Why not base LMDE on Devuan?

Archived topics about LMDE 1 and LMDE 2

Should LMDE switch to being based on Devuan, or stay with Debian?

Switch to Devuan
9
33%
Stay with Debian
18
67%
 
Total votes: 27

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Schultz
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Why not base LMDE on Devuan?

Post by Schultz »

I know this has already been discussed (I remember seeing one thread about it). I think the devs should consider basing LMDE on Devuan. One reason mentioned in the past why that was not a good idea was that Devuan had not yet "matured" (can't remember if that was the exact word used) as a viable OS. I don't think that now at the present that statement applies anymore.

Anyway, I'm curious what current users of LMDE think. Should it be based on Devuan, or stay with Debian?
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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sdibaja
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Re: Why not base LMDE on Devuan?

Post by sdibaja »

Interesting concept.
better yet, how about some Personal Experiences actually using Devuan.

lab testing and philosophy aside... what is the difference for the majority of the users.
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Re: Why not base LMDE on Devuan?

Post by sdibaja »

it seems that Devuan is stuck. Latest release was for Jessie. That effort started in 2014.
https://devuan.org/index.html#download

I did not research their history or milestones
Peter
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Re: Why not base LMDE on Devuan?

Post by Schultz »

sdibaja wrote:
it seems that Devuan is stuck. Latest release was for Jessie.
I wouldn't call that being "stuck." If that's the case, then LMDE is stuck also as it's also still "only" based on Jessie.
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Re: Why not base LMDE on Devuan?

Post by jimallyn »

Probably doesn't make a lot of difference whether it's based on Debian or Devuan. As far as I know, the major difference between them is that Devuan doesn't use systemd, which apparently some people have religious objections to.

Edit: what the heck, I think I'll try it in VirtualBox.
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Fred Barclay
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Re: Why not base LMDE on Devuan?

Post by Fred Barclay »

I think Devuan is cool, but not suitable to be the base of a Mint project just yet.
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Re: Why not base LMDE on Devuan?

Post by kevinthefixer »

My reaction would be "Debian ain't broke, why fix it?" Stretch is proving an excellent OS for my Latitude E4300 (with XFCE if you're interested). If Clem and the team can wave their friendliness stick at it as well as they did Jessie, what's to gain by switching horses?
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Pierre
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Re: Why not base LMDE on Devuan?

Post by Pierre »

and for those who are Still in the Dark:

Devuan Home Page:
https://devuan.org/

The officially official Devuan Forum:
https://dev1galaxy.org/

and on DistroWatch:
https://www.distrowatch.com/table.php?d ... ion=devuan

Edit: what the heck, I think I'll try it in VirtualBox.
- will do
8)
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Re: Why not base LMDE on Devuan?

Post by catweazel »

jimallyn wrote: Tue Apr 24, 2018 2:09 am Probably doesn't make a lot of difference whether it's based on Debian or Devuan. As far as I know, the major difference between them is that Devuan doesn't use systemd, which apparently some people have religious objections to.

Edit: what the heck, I think I'll try it in VirtualBox.
Their Code of No Conduct is neat.
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Re: Why not base LMDE on Devuan?

Post by Miejer_Alied »

The focal point is certainly, 'systemd' in this whole Debian vs Devuan scenario.

I'm sure you've read this, http://judecnelson.blogspot.in/2014/09/ ... acies.html
which in short, summarises that Systemd can and does segfault, crash and freeze, due to its inherently broken design.

But I am personally of the view that if a different init becomes better in the near future, then systemd should be replaced by whatever that alternative is; for all Linux Mint editions.

Now, regarding devuan; checkout this wordpress site https://sysdfree.wordpress.com/, it should provide you plenty of food for thought.
Debian has always been good with having clones, and forks, and derivatives of all kinds, but in the past 6-7 years they are good as long as all those puppets incorporate systemd.

Devuan came as an internal split in Debian, where Debianers clashed about making systemd the default init system or not. The minority lost and departed. Debian considers this a betrayal to the principles and rules of how Debian run. If you try the Debian list and talk of Devuan you get jumped on.

Packages that could not be thought of being related to an init system appear to be linked in interdependencies to systemd, pulseaudio, gnome desktop, etc. There are even packages whose developers couldn’t understand how their packages ended up being dependent. This makes the job of cleaning up 40000 packages from Debian a nearly impossible task.

Devuan is sentenced to be running out of breath trying to catch up to a stable Debian that is already old news by upstream standards.

Debian will either conquer or go down with its init system. Newer faster machines seem to be unable to cope with the rate of systemd complexities.

