Free GNU+Linux base OS. Devuan is a fork of Debian without systemd. Devuan provides a safe upgrade path from Debian, to ensure the right to Init Freedom and avoid entanglement.
People keep mentioning this. It’s not actually a problem
It’s not even a good philosophy anymore (although, not actually even sure where this statement originated). The Linux kernel does more than 1 thing. So does Gnome, KDE, etc.
The old init scripts did “one thing”, but, because they did too little, the scripts were difficult to write, there were issues like race conditions, etc.
Anyone who ever wrote a SysV script would tell you what an absolute nightmare they were… Whereas, SystemD, even more complex ones which depend on a lot of factors are now easy (and only a few lines).
systemd init scripts are more ergonomic than sysvinit scripts. I agree.
Does systemd work? Yes. Can I live with it? Yes. I’ve embraced it since it became a de facto standard.
The thing I somewhat dislike is that you cannot easily replace individual systemd components. The systemd-logind and systemd-journald for example have to be compiled from the exact same systemd version (e.g. both v234). There are way more gotchas like that if you try to replace them for non-systemd alternatives.
If you’re solely interested in having a working OS then it’s all good. If you like to tinker and learn, and want to fully embrace Unix modularity mindset then systemd made your life a little more difficult in that aspect.
Also I’m glad that distributions like Void Linux, Guix or Devuan from this post title exist that try another approach. I hope one day I’ll have enough time to daily drive them!
People keep mentioning this. It’s not actually a problem
It’s not even a good philosophy anymore (although, not actually even sure where this statement originated). The Linux kernel does more than 1 thing. So does Gnome, KDE, etc.
The old init scripts did “one thing”, but, because they did too little, the scripts were difficult to write, there were issues like race conditions, etc.
Anyone who ever wrote a SysV script would tell you what an absolute nightmare they were… Whereas, SystemD, even more complex ones which depend on a lot of factors are now easy (and only a few lines).
systemd init scripts are more ergonomic than sysvinit scripts. I agree.
Does systemd work? Yes. Can I live with it? Yes. I’ve embraced it since it became a de facto standard.
The thing I somewhat dislike is that you cannot easily replace individual systemd components. The systemd-logind and systemd-journald for example have to be compiled from the exact same systemd version (e.g. both v234). There are way more gotchas like that if you try to replace them for non-systemd alternatives.
If you’re solely interested in having a working OS then it’s all good. If you like to tinker and learn, and want to fully embrace Unix modularity mindset then systemd made your life a little more difficult in that aspect.
Also I’m glad that distributions like Void Linux, Guix or Devuan from this post title exist that try another approach. I hope one day I’ll have enough time to daily drive them!