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I spprt Devuan because I support choice. And I hope one day - be it 5 or 10 years - we arrive to the point where Devuan is no longer needed - you will be able t

I spprt Devuan because I support choice. And I hope one day - be it 5 or 10 years - we arrive to the point where Devuan is no longer needed - you will be able to replace one init system with another in Debian. Currently it's not possible and the system I've been using since 1998 became something else that I can't control in a way that was possible until now. When I ask my fellow colleagues (mostly sysadmins), some of them like Systemd, some don't, but we all agree that in this particular case the freedom of choice is much needed.

icebraining 9y ago
Why can't you run Debian with another init system? Some things probably won't work, but wasn't that always the case? Sincerely asking, I never tried running a non-default init system.
- rini17 9y ago
  Debian decided to not support using any other init system. If it was just "same breakage as always", devuan would not be created.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    Debian decided to not support using any other init system. Right, but did they support using any other init system (besides sysv) before?
  - bigon 9y ago
    That's actually not true at all... * https://packages.qa.debian.org/s/systemd.html * https://packages.qa.debian.org/u/upstart.html (it's gone from stretch that's true but still supported in jessie) * https://packages.qa.debian.org/o/openrc.html * https://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sysvinit.html
agwa 9y ago
It's really easy to replace systemd with sysvinit on Debian: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14581820 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14581820 All my Debian systems run sysvinit, and they work great - certainly better than the one system I co-administer which runs systemd. I frankly do not understand why Devuan exists.
- dirkt 9y ago
  I tried to run sysvinit on Debian for a long time. What happened was that often when I tried to install something, I got systemd back, and sysvinit thrown out, via some funny dependencies. Maybe I was doing something wrong. Maybe you just didn't want to install the packages I wanted to install. I don't know. In any case, the pain was real. So finally I switched to Devuan, even though I wanted to stay with Debian, and now those problems and the time I had to spend fighting them are gone. That's why Devuan exists. YMMV, of course.
  - tomatocracy 9y ago
    I run Debian with sysv too and had the same issue early on. Fortunately, that one is easily fixed - if you drop the following into a file in /etc/apt/preferences.d, it will stop that from happening: Package: systemd Pin: release o=Debian Pin-Priority: -1 Package: systemd-sysv Pin: release o=Debian Pin-Priority: -1 Package: systemd:i386 Pin: release o=Debian Pin-Priority: -1 Package: systemd-sysv:i386 Pin: release o=Debian Pin-Priority: -1 The i386 parts are only needed if you have it setup with multi-architecture. Unfortunately, I have also had to recompile some packages to remove systemd dependencies as well. Fortunately that hasn't been too much effort so far but eventually I may have to switch to Devuan. The most ridiculous one was policykit and neatly illustrates the creeping "infection" of systemd into Debian - policykit-1 hard-depends on libpam-systemd which hard-depends on systemd. Why neither was marked as "Recommends" instead of "Depends" I can't understand (policykit-1 -> libpam-systemd or libpam-systemd -> systemd) - either would have been fine and allowed both options to work perfectly well as far as I can tell.
    - justinclift 9y ago
bigon 9y ago
And who will do all the QA to be able to support a core component of the system like that? Because that the cost of that freedom

icebraining 9y ago

Why can't you run Debian with another init system? Some things probably won't work, but wasn't that always the case? Sincerely asking, I never tried running a non-default init system.

rini17 9y ago
Debian decided to not support using any other init system. If it was just "same breakage as always", devuan would not be created.
- icebraining 9y ago
  Debian decided to not support using any other init system. Right, but did they support using any other init system (besides sysv) before?
- bigon 9y ago
  That's actually not true at all... * https://packages.qa.debian.org/s/systemd.html * https://packages.qa.debian.org/u/upstart.html (it's gone from stretch that's true but still supported in jessie) * https://packages.qa.debian.org/o/openrc.html * https://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sysvinit.html

agwa 9y ago

It's really easy to replace systemd with sysvinit on Debian: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14581820 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14581820 All my Debian systems run sysvinit, and they work great - certainly better than the one system I co-administer which runs systemd. I frankly do not understand why Devuan exists.

dirkt 9y ago
I tried to run sysvinit on Debian for a long time. What happened was that often when I tried to install something, I got systemd back, and sysvinit thrown out, via some funny dependencies. Maybe I was doing something wrong. Maybe you just didn't want to install the packages I wanted to install. I don't know. In any case, the pain was real. So finally I switched to Devuan, even though I wanted to stay with Debian, and now those problems and the time I had to spend fighting them are gone. That's why Devuan exists. YMMV, of course.
- tomatocracy 9y ago
  I run Debian with sysv too and had the same issue early on. Fortunately, that one is easily fixed - if you drop the following into a file in /etc/apt/preferences.d, it will stop that from happening: Package: systemd Pin: release o=Debian Pin-Priority: -1 Package: systemd-sysv Pin: release o=Debian Pin-Priority: -1 Package: systemd:i386 Pin: release o=Debian Pin-Priority: -1 Package: systemd-sysv:i386 Pin: release o=Debian Pin-Priority: -1 The i386 parts are only needed if you have it setup with multi-architecture. Unfortunately, I have also had to recompile some packages to remove systemd dependencies as well. Fortunately that hasn't been too much effort so far but eventually I may have to switch to Devuan. The most ridiculous one was policykit and neatly illustrates the creeping "infection" of systemd into Debian - policykit-1 hard-depends on libpam-systemd which hard-depends on systemd. Why neither was marked as "Recommends" instead of "Depends" I can't understand (policykit-1 -> libpam-systemd or libpam-systemd -> systemd) - either would have been fine and allowed both options to work perfectly well as far as I can tell.
  - justinclift 9y ago

bigon 9y ago

And who will do all the QA to be able to support a core component of the system like that? Because that the cost of that freedom