[kwlug-disc] Devuan, a distro without systemd

[Khalid Baheyeldin]

On 7/28/17, Chris Frey <cdfrey at foursquare.net> wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 24, 2017 at 08:29:54PM -0400, Khalid Baheyeldin wrote:
>> - All major distros have implemented systemd in a mandatory fashion,
>> not replaceable by any other alternative. There is no way to replace
>> systemd with some other init system, and that is why something like
>> Devuan was invented. I hate this 'force things on us' attitude with no
>> alternatives. Even the most divisive desktop wars did not do this, and
>> we have a choice (witness Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, ...etc.)
>
> This is the main one, in my opinion.  It's not just the distros, but
> systemd itself has that attitude, as I understand it.
>
> There's a feeling that systemd didn't win because it was the best, but
> because it was decided for you.  And disagreement is not allowed.
>
> It's like the Borg. :-)
>
> And real geeks will fight that kind of thing, even if the software *is*
> the best around.
>
> - Chris

That, and the long dependency chain. If something A depends on just B,
C, and D, that is fine, as long as most of these have alternatives (again
look at the desktop environment). But for something to have a dependency
chain all ending up in the one and true init system that is an abomination,
because it deprives us of choice. Desktop environments require udev, and
whatnot for ephemeral devices (USB drives, web cams, ...etc.), but then
they all end up in systemd which is exactly the definition of being forced
on us.

Adoption by Debian was a big mistake. At least in the mode that is in now,
i.e. not pluggable.

And Slackware is not a viable option, since it does not have a dependency
management system.