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#51 2018-12-15 17:40:39

KatolaZ
Member
Registered: 2017-03-11
Posts: 79  

Re: A philosophical diatribe: How to avoid having users - and how not to

nixer wrote:

I think all that is needed is a short write-up on the different installation medias available, and what will be installed by each.  Most of the content needed for this write up has already been presented within this thread.   This write-up could also be as a single Read Me text file placed with the downloadable files.  A short explanation of each media would be informative and this would help new users.

Dear Nixer,

I would just humbly note that such a "write-up...as a single Read Me text file placed with the downloadable files. A short explanation of each media...." is already present in the same folder where all the Devuan ASCII images are available:

https://files.devuan.org/devuan_ascii/

The file is called "README.txt". A file like that was also available for Devuan Jessie. I understand we have probably all grown lazy, and many of us expect information to be spat on their face, rather than looking for it in what seems to be the most logical place. To accommodate for that, we are putting together a simple webpage that summarises useful information about the different Devuan images available (basically, a squashed down and distilled version of that README.txt, with a few HTML tags around).  Anybody willing to help with that please shout on #devuan-dev@freenode.

HTH

KatolaZ

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#52 2018-12-15 17:59:04

golinux
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Registered: 2016-11-25
Posts: 3,137  

Re: A philosophical diatribe: How to avoid having users - and how not to

Or probably better #devuan-www@freenode.

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#53 2018-12-15 18:12:05

Ron
Member
Registered: 2018-04-22
Posts: 474  

Re: A philosophical diatribe: How to avoid having users - and how not to

golinux wrote:
And desktop users are NOT our target audience

This statement has me baffled. Do you mean desktop as in Desktop Environment, or as in desktop versus laptop?

Last edited by Ron (2018-12-15 18:18:23)

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#54 2018-12-15 18:54:11

golinux
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Registered: 2016-11-25
Posts: 3,137  

Re: A philosophical diatribe: How to avoid having users - and how not to

Ron wrote:

golinux wrote:
And desktop users are NOT our target audience

This statement has me baffled. Do you mean desktop as in Desktop Environment, or as in desktop versus laptop?

Systemd is more of a threat to the stability of servers than the desktop and that is what prompted the VUAs (Veteran Unix Administrators) to fork Debian.  They run clusters of servers that power the internet and businesses. Here's an early description of the fork by one of our VUA developers (which is a bit outdated because Devuan has evolved).  This is the audience that Devuan was intended to target.

Other Devuan users are minimalists who tinker and do amazing things putting together elements in a very unique and creative way often for older hardware.   These Devuan users may never see a Desktop Environment.  So a full blown DE is irrelevant to them.

I do not fall into either category.  I am a desktop user but like it my way which is neither Ubuntu nor Mint because they insult my intelligence and personal aesthetic.

Devuan ships with DEs because users have stepped up to unravel the systemd dependencies for the DE of their choice and do the theming.  I am an Xfce user so theme it to my liking (and hopefully that of others).

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#55 2018-12-15 21:26:56

sgage
Member
Registered: 2016-12-01
Posts: 339  

Re: A philosophical diatribe: How to avoid having users - and how not to

golinux wrote:
Ron wrote:

golinux wrote:
And desktop users are NOT our target audience

This statement has me baffled. Do you mean desktop as in Desktop Environment, or as in desktop versus laptop?

Systemd is more of a threat to the stability of servers than the desktop and that is what prompted the VUAs (Veteran Unix Administrators) to fork Debian.  They run clusters of servers that power the internet and businesses. Here's an early description of the fork by one of our VUA developers (which is a bit outdated because Devuan has evolved).  This is the audience that Devuan was intended to target.

Other Devuan users are minimalists who tinker and do amazing things putting together elements in a very unique and creative way often for older hardware.   These Devuan users may never see a Desktop Environment.  So a full blown DE is irrelevant to them.

I do not fall into either category.  I am a desktop user but like it my way which is neither Ubuntu nor Mint because they insult my intelligence and personal aesthetic.

Devuan ships with DEs because users have stepped up to unravel the systemd dependencies for the DE of their choice and do the theming.  I am an Xfce user so theme it to my liking (and hopefully others).

