I am happy to announce that iwd is now forked for Devuan! You can see the package information at pkginfo.devuan.org. I would like to thank Mark Hindley for guiding me on this.

And because we have to fork iwd to make it work for Devuan, it unfortunately means that both the upstream and Debian maintainer are not interested in supporting sysvinit. I hope they change their mind, not only because I don't want to maintain this fork forever, but also because this is a bad path for GNU/Linux.

Anyway, since this thread was supposed to be about my xfce4-alsa-plugin, I decided to package it for Debian. I'm currently finding a sponsor at mentors.debian.net. Once it gets accepted to the main archive, I will ask the xfce4 metapackage maintainers to consider not depending on xfce4-pulseaudio-plugin, but on xfce4-pulseaudio-plugin | xfce4-alsa-plugin, so that Xfce users have a choice between PA and Alsa on their panel. That's the main goal I had on mind when packaging xfce4-alsa-plugin.

That's good news, indeed. I also use that panel plugin, which I had to compile myself and copy the two files (both the function and the launcher) across my machines. I look forward to seeing it become a binary package, which is just not fair to those who like Xfce, but don't want to use PulseAudio. ALSA has proven itself time after time to be a simple, reliable sound server. Works just fine for people working with audio recordings.

And because we have to fork iwd to make it work for Devuan, it unfortunately means that both the upstream and Debian maintainer are not interested in supporting sysvinit. I hope they change their mind, not only because I don't want to maintain this fork forever, but also because this is a bad path for GNU/Linux.

Anyway, since this thread was supposed to be about my xfce4-alsa-plugin, I decided to package it for Debian. I'm currently finding a sponsor at mentors.debian.net. Once it gets accepted to the main archive, I will ask the xfce4 metapackage maintainers to consider not depending on xfce4-pulseaudio-plugin, but on xfce4-pulseaudio-plugin | xfce4-alsa-plugin, so that Xfce users have a choice between PA and Alsa on their panel. That's the main goal I had on mind when packaging xfce4-alsa-plugin.

Keeping us informed here would be fine! I don't have any actual contributions to give to the original conversation but I'm interested in seeing other-than-systemd supported in general.

Says the guy who posts on here way more than I do, and I'm all-in on Devuan on the desktop! I don't use iwd (I'm happy with wicd until they drop it entirely which I know is coming) but I like dealing with packaging.

@jobbautista9, the way I fork a package from Debian is I go fetch the source from salsa. If it's not there, uh, I don't have a flow for that yet. But lightdm and freeipa are there so I'm good! Then you would make a new branch named devuan/suites-unstable off of debian/master and make your changes.

Ok, I cloned the salsa git repo of iwd to https://git.devuan.org/jobbautista9/iwd and made my changes to my devuan/suites-unstable branch. I haven't updated the debian/changelog yet, for reasons I will explain below.

I was about to ask them on IRC, but then I got an email from the Debian maintainer of iwd. Turns out he created a patch which uses D-Bus activation (which I have no idea about), and sent it to the iwd devs and CC'd me. Here's the patch in question:

 Makefile.am                      | 11 ++++++-----
 src/net.connman.iwd.service      |  5 -----
 src/net.connman.iwd.service.in   |  5 +++++
 wired/net.connman.ead.service    |  5 -----
 wired/net.connman.ead.service.in |  5 +++++
 5 files changed, 16 insertions(+), 15 deletions(-)
 delete mode 100644 src/net.connman.iwd.service
 create mode 100644 src/net.connman.iwd.service.in
 delete mode 100644 wired/net.connman.ead.service
 create mode 100644 wired/net.connman.ead.service.in

diff --git a/Makefile.am b/Makefile.am
index 57c694d..006d1d1 100644
--- a/Makefile.am
+++ b/Makefile.am
@@ -250,7 +250,7 @@ dist_dbus_data_DATA += src/iwd-dbus.conf
 endif

 if SYSTEMD_SERVICE
-src_iwd_DEPENDENCIES += src/iwd.service
+src_iwd_DEPENDENCIES += src/iwd.service src/net.connman.iwd.service

 systemd_unit_DATA += src/iwd.service
 dbus_bus_DATA += src/net.connman.iwd.service
@@ -328,7 +328,7 @@ dist_dbus_data_DATA += wired/ead-dbus.conf
 endif

 if SYSTEMD_SERVICE
-wired_ead_DEPENDENCIES += wired/ead.service
+wired_ead_DEPENDENCIES += wired/ead.service wired/net.connman.ead.service

 systemd_unit_DATA += wired/ead.service
 dbus_bus_DATA += wired/net.connman.ead.service
@@ -524,8 +524,8 @@ unit_test_p2p_LDADD = $(ell_ldadd)

 TESTS = $(unit_tests)

-EXTRA_DIST = src/genbuiltin src/iwd.service.in src/net.connman.iwd.service \
-			wired/ead.service.in wired/net.connman.ead.service \
+EXTRA_DIST = src/genbuiltin src/iwd.service.in src/net.connman.iwd.service.in \
+			wired/ead.service.in wired/net.connman.ead.service.in \
 			src/80-iwd.link src/pkcs8.conf unit/gencerts.cnf \
 			$(manual_pages) $(patsubst %.1,%.rst, \
 					$(patsubst %.5,%.rst, \
@@ -539,7 +539,8 @@ if MAINTAINER_MODE
 AM_CFLAGS += -DHAVE_PKCS8_SUPPORT
 endif

