The Linux Thread - The Autist's OS of Choice

[prollyanotherlurker]

I shed a tear for all the compilation time come and gone. Artix/Antix seem like they're the most robust and well maintained systemd-free distros around right now. Never used Arch myself but I'll be trying Artix out on a separate drive for ~2 weeks starting tomorrow. Antix is just debian de-niggered so I doubt there's too much to see there. The Artix chuddies sold me on trying'em out when they sprung up XLibre support within like a day of the drama starting. That, and their FAQ is pretty heckin' based:

View attachment 7494460

Edit: Turns out Artix does technically ship with elogind and dbus by default, but I'm thinking I just purge those and run seatd + DWM instead. Noooo, I will not use any systemd niggerware, Artoo stalker child! Enjoy systemdson.

are you going to get rid of udev, and I haven't seen anything specifically mentioning it. But I wouldn't be surprised if they are using systemd-tmpfiles also.

Either way, udev is still systemd software. And it's baked in enough, that you are going to need to put in some effort if you want to get rid of it.

In the past I've contemplated going completely systemd free. Looked into it. And you really aren't going to get rid of it all. And at this point, you are actually just losing functionality by doing it.

I hope one day, turnstile, seatd, some actual replacement for udev, and other options come along that allow an actual choice. But for now, the choice is only superficial. You can change the actual init. But you aren't completely getting rid of it.

The other problem is. As much as I hate systemd, mostly because of the people that made it, they way it was forced on linux. It gained mass adoption for a very important reason. It solved problems. Did things better than the options before it. Allowed faster boot times, handled services better, with restarting failed ones, starting them on demand, hotplugging, took advantage of cgroups. And made doing all of that fairly easy for the end user.

If at the time, a proper competitor had been there, things would be different. There are alternatives we have now, that I like. Most I would only recommend for advanced users though.

 

[HildegardOrgonAkkumulator]

This could be a schizopost, tbf. I mean didn't the maintainer of this project have some spat with Louis Rossman where he acted like a complete paranoid scizhophrenic?

He may be a shizo but considering all the upstream-contributions in many major projects he and others in the group makes (GrapheneOS includes features that couldn't be upstreamed), it must be legit.
GrapheneOS has earlier releases because they have privileged access to relevant Google-repos as an example (if Daniel didn't burn enough bridges yet).

 

[prollyanotherlurker]

yeah. they are saying they aren't 100% sure it's going to happen.

Will just have to wait, and see how things go. I'm sure some form of open source android is going to continue. Something this big, will absolutely get forked. That's even if they do end up trying to close source things. At this point it's really just speculation though.

I wouldn't stress over it. Mostly because it's kind of retarded to stress over something outside of your control, that you don't even know is going to happen. (just general life advice there)

 

[HildegardOrgonAkkumulator]

Antix is just debian de-niggered

Isn't that what Devuan should be?

 

[⠠⠠⠅⠑⠋⠋⠁⠇⠎ ⠠⠠⠊⠎ ⠠⠠⠁ ⠠⠠⠋⠁⠛]

Either way, udev is still systemd software. And it's baked in enough, that you are going to need to put in some effort if you want to get rid of it.

udev is not systemd. It was stolen, it was abducted by systemd. Poettring deserves death for that alone.

 

[Another Char Clone]

are you going to get rid of udev, and I haven't seen anything specifically mentioning it. But I wouldn't be surprised if they are using systemd-tmpfiles also.

