Keep using Debian without GNOME and SystemD

[Dimitrios Chr. Ioannidis]

Hi,

  after spending two days trying unsuccesfuly to have a usable Jessie with one 
of the defaults DE 
and with no systemd utilities, i decided the following. In the companie's pc's 
i support, i'll continue with 
Wheezy and if there is no a clear path to Jessie without a trace of systemd 
until Wheezy's support lifetime then 
bye - bye Debian. 
  I'm even considering to try hard to convince those companies to contribute to 
LTS for Wheezy to keep it alive 
and systemd free for as long it's possible.

Sorry, but no systemd for me. Systemd as init ( and only that ) i don't care.

Regards,
-- 
Dimitrios Chr. Ioannidis



signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part

Re: Keep using Debian without GNOME and SystemD

[Rusi Mody]

On Wednesday, October 22, 2014 12:00:04 PM UTC+5:30, Dimitrios Chr. Ioannidis 
wrote:
> Hi,

>   after spending two days trying unsuccesfuly to have a usable Jessie with 
> one of the defaults DE 
> and with no systemd utilities, i decided the following. In the companie's 
> pc's i support, i'll continue with 
> Wheezy and if there is no a clear path to Jessie without a trace of systemd 
> until Wheezy's support lifetime then 
> bye - bye Debian. 
>   I'm even considering to try hard to convince those companies to contribute 
> to LTS for Wheezy to keep it alive 
> and systemd free for as long it's possible.

gnome and systemd are tightly coupled

For the rest, if you cant remove systemd (with say xfce or mate or...)
please post here the details, so others can verify/correct the dependencies

> Sorry, but no systemd for me. Systemd as init ( and only that ) i don't care.

Please lets try and increase facts and decrease rhetoric


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: 
https://lists.debian.org/f6a13621-a108-49fc-8a4b-03831aae3...@googlegroups.com

Re: Keep using Debian without GNOME and SystemD

[Dimitrios Chr. Ioannidis]

Στις 21-10-2014, ημέρα Τρι, και ώρα 23:55 -0700, ο/η Rusi Mody έγραψε:
> On Wednesday, October 22, 2014 12:00:04 PM UTC+5:30, Dimitrios Chr. Ioannidis 
> wrote:
> > Hi,
> 
> >   after spending two days trying unsuccesfuly to have a usable Jessie with 
> > one of the defaults DE 
> > and with no systemd utilities, i decided the following. In the companie's 
> > pc's i support, i'll continue with 
> > Wheezy and if there is no a clear path to Jessie without a trace of systemd 
> > until Wheezy's support lifetime then 
> > bye - bye Debian. 
> >   I'm even considering to try hard to convince those companies to 
> > contribute to LTS for Wheezy to keep it alive 
> > and systemd free for as long it's possible.
> 
> gnome and systemd are tightly coupled
> 
> For the rest, if you cant remove systemd (with say xfce or mate or...)
> please post here the details, so others can verify/correct the dependencies

What details do you think are neccecary ? 

  Just grab a DI-b2 img, install xfce or lxde ( with the menu or with
desktop=  doesn't matter ) and then try to remove *all* the systemd
utilities / libraries etc. 

At least I ( and others as i read in the "Perfect Jessie is something
like this" thread .. ) wasn't able to find the correct formula to remove
all systemd ecosystem.

regards

-- 
Dimitrios Chr. Ioannidis 
Nephelae


signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part


smime.p7s
Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature

Re: Keep using Debian without GNOME and SystemD

[Jochen Spieker]

Dimitrios Chr. Ioannidis:
> 
>   after spending two days trying unsuccesfuly to have a usable Jessie
>   with one of the defaults DE and with no systemd utilities, i decided
>   the following. In the companie's pc's i support, i'll continue with
>   Wheezy and if there is no a clear path to Jessie without a trace of
>   systemd until Wheezy's support lifetime then bye - bye Debian. 

Good luck finding *any* distro with a current Gnome that does not depend
on systemd.

I really don't get why Debian receives so much hate in this discussion.
Upstream software depending on systemd is not Debian's choice.

J.
-- 
I often play sports / do exercise.
[Agree]   [Disagree]
 


signature.asc
Description: Digital signature

Re: Keep using Debian without GNOME and SystemD

[Anders Wegge Keller]

On Wed, 22 Oct 2014 13:40:49 +0200
Jochen Spieker  wrote:

> I really don't get why Debian receives so much hate in this discussion.
> Upstream software depending on systemd is not Debian's choice.

