuan and Debian.
> 
> On Sat, 08 Aug 2015, Miles Fidelman wrote:
> > But now we get into the question of can Devuan really attract a full
> > set of package maintainers?
> 
> it depends what you mean by "full". To us it certainly doesn't means the
> size of Debian, but a core system which can be reliably used as a base
> by both upstream and downstream: developers, devops, sysadmins and
> distributions who compile the key production packages from source and/or
> package themselves, as yourself pointed out in this thread.
> 
> what I call the hardest part we have already demonstrated we're able to
> do: putting together a continuous integration infrastructure for the
> core system, using software we wrote, hence we can scale organically and
> we can further develop ad-hoc to overcome initial difficulties (see for
> instance the caching approach taken with Amprolla, or our fixes to
> jenkins-debian-glue, or the upcoming fixes to qemu-arm builds).
> 
> IF what we do turns out to be useful for all those professionals
> preferring GNU/Linux to *BSD (and realistically, the latter is today the
> best pro- alternative to the amateurial mess Linux is becoming) then
> there won't be need for an horde of mediocre package maintainers, but a
> pack of few good ones.
> 
> There is much more to be said, for instance the emergence of new
> packaging systems which will be surclassing old ones in 2-3 years
> maximum, for instance see Guix and NixOS with the smart adoption of a
> declarative language for the task.
> 
> I'll also refrain to observe the sort of labour relationship Debian is
> instaurating with its volunteers, the majority being students and people
> who abandon once they got a job. I'll just say we are aiming at a
> different approach here and it shall be focused on quality, not
> quantity.
> 
> ciao

Nice!

> -- 
> Denis "Jaromil" Roio, Dyne.org Think (& Do) Tank
> We are free to share code and we code to share freedom
> Web: https://j.dyne.org Contact: https://j.dyne.org/c.vcf
> GPG: 6113 D89C A825 C5CE DD02  C872 73B3 5DA5 4ACB 7D10
> Confidential communications: https://keybase.io/jaromil
> 


-- 
Stop slacking you lazy bum!
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Re: [DNG] Init scripts in packages

[Rainer Weikusat]

Isaac Dunham  writes:

> On Thu, Aug 06, 2015 at 05:14:28PM +0200, Laurent Bercot wrote:
>> On 06/08/2015 16:31, Isaac Dunham wrote:
>> >If differences in environment can cause problems, it's a problem with
>> >design. A program that changes what it does just due to differences
>> >between the init environment and a login environment is going to be
>> >hard to debug.
>> 
>>  There are tons of those, and you can't fix them all. Stupid example:
>> less. Behaves differently when its stdout is a terminal and when it's
>> not.
>>  The only way to ensure reproducible behaviour for a program, no matter
>> what it is, is to start it in a reproducible environment.
>
> Which, fortunately, is pretty easy to do: I wrote an environment
> sanitizer yesterday, because I was curious how easily solved that is.
> Usage is
> cautenv [-c DIR] [-u] [-x] COMMAND [COMMAND_ARGS...]
>
> and it cleans the environment (saving some user variables if -u is
> specified and DISPLAY/XAUTH if -x is specified), closes all fds above 2,
> changes directory to DIR ("/" if that's not specified, and calls
> execvp(argv[optind], argv+optind).
>
> It comes out at 123 lines, and could probably be made shorter.

It could be split into three tools: One which changes the environment,
one which changes to a certain directory and one which 'sanitizes' the
set of inherited file descriptors.

Presently, I have a tool which combines the last task with creating a
properly backgrounded process because file descriptor leaks really only
matter if the descriptor is leaked to a long-running process and because
that's a somewhat dubious safeguard: File descriptors should be managed
by the programs creating them and closing them on the presumption that
this program surely didn't bother is a practical necessity but not
theoretically sound.

I don't have anything for changing the environment but in general, the
same concerns apply to that: An environment variable was created in
order to communicate certain information to other processes and it
shouldn't be thrown away blindly. As a practical example, one of the
things I'm dealing with is a tiny distributed system for creating
certificates for VPN servers based on a (a number of, actually) OpenSSL
based 'CA installations'. This uses ssh combined with keys as secure
transport and since there's a setuid-0 program involved which talks to
the network, it originally just did a

environ = NULL;

This caused (minor) problems later on because OpenSSL didn't know where
to put its .rnd file and in order to get around these, I had to create
the missing environment variables with sensible values.

