Hi there,

I have just discovered an article on Devuan in the German Wikipedia today:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devuan

While that article is more extensive than the one in the English
version, it has some serious flaws that should be addressed in one or
another way.

1.
The intro paragraph says:
"Erklärtes Ziel ist es, nicht den umstrittenen systemd-Dienst als
'init'-Prozess fest vorzugeben, sondern die Wahl des init-Prozesses dem
Anwender zu überlassen und ein möglichst breites Spektrum an
init-Systemen zu unterstützen wie es auch in Debian möglich ist.[2]"

That translates to: "The stated aim is not to prescribe the
controversial systemd service as the 'init' system, but leave the choice
of the init system to the user and to support a preferably wide range of
init systems like it is also possible in Debian.[2]"

Question: How does Debian support a wide range of init systems? Even the
claim that supporting a variety of init systems is possible with Debian
is at least a half-truth if you take into account what it takes to not
use systemd.

The source cited in the footnote is https://devuan.org/os/init-freedom.
That web page, however, doesn't state it as Devuan's aim to support a
preferably wide range of init systems, but rather to "restor[e] a sane
approach to PID1". And, of course, it doesn't claim Debian was able to
support a variety of init systems. It actually states the opposite, stating:
"While Debian claims that 'Systemd is becoming the de facto standard
init system for Linux', a number of GNU/Linux distributions, some new,
beg to differ. While Debian claims that 'It is better than existing
alternatives for all of Debian's current use cases', these rebel
GNU/Linux distributions refuse this one-size-fits-all vision of the *nix
world that breaks portability, ignores backwards compatibility, and
replaces existing services, forcing systemd into adoption."

The sentence that follows the one quoted above makes things even worse:
"Im Gegensatz zu Debian entfernt Devuan allerdings die Unterstützung für
systemd."

Translated: "But contrary to Debian, Devuan removes support for systemd."

To sum up: Devuan doesn't want to enforece systemd onto its users but
leave them a choice and support a variety of init systems. But that is
also possible with Debian. Only Devuan removes support for systemd.

That's not exactly right, is it?


2.
A few paragraphs later, the article claims that Devuan was also aiming
to "make it possible" to use systemd, provided its integration won't
collide with other init systems or create incompatibilities: "Auch
systemd soll ermöglicht werden, sofern die Integration ohne Kollision
mit anderen init-Systemen oder Inkompatibilitäten möglich ist.[2]"

What did that footnote point to again? Right,
https://devuan.org/os/init-freedom .

Now, that is an obvious mismatch.


3.
"Das in systemd integrierte udev wird durch gudev ersetzt."

"Udev, which has been integrated into systemd, is being replaced by gudev."

That was actually claimed by someone on pro-linux.de in December 2016
(http://www.pro-linux.de/news/1/24234/devuan-ver%C3%83%C2%B6ffentlicht-beta-2.html)
– for no discernable reason.


4.
"Die mit Langzeitunterstützung ausgestattete Distribution richtet sich
besonders an gewerbliche Anwender."

Roughly: "The long-term support release [jessie] is especially targeted
at commerical users."

I doubt that is true.


5.
Maybe someone should provide a screen shot of a Devuan Jessie desktop
with Xfce in place.



Best,

msi