New blood, new linux distributions without systemd

Two new distributions (Sulinox and Split Linux) to keep an eye on were added on our 2 lists of systemd without systemd.  The early first list of all systems we know without systemd (including BSD varieties) and our more detailed list of 66 linux distributions without systemd.

The first is called Sulinox, an independent linux distribution, built on glibc with OpenRC as init, a base software available on repositories with a few varieties of desktops, and elogind present, available for X86_64 architectures.  The distribution is aimed at expert users who know and like to build packages from source.  To do so in a more organized way and maintain system integrity Sulinox has developed their own package manager called inary.  For those of you who like to keep an eye on the source repository of a distribution and follow development in detail we warn you that comments are in Turkish, although the rest of the documentation for the distro and the package manager is written in English.

2 How to remove systemd from Debian Buster

As mentioned in the proposed topics of July2nd2020 this is article 2 from that list.

This came from a community member as a proposed topic.

How to remove systemd from Debian Buster

older-pig:  A guide for removing systemd from Debian Buster and fixes for some issues which may occur because of that
https://gitlab.com/older-pig/buster-nosystemd

5 Does the “typical linux user” have anything to gain over traditional scripts?

This is article 5 from the latest proposed list of topics

Probably the most valuable content this community has produced was condemned by immaturity and lack of organization (on our part) to set the parameters of the procedure within which a productive debate can occur.

One of the reasons people without bosses, authoritarian structures, fail to organize and formulate their own power structures is because they have been conditioned to be vicious aformalists (anti or non formalists in terms of organizational tendency).  Individuals born and raised within this patriarchal system of authority can only behave like spoiled children all their life.  Sorry cynwulf1 and mobinmob, but you used and abused your expertise to block all other possible participants and concentrated on your own duel of expertise competition.

The content of your expert testimonies may be of value, but next time something like this happens fungalnet is not going to be here and be nice, you will be moderated and either respect an open process discussion or you can take your dialogs somewhere else.  Imagine if in a Union meeting two characters, with very accute and experienced authoritative voices,  converted the meeting into a dialog where everyone else was forced to be quiet and listen,  Two people from within an amphitheater, can dominate nad hijack all discussion to what they think the object of the meeting is.  Not here, not again!

Fungalnet failed to set the rules of a debate, it occured in a totally unrelated subject, fungalnet let it go on, you both ignored fungalnet trying to present the case of “the average linux user”, and now the question still remains open.  Neither of you, consumed in your own expert testimony, were able to convince (we believe) for either or.

The question remains,  should we “average linux users” (who may use a workstation for editing text, browsing the net, manipulating images, video, or audio, or who may be an average linux admin hosting a home or small office network of file, mail, firewall, backup, print, and other servers).  Are scripts as found in Antix or Open/Free{BSD}, enough, or are supervision suites such as those of Void, Obarun, Adelie, Spark, Artix, a benefit to users?

Coming up next the new sysdfree resurrection

Just so when “some” were happy this is done and over with, POP goes the sysdfree community project again.  From now on, we will have a summary article of what is coming up next, and a series of articles discussing in detail the most worthy or note-worthy topics of interest.  Since  YOU haven’t been contributiong much to the community, it will be OUR topics of interest.

Why did we vanish for a little while?  After all this closure and prohibition to end the covid diaspora we have been burning some skinny road bike tires enjoying the end of spring and the starrt of a very HOT summer.  So now that it is getting hot, we will stay indoors again enough to write something up.  Yeeahhheee!!!! Or is it Yaaayyyy….!!!

1  Devuan:  Boring new stable release a year later  (you wanted an article .. go find one elsewhere).

2  Debian:  Script that runs and removes systemd and installs sysvinit and reboots to a systemd init free system.

3  Adelie (and Alpine) free and non-free independent repository

4  Black Artix, as if Artix wasn’t shady enough

5  Adequacy of traditions scripts (sysV or BSD inits) necessity of supervision suites (s6, 66, synit, minit, perp) or other alternatives such as OpenRC.

6  Split Linux, based on Void, security, anonymity, real firewalling, and more ….

7  Enough with supervising dry-cut monolythic services, the future is in modules (modular services and bundles of services).  If systemd was already burried and done with, this builds a pyramid on top, just so nobody will ever dear to open the mummy’s coffin.

8  Live streaming with Terry Barentsen on 2 wheels, no gas or dirty coal electric motors!

9  Kiss gets a new package manager

10  The shit (green energy environmental disaster) has to stop.  A documentary about the end of the planet’s ecosystem and who are the deceiving actors causing it.  It may be the most revealing 100′ of your life, or at least your recent world perception.

11  A song for our own resurrection:

            __________   –  “*”  –   __________

Everybody knows that the employer takes all the moral responsibility …

… the employee is just doing “his job”, and if he doesn’t do it someone else will.  Were you as tired of listening to such excuses when your colleagues were asked whether they were willing to work for the “defense industry” or surveillance agencies?  Everyone has heard this one time or another as an excuse, “I am just doing the job I am paid to do”, but rarely do we hear from those who turned the offer down.  Those who are not rich by any means, and not have high executive positions in larger organizations, and were fully capable to do much more, but not willing to violate their own principles.

WARNING:  This has everything to do with open/free software, linux, init systems, and “choices” people make.