Gentoo extracted it:

~ # equery u systemd-utils
[ Legend : U - final flag setting for installation]
[        : I - package is installed with flag     ]
[ Colors : set, unset                             ]
 * Found these USE flags for sys-apps/systemd-utils-255.18:
 U I
 + + abi_x86_32                      : 32-bit (x86) libraries
 + + acl                             : Add support for Access Control Lists
 + + boot                            : Enable systemd-boot (UEFI boot manager)
 + + kernel-install                  : Enable kernel-install
 + + kmod                            : Enable kernel module loading via sys-apps/kmod
 - - python_single_target_python3_11 : Build for Python 3.11 only
 - - python_single_target_python3_12 : Build for Python 3.12 only
 + + python_single_target_python3_13 : Build for Python 3.13 only
 - - secureboot                      : Automatically sign efi executables using user specified key
 - - sysusers                        : Enable systemd-sysusers
 - - test                            : Enable dependencies and/or preparations necessary to run tests (usually controlled by FEATURES=test but can be toggled independently)
 + + tmpfiles                        : Enable systemd-tmpfiles
 + + udev                            : Enable systemd-udev (userspace device manager)
 + + ukify                           : Enable systemd-ukify

 

[Slav Power]

If Poetteringware that was PulseAudio was superseded by PipeWire on the merits of PipeWire being better, the same could happen with systemd. All you have to do is to write a coherent and standardized set of OS modules that won't have to force developers to deal with five billion edge cases because someone used one of five different available packages for each dependency that are incompatible with each other.

You know, the reason why something as shit as systemd got adopted in the first place. As shit as it is, it's the closest thing to standardization that you have on Linux, and you need standardization if you want developers to bother writing software for your OS, which is what makes or breaks an OS. Much like with consoles, if it has no games, it's not worth shit.

 

[Akerman]

Antix is just debian de-niggered so I doubt there's too much to see there.

I hadn't heard anything about that distro so I looked it up, and wtf:

(src)
Yeah, something tells me they won't ship XLibre.
By image and branding alone it might be the worst offender of this type of shit I have seen in Linux. Once again I am reminded of "Burgers?"



Also, what the hell is this old dude wearing?

 

[analrapist]

Also, what the hell is this old dude wearing?

XXL women's clothing, probably, but his shoulders are so much broader than women's that it looks even worse on him than a woman who would be so unfortunate as to have shoulders that wide.

 

[Ferryman]

Either way, udev is still systemd software. And it's baked in enough, that you are going to need to put in some effort if you want to get rid of it.

I'm already committed to the 100% systemd free rig that I am willing to put in the extra work to make it happen. Pretty sure one of the chuddies actually already has an alternative semi flushed out via mudev + libudev-zero for udev replacement, and I've looked at tmpfiles, it is genuinely a very simple and minimal script program that looks easy enough to rewrite by hand, which this dude seems to have already done. Just a bunch of chmod, chown, mkdir and cronjobs by the looks of it. Might make for a fun little project actually. ConsoleKit2 is also an option.

The browsers are the hardest GTK dependency that people tend to have installed. I really hope de-GNOME becomes a think just like de-Google and Firefox gets the treatment. It's just the browser's interface and file picker mostly, surely it can't be that hard?

I think the wick is still burning, its been less than a week since Enrico parted the Red(hat) Sea so there's a non zero chance more people start to realize how invasive they are being with Gnome, Wayland and Systemd in general. Qutebrowser is pretty minimalistic and has no GTK dependencies as far as I can tell, if you are willing to step away from the Firefox vs Chromium binary anyway. Better still, it requires no connection to dbus at runtime, so that's that sorted straight up.

Gentoo extracted it:

Would it be more viable to try and run Gentoo with extremely restrictive USE flags that completely disable anything and everything systemd? OpenRC fetches like half the systemd tree for dependency resolution straight up, but perhaps through restricting it significantly, you can straight up prevent it from pulling them back in once purged? Or just do

``` USE ="-systemd -dbus -elogind -tmpfiles -ukify -systemd-boot -sysusers" emerge world ```

Shame their s6 version is unsupported. Although I have time to tinker now during the summer lull, I will absolutely need a robust system come fall, so I am considering other alternatives that might not make me have to constantly battle my own system. 99% of my workflow is CLI based so requirements aren't huge. Right now, the alternative choices are:

• Antix - WAY more anti-systemd than even Chudix while still allowing for rolling-esque releases through Debian testing, but I plan on compiling 99% of my shit from source so who cares; as far as I can tell, these guys take the whole "anti systemd" thing the most seriously. Also has the benefit of being by far the most popular distro out of the other ones mentioned here.
• PCLinuxOS - barely heard of this one until I saw it popping up in fetch threads recently, just clip DBUS and its golden. Its also somewhat popular, so that's always good.
• Obarun - Artix if it actually wanted 100% no systemd purity. I legitimately can't find any fault in it other than being a little bit more obscure.
• Source Mage - meme, but casting spells 'n shit sounds fun. Guess I can always compile every single dependency & line of code from source.
• Open / FreeBSD - FreeBSD seems like the best, OpenBSD as the runner up. Haven't done much research on these, will look into it today. Given the discussion we had about it earlier in this thread, I am strongly considering just switching to BSDs until a viable alternative comes up.

Obviously these all have their own motivations and politics, but I am willing to turn a blind eye to politics (to an extent) if it the team behind the project has proven to be reliable, of high quality, and uncomromising in its philosophy, whatever it may be. That is why, despite showing "Free Roachistine" and a disgusting tankie on their page, I'm even willing to give Antix its fair shake if my "TRVLY 0 SYSTEMD" Artix rig doesn't work out.

 

[Akerman]

Obviously these all have their own motivations and politics, but I am willing to turn a blind eye to politics (to an extent) if it the team behind the project has proven to be reliable, of high quality, and uncomromising in its philosophy, whatever it may be. That is why, despite showing "Free Roachistine" and a disgusting tankie on their page, I'm even willing to give Antix its fair shake if my "TRVLY 0 SYSTEMD" Artix rig doesn't work out.

You have to ignore pozzed politics in general when using Linux yeah, it sadly comes with the territory. Having said that, Antix is just way too much for me. An antifa distro with a Palestine flag for a logo? I'll pass. It's not just due to aesthetics, actitard tranny code is notoriously bad because the focus is elsewhere and endless drama turns off otherwise valuable work. This is why XLibre is right to ban all culture war posting from any direction, the project needs to only be about the project and it's goals in order to attract the most contribution.

Honestly if you go this route it may be best to either fork yourself so you have a better understanding of what you are taking out and how your system works, or build something up from scratch. A lot of work, yes, but you can always pilfer from work done already on this front. Find where the holes are, fill them in as best you can. In the end you will have a system you know intimately which is useful when shit inevitably cocks up due to systemd dependency.

EDIT: Joborun from the blog you shared earlier seems to align with your goals, unless you already considered it and rejected it.

 

[YoRHa No. 2 Type B]

The browsers are the hardest GTK dependency that people tend to have installed.

I looked at this in the past, and your alternatives are pretty crap.
You can use the KDE browsers Falkon or Konqueror, they run using Chromium these days (qtwebengine) which works fine for the modern web but last time I looked they had no extensions support, which was a deal breaker.
Falkon does come with an adblocker and userscript manager out of the box at least, so its not totally unusable. Can't remember if Konqueror did.
A shame too since they are both really nice browsers. Falkon is super quick, lightweight and has no telemetry, if it somehow got support for Chromium extensions I would switch instantly. Konqueror is a bit more clunky and old school but some may prefer it.

Vivaldi in Gentoo has use flags to remove GTK support in favour of Qt, which seems strange to me as its proprietary software only shipped as binaries.
No other distribution or Chromium browser seems to have this option available unfortunately, which is a shame as the Qt version runs way better under KDE with far less bugs.