 Because of the abysmal lack of communication of the reasons behind the
descision. I tried to bring this up a few weeks back, but the arrogance from
the established debians are so extreme, that even a meta-debate is out of the
question.

 People with good technical skills are often horrible at communication. My
conjecture is that the Debian developers have a higher than average level of
technical skills.

-- 
//Wegge


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20141022141236.6750c...@wegge.dk

Re: Keep using Debian without GNOME and SystemD

[Dimitrios Chr. Ioannidis]

Στις 22-10-2014, ημέρα Τετ, και ώρα 13:40 +0200, ο/η Jochen Spieker
έγραψε:
> Dimitrios Chr. Ioannidis:
> > 
> >   after spending two days trying unsuccesfuly to have a usable Jessie
> >   with one of the defaults DE and with no systemd utilities, i decided
> >   the following. In the companie's pc's i support, i'll continue with
> >   Wheezy and if there is no a clear path to Jessie without a trace of
> >   systemd until Wheezy's support lifetime then bye - bye Debian. 
> 
> Good luck finding *any* distro with a current Gnome that does not depend
> on systemd.

I'm hopping for a Debian/xfce with no systemd deps, Gnome is not a
requirement.

> I really don't get why Debian receives so much hate in this discussion.
> Upstream software depending on systemd is not Debian's choice.

I really, really don't hate Debian. I respect the choice reg. systemd,
just I make a choice to not use it and it's ecosystem and if this is
going to be impossible to do with Debian then i've need to use something
else. But as read the various threads here reg. the removal of systemd I
don't think that will happen . :)

regards,


-- 
Dimitrios Chr. Ioannidis 
Nephelae


signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part

Re: Keep using Debian without GNOME and SystemD

[Rusi Mody]

On Wednesday, October 22, 2014 5:30:06 PM UTC+5:30, Jochen Spieker wrote:
> Dimitrios Chr. Ioannidis:
> >   after spending two days trying unsuccesfuly to have a usable Jessie
> >   with one of the defaults DE and with no systemd utilities, i decided
> >   the following. In the companie's pc's i support, i'll continue with
> >   Wheezy and if there is no a clear path to Jessie without a trace of
> >   systemd until Wheezy's support lifetime then bye - bye Debian. 

> Good luck finding *any* distro with a current Gnome that does not depend
> on systemd.

> I really don't get why Debian receives so much hate in this discussion.
> Upstream software depending on systemd is not Debian's choice.

I guess because Debian spokespersons [whatever that may mean :-) ]
are not clear enough to say that the problem is more gnome than systemd.

All that debian has to say officially is (something like):

- If you want gnome you get systemd. Not ideal but currently cant be helped.
  [Alternatives to gnome are x,y,z...]
- If you dont take gnome then debian guarantees init-system-independence; to 
wit:
  Take any one of systemd, upstart, sysv, (or others?) and everything should 
work
  If not its a bug, please file a report and debian will try to close it.


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: 
https://lists.debian.org/5f824fda-941f-45a4-99af-d15647ec0...@googlegroups.com

Re: Keep using Debian without GNOME and SystemD

[Miles Fidelman]

Jochen Spieker wrote:

Dimitrios Chr. Ioannidis:

   after spending two days trying unsuccesfuly to have a usable Jessie
   with one of the defaults DE and with no systemd utilities, i decided
   the following. In the companie's pc's i support, i'll continue with
   Wheezy and if there is no a clear path to Jessie without a trace of
   systemd until Wheezy's support lifetime then bye - bye Debian.

Good luck finding *any* distro with a current Gnome that does not depend
on systemd.


As some of us continue to point out - a large component of Debian users 
do not care about what's on the desktop - because we run headless 
servers, and live at the command line.


I really don't get why Debian receives so much hate in this discussion.
Upstream software depending on systemd is not Debian's choice.


This is not about upstream software developers deciding to use systemd, 
this is about a single, influential, upstream developer (Gnome) 
basically blackmailing distros into accepting systemd running as PID1 - 
by not doing what every other upstream developer has (and continues to 
do) - supporting the well established init system.  (Any other uptream 
developers care to comment on this?).


We now have PID1 occupied by a piece of code who's prime developer wants 
to gobble up more and more functionality, and has written very publicly 
about all the ways he wants to fundamentally reshape Linux.  Given that 
the kernel hands/off control of the system to PID1, he is now in a 
position to implement such fundamental change with impunity.