And this is the really sensible solution to this problem: If a program
supposed to run from a non-interactive environment needs certain
environment variables with 'correct' values, whatever starts the program
has to create these (or overwrite them in case they're already set). The
only useful task of the environment sanitizer is that it force Joe
Someone to fix the startup code because relying on another program
having set that up correctly won't work anymore.
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Re: [DNG] Devuan compared to AntiX

[Daniel Reurich]

Hi Robert,


So my big question here: in what ways will Devuan differ from AntiX?


To be honest, I've not looked at AntiX, and thus can't comment on 
differences and similarities.



I'm guessing that vdev will be part of the answer, but surely there
is more.


My perspective is that Devuan aims to be more of a continuation of what 
Debian was claiming to be - a universal distribution that provided as 
wide as possible range of choices for applications and services that 
makes it useful as an Operating System from low resource embedded 
devices thru to regular Desktop/Laptop systems, across to high end 
domain specific workstations such as audio|video edit workstations right 
out to high availability servers and super-compute clusters systems.


Devuan may have been born out of anger at the decisions of the TC, but 
already it is shaping up to be more then just Debian with sysvinit. 
Vdev is certainly a step away from systemd ties, but the discussions on 
the mailinglist and in the irc channels indicate a desire to make the 
init system just another choice.


Devuan also aims to be an easy ready to use base for derivatives, by 
simplifying and the process of building the required packaging and 
infrastructure for derivatives.  We're doing the hard work in creating a 
fork of Debian, and we don't want to inflict the same pain on those who 
wish to build of the fantastic foundation that Debian was and Devuan is 
shaping up to be.


Cheers,
Daniel.

--
Daniel Reurich
Centurion Computer Technology (2005) Ltd.
021 797 722
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Re: [DNG] Unmingling kdbus and the Linux kernel

[Rainer Weikusat]

"T.J. Duchene"  writes:
> If I might add my two cents a few days late,
>
> I really do not think that kdbus matters overly much and that people  
> (including myself in the past) have assigned too much concern to the topic.  
> Kdbus is little more than an implementation of dbus, which is a fairly 
> neutral 
> protocol.  The concern of course is that kdbus might mean the use of
> systemd.

With a horrible mix of things, "kdbus is RedHat's AppleTalk/ SunRPC" [for
implementing highly-reliable systems distributed on a single laptop]. As
to 'use of systemd', there are things which sound like they were to fear
more seriously, ie, the stated intention of at least one kernel
maintainer (Tejun Hejo, spelling probably wrong) that he wants to "break
userspace" in order to turn cgroups "into a private property of
systemd". The latter is something which (IMO) cannot technically be
accomplished but if he actually so desires, he can surely make life very
miserable for everyone else.
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Re: [DNG] Init scripts in packages

[Jaromil]

> Jaromil wrote:

> >Its early to say, but this thread is just prospecting. I believe that
> >on a longer term we can hardly do worse tha Debian when untangling
> >dependencies that right now constantly drag in desktop oriented
> >stuff, like avahi and other similar nonsense that we almost got used
> >to swallow all these years.
> >
> >on the mid - long term it won't be just systemd to make the
> >difference between Devuan and Debian.

On Sat, 08 Aug 2015, Miles Fidelman wrote:
> But now we get into the question of can Devuan really attract a full
> set of package maintainers?

it depends what you mean by "full". To us it certainly doesn't means the
size of Debian, but a core system which can be reliably used as a base
by both upstream and downstream: developers, devops, sysadmins and
distributions who compile the key production packages from source and/or
package themselves, as yourself pointed out in this thread.

what I call the hardest part we have already demonstrated we're able to
do: putting together a continuous integration infrastructure for the
core system, using software we wrote, hence we can scale organically and
we can further develop ad-hoc to overcome initial difficulties (see for
instance the caching approach taken with Amprolla, or our fixes to
jenkins-debian-glue, or the upcoming fixes to qemu-arm builds).

IF what we do turns out to be useful for all those professionals
preferring GNU/Linux to *BSD (and realistically, the latter is today the
best pro- alternative to the amateurial mess Linux is becoming) then
there won't be need for an horde of mediocre package maintainers, but a
pack of few good ones.