It seems that some folks, including esr, have trouble wrapping their head around the notion that not everyone/every project wants to 'be the biggest' and 'conquer the market' and 'attract the maximum number of newbies' and so forth and so on. It's all about 'winning' something or other, all or nothing, zero-sum.

I am not a VUA, but I am a VUUser, and I have come to understand and value greatly what Devuan is going. In fact, the more I understand it, the more I appreciate it. In my dotage, I prefer to use MATE, and I am very grateful to those who have made it available for non-systemd.

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#56 2018-12-17 00:39:57

golinux
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Registered: 2016-11-25
Posts: 3,137  

Re: A philosophical diatribe: How to avoid having users - and how not to

I'm dropping this link here because I think some of you might not be on the DNG mail list.   Discussion of "What should be the tasks of the Devuan Installer" which is relevant to this thread.  If you subscribe to that list you'll get a better idea of who Devuan users are.   Same goes for Devuan IRC channels.

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#57 2018-12-17 11:15:58

Panopticon
Member
Registered: 2018-01-27
Posts: 306  

Re: A philosophical diatribe: How to avoid having users - and how not to

So what would is the number 1 issue when it comes to the devuan installers ?

I run fairly old hardware by todays standards so im thinking its current models of computers that are the main issues, newer systems and even newer newbies coming in for the linux experience. I started off using ubuntu years ago, back in 2006 or 7 i think, didnt get it and went back to windows then came back to linux in 2009 and started using linux lite i think and then distro hopped from there to arch, debian etc. If you are prepared to put the time and effort into learning how to setup your machine with linux in different ways it is well worth it and as time goes by if you havent fried your motherboard or put one too many zeros and ones on your hdd the you will have gained an education of sorts free of charge.

I admit when i came to debian and tried to figure out how to install a desktop environment i was bamboozled on what to download, put to cd or usb and install. First time i did i downloaded the live only image that didnt have an installer. When i came to devuan i saw they had a nice torrent file that had all the needed files you could want in one download, but first make sure you know what happens with torrents before you download them and look at the file tree.

More than anything in the realm of linux one needs to implement a fair amount of due diligence before commiting it.

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#58 2018-12-22 02:10:19

golinux
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Registered: 2016-11-25
Posts: 3,137  

Re: A philosophical diatribe: How to avoid having users - and how not to

As a result of this thread some changes are being made to the Devuan website.  A description of the available isos has been added to both https://beta.devuan.org/ and https://beta.devuan.org/get-devuan (the mirror/download page).  And now there are visual guides (with screenshots) for both a classic install and a graphical install.  These changes are now available on the beta site for review and comments.

https://beta.devuan.org/os/documentatio … evuan.html
https://beta.devuan.org/os/documentatio … ption.html
https://beta.devuan.org/os/documentatio … stall.html
https://beta.devuan.org/os/documentatio … ption.html

So why do they they look different than the rest of the site?   Well, an earlier version of these pages was prepared last spring for inclusion in the ASCII isos that use the debian-installer and it was easier to keep them in that format.

There is still more to come with the addition of similar walk-throughs for the refractainstaller GUI and cli.

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#59 2019-02-14 23:13:15

imhigh.today
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Registered: 2019-02-14
Posts: 6  
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Re: A philosophical diatribe: How to avoid having users - and how not to

I agree with many of the points raised here, and am especially happy to see Eric take interest in Devuan.

One of the biggest drawbacks of Debian, in my opinion, is the obtuse documentation and the stubborn insistance on *building* "unofficial" installers but never mentioning them in the documentation.

LiveCDs containing various desktop environments, bootable from USB, and containing non-free firmware are *extremely* useful for new and veteran users alike. They're especially useful for troubleshooting, system recovery, and the inclusion of the debian-installer as a secondary GRUB boot option allows for extremely customized installs without sacrificing any of the power available to Debian's rather good installer.

In case anybody's not familiar with the images I'm referring to, they can be found here.

I *sincerely* hope that Devuan's current lack of those is an issue of manpower and not willingness. In an ideal future, those images would be auto-built and published, with a simple web-based way to find them that's prominently featured in the download section. We could debate about the best way to present that info, but taking an interested user from "Downloads" to the right image file is really a matter of three questions: Desktop or Server? Rolling or stable? What's your preferred desktop environment?