-CLEANFILES = src/iwd.service wired/ead.service
+CLEANFILES = src/iwd.service wired/ead.service \
+	     src/net.connman.iwd.service wired/net.connman.ead.service

 DISTCHECK_CONFIGURE_FLAGS = --disable-dbus-policy --disable-systemd-service \
 				--enable-sim-hardcoded \
diff --git a/src/net.connman.iwd.service b/src/net.connman.iwd.service
deleted file mode 100644
index d8ece4c..0000000
--- a/src/net.connman.iwd.service
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,5 +0,0 @@
-[D-BUS Service]
-Name=net.connman.iwd
-Exec=/bin/false
-User=root
-SystemdService=iwd.service
diff --git a/src/net.connman.iwd.service.in b/src/net.connman.iwd.service.in
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a7cb7ed
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/net.connman.iwd.service.in
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+[D-BUS Service]
+Name=net.connman.iwd
+Exec=@libexecdir@/iwd
+User=root
+SystemdService=iwd.service
diff --git a/wired/net.connman.ead.service b/wired/net.connman.ead.service
deleted file mode 100644
index 24af96b..0000000
--- a/wired/net.connman.ead.service
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,5 +0,0 @@
-[D-BUS Service]
-Name=net.connman.ead
-Exec=/bin/false
-User=root
-SystemdService=ead.service
diff --git a/wired/net.connman.ead.service.in b/wired/net.connman.ead.service.in
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..63e5011
--- /dev/null
+++ b/wired/net.connman.ead.service.in
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+[D-BUS Service]
+Name=net.connman.ead
+Exec=@libexecdir@/ead
+User=root
+SystemdService=ead.service

It should work with non-systemd inits, according to Andreas. The devs are reluctant to implement the patch, and wants an elaboration of why they should implement it if other distros can do it on their own. It's now up to me now on how to elaborate the reason why non-systemd inits should be supported by upstream...

So I'm going to postpone forking first and see if I could convince them to support sysvinit. I can CC you guys to the email conversation if you want.

EDIT: Clarifying on whether the patch really works or not

(And there's no guarantee that the changes won't get removed along the way.)

@jobbautista9, the way I fork a package from Debian is I go fetch the source from salsa. If it's not there, uh, I don't have a flow for that yet. But lightdm and freeipa are there so I'm good! Then you would make a new branch named devuan/suites-unstable off of debian/master and make your changes.

Can you co-maintain iwd with me?

Sorry, no, I'm already maintaining several Alpine Linux packages and I intend to also start maintaining some OpenBSD ports so I don't think I'll have the time. And I don't actually use Devuan anyway so my help probably wouldn't be very useful.

Speaking of fork, how do you guys start a fork of a Debian package? Do you send a bug report to wnpp then say that you intend to fork a package?

Looks like he isn't interested in adding sysvinit support to iwd and he is not compelled to do so: https://www.debian.org/vote/2019/vote_002#outcome

The response really struck down my morale hard.

^ I presume you used apt source iwd to grab the original Debian source package and modified that?

jobbautista9 wrote:

I have no idea how to make the package install the sysv initscript to the system

Add the iwd sysvinit script to the main source directory and run this to create a patch to add it:

dpkg-source --commit

Then create a file at debian/iwd.install with this content:

iwd /etc/init.d/

jobbautista9 wrote:

tell it to update-rc.d

Add this to the file at debian/iwd.postinst (just before the #DEBHELPER# line):

# enable sysvinit script
update-rc.d iwd defaults

And also create a file at debian/iwd.postrm with this content:

#!/bin/sh
set -e

# remove sysvinit script
update-rc.d iwd remove

#DEBHELPER#

Thanks, I applied your patch and iwd now starts at boot. I reported the bug to Debian (#966518) and included the patch, and I'm now waiting for a response. I hope they consider applying the patch, since if they do, then that means there's still a chance that init freedom will return to Debian.

Add the iwd sysvinit script to the main source directory and run this to create a patch to add it:

dpkg-source --commit

Then create a file at debian/iwd.install with this content:

iwd /etc/init.d/

Add this to the file at debian/iwd.postinst (just before the #DEBHELPER# line):

# enable sysvinit script
update-rc.d iwd defaults

And also create a file at debian/iwd.postrm with this content:

#!/bin/sh
set -e

# remove sysvinit script
update-rc.d iwd remove

#DEBHELPER#

jobbautista9 wrote:

I hope Devuan fork this package and add the necessary init scripts. It's really annoying when you install a package just for it to not work afterwards, and you're forced to find a workaround yourself.

You could start by submitting the patch to Debian.  If that fails, you are welcome to maintain it long-term for Devuan. 

I was able to build iwd without systemd by overriding dh_auto_configure, but I have no idea how to make the package install the sysv initscript to the system and tell it to update-rc.d...

The sysd2v script did work, however the iwd sysvinit script generated doesn't autostart at boot, so I have to "service iwd start" as root once I logged in. I'm using openrc..

I use sysvinit not openrc, however with sysvinit you would also need to (as root, I use sudo)

1) ensure the execute bit is set for your init script

sudo chmod +x  /etc/init.d/your_script_name

though I'm guessing you must have done this for the service command to work.

2)  and run

sudo update-rc.d your_script-name defaults

this creates the sym links ( /etc/rc.x/SNNyour_script_name and /etc/rc.x/KNNyour_script_name) from your_script_name in the various (NN=00..06,S) run level directories needed to trigger starting/stopping the init script at boot.