Pretty much every other application you can think of has a valid Qt/KDE replacement you can switch to, so its not too difficult to stop using GTK programs.
The main issue is if you don't like KDE, there's basically no alternate for Qt desktops, LXQt is basically KDE Lite these days.
Everything else is using GTK shitware and should be avoided, unless you go super minimal with a basic window manager (either tiling or floating works).

 

[Ferryman]

sic

EDIT: Joborun from the blog you shared earlier seems to align with your goals, unless you already considered it and rejected it.

My bad for not including it in the list, Joborun is definitely in the running. What irks me about it isn't the philosophy, they're on point in that regard, but the fact that they're the downstream of a downstream with a 2 man active dev team. It is source-based, which is good, but the chain of dependencies leaves me somewhat skeptical. Obarun is one degree up, and has me leaning slightly more in its favor. Also yes, Antix is a little heavy handed with their political autism, it is what it is.

Honestly, at this rate, I am seriously considering trying Open/FreeBSD instead. It should have everything I need, and I have heard very good things about hosting VMs with bhyve or qemu. FreeBSD is getting its 15.0 release this year anyway, so the timing is certainly not bad for a little switcheroo.

 

[Miller]

Were the anti-systemd conspiratards right all along?

Always.

I hadn't heard anything about that distro so I looked it up, and wtf:
View attachment 7496347
(src)
Yeah, something tells me they won't ship XLibre.
By image and branding alone it might be the worst offender of this type of shit I have seen in Linux. Once again I am reminded of "Burgers?"

View attachment 7496760

Also, what the hell is this old dude wearing?

Yeah, Antix is the antifa distro.

 

[Trans Fat 41g]

It seems anything that can be daily driven had been infiltrated by freaks. The moment Wayland requires more systemd (you know it will at some point), the principle would override everything else and AntiX will have to embrace XLibre.

 

[triforce9001]

I've never tried wayland. Why would I? I have zero issues with Xorg.

 

[Rust Troony]

I've never tried wayland. Why would I? I have zero issues with Xorg.

The only actual usecase for normal users of wayland is non-hacky multimonitor support and now also HDR. Outside of that wayland has no advantage, only disadvantages.

 

[Slav Power]

Vivaldi in Gentoo has use flags to remove GTK support in favour of Qt, which seems strange to me as its proprietary software only shipped as binaries.

It is open source to an extent. The tarballs for their Chromium fork get released every major update, but I don't believe it gets updated whenever the minor updates roll around, so there is some degree to which you could recompile Vivaldi.

Also, Vivaldi is arguably the best Chromium based browser on the market that isn't some direct Chromium fork like Ungoogled Chromium or Thorium. So much so that it pains me there isn't an equivalent Firefox fork given how Manifest v2 extensions will inevitably stop working in Vivaldi.

 

[volatile puar]

It is open source to an extent. The tarballs for their Chromium fork get released every major update, but I don't believe it gets updated whenever the minor updates roll around, so there is some degree to which you could recompile Vivaldi.

Also, Vivaldi is arguably the best Chromium based browser on the market that isn't some direct Chromium fork like Ungoogled Chromium or Thorium. So much so that it pains me there isn't an equivalent Firefox fork given how Manifest v2 extensions will inevitably stop working in Vivaldi.

Vivaldi is "partly open source" because they're afraid they will be outcompeted if they publish their UI features. In reality, doing this only hurts their potential userbase, since many of the people who would want to use something like Vivaldi care about free software, and in fact some distros recently dropped Firefox in favor of a modified version of Brave, because Firefox is spyware now and modifying Brave was the best option. If Vivaldi was FLOSS, that probably be a superior option for these distros. There is a Vivaldi-like Gecko browser called Floorp, you can use that if you like, but Gecko is dying and it will only get worse and worse at rendering the evolving web. The only difference that manifest v3 makes is for adblocking, but Brave and Vivaldi develop their own built-in adblockers that apparently work pretty well, and because they aren't extensions they aren't affected by the limitations of manifest v3, although they don't give you the same power as Ublock. If your concern is that you use old extensions that you don't expect to be updated to manifest v3, try looking for new versions.

 

[Betonhaus]

The only actual usecase for normal users of wayland is non-hacky multimonitor support and now also HDR. Outside of that wayland has no advantage, only disadvantages.

HDR support doesn't sound too hard to pull off, but how is the multi monitor thing hacky? And how hard would it be to fix,