Debian's release model, and by extension, Devuan's, supports every one of those use cases without infrastructure changes or patches to the debian-installer. It's simply a matter of presenting that information to users logically - after the images are built, of course. Excepting the "manpower and willingness" part, that's fairly trivial; most of the differences are available via d-i preseeding and are already supported by taskselect.

I haven't yet looked into the Devuan SDK to see if there's a more appropriate method via "The Devuan Way", but it's something I'm very interested in. I'd be happy to put energy or resources into seeing this happen.

The persistence that esr mentions is going to be harder. I don't think d-i handles that at all, but if that's a use case others find value in, I'm sure there are tools from other distros that can meet the need.

Last edited by imhigh.today (2019-02-14 23:15:57)


---
Devuan Ceres | Ryzen 2400G | RX560 | 32GB RAM | Samsung 850 Pro

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#60 2019-02-15 16:53:57

cynwulf
Member
Registered: 2017-10-09
Posts: 234  

Re: A philosophical diatribe: How to avoid having users - and how not to

imhigh.today wrote:

I agree with many of the points raised here, and am especially happy to see Eric take interest in Devuan.

I somehow doubt ESR will be back...

esr wrote:

I must tell you that level of hostility I'm seeing here against making Devuan more welcoming is not exactly encouraging me to commit to such a project.  Why do it if the core devs not only don't care about the issue but would prefer sitting in their own corner muttering about purity and shuffling the problem off to unspecified derivatives?

I must say that I can see his point.

While his entrance was perhaps a little "bombastic", I don't think all the immediate rebuttals and defensiveness was warranted.

I've seen a lot worse than ESR's comments, elsewhere.  As a 'BSD user, I've seen people who post on the mailing lists asking for features which are in Linux or another 'BSD.  They have a special information thread at the FreeBSD forums for such posters.

So I can absolutely see where the "hostility" has come from - however as I pointed out earlier in the thread, I think the "Devuan still sucks pretty badly" comment has certainly put some posters noses out of joint.  It would have been better to recognise the opportunity presented and just reply to the pertinent points, rather than going down the "submit your patch" / point by point deconstruction route.

ESR would have been a useful ally and proponent for the project - however I think it's safe to say that ship has now sailed.

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#61 2019-02-15 21:14:50

franko
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Registered: 2019-02-04
Posts: 33  

Re: A philosophical diatribe: How to avoid having users - and how not to

He did have some good points, and some less good ones. And some of the good ones did seemingly have an impact, however small or slow, according to the circumstances, I guess... And all this IN SPITE of his megalomaniac egotistic *ssholish first post. I don't care if he is THE ESR, or a fake one. In a social context, you very often get the treatment you give -- and I believe this is what happened here. The fact someone is ESR or Poettering, or even Torvalds or RMS, shouln't give them any immunity to that fact. ESR's first approach wasn't much friendlier than what he got back.

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#62 2019-02-18 16:30:08

cynwulf
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Registered: 2017-10-09
Posts: 234  

Re: A philosophical diatribe: How to avoid having users - and how not to

But, many here seemed to miss the points he was trying to make...  I'm glad you mentioned Linus Torvalds - a history of some rather outstanding assholery, yet people tend to sit up and take notice if he has something to say about the kernel and just overlook all that.

On the old FDN Debian forums, there were many "assholish" posters and their posts were often, though admittedly not always, worth reading...  the style is one thing, the content something else.  With some of these technical types, you often have to filter through the "attitude" to get to what's important.

Users coming from pre systemd Debian, should not need things sugar coating.

I found the pertinent points in his post - i.e. the firmware situation and replied to those.  Others were simply wounded by the criticism and posted their rebuttals.

You can see his main point in fact - that if Devuan does not "outcompete" the Debian/Ubuntu/systemd side of things, then it becomes almost irrelevant.

To go further, if I want a system-less Linux, I can install from a plethora of systemd free distributions and operating systems - so why bother with this one specifically...?

e.g. I can install Slackware or SalixOS or a 'BSD which will allow complete systemd avoidance.  There are even a few other systemd-less Debian derivatives.

If Devuan is just going to adopt the "if you don't like it you can fuck off" approach, it's going to remain very, very niche - "competing" with the likes of OpenBSD or NetBSD rather Debian or Red Hat.

