LWN: Comments on "Devuan Beowulf 3.0.0 released"

Devuan Beowulf 3.0.0 released

bmorel — Tue, 04 Aug 2020 04:08:36 +0000

> You just need to create a /usr/sbin/policy-rc.d script

Well, thanks for the pointer, it's *really* appreciated. Now to go rtfm and I'll get rid of that problem, nice!
Also, dunno if this is documented (or where), but I have since found that in runit-init based debian will prefer runit daemons *if* the name is exactly the same as a the rc.d's one. This might help someone, someday (and avoid the comment to only say thanks).

Devuan Beowulf 3.0.0 released

emorrp1 — Fri, 19 Jun 2020 13:37:22 +0000

> I guess I would still have to manually disable the Debian's automatic enabling of daemons after any upgrade though.

You just need to create a /usr/sbin/policy-rc.d script with `exit 101` if that's what you want (that's what docker uses too). It's only consulted by package management (see init-system-helpers) so won't interfere with whatever init enabling/starting config you have.

Devuan Beowulf 3.0.0 released

surinameclubcard — Thu, 11 Jun 2020 16:08:04 +0000

As a very long time Debian user (remember woody?) I love Devuan because I dislike systemd. So Devuan is precisely at the right place: Debian - without systemd. It is great. It is fabulous. Only for this reason I created this account to comment on you.

Devuan Beowulf 3.0.0 released

HelloWorld — Tue, 09 Jun 2020 07:01:52 +0000

Yeah, didn't think you'd be able to come up with anything.

Devuan Beowulf 3.0.0 released

dullfire — Mon, 08 Jun 2020 16:56:28 +0000

Thanks for posting this. Time to look at/consider upgrading my systems.

Devuan Beowulf 3.0.0 released

ldearquer — Sat, 06 Jun 2020 21:29:35 +0000

Did I? Must have been a typo...

Devuan Beowulf 3.0.0 released

HelloWorld — Sat, 06 Jun 2020 20:06:01 +0000

Did you just mention busybox and “do one thing” in the same paragraph?

Devuan Beowulf 3.0.0 released

ldearquer — Sat, 06 Jun 2020 15:35:22 +0000

> I wonder how relevant the "small embedded systems" argument is these days, as the small embedded systems keep getting more and more powerful.

It is not only about how powerful the system is, but about keeping the system as simple as possible for maintenance and auditing. For a serial login, ssh on a static ip, syslog and a custom service or two, we tend to use busybox init or a custom bash script to using something bigger. All I was saying is, under this approach, it is nice to have "do one thing" tools.

> And if you're really resource-constrained, you're likely better off with something that's neither systemd nor SysV init?

But I never said it has to be SysV ;)

Devuan Beowulf 3.0.0 released

flussence — Fri, 05 Jun 2020 22:07:58 +0000

Think about applying “nobody needs this” in the context of your own posts.

Devuan Beowulf 3.0.0 released

HelloWorld — Fri, 05 Jun 2020 17:32:17 +0000

> I spend most of my time working with unusual setups and I have found that is more difficult to do with systemd. Sometimes, I was not able to find a way to set up what I wanted at all on a systemd-based machine.

Like what?

Devuan Beowulf 3.0.0 released

hiddenengine — Fri, 05 Jun 2020 17:21:59 +0000

Well, I'm a user of Devuan and I've been using it for some time. I spend most of my time working with unusual setups and I have found that is more difficult to do with systemd. Sometimes, I was not able to find a way to set up what I wanted at all on a systemd-based machine.

I was able to set them all up exactly the way that I needed with rc/init.d configurations, and it was a way that I was very familiar with, having worked with Linux since the 2.4 kernel days.

I completely recognise that for many, many people, systemd is a very nice solution. But for a small proportion of users, of which I am one, it makes some things much harder. For that reason, I don't want to have to run it, and I am extremely grateful that Devuan exists because it is based on Debian, which I've been using for many, many years.

I still have some Debian systems... and some Ubuntu systems... but some are running Devuan for the reasons above.

Devuan Beowulf 3.0.0 released

pizza — Fri, 05 Jun 2020 12:26:00 +0000

> Needless to say, my system works well and is fast to boot with my current debian setup, which is neither based on sysvinit nor systemd, while now relying on debian's packages for the actual init (a change I appreciate a lot thanks to debian 10).

