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#1 Installation » [SOLVED]Migration from Wheezy to Jessie - gdm not happy » 2019-02-06 05:46:20

ajhlinuxuser
Replies: 0

Hi,

I did a migration upgrade to Devuan Jessie from Debian Wheezy.  I have XFCE but gdm seems unhealthy.  gdmgreeter goes <defunct> immediately after logging in and all I see is the desktop backgound.

From https://devuan.org/os/documentation/dev … -to-jessie, The instructions say to "Choose slim" if prompted during the upgrade.  But I was not prompted.

Should I try installing LightDM (what I am used to in Xubuntu) or the one used in Devuan by default (Not sure which).  Or is there something I need to fix regardless of which DM is logging me in?

EDIT

Asked in IRC, got a quick answer big_smile

I disabled and stopped gdm, and then installed slim.  It worked properly out-of-the-box.

I also learned to pay attention to the recommended display manager for desktop environments running on Devuan Ascii (probably applies to Jessie too but I will be continuing on to upgrade to Ascii first)

#2 Off-topic » The only thing I don't love about Devuan » 2018-11-29 13:12:49

ajhlinuxuser
Replies: 13

I want to embrace the non-systemd world of new or forked Linux distributions, but I still want to understand and be competent with the "popular" distributions which use it.

So sometimes I ask the people in these other communities for help.  I am still quite new to the communities behind GNU/Linux, so I can't be 100% sure about this, but I have a pretty good hunch that the Devuan project has committed a fairly serious offense against the Debian community:

It looks like Devuan took all the nice people from Debian!!!  Every single one!!!

So.  Enough said.  I love everything Devuan, but you really should have left a few nice guys behind when you split.

Attached, please find an example of the current state at Debian Forums.

debian-forums-unbelievable-2018-11-29edit.png

#3 Devuan » What can I expect regarding MTA, the mail command, cron? » 2017-07-29 12:43:28

ajhlinuxuser
Replies: 1

This is my first post here!  Hi!

To introduce myself, I have been a Linux user since 2009.  I like to tinker with various distributions, and I also aspire to become a Linux system administrator.  Maybe I will post an extended intro in Off-topic later.

Ok, now to my question:

I wanted to demonstrate Linux to an on-line friend by teaching him to use the basic commands.  My method of demonstration was to create a virtual machine in my home that he could log into remotely and explore that way.  So two weeks ago, I installed Debian stretch, which I assumed represents one of the most typical, predictable, run-of-the-mill Linux systems.  It seems that assumption is rapidly becoming invalid.

Two days ago, I created another VM and installed Debian onto it as well.  I used the exact same choices in the installer, and therefore expected the resulting system to be identical.  Note that I used the Net Installer.

But as I was checking out the newly installed system, I discovered that the 'mail' command was missing.  I was confident that it was not a mistake on my end, so I became determined to know why.  This led to many hours of me trying to figure out what happened to cause this package not to be installed.  Turns out that the MTA, exim4, was also not installed on the new system.  Being aware that the Net Installer relies on the on-line repositories to decide which packages to install, I knew at once that they had somehow changed the 'Std system utilities' package set in the span of two weeks.  But I consider that mailing is an important part of a Linux system.  For one, the cron daemon needs an MTA to mail the output of cron jobs to the user.  There are probably other functions that I don't yet know of that will be broken by this move.  Frustrating.

Long story short, the Debian folks have changed the priority for exim4, mailutils, and several related packages from 'standard' to 'optional'.  Further, after discussing this in various corners of the Debian community, I realized that they aren't likely to undo this change just because cron is affected.  Rather, I suspect that the removal of cron will take place in the future.

I am quite upset.  While I am not upset in the way that a veteran might be, I am upset because I am learning about this thing called GNU/Linux and if Debian keeps changing so dramatically, then it renders what I thought I knew to be inapplicable.  I can't be certain of what to expect from it now.  But come to think about it, this isn't the first time they've done this - they started down this road when they moved to systemd.  I guess I'm just a little slow on the uptake.

I then thought to myself, if these people at Debian feel that having an MTA, or a 'mail' command, or even cron isn't necessary in the default install, and I don't like the change, then perhaps there are other people who won't like the change either.  And then I thought of the folks involved with Devuan.  I thought that since you didn't like the switch to systemd, maybe you will also dislike this new change.

I would like to know if I can continue to have things like the 'mail' command and cron with Devuan's default install.  I suppose many others would want to know as well, seeing as this change only began in the last two weeks.  I have a need for a distribution that is predictable in this way.  If I can get that from Devuan, it would ease my mind.

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