Edited: 2018-03-06
As the previous site started out of the temporary need for Artix users to meet and exchange experiences, share solutions to problems, and now Artix is about to announce their official site, we have decided to move in the direction the site had taken anyway.
Antix is to Debian what Obarun is to Arch, and devuan is to debian what artix is to arch. Both projects/distributions seem to be very promising in concept and execution. We are sure Continue reading
In most cases there is not much to talk about. The vast majority is people seeking information on distributions that use init systems other than systemd. In most cases people end up looking through the list of distributions, occasional reading specific stories on a specific distribution or a general review. It is not very often out of the thousands of hits to get any feedback in what else people might be interested in that we can provide information on. But here is a search that breaks our monotony.
“fedora without systemd”
We don’t want to make fun of whoever was running the search, after all, it is a possible combination of variables across the open and free/non-free universe of linux and non-linux unix world. What would be impossible to search for would have been systemd without systemd. Even redhat without systemd is a possibility. Continue reading
Back a while ago while fighting the Devuan troll-monsters we dedicated this song/video to those that dare to raise their head and their voice to hierarchy enforcement.
In this case we dared ask the leading developer/maintainer for linux-ck, code named graysky, while struggling to leap from linux-4.16-16 to 4.17 whether he would leave the NSA’s proposed encryption module enabled, disabled, or write it off all together. At first he pretended he did not see the question, then he admitted that he did see it, chose not to answer, and then answered that he wasn’t going to alter the kernel. This is linux-ck, a hacked, modified, “optimized”, kernel for desktop users. Continue reading
After our previous week’s test of Alpine linux and the impression of its simplicity and high speed, we decided to give a group test on the Void linux with musl. We used the LXDE edition of the installation image and did a trial run on VirtualBox. It was a first shot try and success. We then started modifying and installing various packages to see if “any” would have any problems running on musl instead of glibc. Note that the musl repositories are specific to musl and separate, as far as we can tell, from the glibc repositories. Continue reading
Apline linux is all about small and KISS, simple and small. Unbelievably small for its functionality. Its ease of installing and running is like no other we have ever tried. It is aimed for people needing to build secure servers in virtual machines, clouds, etc. but it can serve as a desktop installation as well. OpenRC is there to start everything you need up and supervise services. Musl is a library replacing the huge usual glibc, and this alone is responsible for the small size and quickness.
While researching the development of consolekit and its fork, consolekit2, I run into a really interesting thread in the Arch forum. This was the beginning of Arch-OpenRC it seems and this is how the Arch hierarchy dealt with the inquiry and proposals. The very first thing they did was to hide the thread from search engines, visible only to registered users. Then they tried to push the guy in pursuit of this project to do what he wants elsewhere, not seek collaboration through the Arch forum. The guy is none other than @Artoo, the force behind the Manjaro-OpenRC project, and one of the people who last year founded Artix. Continue reading
Opinion poll: Preferred init software
It is time to really show that the non-systemd movement is not of negligible importance and people are going out of their way to avoid it, like the plague!
For a long while we have been blasted with the idea that “most” or “almost everyone” uses systemd, but there are no reliable data on the number of users, nor does such number conclude of what people use is what people like, or would rather use. Interestingly enough this weekly issue of Distrowatch’s editorial finds this poll and a top headline review of Devuan 2.0. Despite of MX linux being a systemd-free distro and climbing to top 10, or antix following close behind, Devuan receives priority by reviewers. Continue reading
It seems that “Speck” is a long term project to standardize encryption that goes around the internet. It seems as the NSA has been the primary force proposing what is “pretty good” encryption and what is not. It doesn’t take a genius to assume that only encryption that can be decrypted by the NSA can be proposed. So this set of new rules is making its way into your open and free software. It is in Linux 4.17, not on 4.16 or previous ones, and 4.17.1 was just announced as stable yesterday. Continue reading