I should point out that for all Devuan's rhetoric about "init freedom", nearly all of the (significant!) work to enable and integrate that choice in Debian (and thus, Devuan) was done from within Debian itself.

IMO Devuan's only real accomplishment has been to siphon off Debian's more toxic users and developers, giving Debian the breathing room to improve and evolve, and Devuan's proponents their own sandbox to strut around in. Win-win, I'd say.

Devuan Beowulf 3.0.0 released

bmorel — Fri, 05 Jun 2020 08:59:10 +0000

Got few things to say here.

* it is unfair to say the bourne bloat is sysVinit's fault. That mess is caused only by rc.d/init.d, which basically looks like some service manager built in a language that is prone to errors (yes, bourne shell). It is perfectly possible to have sysvinit running daemontools or runsvdir or other ones.
* it is unfair to compare systemd to an init system or a service manager, for all of those components: systemd is more like a framework, which have both pros and cons. As a dev, I've learned that when you use a framework, and when you find that this framework, for any reason, does not fit your current goals and constraints, you must restart from scratch. Libraries, or "unix-philosophy-tools" allows to reduce the pain when such event happen, at the cost of higher initial cost.
* systemd is not the first and only one to provide cleaner ways to have async daemon starts. Daemon-tools provided that long ago, and since then there are several init systems based that embed such facilities, including runit (which is default if not only init choice of at least one distro: voidlinux) or nosh (which can converts systemd units to it's own things, it seems).
* I can write runit scripts in less than 5 lines, including shebang and some empty lines, without having to learn a language or syntax specific. I could also avoid starting the binary if dependencies where not yet up, even if yes, it does imply that pre-requisites are checked every time units.
* I can read the the code behind runit-init without much pain. This is not true for systemd.

More on topic, I personally think it is sad that devuan sticks with the rc.d thing. Now, I understand that even Debian needed years to really switch toward systemd units, and with more manpower and more stuff worked on before by other distros.
I'm curious to see where devuan will go.

I'm also planning to give it a new try, now that Debian includes runit-init as an alternative init system (the debian 10's init meta-package depends on either systemd-init, sysvinit or runit-init), because I'm tired to have to manually fix the errors when I try to install components that have a kilometer-wide cascading dependency that ends on systemd (got some examples there).
Needless to say, my system works well and is fast to boot with my current debian setup, which is neither based on sysvinit nor systemd, while now relying on debian's packages for the actual init (a change I appreciate a lot thanks to debian 10).
Well, if that fixes even a tiny bit my situation, that would be nice. I guess I would still have to manually disable the Debian's automatic enabling of daemons after any upgrade though.

Devuan Beowulf 3.0.0 released

HelloWorld — Fri, 05 Jun 2020 07:37:44 +0000

> I wonder how relevant the "small embedded systems" argument is these days, as the small embedded systems keep getting more and more powerful. And if you're really resource-constrained, you're likely better off with something that's neither systemd nor SysV init?
Exactly, see for instance
https://openwrt.org/docs/techref/procd

> A more worrying scenario might be one where _applications_ start depending on systemd socket activation or somesuch, as that actually starts limiting your options.
Yeah, so maybe the Devuan developers should support systemd-compatible socket activation. Needless to say, they don't.

Devuan Beowulf 3.0.0 released

diegor — Fri, 05 Jun 2020 06:02:18 +0000

And if you don't like what devuan developers do, that's your problem...

Honestly I don't see too much difference. And it's not like they are forcing you to use devuan.

Devuan Beowulf 3.0.0 released

amacater — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 21:14:10 +0000

HelloWorld - What is impressive is respect for other people's work and commitment, even if you disagree with them and what they do is not what you would do. What is impressive is the ability to be polite and respectful to others reading in the LWN community. You may not appreciate Jon asking nicely for you to stop and you may believe that you can say what you wish to but it would be appreciated by all if you could be constructive in his space. If you cannot appreciate what it is to be constructive in this space, it might be useful to read back through the last 20+ years here and see how LWN works at its best before continuing.

Devuan Beowulf 3.0.0 released

jiiksteri — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 21:13:39 +0000

> Especially when building small embedded systems, it is really nice to have available alternatives which follow the "Do one thing..." approach

I wonder how relevant the "small embedded systems" argument is these days, as the small embedded systems keep getting more and more powerful. And if you're really resource-constrained, you're likely better off with something that's neither systemd nor SysV init?

