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steve_v

Member

Registered: 2018-01-11

Posts: 634  

Re: Kde and Systemd - In the News

Here is the difference between Debian and Devuan, why not to improve init?

Indeed, and that's a question that has bamboozled me for years.

As far as I can tell, Devuan 100% reactive, rather than proactive. Upstreams leaning on user-services has been a known problem for years, other distros have been developing solutions and exploring alternatives.
Devuan just waits. Waits to see what Debian does, waits to find out what the next Debian release breaks, waits to see what packages will be "banned" rather than fixed.

We could have openrc user-services, but we don't, "because Debian". Because this isn't really a distribution in it's own right, it's a Debian "respin" and 99.99% of packages are verbatim pulls from the Debian repos.
That's fine when you stick to the Debian way of doing things, but deviating on something as foundational as systemd and then refusing to deviate on potential fixes and replacements... Mark my words: when KDE depends on systemd, Devuan will just "ban" it, loose yet another major package, and slide further into irrelevance.

Pretty much every patch or alternative implementation that has found it's way into Devuan came from another distro (usually Gentoo, e.g. elogind, eudev, opentmpfiles), I'm probably missing some minor tweaks, but the fact I can't name a single significant systemd-free solution invented by this systemd-free distro is concerning to say the least.

Devuan isn't about finding alternatives to systemd, it's about clinging stubbornly to systems long abandoned by everyone else, then shouting at the weather like senile old fools when the rest of the world moves on. Compare the post-count for "here's a cool new feature in Devuan" to "bastards at $outgroup changed something again, the world is going to shit, bah humbug" and the direction is pretty clear - wilful fossilisation.

Last edited by steve_v (Yesterday 00:29:04)

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Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action. Four times is Official GNOME Policy.

RedGreen925

Member

Registered: 2024-12-07

Posts: 290  

Re: Kde and Systemd - In the News

Devuan follows Debian. It's OK,  the idea is clear. But why does Devuan follows obsolet versions of inits that are not inits in Debian?

Yo do not understand what you talk about the openrc IS in Debian, Devuan follows the packages as they are in Debian except where changes are required to remove the systemd garbage.

https://packages.debian.org/search?keyw … ection=all

That is the version you will get for the lifetime of the stable distribution.

steve_v

Member

Registered: 2018-01-11

Posts: 634  

Re: Kde and Systemd - In the News

Devuan follows the packages as they are in Debian except where changes are required to remove the systemd garbage

But not when new packages or more extensive changes are needed to have things actually work properly without systemd. It's always "remove garbage" or "sanitise", never "fix", "improve" or "add alternative".
So long as this attitude persists, every Devuan release will have less stuff that works, less functionality, and less user choice.
That's not progress, it's regression. It's the surgeon whose answer to every problem is "amputate", because that's what worked in 1856 and administering even over-the-counter treatments might require more effort.

OpenRC gets little attention in Debian, because it solves problems Debian doesn't have. They don't need a recent version with user-services, they have systemd. We don't.
There is nothing whatsoever preventing Devuan from backporting a newer openrc release or including one of the many other available solutions to user-services, besides this ridiculous "we just follow Debian" policy... Which for some reason only appears to apply in a subtractive sense - changes are always removing something from upstream Debian, never adding, never improving.

Any time anyone suggests something be added to make Devuan better, the response is the same - "get it accepted into Debian first"... Even when the thing in question has bugger-all chance of being packaged in Debian because it's completely irrelevant to a systemd-based distribution.

This is essentially just stonewalling, and it's no surprise nobody is volunteering for anything when it's the default response to Devuan-specific RFPs and ITPs.

Last edited by steve_v (Yesterday 03:51:50)

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Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action. Four times is Official GNOME Policy.

RedGreen925

Member

Registered: 2024-12-07

Posts: 290  

Re: Kde and Systemd - In the News

But not when new packages or more extensive changes are needed to have things actually work properly without systemd. It's always "remove garbage" or "sanitise", never "fix", "improve" or "add alternative".
So long as this attitude persists, every Devuan release will have less stuff that works, less functionality, and less user choice.

You are using the wrong distribution if you want something like that where the developers are always straying away from a solid Debian base with their changes then MXLinux is for you. You get the choice of it with or without the systemd garbage and developers who do exactly what you want, namely always messing with it putting out new packages for it when requested to do so. Or you can stick around here and bitch and complain about these developers and how hard done by you are by them taking the path they have chose over a decade ago. Then there is getting off your ass option and doing these so easy changes you complain about all the time. I suspect you will do neither help out or shut up about this as that is all you do is complain and bitch about how people should be doing the work you want done in a volunteer project.

steve_v

Member

Registered: 2018-01-11

Posts: 634  

Re: Kde and Systemd - In the News

You are using the wrong distribution if you want something like that

Exactly why I'm running almost entirely on Gentoo these days. The one Devuan install I still have is a server and completely unaffected by any of this.

doing these so easy changes you complain about all the time

I have, on my own systems, quite some time ago. What I can't do from here is get the same into Devuan where it helps everyone, because [see above WRT stonewalling and "upstream Debian package or GTFO" responses].

This issue doesn't affect me at all, but it's still causing problems for other users (usually newcomers, e.g.), and believe it or not I'd quite like to see this distro get better with each release rather than just drop more and more packages and leave more and more broken things for users to "figure it out yourself".

help out or shut up about this

As I said (much, much) earlier:

What I would like to know is: Which way does Devuan intend to handle this, and is there anything that needs doing there? What solutions are being considered? I contributed one possibility way upthread, is it worth persevering with or is Devuan going to do something totally different?

I still don't have an answer, and shouting "go help" (without specifics like "with what", "where" and "by what process") is not one. Plenty of "help" with this particular issue has already been volunteered (mostly in the pipewire thread), and so far no bites.
When nothing is biting, eventually one stops fishing. All that remains is progressively more snarky variations of "What's the plan, Stan? Have we decided anything yet, or we still hoping this will just go away?".

Ed. But wait, there's more. Lest we forget, here's me offering to "help out" on this very issue, nearly a year ago:

I'll be happy to pitch in with code and/or packaging when devuan decides on a sane and maintainable way to handle user services.

And Ralph shutting it down with the usual completely unproductive "We'll do nothing until Debian does something, unless it uses systemd, in which case we'll do nothing at all.":

Wonderful. Let's wait together. When some packages turn up in Debian offering all or some of those good things you talk about, then they automatically turn up in Devuan. Unless they depend on systemd. If they do, they end up on the banned packages list.

Last edited by steve_v (Yesterday 15:37:17)

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Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action. Four times is Official GNOME Policy.