The Debian technical committee went along and took Ubuntu with it. Until 
this, Debian has been probably the cleanest of all distros when it comes 
to packaging (apt) and general architecture.  For at least some of this, 
that decision is the first step on a road to the end of Linux as we know 
it.


IMHO, that requires serious, and continued dissent, as well as some 
righteous anger.  The blind, fanboyish defense of systemd, by some, 
particularly when accompanied by derision of critics ('shut up,' 'go 
away'), even more so when taken to the level of trollish repetition, 
deserves far harsher responses.


Just one man's opinion,

Miles Fidelman



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


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org

Archive: https://lists.debian.org/5447b4a5.9010...@meetinghouse.net

Re: Keep using Debian without GNOME and SystemD

[Miles Fidelman]

Rusi Mody wrote:

On Wednesday, October 22, 2014 5:30:06 PM UTC+5:30, Jochen Spieker wrote:

Dimitrios Chr. Ioannidis:

   after spending two days trying unsuccesfuly to have a usable Jessie
   with one of the defaults DE and with no systemd utilities, i decided
   the following. In the companie's pc's i support, i'll continue with
   Wheezy and if there is no a clear path to Jessie without a trace of
   systemd until Wheezy's support lifetime then bye - bye Debian.

Good luck finding *any* distro with a current Gnome that does not depend
on systemd.
I really don't get why Debian receives so much hate in this discussion.
Upstream software depending on systemd is not Debian's choice.

I guess because Debian spokespersons [whatever that may mean :-) ]
are not clear enough to say that the problem is more gnome than systemd.

All that debian has to say officially is (something like):

- If you want gnome you get systemd. Not ideal but currently cant be helped.
   [Alternatives to gnome are x,y,z...]
- If you dont take gnome then debian guarantees init-system-independence; to 
wit:
   Take any one of systemd, upstart, sysv, (or others?) and everything should 
work
   If not its a bug, please file a report and debian will try to close it.


And, unfortunately, that second statement is not being enforced -- for 
example by including a choice of init systems in the installer. At the 
moment, the install preseed mechanism that would allow one to chose 
another init system is broken (there's a contributed patch, but it 
doesn't seem to be a priority to include that in the upcoming release).  
Worse, it is proving rather difficult to replace systemd once installed 
- without getting dragged into dependency hell.  Bugs related to init 
system dependencies do NOT seem to be getting any priority.  And it was 
such a nice distribution.  Sigh...


Miles Fidelman

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


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org

Archive: https://lists.debian.org/5447b5e2.4010...@meetinghouse.net

Re: Keep using Debian without GNOME and SystemD

[Martin Read]

On 22/10/14 08:37, Dimitrios Chr. Ioannidis wrote:

What details do you think are neccecary ?

   Just grab a DI-b2 img, install xfce or lxde ( with the menu or with
desktop=  doesn't matter ) and then try to remove *all* the systemd
utilities / libraries etc.


dbus-daemon is linked against libsystemd in Debian jessie. That's not 
going to change at this point.


The Debian package of xfconf (XFCE's configuration mechanism) depends on 
the package 'dbus-x11', which depends on the package 'dbus' (the one 
that contains dbus-daemon), implying that it requires a working 
dbus-daemon for correct operation.


Looking at the upstream website for XFCE, I see that xfconf lists dbus 
as a *non-optional* dependency.


(This is leaving aside the whole matter of one of the programs in the 
essential package 'bsdutils' now being linked against libsystemd as a 
result of a perfectly reasonable decision.)



--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org

Archive: https://lists.debian.org/5447d601.8040...@zen.co.uk

Re: Keep using Debian without GNOME and SystemD

[Dimitrios Chr. Ioannidis]

On 22/10/2014 7:06 μμ, Martin Read wrote:

On 22/10/14 08:37, Dimitrios Chr. Ioannidis wrote:

What details do you think are neccecary ?

   Just grab a DI-b2 img, install xfce or lxde ( with the menu or with
desktop=  doesn't matter ) and then try to remove *all* the systemd
utilities / libraries etc.


dbus-daemon is linked against libsystemd in Debian jessie. That's not 
going to change at this point.


The Debian package of xfconf (XFCE's configuration mechanism) depends 
on the package 'dbus-x11', which depends on the package 'dbus' (the 
one that contains dbus-daemon), implying that it requires a working 
dbus-daemon for correct operation.


Looking at the upstream website for XFCE, I see that xfconf lists dbus 
as a *non-optional* dependency.


(This is leaving aside the whole matter of one of the programs in the 
essential package 'bsdutils' now being linked against libsystemd as a 
result of a perfectly reasonable decision.)


