On Sat, 30 Dec 2023 18:07:13 -0500
Steve Litt <slitt@???> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I'm going to state an unpopular opinion after seeing several threads
> about Devuan's dropping of sysvinit init scripts...
>
> It's not the end of the world. I know a lot of you are saying "this
> stevelitt guy has a love affair with runit and can't see the forest
> through the trees", but I still maintain that the way forward, and it's
> easy, is using a sysvinit PID1 with a runit process supervisor.
> Seriously, the end of sysvinit init scripts is no threat to Devuan, at
> least in my opinion.
>
> If Devuan switched over to the runit process supervisor tomorrow, these
> mythical "I am not a programmer" people, who seem to have been the
> justification for keeping sysvinit to the very bitter end, wouldn't
> even notice. They'd just have to use the sv command instead of whatever
> sysvinit uses to start, stop and restart daemons. Well, sv is easier. I
> know this because I exclusively used sysvinit 1998-2005 or thereabouts,
> before Upstart and Daemontools.
>
> The next issue is "but we don't have enough Devuan Developers to write
> all the run scripts!" You don't have to: It's been done for us already,
> by Gerrit Pape (http://smarden.org/runit/runscripts.html) and by the
> Void Linux project.
>
> At this point of the discussion somebody stands up and says "but we
> can't get the daemon authors or their maintainers to write runit run
> scripts!" This is true, but it implies the false choice that the only
> way to get daemons to run is for the daemon to come with its own run
> script. Well, that's not the only way, it's not the best way, and it's
> not even a good way. People who understand runit should be the people
> curating the run script collection, and given that you can pick up run
> scripts like fallen fruit from Gerrit Pape and Void Linux, this is no
> challenge at all.
>
> I use Void Linux on a daily basis, so if anybody wants a run script for
> a particular daemon, I'll be glad to install that daemon and send you
> the runit and finish scripts and the logging run script if applicable.
> All I ask is that something be set up so I don't need to keep sending
> the same scripts over and over again: This stuff should be curated.

Doesn't this break the concept of package management?
The problem is not the system you, me or the other list
members will be using if systemd sabotage succeds,
the problem is that if the cure breaks the deb file package management,
devuan will not be a viable solution (like debian is/was) for common
people, if devuan loses the coherence of its package management
system people could use any other linux distribution or *bsd system
because we loose what is one of the main advantages over
MS systems: easy program installation with *all* needed
dependencies and easy full-system updates and upgrades.


> I'm not writing this email to start trouble. I would never do that to
> Devuan. I'm writing this because, on this mailing list, lately I've seen
> a lot of doom and gloom posts of people thinking of bailing from Devuan
> because of this sysvinit init script thing. Well I'm here to tell you
> that Debian's sabotage of removing init scripts is the weakest
> imaginable sabotage: Devuan has a perfectly doable and frankly easy way
> forward: sysvinit PID1 plus runit process supervisor.

It is not doom, it is wrath at the idea that I need to learn the quirks of a
different linux distribution and move all my boxes to it....

> Devuan's too good a project to give up on just because init scripts
> become unavailable.

Yes it is.

> SteveT
>
> Steve Litt
>
> Autumn 2023 featured book: Rapid Learning for the 21st Century
> http://www.troubleshooters.com/rl21
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