It is amazing how these days you can attempt to install an insignificant gui and apt wants to rip off half of your desktop, install another, and make sure there is init system dependency within it. Even the likes of Ubuntu and Mint seems to have given up on their effort to maintain composure under Debian without systemd.
Heck, Mint should be based on Arch.
Arch by design is built on simplicity and user ivolvement in constructing the system based on a wide and current freedom of choice. Debian tends to blend unnecessarily related things together providing little choice. The same x package when installed in Debian may require 2-3 times more other packages to be installed alongside. This is candy for the control starving systemd. Arch goes to great deal of extremes in trying to isolate packages as much as possible, which provides a very rough ground for systemd explosion.

Anonymity is important in Debian and underplayed in Arch.

The difference is on the evidence that Debian is going out of its way to accomodate systemd dependency everywhere, while Arch is just using systemd.
Devuan would never be able to overcome and change the psychopathology evident in Debian developer community and the inherent elitism against the common individual user. If you are not directing the departmental budget of an IT enterprise nobody in that community would give a rat’s penny of what your problem may be. Seeking help as a common user you must put up with tons of unsubstantiated arrogance, irony, and elitism.

Also, it seems that Ubuntu (Shuttleworth) has ‘agreed’ to become the borked up equivalent of Fedora as an Alpha Tester.

Thanks for reading!!
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Re: Why not base LMDE on Devuan?

Post by mike acker »

Devuan would never be able to overcome and change the psychopathology evident in Debian developer community and the inherent elitism against the common individual user. If you are not directing the departmental budget of an IT enterprise nobody in that community would give a rat’s penny of what your problem may be. Seeking help as a common user you must put up with tons of unsubstantiated arrogance, irony, and elitism.
X

i have been treated very well on the Debian board.
I've been running straight Debian just about a year now. A few minor issues but at the End of the Day: I"m a Happy Camper.

There are a few concerns, I think. One is -- what is Canonical's relationship with Redmond? Does the MINT project have the resources to maintain LMDE in addition to the "Main Edition" ?

I've learned a lot using LMDE and then LMDE/2. Now though, I think I'm happier with Straight Debian.
¡Viva la Resistencia!
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Re: Why not base LMDE on Devuan?

Post by Miejer_Alied »

Good for you.

But, there's a lot of hostility in the Debian community, which has only intensified since, Debian became a "systemd" distro.

Check out this message, during the time systemd was being adopted :: Proposal: SystemD.pushers/forcers be physically beaten as revenge.

Also, Developer of XScreenSaver in a tussle with those at Debian. Please disable "This version of XScreenSaver is very old! Please upgrade!" message

Morever, the man himself admits, this also. https://plus.google.com/+LennartPoetter ... 2TZrTvu7vd

A random comment from reddit : -
Debian have a really good democratic foundation that means that if just 5 Debian developers (out of +1000) sponsor a resolution about overturning the technical committees decisions, they can have a GR vote on the subject.

Not a single Debian developer made or supported such a decision. A single developer tried to sponsor a resolution that would make Debian support two init systems (but still have systemd as default), even that could not gather 5 Debian developer votes.
What does it signifies? That Debian fully supports systemd.

Every software package on Linux instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but SystemD does not. It moves to an area and multiplies and multiplies until every other service is consumed and the only way it can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. SystemD is a disease, a cancer for the Linux as we know it.

The OUTLAWS (Devuan, Refracta, ArtiX & Gentoo withstanding) shall be hunted by Cowboy Riding POSSE headed by Debian, RedHat.

Is the war with Debian an even fight?
We know that Debian incorporates 100s, maybe 1000s of developers and software groups, in a tremendous hierarchy on who has the say in what goes into a repository and when. Each one of those seems to be fine, morally, with the tendency to bundle up as many pkgs together just so remotely related pieces of software will depend on the init system.
Will in the long run small groups trying vigorously to stay afloat on Debian, with alternative init systems, make it? Hoping that they do, expecting that they will, and investing in this bet are very different things. On a daily basis without being able to see it coming, there is an attack. An attack in the form of a package that for years it was structured and depended in one way, suddenly is rearranged in such a way that its dependency structure needs the Debian init system or its libraries to work.
A more generalised statement :-
Linux forums and lists are functional and self-serving for users (individuals) and developers (teams) as long as they each hold their positions in hierarchy. It is very common (not all are like this) that once a users’ problem is presented and “there is no solution found” by developers, the immediate reaction is something the user did that caused the problem. Bug reporting has become a joke to only stuff developers discover as bugs themselves.
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Re: Why not base LMDE on Devuan?

Post by kevinthefixer »

Sounds to me like somebody's bored, wants to make some news about a flaming war between Linux factions, when in fact there is none and never was one. From some statements I've made, one could make a case that I'm anti-Ubuntu, and while it's true I'm not a fan, don't use it myself, it's also true that I'd much rather see Ubuntu installed on a friend's machine than Windows. I've even recommended it. Every Linux user I know feels the same: if it works for you, cool! That sort of philosophy doesn't leave room for the bad blood described above. There is no grand conspiracy here, and not even the huge greed that accompanies the huge for-profit OSs. Use systemd if you like, or use sysv, suit yourself!
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Re: Why not base LMDE on Devuan?