This is getting nowhere ...

I tend to agree to the following post

"... the goal is to avoid making a derivative work. The GPL describes
various ways to recognise a project as having "derived" from covered
code, and linking copyleft and proprietary code together is one of them.
(with some variation depending on if we are talking GPL or LGPL).

Remember that one of Poettering's goals is, in his own words
[0pointer.net], "... the primary interfacing between the executed
desktop apps and the rest of the system is via IPC (which is why we work
on kdbus and teach it all kinds of sand-boxing features)".

The point is if I want to do (for example) some sort of user
authentication, I may have to link against libpam.so. This is something
that would be reasonably commoon in embedded systems, and linking
covered code into your embedded device (and having to distribute
libpam.so with your product) could easily be a derivative work. (details
matter, ask your lawyer about specific projecs).

Once absorbed into Poettering's project, you avoid all that risk because
you don't interface with the system features directly and instead use
"local RPC". This changes the project from being a potentially
infringing derivative work into something that merely uses the tool.
Merely using a tool that is licenced under the GPL is explicitly
excempted, as the GPL only coveres redistribution and not use. ("GPL is
not an EULA") This is a major change in legal status for your typical
embedded device, which often wants a minimal OS to host their embedded
app. They would also really like to avoid having to deal with the
handling anything GPL. Changing to "local RPC" for all system
interaction neatly fixes that problem.

We don't run across this pattern with traditional RPL tools, because
it's bad for performance to needlessly serialize everything when you
could simply call a function directly."

regards,

--
Dimitrios Chr. Ioannidis
Nephelae



--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org

Archive: https://lists.debian.org/5447de5e.8080...@nephelae.eu

Re: Keep using Debian without GNOME and SystemD

[Dimitrios Chr. Ioannidis]

Στις 22-10-2014 17:41, Steve Litt έγραψε:

On Wed, 22 Oct 2014 09:01:17 +0300
"Dimitrios Chr. Ioannidis"  wrote:


Hi,

  after spending two days trying unsuccesfuly to have a usable Jessie
with one of the defaults DE and with no systemd utilities, i decided
the following. In the companie's pc's i support, i'll continue with
Wheezy and if there is no a clear path to Jessie without a trace of
systemd until Wheezy's support lifetime then bye - bye Debian. I'm
even considering to try hard to convince those companies to
contribute to LTS for Wheezy to keep it alive and systemd free for as
long it's possible.

Sorry, but no systemd for me. Systemd as init ( and only that ) i
don't care.


Hi Dimitrios,

Before you cast aside Debian and move to [Gentoo | Funtoo | Slackware |
BSD] (and I'm not saying I won't do the exact same thing), but, before
you do that, humor me and try the non-systemd Jessie with Openbox plus
a panel if you want a panel. If you can't make that work, yeah, I see
your point. But it's just possible that a non-entangled window manager
might work well with a no-systemd Jessie. And if that happens, that
window manager can be made into an excellent and fast work environment,
and I can show you how.


Thank you for your suggestion.

  Currently i'm trying to see in what shape the Debian/Hurd is. It's my 
first

choice to escape from systemd and still use Debian.

Will see.

Regards,
--
Dimitrios Chr. Ioannidis


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org

Archive: https://lists.debian.org/210a699db99ecc8f1b9a1ab53b60a...@nephelae.eu

Re: Re: Keep using Debian without GNOME and SystemD

[tor...@riseup.net]

Dimitrios Chr. Ioannidis:
>> 
>>   after spending two days trying unsuccesfuly to have a usable Jessie
>>  with one of the defaults DE and with no systemd utilities, i decided
>>  the following. In the companie's pc's i support, i'll continue with
>>   Wheezy and if there is no a clear path to Jessie without a trace of
>>  systemd until Wheezy's support lifetime then bye - bye Debian. 

>Good luck finding *any* distro with a current Gnome that does not
>depend
>on systemd.
http://www.funtoo.org/Welcome :
GNOME 3.12 (without systemd, because that's how we roll.)
as far i can tell, gnome3 is not my thing.

>I really don't get why Debian receives so much hate in this discussion.
>Upstream software depending on systemd is not Debian's choice.
I do recall times when Debian had quite stubborn discussions (still
lasting, btw) with upstream about questions not really worth it. Don't
think it has earned hate though, but a bit more resistance wouldn't
have hurt. And a project of that size would be heard it it speaks up
(it's not just a few derivates of Debian where the users complain bout
down-your-throat-systemd in the according fora).
But in general i agree: staying friendly would be better. I guess that
was your point. 