The current approach is playing into the hands of Debian project, Red Hat, Poettering, Canonical, et al as this will forever remain a niche with no significant funding/backing - forever reliant on Debian as an upstream and just being dismissed by the project - which as an upstream has the power to make things, not impossible, but cumbersome, laborious and complicated for "derivative" distributions like Devuan if it so chooses.

If you want to know what happens to such projects, just read about when OpenBSD couldn't pay their electricity bill, when NetBSD nearly went under for good - or perhaps more significantly what has recently happened in terms of Slackware's revenue stream...

Devuan doesn't need the massive corporate backers (who tend to end up pulling the strings...), but surely attracting some smaller entities and individuals can only be a good thing?

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#63 2019-02-18 17:21:32

golinux
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Registered: 2016-11-25
Posts: 3,137  

Re: A philosophical diatribe: How to avoid having users - and how not to

(golinux yawns)

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#64 2019-02-19 08:59:32

cynwulf
Member
Registered: 2017-10-09
Posts: 234  

Re: A philosophical diatribe: How to avoid having users - and how not to

You should get some more sleep and spend less time on forums like this one.

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#65 2019-02-19 14:52:16

Panopticon
Member
Registered: 2018-01-27
Posts: 306  

Re: A philosophical diatribe: How to avoid having users - and how not to

@ cynwulf.

What makes you think this comment? Specifically the "dont like it fuck off" approach, i cant see any of that in this thread.

cynwulf wrote:

If Devuan is just going to adopt the "if you don't like it you can fuck off" approach, it's going to remain very, very niche - "competing" with the likes of OpenBSD or NetBSD rather Debian or Red Hat.

Im sure ESR made up his mind before even posting a flame thread.

Here is an example, i own a Harley Davidson motorcycle, i go to the dealer and say well you know, the starter motor on this is shit, you should really replace all of your stock because i believe it is shit and doesn't work and all the hard work you did in R/D amounts to sfa, id help out with more information on why but im selling this pos and buying a Honda, nevermind the suzuki I came here on!

wink

Last edited by Panopticon (2019-02-19 15:25:45)

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#66 2019-02-19 15:55:02

golinux
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Registered: 2016-11-25
Posts: 3,137  

Re: A philosophical diatribe: How to avoid having users - and how not to

cynwulf wrote:

You should get some more sleep and spend less time on forums like this one.

If you actually used Devuan or contributed anything substantial my ears might perk up because then you'd have a point of reference from which to critique. I think you just come here when you're bored or having a bad day .

Footnote: cynwulf and I have a long and mostly amicable history so I know who I am chiding.  wink

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#67 2019-02-20 15:00:40

cynwulf
Member
Registered: 2017-10-09
Posts: 234  

Re: A philosophical diatribe: How to avoid having users - and how not to

Panopticon wrote:

@ cynwulf.

What makes you think this comment? Specifically the "dont like it fuck off" approach, i cant see any of that in this thread.

Well ok...

golinux wrote:

We are doing our thing and quite happy doing it.
[...]
Not just talk but tangible alternatives.  Whether you stick around or not is a decision you will have to make for yourself.

golinux wrote:

Oh . . . is that all?  Looking forward to your patch.

golinux wrote:

If you want that feature, use Ubuntu or Mint or better yet lobby to have an Ubuntu or Mint Devuan Edition.  Please stop trying to turn us into something we aren't (and hopefully will never be).

etc...

Which preceded ESR's fairly predictable exit...  not due to his taking offence might I add, but he has obviously concluded that participating here is a waste of time.

Panopticon wrote:

Im sure ESR made up his mind before even posting a flame thread.

Again, the defensive stuff...

I cannot see how a user coming to this site, making a first post, stating that he wants to use Devuan, that he wants to avoid systemd and then posting some critique, can be considered a "flame thread".

My point is that we all derive certain things from a post.  I have derived something different from his post to many of you.  I personally don't see the post as "that big a deal".  Kalolaz replied admirably, with real reasoning and explanation of the goals and aims of the project, as did a few others.  golinux - as ever - went into the usual kneejerk defensive mode... (too much time on FDN does that to people, they see trolls under every bridge).

I'm actually here in the somewhat vain hope of seeing an actual substantial contribution from golinux, rather than the typical ideological claptrap...

