Devuan 5.0: 1 Second Slower, But Why?

[@_sneer_]

I installed a previous version of Devuan on my low-end laptop (Celeron N4020, 4GB RAM) just to see what all the fuss was about. I am not a fan of systemd, as it seems to me like it’s trying to become "SystemdOS." However, I have used it when I had RHEL, Fedora, or Mint on my main machine. Anyway, on that low-end laptop, Devuan (now version 5) boots and shuts down much faster than Debian 12, and the battery life seems much better. So, I’m getting Debian’s stability, ease of package installation and easy upgrades with better control, a snappier experience, and absolutely zero problems over the last couple of years. For me, it's just a better version of Debian.

[@GCI1191]

It's the real Debian. :)

[@_sneer_]

@@GCI1191 yeah, or a Debian as it should be

[@marksulloway5669]

Nice overview. Thank you.

[@samglaim4274]

Many thanks for the video. As always, really interesting stuff. Cheers

[@GCI1191]

To me, Devuan feels like the real, original Debian. The SystemD based OSes don't really feel or behave like Unix. They're complex and increasingly so, while Unix encourages simplicity and configurability through clarity. I use Devuan and Free/OpenBSD when I can, while still loving good ol' Slackware.

[@fromthesouthofafrica6815]

Is current Devuan worse or better than Debian today.

[@GCI1191]

@@fromthesouthofafrica6815 Certainly not worse. It's either the same or better depending on your needs.

[@allrightythen7557]

I really appreciate your knowledge and clear explanations. Thank you. You are a breath of fresh air.

[@ericjbowman1708]

I'm multi-booting Devuan, Parrot sec, Bodhi, GhostBSD, and Tribblix on multiple systems, working out UEFI boot (esp. on hardware w/o rs-232 or ps/2 ports) and kernel loading. I'm using a Tribblix "blank zone" (which only provides the init process) and rc.x scripts to develop my own illumos distro, which will implement SMF (search illumos man smf) as a next step. This allows me flexibility in determining which services start in what order with which dependencies in the traditional fashion, before creating the XML service description files. Then I can package as SVR4 (not ipkg fan). So I'm working from both ends in towards the middle, lol. My point is, SMF should be included in discussions of systemd vs. the various rc.x implementations. Pros and cons to each, but I really don't care for systemd, preferring to have separate modules for things like DNS resolver, instead of built-ins which must not be deviated from. And, I like using XML tools to validate service config files, ymmv.

[@savagepro9060]

So captivating, I didn't even have time to come with my usual troll joke! Wow! I'll think of one later!

[@leeh.1900]

Cool video DJ...and I like how you silenced your keyboard at login. Thanks!

[@SIackware]

Excellent OPSEC for sure

[@Yxcell]

Except for that one time with sudo at 20:24 :/

[@agstar5837]

I'm conflicted because from Slackware to Void on runit i see the performance of the traditional Linux philosophy and yet when I see the new shiny that the cool kids do with their containers and systemd boot I see the convenience and excitement too but when i need some Devuan the PeppermintOS version is my fav

[@vincei4252]

Liked and shared. systemd .... grrrrr.

[@brian-iv4nx]

**If only** there was a generally-accepted *set of standards* for how an Init system should behave, what interfaces it should have etc, in the way that we have the POSIX standard or the FreeDesktop standard. The trouble is systemd doing "whatever it wants," which makes it possible for packages to have a hard dependency on systemd. Although I'm sure that even if we had such a standard there would be deviations from it, like how we all have to deal with GNU-isms in the coreutils and glibc when we port software or scripts from GNU/Linux to other *nixes, etc

[@AlgoFodder]

"Debian was the last holdout amongst all the distributions" - I think Slackware might have a word on that.. Or maybe you don't count it as a distro because it lacks dependency handholding? At least it gives you enough rope! (another core Unix tenet iirc lol)

[@lollycopter]

"Debian was the last holdout amongst all the current big/main/popular distributions" would probably be a more accurate statement.

[@khronosschoty]

I would argue Gentoo gives you the option for SystemD but its not really a systemD distro -- but yes Slackware has not adopted it, and there are other distro's that have not.

[@lenwhatever4187]

upstart and systemd both come from rotating disk days. SSD makes a difference too. If one thinks 140%-ish startup time when the boot is 20 seconds, 30 seconds starts to be slow.... I remember boots that were in the minutes. So perhaps SSD drives have removed some of the reason for systemd..... except for compatablility

[@khronosschoty]

How can you say Debian was the last hold out, when there are distro's that never switched?

[@lollycopter]

As a "I Have No Idea What I'm Doing" user, the reality is that when I'm trying to troubleshoot something, chances are that the solutions I find via search will cater to systemd. Meanwhile, what I don't quite grasp is: why Devuan instead of antiX or FreeBSD? Wouldn't the latter two fit better into the overall Unix philosophy?

[@boxerfencer]

People use Devian because they dont want to jump ship to a distro with a different developmental model, philosophy, or community with different values or ethics or software technology.

[@Alphadec]

what sort of keyboard do you use. ?

[@CyberGizmo]

Its a Keychron K2 84-key blue switch keyboard

[@Techonsapevole]

I think Chimera Linux is a better approch, systemd is too much, but also sysv was outdated.. so everyone has to balance the tradeoffs

[@thehady1]

@@Techonsapevole what does chimera use or what is its 'better approach'

[@boxerfencer]

For the moment they use a watered down form of systemd ​@@thehady1

[@mutilatedsoy]

​@@thehady1 It uses dinit and instead of gnu utils it uses musl

[@antonioarias2130]

The difference in boot time is not 1.07 seconds but 0.93 seconds.

[@CyberGizmo]

for one run yes...1.07 was the average from multiple runs. Sorry to burst your correction bubble.

[@JohnnieWalkerGreen]

I understand sysvinit does not handle concurrency and abortion/restart very well. Meanwhile, systemd is too centralized. But, as long systemd handles the job well, why bother?

[@hiYouareaclown]

systemd is inspired by launchd of macos. It not only starts in parallel, but also provides detailed supervision of running processes. This is not possible with sysvinit. I replaced grub with systemd-boot under debian. It is really very quick