Huawei attempts to submit a backdoor patch to Linux kernel

“The kernel protection tool was supposed to introduce a series of security-hardening options to the Linux kernel. However, on inspection, the patch was found to introduce a backdoor to the Linux kernel project. “

https://androidrookies.com/huawei-dev-team-sends-a-buggy-hksp-patch-with-backdoor-to-linux-foundation/

Luke, don’t follow the Force blindly, you dumb shit! freenode – Irc – trap

32 years of irc, same trap, same practice, higher motives.  Talk on bitnet was safer and email can be safe, but chatrooms and forums is asking for trouble.

Assumptions:  You use linux or other unix, you install binary packages, you have questions that need immediate answers.

Question1:  where do you go?   How do you get there

Answer1:  where the distro you use lists (web site) as places of contact

If it says Irc, freenode (owned by a London Stock Exchange “security technologies” corporation) channel #..name..of…distro…  channel, then ask.

Question 3:  What do you use to get to freenode irc server?

Answer:  I am Luke, the intergalactic dumb shit, I do what they tell me.  I look at the repository, there might be hexchat or polari or irssi or more, it doesn’t matter, I download and install the most “popular” software, run it, enter the server, go to the room, ask my question, get my answer, go about my business.  No biggie!

Last word by fungalnet here on May 9th 2020

Fungalnet, over and out!

May 9th is a big day, for me because my wonderful daughter was born, and also for the entire world, because the Red Army finally made it to the target and ended the miserable war the German nazis had begun.  It is a day of hope and a day of glory.  So never forget May 9th!

I wish that would have been the end of fascism, but fascism will not die alone, you have to squash it!

Mabox – Manjaro + OpenBOX – new distribution

Since dealing with non-systemd distributions, apart from Obarun and Antix, has become a bit disappointing lately, or boring, either or both, to take a change of environment I picked something NEW.  It is called Mabox Linux and it is based on Manjaro, it uses Openbox and LightDM, as gui base, and displays many tricks in converting a minimal window manager (WM) into a full desktop of your own.  Mabox is not just an alternative setup for a standard Manjaro system, it has its own repository, packages, and includes a harmonious wide variety of software and software environments (flatpak, snap,..).  Its website is pretty nice and is available in English and Polish.

firefox-esr and Arch-Linux, masters of disasters – Mozilla Inc.

_package() {
pkgdesc=”$2 language pack for Firefox ESR”
depends=(“firefox-esr>=$pkgver”)
install -Dm644 firefox-esr-i18n-$pkgver-$1.xpi \
“$pkgdir/usr/lib/firefox/browser/extensions/langpack-$1@firefox.mozilla.org.xpi”

The above is a piece off of a late language pack for Firefox-ESR PKGBUILT

For whatever reasons Arch dropped official support for firefox-esr (mozilla’s development seems to have a growing crowd of rejecting their trending prostitution to corporate preferences, more people tend to go back to -esr versions, and Arch caters to all BIG CORPORATE preferences and tastes), but it is not our business what they do with their repositories.

Automatically, it seems, “someone” (DCT MEI and Manuel Kauschinger ), adopted those packages in AUR and as you may know each firefox product comes with a zillion language packs.  Only the binary package in AUR is called firefox-esr-bin, the dependency of each language pack is for firefox-esr, which doesn’t exist in community or aur.  You can force install it (-dd) or you can edit the pkgbuilt and edit the line above “depends=(“firefox-esr-bin”>$pkgver”) and then build it.

Void vs the XBPS owner vs a toilet wiping Blogger

Mark 24th of April 2020 as another sad day for Linux without systemd.  Void is undergoing yet another crisis.  They might as well rename the project Drama Queen OS, or they may all be old 1968 activists drawing attention by theatricals and shocking the community to advertise their existence (there are always users out listening to stories asking “what the hell is Void?”).  The story is definitely worth everyone’s attention, or at least everyone who may be thinking some time in the future to contribute and join an open/free software project.  How should or shouldn’t such projects run.  This is the case study of DramaQueenOS (aka Void Linux).

You may ask, don’t you have anything more positive to write about but after a month sysdfree comes out with another article of negativity?  It is called critical thinking, you should look it up.  Adelie is still not officially stable (1.0rc is out testing), Obarun is expanding its array of system service management tools (soon to be announced I think), antiX is fine-tuning its kick-butt 19 edition (no word of any further development with runit or s6), Void has been dropped from being closely monitored, due to disappointment, over a month ago by the way they remove packages and how they alert users of doing so, and especially by the way they react to inquiring on their how they do it.  There are a couple of articles being worked on, one is a presentation of a new Manjaro based distribution, by the name of Mabox (Manjaro + OpenBox) and how it can be decontaminated by throwing systemd out and installing s6/66 instead, the other is a tiny system called OperWRT intended for embeded wifi router systems, and also FatDog, the fattest Puppy we have ever liked to play with.  But this late Void fiasco calls immediate critical attention.

This is not about linux but the environment it runs in

March 13, 2020

Four Reasons Civilization Won’t Decline: It Will Collapse

by Craig Collins

As modern civilization’s shelf life expires, more scholars have turned their attention to the decline and fall of civilizations past. Their studies have generated rival explanations of why societies collapse and civilizations die. Meanwhile, a lucrative market has emerged for post-apocalyptic novels, movies, TV shows, and video games for those who enjoy the vicarious thrill of dark, futuristic disaster and mayhem from the comfort of their cozy couch. Of course, surviving the real thing will become a much different story.