There is much more to be said, for instance the emergence of new
packaging systems which will be surclassing old ones in 2-3 years
maximum, for instance see Guix and NixOS with the smart adoption of a
declarative language for the task.

I'll also refrain to observe the sort of labour relationship Debian is
instaurating with its volunteers, the majority being students and people
who abandon once they got a job. I'll just say we are aiming at a
different approach here and it shall be focused on quality, not
quantity.

ciao

-- 
Denis "Jaromil" Roio, Dyne.org Think (& Do) Tank
We are free to share code and we code to share freedom
Web: https://j.dyne.org Contact: https://j.dyne.org/c.vcf
GPG: 6113 D89C A825 C5CE DD02  C872 73B3 5DA5 4ACB 7D10
Confidential communications: https://keybase.io/jaromil



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Re: [DNG] Init scripts in packages

[Miles Fidelman]

Jaromil wrote:


On 8 August 2015 09:28:42 CEST, Miles Fidelman  
wrote:


If, instead, they start removing the sysv scripts, and including
homebrew systemd units - then we're in for a mess of rework.

both me, Franco and other VUAs are literally aiming to a fork, either after
Jessie or Ascii as infrastructure will grow and consolidate organically, as
well the maintainer base will grow with usage.

Its early to say, but this thread is just prospecting. I believe that on a 
longer
term we can hardly do worse tha Debian when untangling dependencies that
right now constantly drag in desktop oriented stuff, like avahi and other 
similar
nonsense that we almost got used to swallow all these years.

on the mid - long term it won't be just systemd to make the difference between
Devuan and Debian.



But now we get into the question of can Devuan really attract a full set 
of package maintainers?


Miles



--
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.    Yogi Berra

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Re: [DNG] Init scripts in packages

[Miles Fidelman]

But now we're back into having to have a completely separate package 
repository, along with a full set of package maintainers.  Sigh.


T.J. Duchene wrote:

You could always lift scripts from Wheezy and use them as a template.

On Sat, Aug 8, 2015 at 2:28 AM, Miles Fidelman 
mailto:mfidel...@meetinghouse.net>> wrote:


T.J. Duchene wrote:



On 08/07/2015 09:31 PM, Miles Fidelman wrote:


Trivial as in, somebody has to do it.  The whole point of
packaging is to automate a lot of the routine things
involved in installation.

And, because Debian (and presumeably Devuan) don't put
stuff in default locations, packaging involves changing
the default locations of things.

Where this leads is that down the road, we either need a
full set of Devuan-specific package maintainers, or
everybody is back to compiling and installing from
upstream source.

Miles Fidelman


Good evening, Miles!  =)


Good morning T.J. !


If I might offer an opinion, I do not think that the situation
is quite that dire.  The packages that require init scripts
are a tiny fraction of the entire repository.  For the moment,
the scripts Devuan needs are still in the Debian archives as
Jesse has System 5 support.

Devuan can just replicate them and support them moving forward.


Well, maybe.  The original poster started with the statement
"Currently Debian packages contains both systemd units and init
scripts.  However, Debian developers refused to support several
init systems. So it's only a matter of time when they remove init
scripts from packages." If that's true, then we have problem.

My sense is that systemd is having close to zero effect on
upstream code - most stuff is shipping with traditional sysv init
scripts, with some folks adding systemd units, but most basically
ignoring systemd.

If the Debian packagers do what makes sense - i.e., simply tweak
sysv init scripts that come from upstream, and rely on systemd's
support for init scripts, then all is copacetic.

If, instead, they start removing the sysv scripts, and including
homebrew systemd units - then we're in for a mess of rework.

Miles



-- 
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.

In practice, there is.    Yogi Berra

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--
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.    Yogi Berra

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Re: [DNG] Init scripts in packages

[Jaromil]

On 8 August 2015 09:28:42 CEST, Miles Fidelman  
wrote:

>If, instead, they start removing the sysv scripts, and including 
>homebrew systemd units - then we're in for a mess of rework.

both me, Franco and other VUAs are literally aiming to a fork, either after
Jessie or Ascii as infrastructure will grow and consolidate organically, as
well the maintainer base will grow with usage.