A more worrying scenario might be one where _applications_ start depending on systemd socket activation or somesuch, as that actually starts limiting your options.

Personally I don't really care which init system of the day gets thrown at me as my needs are simple enough to manage. But I don't really understand why anyone would act like the Devuan work is worthless or taking something away from them. Clearly it's worth the effort for someone, and everyone else gets to observe the experiment. How is that bad?

Devuan Beowulf 3.0.0 released

nivedita76 — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 21:11:25 +0000

The tools already exist, eg runit or s6?

Devuan Beowulf 3.0.0 released

corbet — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 21:03:41 +0000

They are "wasting" their own time only. Leave them in peace.

I get tired of asking you to stop dumping on other peoples' work, but I'll do it again. Can you please stop?

Devuan Beowulf 3.0.0 released

HelloWorld — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 20:20:27 +0000

You're not in charge of deciding what I'm in charge of. And fortunately you're also not in a position to stop me from doing what the comment section is intended for: expressing my opinion about the topic at hand. And if you don't like my opinion, well, that's your problem.

Devuan Beowulf 3.0.0 released

HelloWorld — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 20:15:43 +0000

> I always thought of this as a very real possibility.

If that were possible, it would have happened by now. No, these guys are just wasting everybody's time.

Devuan Beowulf 3.0.0 released

HelloWorld — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 20:13:56 +0000

> It mostly stops systemd flamewars, which is worthwhile in itself.

So the reason we need Devuan is to stop the flame wars that its creators started?

Sorry, I'm still not impressed.

Devuan Beowulf 3.0.0 released

amarao — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 18:17:12 +0000

As operator I can testify that Debian is really great disto, and we need it to make things smooth. Moreover, since systemd introduction into Debian, it become the Tool. There are so many really great solutions that are practically impossible to create with shell madness.

Moreover, I can finally trust unit scripts (units). Sysv scripts were massive applications with hundreds of bash lines. Who again love to write and debug asynchronous parallel applications in bash, I forgot?

The systemd replaced simple underlaying mechanism with fatty complex one. But at the same time it replaced typeless 'garbage in garbage out' with rich and robust interface where errors are errors (not UB), and well-defined state machine you can reason about without executing it.

Devuan Beowulf 3.0.0 released

ldearquer — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 18:16:28 +0000

> They might even come up with a worthwhile alternative.

I always thought of this as a very real possibility.

Especially when building small embedded systems, it is really nice to have available alternatives which follow the "Do one thing..." approach

Devuan Beowulf 3.0.0 released

anselm — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 13:29:39 +0000

If and when Debian ever stops supporting System-V init, chances are that 99% or more of Debian users won't even notice. Whether that will happen before or after the Devuan maintainers find something more fulfilling to do with their time is anybody's guess.

Devuan Beowulf 3.0.0 released

james — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 09:35:37 +0000

Devuan scratches my itch.

It mostly stops systemd flamewars, which is worthwhile in itself.

Meanwhile, the rest of us can more-or-less pretend modern Linux systems without systemd don't exist, and Devuan can take on the costs and experience of working without it. They might even come up with a worthwhile alternative.

Devuan Beowulf 3.0.0 released

sionescu — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 02:17:31 +0000

You're not in charge of deciding which itch is legitimate.

Devuan Beowulf 3.0.0 released

HelloWorld — Wed, 03 Jun 2020 22:38:14 +0000

> At one time Linux was used by people to "scratch an itch", and that was encouraged.

That would be a fair point if Devuan actually did anything useful or even just interesting. That is to say, if it actually scratched anybody's legitimate itch. But it doesn't. It doesn't offer some alternative solution to the problems that systemd solves, like, say, GNU shepherd does, it just pretends those problems don't exist. That's of no use to anyone, hence my initial comment.

Devuan Beowulf 3.0.0 released

pizza — Wed, 03 Jun 2020 19:38:04 +0000

> At one time Linux was used by people to "scratch an itch", and that was encouraged. Now many people seem to say "get on the systemd highway or you work is worthless".

Of course, they are free to work on whatever they want. Good for them.

But. Given Devuan's entire raison d'etre is that "Systemd (and its progenitor) is not only worthless, but so incredibly awful that we can't even allow libsystemd to pollute our filesystems" (I'm paraphrasing; this is typically expressed with far more derogative vehemence) they are in no position to complain about how their own work is perceived. The public record is replete with examples.