I got tired of reading golinux's funny troll posts (most likely posted when bored or having a bad day...) over at FDN (de facto official Debian forums).  I have to say that having a Devuan project member (and admin of this forum) "stationed" over there to "spread the word", as it were, is a sound strategy.

Footnote: golinux and I have a long and mostly amicable history so I know who I am chiding.  wink

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#68 2019-02-20 15:22:54

Panopticon
Member
Registered: 2018-01-27
Posts: 306  

Re: A philosophical diatribe: How to avoid having users - and how not to

@cynwulf, you didn't have anything to say about my example?

For the most part of your argument, you are possibly reading into this thread far more than you should be. In regards to ESR, to me it reads like " oh my computers cant run devuan, so im going to critique devuan from the point of view of a ubuntu and mint user" .......yeah whatever.

Edit: I just dont think you cynwulf get what devuan actually is neither does esr.

Last edited by Panopticon (2019-02-20 15:48:16)

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#69 2019-02-20 16:04:17

cynwulf
Member
Registered: 2017-10-09
Posts: 234  

Re: A philosophical diatribe: How to avoid having users - and how not to

Panopticon wrote:

Here is an example, i own a Harley Davidson motorcycle, i go to the dealer and say well you know, the starter motor on this is shit, you should really replace all of your stock because i believe it is shit and doesn't work and all the hard work you did in R/D amounts to sfa, id help out with more information on why but im selling this pos and buying a Honda, nevermind the suzuki I came here on!

wink

The problem here is:  you=customer, "the dealer"=the supplier.

(Also the automobile analogies were bad enough...)

This is very different to the supplier/customer relationship.

It's software and there is no analogy you can make that will make any sense, unless it is related to software...

The software is free and provided "as is".  The argument of "if you don't like, you can fuck off", definitely applies.  But if a project wants to gain contributors, then that is not a sound strategy or there needs to be a tad more give and take.

There is also a huge difference between someone like ESR and someone who is just a pure end user or sysadmin, who wants the distro to which he is switching to work like his previous distro...

ESR clearly wanted to support and endorse the project and wanted to see reasons as to the viability and longevity of the project.  He is clearly an adversary of systemd.  From my perspective he wanted to "get onboard" with a project which is pushing back against the tide.

This seems to be a project (as with OpenBSD) which is happy enough to sit in it's corner and do it's own thing, working around an "upstream" which is going in the opposite direction and which will make things harder and harder for projects like this one as time goes on...

As I hinted at early, OpenBSD also sees many cases of the needy and demanding type who wants the project to change to suit his specific needs, but contributes precisely zero...  I don't think ESR was saying "change your project to suit me" - more so "change your project to be a "player" when it comes to users choosing between Devuan and other Debian/systemd based Linux distributions.

It was posted from the perspective of the "bigger picture" rather than just a "rant" about Devuan not being Mint - as some have received it.

Panopticon wrote:

Edit: I just dont think you cynwulf get what devuan actually is neither does esr.

Perhaps it's not about what Devuan is, but what it could be...?

That's all.

Last edited by cynwulf (2019-02-20 16:05:10)

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#70 2019-02-20 16:33:23

Panopticon
Member
Registered: 2018-01-27
Posts: 306  

Re: A philosophical diatribe: How to avoid having users - and how not to

cynwulf wrote:
Panopticon wrote:

Here is an example, i own a Harley Davidson motorcycle, i go to the dealer and say well you know, the starter motor on this is shit, you should really replace all of your stock because i believe it is shit and doesn't work and all the hard work you did in R/D amounts to sfa, id help out with more information on why but im selling this pos and buying a Honda, nevermind the suzuki I came here on!
wink

cynwulf wrote:

The problem here is:  you=customer, "the dealer"=the supplier.

(Also the automobile analogies were bad enough...)

This is very different to the supplier/customer relationship.

It's software and there is no analogy you can make that will make any sense, unless it is related to software...

Very astute of you to pick out the differences between an analogy to a non existent problem via the auto industry. Kind of like the buntu, mint bullshit...get it?

cynwulf wrote:

The software is free and provided "as is".  The argument of "if you don't like, you can fuck off", definitely applies.  But if a project wants to gain contributors, then that is not a sound strategy or there needs to be a tad more give and take.