Its early to say, but this thread is just prospecting. I believe that on a 
longer
term we can hardly do worse tha Debian when untangling dependencies that
right now constantly drag in desktop oriented stuff, like avahi and other 
similar
nonsense that we almost got used to swallow all these years.

on the mid - long term it won't be just systemd to make the difference between
Devuan and Debian.

ciao

>In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
>In practice, there is.    Yogi Berra

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Re: [DNG] Init scripts in packages

[Laurent Bercot]

On 08/08/2015 03:43, Isaac Dunham wrote:

Which, fortunately, is pretty easy to do: I wrote an environment
sanitizer yesterday, because I was curious how easily solved that is.
Usage is
cautenv [-c DIR] [-u] [-x] COMMAND [COMMAND_ARGS...]


 Would you mind linking it ? I'm interested in trying to break it. ;)

--
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Re: [DNG] Init scripts in packages

[T.J. Duchene]

You could always lift scripts from Wheezy and use them as a template.

On Sat, Aug 8, 2015 at 2:28 AM, Miles Fidelman 
wrote:

> T.J. Duchene wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On 08/07/2015 09:31 PM, Miles Fidelman wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Trivial as in, somebody has to do it.  The whole point of packaging is
>>> to automate a lot of the routine things involved in installation.
>>>
>>> And, because Debian (and presumeably Devuan) don't put stuff in default
>>> locations, packaging involves changing the default locations of things.
>>>
>>> Where this leads is that down the road, we either need a full set of
>>> Devuan-specific package maintainers, or everybody is back to compiling and
>>> installing from upstream source.
>>>
>>> Miles Fidelman
>>>
>>>
>> Good evening, Miles!  =)
>>
>
> Good morning T.J. !
>
>>
>> If I might offer an opinion, I do not think that the situation is quite
>> that dire.  The packages that require init scripts are a tiny fraction of
>> the entire repository.  For the moment, the scripts Devuan needs are still
>> in the Debian archives as Jesse has System 5 support.
>>
>> Devuan can just replicate them and support them moving forward.
>>
>>
> Well, maybe.  The original poster started with the statement "Currently
> Debian packages contains both systemd units and init scripts.  However,
> Debian developers refused to support several init systems. So it's only a
> matter of time when they remove init scripts from packages." If that's
> true, then we have problem.
>
> My sense is that systemd is having close to zero effect on upstream code -
> most stuff is shipping with traditional sysv init scripts, with some folks
> adding systemd units, but most basically ignoring systemd.
>
> If the Debian packagers do what makes sense - i.e., simply tweak sysv init
> scripts that come from upstream, and rely on systemd's support for init
> scripts, then all is copacetic.
>
> If, instead, they start removing the sysv scripts, and including homebrew
> systemd units - then we're in for a mess of rework.
>
> Miles
>
>
>
> --
> In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
> In practice, there is.    Yogi Berra
>
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Re: [DNG] Init scripts in packages

[Miles Fidelman]

T.J. Duchene wrote:



On 08/07/2015 09:31 PM, Miles Fidelman wrote:


Trivial as in, somebody has to do it.  The whole point of packaging 
is to automate a lot of the routine things involved in installation.


And, because Debian (and presumeably Devuan) don't put stuff in 
default locations, packaging involves changing the default locations 
of things.


Where this leads is that down the road, we either need a full set of 
Devuan-specific package maintainers, or everybody is back to 
compiling and installing from upstream source.


Miles Fidelman



Good evening, Miles!  =)


Good morning T.J. !


If I might offer an opinion, I do not think that the situation is 
quite that dire.  The packages that require init scripts are a tiny 
fraction of the entire repository.  For the moment, the scripts Devuan 
needs are still in the Debian archives as Jesse has System 5 support.


Devuan can just replicate them and support them moving forward.



Well, maybe.  The original poster started with the statement "Currently 
Debian packages contains both systemd units and init scripts.  However, 
Debian developers refused to support several init systems. So it's only 
a matter of time when they remove init scripts from packages." If that's 
true, then we have problem.


My sense is that systemd is having close to zero effect on upstream code 
- most stuff is shipping with traditional sysv init scripts, with some 
folks adding systemd units, but most basically ignoring systemd.


If the Debian packagers do what makes sense - i.e., simply tweak sysv 
init scripts that come from upstream, and rely on systemd's support for 
init scripts, then all is copacetic.


If, instead, they start removing the sysv scripts, and including 
homebrew systemd units - then we're in for a mess of rework.