Demanding respect from the very folks they're _still_ crapping all over is not likely to accomplish much, especially when one considers the sheer magnitude of effort expended versus what they have to show for it. Which, truth be told, isn't actually all that much. [1]

To that end, most of their work has been cleaning up their own messes, instead of actually maintaining the various bitrotten pre-systemd codebases (eg consolekit) whose general awfulness was a big part of why systemd was so widely adopted so quickly. Maintenance and testing is hard and unglamorous work, and could have _easily_ been accomplished under the existing Debian aegis, without all that fire and brimstone.

[1] Seriously, this is like someone bragging about digging a ditch using hand trowel instead of a shovel, because they don't like one of the people who helped make the shovel. Sure, it's an accomplishment of a sort, but not exactly one that tends to engender respect given that ditch diggers are paid by the cubic foot.

Devuan Beowulf 3.0.0 released

BirAdam — Wed, 03 Jun 2020 18:36:08 +0000

I could similarly argue that no one NEEDS Debian, Ubuntu, Red Hat, Fedora, or openSUSE. Silly upstarts. We have Slackware! It was first and it is best, everything else is unneeded. Maybe Slackware was a bridge too far. We had the BSDs. Maybe this whole Linux effort is stupid and wasteful eh? This would be wrong of course. Need is subjective and largely based upon the goal a team or person has. If you’re coming in and telling a project that their efforts are wasted, you may want to check your premise, and you should definitely check your ego. No one can tell others what to need, what to want, or what to do. You cannot know the best for others and to assume you do is hubris.

Devuan Beowulf 3.0.0 released

jrigg — Wed, 03 Jun 2020 17:18:30 +0000

> I'm right about what I said, and you know it.

This is childish. Please stop.

Devuan Beowulf 3.0.0 released

jmclnx — Wed, 03 Jun 2020 17:07:35 +0000

Forgot to mention, congratulations to the Devuan team

Devuan Beowulf 3.0.0 released

jmclnx — Wed, 03 Jun 2020 17:04:47 +0000

This comment saddens me a bit, not for its content but by what it seems to imply.

At one time Linux was used by people to "scratch an itch", and that was encouraged. Now many people seem to say "get on the systemd highway or you work is worthless".

People like systemd, others would rather not to use it, the projects that avoid systemd should not looked down upon or discouraged.

Devuan Beowulf 3.0.0 released

djs_tx — Wed, 03 Jun 2020 15:59:31 +0000

Refusing to debate a provocateur is a sign of intelligence, not an indication of the provocateur's correctness.

Devuan Beowulf 3.0.0 released

ale2018 — Wed, 03 Jun 2020 15:06:13 +0000

> The arguments on Debian and Devuan mailing lists weren't pretty - but actually, folk from Debian and Devuan have found a way to work together to improve support for non-systemd within Debian as well. In the fullness of time, it will probably prove too much to continue Devuan on the number of maintainers they have for the one main issue they care about. Over time, it may be that more of the Linux ecosystem will require systemd. Over time, it may come to be that systemd is replaced by something else.

Over time, it may be that Debian stop supporting sysV altogether. That would prove that continuing Devuan was worth all the way through.

Devuan Beowulf 3.0.0 released

tjc — Wed, 03 Jun 2020 14:22:23 +0000

> Nobody needs this (albeit some people certainly believe they do. They're mistaken).

Perhaps you would enjoy Phoronix more than LWN.

I don't need Devuan, but if MX Linux did not exist, I might. It's nice to have alternatives.

Devuan Beowulf 3.0.0 released

tekNico — Wed, 03 Jun 2020 14:20:46 +0000

Trying to push people's buttons can be fun, until someone gets hurt. Nothing better to do?

Devuan Beowulf 3.0.0 released

HelloWorld — Wed, 03 Jun 2020 14:08:55 +0000

The fact that everybody is telling me how mean I am rather than telling me how I'm wrong says it all, really. I'm right about what I said, and you know it.

Devuan Beowulf 3.0.0 released

lkundrak — Wed, 03 Jun 2020 12:42:39 +0000

Well, it certainly has its users.

Also, these people's idea of a reasonable way to put together a reasonable Linux system is sufficiently odd so that everyone's better off if they are working on their own distro instead of endlessly arguing to get things their way elsewhere.

Devuan Beowulf 3.0.0 released

caliloo — Wed, 03 Jun 2020 11:33:51 +0000

+1 I agree