After Ascii: A Devuan wishlist.

lazlo · 2017-07-26 16:55:27

It took a lot of effort from many different people to get Devuan Jessie release. We are all very thankful for the time invested in the project and for the work now being done on Devuan Ascii. Looking beyond Ascii there are a few things that I would to see implemented although it might take a really long time before any work can be done on them. So I thought it would be a good idea to post my small wish list and ask what (if anything) is on yours?

1.) I would like to see an officially maintained Devuan container image server for lxd but I know it will be a long time before lxd is officially included in Debian and will not be in Devuan until Beowulf or beyond. Of course, in the short term I would settle for a good Devuan images being maintained on https://us.images.linuxcontainers.org/. I have thought of trying to do it, but I don't confidence that my skills are up to the task.

2.) I wish there was a section on the Devuan website that was devoted to "The Best of..." where people would write informed, useful reviews and howto's of the most commonly used software from the Devuan PopCon data. Any relevant information in these articles could then be fed into Devuan wiki as needed by those of us with lesser talents.

3.) I want a Devuan release codenamed Vulcan.

Live long and Prosper...

lazlo

Last edited by lazlo (2017-07-26 16:55:52)

steelpillow · 2017-08-09 15:50:44

My shorter-term wishlist is a little more subtle. Every package that Devuan currently has to clean up should be refactored at source to be compatible with both Init and SystemD. This is more a case of upstream contribution/persuasion/evangelism that direct Devuan build, but once upstream developers get the habit it would bring new goodness directly into Devuan in the longer term. It would also help provide a clean, trouble-free install for Debian users who choose to avoid SystemD, a win-win all round.

Last edited by steelpillow (2017-08-09 15:51:13)

fungus · 2017-08-09 17:51:22

steelpillow wrote:

It would also help provide a clean, trouble-free install for Debian users who choose to avoid SystemD, a win-win all round.

It is very trouble-free, they can just point the repositories to Devuan, install a couple of Devuan packages, update/upgrade and it is done. Unless we are talking about different things.
That seems to be a task that is simple today after years of work, trial and error. Apart from this the wealth of Devuan lies on the 40-50k packages of Debian. It is the same path the younger (newborn) Artix has taken in proximity to the Arch library of packages.

The question is whether this ease of selection of init systems will last or will it be short lived.

darry1966 · 2017-08-09 18:37:18

Mine is simply that Devuan Linux can still be able to clean up INFECTED Debian packages. Quite frankly is hard though with Debian getting more and more sloppy about the quality of their work which they unleash (Sorry for that but the Stretch bugs reported sound pretty bad). Anyway that is why I run Devaun and based systems because of the care taken to produce quality releases. However I appreciate how the task of developing newer releases is becoming harder because of the decrease in Debian's quality control and the increasing dependency of packages on Systemd.:)

Last edited by darry1966 (2017-08-09 18:40:56)

golinux · 2017-08-09 18:57:00

@darry1966 . . . I'm not sure how much of the contamination is coming from upstream and how much is being introduced by Debian. As steelpillow mentioned . . . if the upstream source is clean (and init agnostic) we can work around blocks coming from Debian. But if upstream decides not to allow for other options, our work will indeed be much harder. The more traction that Devuan gains, the more leverage we'll have to expect upstream to support what we are doing.

greenjeans · 2017-08-09 20:32:14

golinux wrote:

But if upstream decides not to allow for other options, our work will indeed be much harder. .

It might be harder for a bit, but it also might be the impetus to fork various projects that just blithely and voluntarily enslave themselves to really bad coDe, have already been thinking about that....and starting to pick through some to find ones I can re-write myself.

darry1966 · 2017-08-10 05:30:42

golinux wrote:

@darry1966 . . . I'm not sure how much of the contamination is coming from upstream and how much is being introduced by Debian. As steelpillow mentioned . . . if the upstream source is clean (and init agnostic) we can work around blocks coming from Debian. But if upstream decides not to allow for other options, our work will indeed be much harder. The more traction that Devuan gains, the more leverage we'll have to expect upstream to support what we are doing.

When I tried Buster I found that removing Systemd ripped just about everything away compared with Jessie where systemd is quite easy to remove. So sorry to say Debian is determined with each new release version to integrate systemd reliance further and further into the system. So yes gaining leverage is important as is Devuan as a distro forked from Debian standing against this attack init freedom. In fact I would go further and say that Devuan needs to deviate further away from Debian rather like Ubuntu did to maintain its independence.