Post by sdibaja »

kevinthefixer wrote: Sun Apr 29, 2018 2:33 pm Sounds to me like somebody's bored, wants to make some news about a flaming war between Linux factions, when in fact there is none and never was one. From some statements I've made, one could make a case that I'm anti-Ubuntu, and while it's true I'm not a fan, don't use it myself, it's also true that I'd much rather see Ubuntu installed on a friend's machine than Windows. I've even recommended it. Every Linux user I know feels the same: if it works for you, cool! That sort of philosophy doesn't leave room for the bad blood described above. There is no grand conspiracy here, and not even the huge greed that accompanies the huge for-profit OSs. Use systemd if you like, or use sysv, suit yourself!
+1
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Re: Why not base LMDE on Devuan?

Post by Miejer_Alied »

Hi, @kevinthefixer, why don't you contribute to this thread by providing some solid, hard facts, or even reason/debate upon the problems faced by non-systemd distros, at present ??

Rather than contemplating, if I'm bored or not.
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Re: Why not base LMDE on Devuan?

Post by all41 »

Fortunately this is Linux and you can follow the fork that tickles your fancy.

Imagine for a second--if win was open sourced and free, would it also have been forked?------big time!
Even today there are loads of XP lovers, even Win7. There is little to no choice for these people. If they want security
and system updates they must agree with the terms and accept the new system being offered---as is. They must also pay for the privilege of using a closed source os from a company which doesn't give a rodent's rump about your privacy.

It's difficult to understand the petty bickering among the different Linux camps---If you can't find a comfortable distro among those (100's) offered then roll your own--and share it.

Try that with the alternatives
Everything in life was difficult before it became easy.
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Re: Why not base LMDE on Devuan?

Post by steveo314 »

Schultz wrote: Mon Apr 23, 2018 2:20 pm
sdibaja wrote:
it seems that Devuan is stuck. Latest release was for Jessie.
I wouldn't call that being "stuck." If that's the case, then LMDE is stuck also as it's also still "only" based on Jessie.
LMDE isn't stuck. You can change Jessie to Stretch and Betsy to Cindy in your repo list right now and upgrade.
DO NOT do this if you have MATE on your LMDE 2.
Last edited by steveo314 on Tue Jun 19, 2018 3:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Why not base LMDE on Devuan?

Post by sdibaja »

steveo314 wrote: Tue Jun 19, 2018 10:42 am
Schultz wrote: Mon Apr 23, 2018 2:20 pm
sdibaja wrote:
it seems that Devuan is stuck. Latest release was for Jessie.
I wouldn't call that being "stuck." If that's the case, then LMDE is stuck also as it's also still "only" based on Jessie.
LMDE isn't stuck. You can change Jessie to Stretch and Betsy to Cindy in your repo list right now and upgrade.
Stable Debian.
Interesting exercise.
I had tried that before, with less success...
So, with your report of success I made another fresh install, LMDE2 Mate, and tried it yet again.

To be polite the result is weird, buggy, odd. Feels broken... but I am accustomed to actual the Debain Mate Stretch (and Buster), perhaps Cinnamon would work better.
"system snapshots"? I guess that the Timeshift thingies.

oops, never mind. I forgot Mint does not do Mate anymore
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Re: Why not base LMDE on Devuan?

Post by steveo314 »

sdibaja wrote: Tue Jun 19, 2018 12:58 pm
steveo314 wrote: Tue Jun 19, 2018 10:42 am
Schultz wrote: Mon Apr 23, 2018 2:20 pm
I wouldn't call that being "stuck." If that's the case, then LMDE is stuck also as it's also still "only" based on Jessie.
LMDE isn't stuck. You can change Jessie to Stretch and Betsy to Cindy in your repo list right now and upgrade.
Stable Debian.
Interesting exercise.
I had tried that before, with less success...
So, with your report of success I made another fresh install, LMDE2 Mate, and tried it yet again.

To be polite the result is weird, buggy, odd. Feels broken... but I am accustomed to actual the Debain Mate Stretch (and Buster), perhaps Cinnamon would work better.
"system snapshots"? I guess that the Timeshift thingies.

oops, never mind. I forgot Mint does not do Mate anymore
Yes I forgot to mention that. Mate is a shady character. I used to be all about it. I prefer Gnome 2 over Gnome 3. But MATE is no Gnome 2. I just switched to Cinnamon over the last week after realizing MATE doesn't play nice on a lot of distros. I haven't had any issues so far with the upgrade to what will be LMDE 3 Cinnamon.
debian or bust
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Re: Why not base LMDE on Devuan?

Post by sdibaja »

"Mate is a shady character" funny
truth is that Ubuntu butchered their spin, then Mint compounded it.
it is only the Ubuntu and Mint versions that are borked.
Peter
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