Since we are getting into other stuff, I am starting a new thread. Maybe it 
should be two threads? 

> On 04/21/2018 04:13 PM, William Morder wrote:

> > I stand at the brink of Devuan, not quite ready to take the plunge myself, 
> > yet
> > share in your dislike of systemd and how Debian is inching into a rule of 
> the
> > few over the many. And I fear that it will soon drift into the same kind > 
> > of
> > crap that ruined Kubuntu (and the whole Ubuntu family) for me. There are > 
> > just
> > one or two refinements I want to make in my current system (so that I can
> > find my way back when I get into a mess).


> I'm sorry to hear you have systemd installed and you're not happy with 
> it, if I knew what version you are using I could make a suggestion, I 
> run all LTS versions or Debian and Ubuntu and now Devuan too.  For  hard 
> drive management I use Wheezy and Jessie, for multimedia I use the 
> latest.  
For the most part my system runs pretty well, except for hanging when I try to 
reboot (as explained below). 

What I would really like is to get VLC working right again. It was always the 
best all-round multimedia player, and now it crashes every time I open it. I 
searched round for solutions, and all I've found so far are suggestions to go 
back to the Wheezy repositories for older versions of VLC. Yet another user 
here in the Trinity group had the same problems with VLC, and he was already 
using Wheezy. I don't know what the problem is, but there is another great 
piece of software ruined. 

> Currently I'm looking at keeping some older systems around by  
> rolling my own kernels.  There's always options.  And slicing off 
> another partition for a new install is another option.

I run Debian Jessie, and systemd seems to cause the system to hang in 
particular when I reboot. I always see that systemd is doing something, and 
cannot shut down. I created a kind of script to kill running programs, and 
this has pretty much solved the problem, but I still feel that my current 
Debian system does not run quite as smoothly as my older systems used to run. 

All in good time, though. I rarely have incidents any more which cause me to 
scream, pull out my hair, and call down curses upon the heads of the devs. 

> As for Ubuntu, they have messed up big-time and now they are on my list 
> of things I don't want to do anymore and now Microsoft won't be lonely 
> any more. :)

It's never lonely at the bottom. 

> > The icon is nice, but I would recommend that all Devuan branding 
> > distinguish 
> > itself from Debian by making the spiral go round widdershins: that is,
> > counter-clockwise. Then it would be perfect.

> I hear you, it was just something I slapped together.

No problem, it was just a suggestion. If Debian do not complain, then there is 
no obligation to change it. But since Devuan is a fork of Debian, and thus 
technically "different" from it, I thought it might be wise to think ahead. 

One could also say, for example, that TDE *is* really just KDE, but I believe 
some people out there will object. Likewise, you could say that Icecat *is* 
really just Iceweasel, which is really just Firefox. You could even say that 
*rock-n-roll* is really just *the blues* + *country music*. 

I do recognize that all categories are, to some degree, arbitrary and 
influenced by personal biases, etc. They can also be useful, however, to 
indicate that (for example) Devuan has struck out in a slightly different 
direction, which in my opinion is truer to Debian's mission than Debian 
itself currently operates. 

> You do know that Devuan IS Debian don't you?  The only changes made 
> effect systemd and the packages needed so you can install the desktop of 
> choice, like udev and libpam, really just a hand full of packages are 
> changed. I'm running Devuan from Debian's Sid to Jessie, in other words 
> Devuan Jessie, ASCII, Beowulf and Ceres and Trinity is a clean install 
> on them all with no real problem, All around Devuan Jessie is the best!

Yes, but the only practical way for me to get Devuan is to install Debian 
first, then migrate to Devuan. I have tried to install from the Devuan live 
DVD, and it wants to overwrite my home folder, with no other option. I have a 
backup, of course, but this does not seem quite right. 

I have found instructions for migrating from Debian to Devuan, without the 
necessity of reinstalling my system, so that is my plan. However, I have yet 
a couple loose ends to tie up, so that I can revert to my working system if 
necessary, when I will inevitably mess up something due to experimentation. 

Also, I have other responsibilities, various little jobs, and other things 
that I must do, as there is a life outside computers, and a whole world 
waiting to be explored just outside my door; or so I hear. 

> Bill just take away one thing from this post: If it's not fun don't do it.

I wish somebody had told me this back when I was in grad school. 

> Cheers!
> -- 
> Jimmy Johnson

> Devuan ASCII - TDE Trinity R14.0.5 - AMD A8-7600 - EXT4 at sda6
> Registered Linux User #380263