On Sunday 12 March 2023 12:23:02 dep via tde-users wrote: I have tried out a gazillion different distros over the years, and I am probably not done yet. There might still be another one just over the horizon, the Linux distro that will change my life for the better. For the past almost-twenty years, I've run Linux, went through PC Linux (with the KDE3 desktop) to get to Kubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04, and after that never really wanted to change; but as you have said, Canonical changed, and the 'Buntus got ruined in the process. I was done with them already years and years ago, especially when I found out all their call-home stuff, and when it finally became obvious that I was not going to win this fight against the corporations by temporary fixes, or hacking this program or that, to try to get my computer to do what I want. Trisquel is somewhat better, but I remember it being at least as much of a pain to get started as Debian; at that time, moreover, the networking was especially hard to configure. Once I finally got into Debian, I never looked back, and never thought seriously about going over to another distro; except, I admit, that I have switched to Devuan, but only because Devuan is more Debian now than the original Debian. As you say, they tend to be rather political, but I don't really spend a lot of time hanging out with them. If you really want to get a system that is stable, that pretty much stays the same over the years, across different systems, different machines, different devices ... then I think you want Debian or Devuan. There are others worth trying out, but it seems to me that Debian set the standard for the rest. Even if Debian may or may not have violated its own principles with systemd (I don't know, whatever ...), it is still the one that stands out. And if not, there is always Devuan, and there will probably always be some fork of it that will remain true to that ideal. Now, I am a pretty non-technical person (compared to the rest of this mailing list, I mean). To me, if you can read and pretty much follow the discussions on this mailing list, then you should have no problems get Debian/Devuan, or some fork of these, properly installed on your machine. (I seem to recall that Leslie was giving Debian or Devuan a try, but then I didn't hear any more about it, so I hope he hasn't given up.) In any case, there are people here who have been running Debian for 20+ years, so I believe that you will have more than enough help to guide you through the process. As for the non-free and contrib repos, I myself don't use them, don't use anything except GNU/Linux free/libre software; not for some ideologically pure reason, but only because my system doesn't seem to need them, and runs just fine. But then, your needs may differ from mine. Likewise, I don't use any of the guided partitioning or automated stuff. I use the expert mode, and configure everything one line at a time; but after I've reinstalled hundreds or thousands of times, I can do this in my sleep. And this way, I get what I want, rather than something that is not quite right. All the 'buntus, Trisquel, etc., etc., are based on Debian. Apple itself is based on Unix, so even its architecture somewhat resembles Debian. And for all of these "Debian-based" distros, I have to ask, What did they improve by forking from Debian, and creating the 'buntus, etc.? What answer would you get? I believe, for most of them, that the only advantages go rather to the corporations behind them, maybe to the developers; certainly not to the users of those systems. Take a poll, and I would guess that well over half the readers or contributors to this mailing list run either Debian or Devuan. It is probably a much higher portion than that. The reason is not because of "hive mind", but rather because the older one gets, one tends to dislike change. One especially dislikes being a slave to a machine. If you don't want to be a slave to your machines, that is a good reason to learn to run Debian/Devuan. At least here, running my own machine, I can feel like I have some control over my life. Beyond that, not so much ... Bill

Anno domini 2023 Sun, 12 Mar 23:05:45 +0100 deloptes via tde-users scripsit: Sorry, but since when do es debian give you the freedom to remove systemd? -- Please do not email me anything that you are not comfortable also sharing with the NSA, CIA ...

On Sun March 12 2023 15:17:51 Dr. Nikolaus Klepp via tde-users wrote: I have never used systemd - not because of any bugs but because the deliberately cathedral design takes over a large part of GNU/Linux infrastructure and makes future bazaar innovation more difficult. I used Devuan for less than a year before switching back to Debian in 2019. Upon switching back I did indeed need one hack. IIRC it was that the quagga maintainer had removed an init script to force migration to systemd. All I had to do was copy an init script from an earlier Debian release. Today I have no hacks and Debian without systemd runs fine on servers, virtual machines, and laptops. (And I switched from quagga to frr which is newer and better supported.) And it may be that I should thank the Devuan team for keeping Debian on its toes. --Mike

On Sunday 12 March 2023 15:59:39 Mike Bird via tde-users wrote: I'll just give a group response to those last few replies. (I have been outdoors today, that place beyond the keyboard and command-line screen.) Regarding the sysvinit versus systemd: I don't really have a knowledgeable opinion on this matter, as I am not a technical person. I have heard explanations and arguments on both sides, and they all sound sensible, but I don't know if some are clearly wrong and others right, or if there can be shades of right and wrong. As I said before, Debian gave me control over my machine, and freed me from the 'Buntus and other distros like them. But then I switched to Devuan, just to try it. Suddenly my machine ran better, and I was no longer fighting to make my machine do what I wanted. I like what Devuan says, but I don't know if it is better than Debian just because of that choice of sysvinit over systemd, or because their philosophy or politics makes them better developers, or other factors are involved. I only say, my machine runs better on Debian than it did on Kubuntu, and now it runs better on Devuan than it did on Debian. I was respectful toward Debian, and never said never "no systemd, no nevermore"! I only say that, thus far, in my own experience, Devuan has performed better on my own machines, and I am able to use completely free/libre GNU/Linux software. I have also heard about memory leaks with Devuan and sysvinit. Don't know the story there; I can only say, my system runs really well on Devuan. Debian worked okay, I guess, except that I kept having problems that forced me to do a complete reinstallation every few days. (This was about five years ago now, so I cannot remember the details, sorry.) Since switching to Devuan, everything has been pretty stable and predictable. So long as the user does nothing too stupid, everything seems to work as I had hoped. There is always that human stupidity problem, but since I keep my machines at only one user, who is myself, I have managed to limit the stupid factor to a minimum. For dep, and perhaps Leslie, if still out there wondering how to get your Debian/Devuan OS installed, then I say, that THIS is where you want to be. You may not know it yet, or you may have had a rough start getting into Debian, but once you get past those early steps, Debian (or Devuan) is stable, dependable, only requires basic maintenance. So whether you choose Debian with systemd (or not), or choose Devuan with only sysvinit, it doesn't matter much to me. But if you are looking for a 'Buntu type system, based on Debian, it strikes me as silly not to stick with Debian until you figure it out. It's a little harder than the 'Buntus, not so difficult as Slackware. If you are already running TDE on top of Ubuntu, then you will have very little problem making the transition to Debian. And as I said, we have a great many Debian/Devuan users out there, so somehow or other you ought to be able to get it up and running. My suggestion is (as someone else said), get yourself that flash drive or wherever you burn your image, then give Debian/Devuan a try. If you can get it installed (and people are here to help), then I believe that you'll be glad you went with that instead of some jazzed-up new distro that is all tricked out with lots of glitzy graphics and logos. Neither Debian nor Devuan are pretty; they just work, and they're stable, and you can keep things the same on your machine for decades, if you so choose. Bill