I still dont believe this applies, nowhere in this thread and even in your reasoning in prior posts in regards to golinux has anyone except you mentioned someone should "fuck off" and used terms such as these.

cynwulf wrote:

There is also a huge difference between someone like ESR and someone who is just a pure end user or sysadmin, who wants the distro to which he is switching to work like his previous distro...

ESR clearly wanted to support and endorse the project and wanted to see reasons as to the viability and longevity of the project.  He is clearly an adversary of systemd.  From my perspective he wanted to "get onboard" with a project which is pushing back against the tide.

He still can, i dont see why he cannot get onboard?

cynwulf wrote:

This seems to be a project (as with OpenBSD) which is happy enough to sit in it's corner and do it's own thing, working around an "upstream" which is going in the opposite direction and which will make things harder and harder for projects like this one as time goes on...

I cant speak for this, only those who actually know could tell you, so in my opinion this statement of yours is your own opinion and not really based in any sort of verifable facts is it?

cynwulf wrote:

As I hinted at early, OpenBSD also sees many cases of the needy and demanding type who wants the project to change to suit his specific needs, but contributes precisely zero...  I don't think ESR was saying "change your project to suit me" - more so "change your project to be a "player" when it comes to users choosing between Devuan and other Debian/systemd based Linux distributions.

It was posted from the perspective of the "bigger picture" rather than just a "rant" about Devuan not being Mint - as some have received it.

What sort of player should devuan be? I think they have played well the last few years. See this where the fork of debian comes in with init freedom, it might take a lot more man power and understanding for devuan to become a player in the init freedom arena and be a fork of debian, i do get where you are coming from, but i believe a bit more understanding of the matter needs to be addressed, not comparison to and lack in regards to unrelated gnu linux distributions.

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#71 2019-02-20 17:16:03

golinux
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Registered: 2016-11-25
Posts: 3,137  

Re: A philosophical diatribe: How to avoid having users - and how not to

@Panopticon . . . you have undertaken a Sisyphean task.  This thread could continue with 100 posts of repetitive arguments, nothing will change and I guarantee you will never get the last word.  As tempting as the bait is, the only off button is silence.

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#72 2019-02-20 19:44:29

Tatwi
Member
From: Canada
Registered: 2018-10-24
Posts: 71  
Website

Re: A philosophical diatribe: How to avoid having users - and how not to

golinux wrote:

As a result of this thread some changes are being made to the Devuan website.  A description of the available isos has been added to both https://beta.devuan.org/ and https://beta.devuan.org/get-devuan (the mirror/download page).  And now there are visual guides (with screenshots) for both a classic install and a graphical install.  These changes are now available on the beta site for review and comments.

https://beta.devuan.org/os/documentatio … evuan.html
https://beta.devuan.org/os/documentatio … ption.html
https://beta.devuan.org/os/documentatio … stall.html
https://beta.devuan.org/os/documentatio … ption.html

So why do they they look different than the rest of the site?   Well, an earlier version of these pages was prepared last spring for inclusion in the ASCII isos that use the debian-installer and it was easier to keep them in that format.

There is still more to come with the addition of similar walk-throughs for the refractainstaller GUI and cli.

Far as feedback on those pages goes, I think they do a good job of showing a person what to expect of the installation process. The tutorial regarding drive encryption is also helpful.

Really, the Devuan/Debian installer is about as simple as one can get with a Linux installer - it does all the same stuff as the Ubuntu installer, only one doesn't need to wait around for a needless desktop environment to load just to use it.

Of course, I'm a person who has been installing Linux dirstros since the 90s, so I am certainly not a good judge of "nooby experience". Still, of them all, the Debian installer is my favorite.

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#73 2019-02-21 12:00:45

cynwulf
Member
Registered: 2017-10-09
Posts: 234  

Re: A philosophical diatribe: How to avoid having users - and how not to

Panopticon wrote:

I cant speak for this, only those who actually know could tell you, so in my opinion this statement of yours is your own opinion and not really based in any sort of verifable facts is it?

Think of gnome project, freedesktop.org to name just a few.  Then consider Red Hat/IBM, Canonical, SUSE, Debian project, et al - all of that is very systemd entangled and it can only get worse...