Miles


--
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In practice, there is.    Yogi Berra

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Re: [DNG] ideas for system startup (was: Init scripts in packages)

[karl]

Steve Litt:
...
> /etc/inittab is unique to sysvinit and OpenRC (which uses sysvinit as
> PID1). If we're ever forced to move to another (besides systemd) init,
> we won't have /etc/inittab either, but we'll still be able to do
> everything we did with sysvinit, just differently.
...

busybox init also have /etc/inittab.

Regards,
/Karl Hammar

---
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Lilla Aspö 148
S-742 94 Östhammar
Sweden
+46 173 140 57


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[DNG] Devuan compared to AntiX

[Robert Storey]

Hi everyone. It's been a little while since I last posted.

Some of you might remember that I occasionally write reviews for
DistroWatch. Not too often, because it's my policy to only write about a
distro that I actually use (or would use) in everyday life. Ever since
systemd starting contaminating Linux, the number of distros I consider
usable has been drastically reduced.

Until a few months ago I was using Ubuntu 14.04, but finally dropped it.
The replacement was Manjaro OpenRC, which is pretty good but has a little
systemd contamination from dbus or udev (not sure of the details). I wrote
a DistroWatch of Manjaro-OpenRC which you can view here:

http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20150601#manjaro

As you might have guessed from the title of this thread, the next review I
hope to write will be about AntiX. I just installed it yesterday and I'm
using it right now. All things considered, it's very nice and functionally
equivalent to Manjaro-OpenRC. The author of AntiX, Anticapitalista, says
that there are no systemd libraries or systemd-shim in AntiX. The following
command produces zero output:

dpkg --get-selections | grep systemd

So my big question here: in what ways will Devuan differ from AntiX? I'm
guessing that vdev will be part of the answer, but surely there is more. I
think that the DistroWatch readership will be interested, and any thoughts
that you all have along these longs will be greatly appreciated. I will try
to incorporate the best informed comments into the review, in the hopes of
piquing interested in both Devuan and AntiX.

Thank you all in advance,
 - Robert
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Re: [DNG] ideas for system startup (was: Init scripts in packages)

[Steve Litt]

On Fri, 7 Aug 2015 17:06:14 -0700
Gregory Nowak  wrote:


> This is something that systemd did, and one of the things about it
> that really ticked me off. Let me provide a couple of examples:
> 
> 1. One of the things I did when playing with debian jessie was to
> install a virtual machine which would be accessed only via serial
> console and ssh (this is a real use case for me). I discovered that
> there is no /etc/inittab in debian jessie! 

/etc/inittab is unique to sysvinit and OpenRC (which uses sysvinit as
PID1). If we're ever forced to move to another (besides systemd) init,
we won't have /etc/inittab either, but we'll still be able to do
everything we did with sysvinit, just differently.


> Second, I discovered that
> while I can remove agetty on tty1, I can't do so on tty2-tty6, because
> systemd insists I should have a login console wherever possible.

Far be it from me to defend systemd, but there's probably a way to
shut off the ttys.

> 
> 2. I want ctrl+alt+del to do shutdown -h, instead of shutdown -r
> (another real use case on another virtual system). 

:-) I can do that on any system that's initted with Suckless Init :-)

Beyond that, I can't be of help.

> I couldn't figure
> out a way to do this in debian jessie.

Yeah, you have to have PID1 to run shutdown -h (poweroff, or whatever)
on receipt of that interrupt. I think the PID1 has to support that.

> 
> Now, what you proposed above from what I understand should work for my
> first example. The admin would do something like tty1.agetty stop,
> followed by tty1.agetty disable. Nice, simpler then open inittab in an
> editor, and commenting out lines, followed by telinit q. However, I
> don't see how your proposal above would deal with defining what
> ctrl+alt+del does per my second example. Handling such events isn't
> as simple as starting/stopping a daemon with a universal init
> script. Since you mentioned getting rid of most of inittab but not all
> of it, would ctrl+alt+del be one of the things you envision inittab
> still being useful for?

I didn't read the whole thread, but if sysvinit now is capable of doing
what you want with sysvinit, and you use sysvinit as PID1 but then use
something else to manage the processes, then sysvinit should handle
interrupts sent its way in the same manner it always has.

SteveT

Steve Litt 
July 2015 featured book: Rapid Learning for the 21st Century
http://www.troubleshooters.com/rl21
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