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature

Debian and upstream choices (was: Re: Keep using Debian without GNOME and SystemD)

[Martin Steigerwald]

Am Mittwoch, 22. Oktober 2014, 13:40:49 schrieb Jochen Spieker:
> Dimitrios Chr. Ioannidis:
> >   after spending two days trying unsuccesfuly to have a usable Jessie
> >   with one of the defaults DE and with no systemd utilities, i decided
> >   the following. In the companie's pc's i support, i'll continue with
> >   Wheezy and if there is no a clear path to Jessie without a trace of
> >   systemd until Wheezy's support lifetime then bye - bye Debian.
> 
> Good luck finding *any* distro with a current Gnome that does not depend
> on systemd.
> 
> I really don't get why Debian receives so much hate in this discussion.
> Upstream software depending on systemd is not Debian's choice.

I wouldn´t call above hate. More frustration with the current situation.


Anyway thats why I tried putting this upstream and even challenged subscribers 
here to do so as well in quite direct words.

I tried putting it upstream in this thread:

[systemd-devel] I wonder… why systemd provokes this amount of polarity and 
resistance
http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/systemd-devel/2014-September/023290.html


But I have given up on this.

I have been called names on systemd-devel – Lennart personally called me 
"being a dick" – while trying hard to describe, explain and interpret my 
obversations regarding systemd as PID 1, as umbrella project for quite a lot 
of different functionalities and as a community project. I think I didn´t 
personally attack anyone, while… still using clear words to channel some of 
the concerns about systemd I read here and elsewhere upstream.

But I didn´t get it across. Lennart and other devs reacted as if I attacked 
them personally. I bet its understandable given the history of bashing Lennart 
and other devs of systemd and systemd in general has received. Yet as I see 
it, I didn´t attack personally, but was attacked personally in return.

Since that does not work for me, I unsubscribed from the systemd-devel mailing 
list.

One of the main reasoning for putting it all into one git repo and one big 
package I read before that was: Because it is easy for development and 
splitting things would add considerable cost.

While I agree with that… I also think that not splitting it, adds considerable 
cost to downstreams and porters and actually harms adoption of systemd as 
init. So I still think that just doing it the easy way does not necessarily 
mean doing it the best way possible.

And from the reaction I received while talking, in quite direct words 
admittedly, but without calling names and without assuming any bad intentions 
as I repeatedly and explicetely stated there, I know better understand on why 
systemd triggers the uproar, the polarity, and the split tendendencies and 
tend to agree that Aaron Seigo has a point with:

Aaron Seigo, four paths, 7th of October 2014:
http://aseigo.blogspot.com/2014/10/four-paths.html

And while I have been repeatedly asked to stay on a technical level only 
there… I see more than a technical issue here.

I am sad about the friction and cost it creates.

But I am also sure Debian as a project will manage.

I will stay with systemd on my personal systems for the time being. At least 
the mean ones, except the server VM which is still Wheezy. Partly due to 
learning things with systemd so I can prepare training slides for my Linux 
trainings for it. Partly for helping that as long systemd remains the default 
of Debian, it will be tested and work nicely.

But I am more open now to also look to alternatives as I think there are dire 
issues with the path systemd upstream developers are choosing with developing 
and advocating their project as well as with handling feedback and bug 
reports.

I have seen it otherwise.

In the end I felt like being in a hostile environment and thus I finished my 
reporting it upstream. Maybe systemd will be seriously forked, maybe uselessd 
will be packaged, maybe someone steps up with a completely new init or 
whatever…

… but I agree that it would be wise to ensure support for mutiple inits in 
Debian for the time being. To restrict dependencies to it so that there will 
be a good exit path in case it will be needed. So I am in favor for the GR Ian 
started.

And well regarding GNOME: Its not GNOME 3 for me for various other reasons 
already. I tried using it for one day during my trainings and then was so 
happy being back at KDE / Plasma again. I still want to define how I want to 
work with my computers. I don´t need developers deciding for me. For me KDE / 
Plasma still gives me that choice to a very great extent.

Maybe I failed at avoiding personal attacks, but I still think I didn´t. On 
any account, my attempt to bring this upstream did not produce the outcome I 
wanted to produce, so I stopped it.


That said I never tried putting things upstream with GNOME so far… but my 
hopes currently aren´t high that this would produce a desirable result. And… I 
am not using GNOME. So I don´t care about GNOME upstream decisio