It's all gone very corporate very quickly in the last decade or so.  Corporations are pulling the strings, paying the developers, paying the bills, etc.  That includes the Linux kernel itself, via the Linux Foundation.

Distributions like Slackware and Devuan are doomed to being a downstream which have to take this, adapt it, package it and distribute it.  The 'BSDs have it little better.  Lennart Poettering once described "BSD" as "irrelevant".  That's probably quite a true statement from his perspective and as a Red Hat employee.  Anything 'BSD derived is not a Red Hat product and a potential competitor in the making.  But it's true mainly because anything 'BSD derived is a tiny fraction of a percent of the server market.  It illustrates that the big corporations funding free software development don't care about "the little man".  It's not such a huge leap from "BSD" to "Devuan" or other niche distributions in terms of perceived irrelevancy.

Again with the 'BSDs as an example - they build small, well put together, base operating systems, which are focused on servers and the specific needs of certain types of users (who are usually developers) - for example you might find OpenBSD running as an "appliance", e.g. a NAT firewall/router or you may come across a FreeBSD or DragonFly box as a file server...  it's inconceivable to some in the Linux camp, that many running these OS don't install much from ports and often don't run X.  For these "veteran UNIX admins" UNIX was and still is a server OS.

But if one wants something close to "the Linux experience" on these platforms (i.e. a desktop) one is faced with installing pretty much the same freedesktop.org shit, X11, toolkits, etc, etc, that you'd find on a Linux system.

The *BSD porters have to workaround the specific "Linuxisms" to get things to work.  Even then they have a repository of software nowhere as extensive as Debian's with lots of missing functionality.

Eventually due to lack of man power and time one of two things will happen:

1) They will stop maintaining the port
2) They will introduce the piece of software they had previously been excluding - to make their job easier.

So, eventually this will get much more difficult, as you're dealing with upstream developers whom for the most part really don't share the anti systemd ideology of this project and other similar projects (and certainly couldn't less about any 'BSD).  If some downstream obscure Linux distribution or OS suffers, that's their problem.  This is a big departure from when developers used to write software which was designed to be built from source, to be portable, to be "POSIX" code, etc.

We've already seen the above happening...

You're asking me for "verifiable" facts, I'm asking you for the facts with respect to any upstream developers of major components who are actively avoiding "systemd entanglement" and still building portable software for *NIX systems / and/or are planning to keep doing so for years to come?  I only see *BSD developers doing this and they are swimming against the tide as well.

Devuan has the difficult option of pushing back, or staying in it's corner - that's the point ESR was making (in his unsubtle way), ruffling feathers in the process.  It's up to the Devuan project to decide on that one.  I'm not adverse to either idea - I use an OS which has opted to stay in it's corner, time will tell on that one...

As golinux has insinuated - I really have no business here, that's true, but can't say the same for another one of golinux's insinuations, i.e. that I'm somehow trolling (and should be ignored!).

But as I don't use Devuan and don't plan to, I have to admit that whilst it's been fun at times, my time here is up and I really have nothing more to add.  It has been good to be in an environment where all of the defects and obvious problems with systemd are recognised - the same cannot be said elsewhere, where the typical apologists shout the loudest.

I sincerely wish all of you and the Devuan project well.

Last edited by cynwulf (2019-02-21 12:25:16)

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#74 2019-02-21 14:14:17

Panopticon
Member
Registered: 2018-01-27
Posts: 306  

Re: A philosophical diatribe: How to avoid having users - and how not to

@cynwulf, i respect your opinion and my question was somewhat rhetorical. Im definitely not someone you should be telling and asking questions of such as in your last post. Ive always admired your posts on this forum and elsewhere so dont think for a second im being argumentative, i just have an enquiring mind and sometimes i will ask questions and or tell it how i think it is, right and wrong to get a clearer picture from those like yourself and others who know more than i do. 

@golinux, too true wink

Last edited by Panopticon (2019-02-21 14:16:22)

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#75 2019-02-21 17:12:30

golinux
Administrator
Registered: 2016-11-25
Posts: 3,137  

Re: A philosophical diatribe: How to avoid having users - and how not to

@cynwulf . . . You are and have always been welcome here but the drama is a bit of a buzzkill.

* edit: Just noticed my 1500th post which of course is dedicated to cynwulf  smile *

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