Author: Simon Hobson Date: To: dng Subject: Re: [DNG] Brief OpenRC/Jessie Discussion on the linux-elitists lists
emninger@??? wrote:
> Please do not take my question wrong (probably i am missing something):
> If it's that way, how can devuan then rely on debian as for packages
> etc.? At least in a forseeable future ... ?
The thing is that Debian is already there, pretty well complete, and the majority of packages don't need fixing. I don't know how well you've followed some of the threads (and web pages linked to), but many of the problems are of the form : package A depends on package B, package B depends on package C, package C depends on ..., and package X depends on systemd - often in a very minor way. So indirectly Package A depends on SystemD, even though you might not be wanting to use any features of Package X that caused the dependency in the first place.
In this case, it's a matter of looking at Package X and determining what (if anything) it needs SystemD for and either removing the dependency or figuring out a way of providing the needed functions without using SystemD. Thus un-corrupting Package X allow Package A to be installed without modification. Of course, packages A, B, C etc may not be single packages, they might be whole suites of (say) desktop software - so fixing a small number of packages preventing the desktop environment installing could open up hundreds of packages with no direct dependency - and which don't need any "fixing" to be used.
As long as Devuan can survive the short term, over time it'll deviate more and more from Debian, and rely less and less on Debian packages. But in the short and medium term, it can use all those packages that are already there, already packaged, and that saves a lot of effort for what is currently a very small team with limited infrastructure.