It might be harder for a bit, but it also might be the impetus to fork various projects that just blithely and voluntarily enslave themselves to really bad coDe, have already been thinking about that....and starting to pick through some to find ones I can re-write myself.

Great idea where possible Devuan independent programs as alternatives to the infected ones.

Last edited by darry1966 (2017-08-10 05:34:43)

steelpillow · 2017-09-22 12:12:31

If, as suggested, Debian is indeed playing hardball and deliberately pulling back from init support, then upstream agnosticism becomes really important. Eventually someone in Debian will realise that all their choice-removal is hard work they need not do and everything will flow easier for everybody.

foobar · 2017-09-23 06:51:56

@steelpillow: Most of the Debian packages are compatible with both systemd init and other inits: That is exactly what libsystemd is there for. That library is nothing but a set of functions that check whether systemd is available and use that if it is or do nothing if not. Devuan is all about removing that library, breaking systemd support but not gaining any new functionality or benefit besides getting rid of a small library.

fsmithred · 2017-09-23 10:33:51

foobar wrote:

Devuan is all about removing that library,.

I don't know where you're getting your information, but that bit is just plain wrong. The default desktop install includes libsystemd0. Devuan is about removing dependency on systemd itself. The lead devs are not concered with that library and don't intend to spend any energy on removing it.

yeti · 2018-05-10 21:34:14

The ARMish images I saw up to now (Cubie3 and Pi1..3) did not have the loader and the kernel packaged, so both of these vital components will not get updates by APT and friends.

Can this please be improved in Devuan3?

Vizitor · 2018-06-19 19:18:52

I wish Devuan installer will have option to use-and-NOT-FORMAT existing swap partitions.

devuser · 2018-06-19 20:00:07

Vizitor wrote:

I wish Devuan installer will have option to use-and-NOT-FORMAT existing swap partitions.

Hehe, true that would be awesome when abusing future swap partitions to store ISOs. Not that hard to setup the swap after the install has finished though. Still would be a nice feature.

To me the single best thing would be support for live kernel upgrades. Well, OK the support is there but there are no easily available patches. Given that hardly any distribution (only Ubuntu i think) supplies those that would have a major impact for server use. If i find the time to look more closely into this i might also volunteer to maintain those. Rebooting servers is bad, mhhk?

cloub · 2018-10-16 07:47:58

LibreSSL instead of OpenSSL by default, thanks.

kuleszdl · 2018-11-04 00:30:32

Embedded builds: Do not ship non-free firmware by default and do not enable the repos in the sources.list by default! Instead, preinstall the package "firmware-ath9k-htc" to support the (up to today) only usb wifi adapters that work with free firmware.

If it makes sense, provide a "non-free" variant for people who value convenience over freedom. Not everyone needs wifi, and those who do might prefer inserting one of those usb adapters or soldering a different wifi chip (works on many boards) instead of having this non-free firmware running as root.

Wild-Turtles · 2018-11-16 14:37:01

Improve security and quality of default install but for it make sense this should be done debian side i guess.
Improve the broke & rebuild function for keep a system clean and re-up it easely.
Something like https://nixos.org/nix/ does.

Last edited by Wild-Turtles (2018-11-16 14:57:20)

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#1 2017-07-26 16:55:27

After Ascii: A Devuan wishlist.

#2 2017-08-09 15:50:44

Re: After Ascii: A Devuan wishlist.

#3 2017-08-09 17:51:22

Re: After Ascii: A Devuan wishlist.

#4 2017-08-09 18:37:18

Re: After Ascii: A Devuan wishlist.

#5 2017-08-09 18:57:00

Re: After Ascii: A Devuan wishlist.

#6 2017-08-09 20:32:14

Re: After Ascii: A Devuan wishlist.

#7 2017-08-10 05:30:42

Re: After Ascii: A Devuan wishlist.

#8 2017-09-22 12:12:31

Re: After Ascii: A Devuan wishlist.

#9 2017-09-23 06:51:56

Re: After Ascii: A Devuan wishlist.

#10 2017-09-23 10:33:51

Re: After Ascii: A Devuan wishlist.

#11 2018-05-10 21:34:14

Re: After Ascii: A Devuan wishlist.

#12 2018-06-19 19:18:52

Re: After Ascii: A Devuan wishlist.

#13 2018-06-19 20:00:07

Re: After Ascii: A Devuan wishlist.

#14 2018-10-16 07:47:58

Re: After Ascii: A Devuan wishlist.

#15 2018-11-04 00:30:32

Re: After Ascii: A Devuan wishlist.

#16 2018-11-16 14:37:01

Re: After Ascii: A Devuan wishlist.

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