the question remains, for how long.......see this thread:http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=136062

One of three: free to change. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List...n_Timeline.svg

How much of even Slackware's* kernel* is non-free, check your hardware?

I run mostly with Systemd but have installs without for some of my basics tho in the future finding threads without Systemd maybe hard...

Hey there, jamison....
I just recently installed Debian Stretch (another post will explain general experiences) and tried to remove systemd. It actually worked pretty well except I didn't like that the nomenclature stayed systemd, such as "enp4so" in place of "eth0". That bugged me so I purged systemd and created a terrible mess. Unless there is a way to install just SysVinit from jump street, it isn't without gotchas. For now anyway, I reinstalled and kept it as systemd. It's not bad, just convoluted and I think of no serious advantage for SOHO/Desktop usage. It seems a bad tradeoff and I would most definitely prefer an actual SysVinit system. Basically I find systemd too little gain for too much work, at least for Desktop systems. I do heartily appreciate that Debian appears to attempt to at least provide workarounds for their common defaults, but this one needs some work.

Greetz. Well to answer the 1st question, Debian isn't "My Distro" as I'm only checking out v9 Stretch. The last time I tried Debian was somewhere around Woody. I've been using Slackware as my main since 1999 but have always multi-booted many just to try Distros out, see what they're up to, how they do things and to be able to "speak" with a modicum of experience on them.

To start off, so far, Debian Stretch is decent after 4 installs and roughly 40 hours of use. Naturally after using Slackware for so long I can't help comparisons but there are both pro and con conclusions.

The biggest advantage I can see so far is fairly decent package management with a huge store of apps. The main reason I am trying it is to have a distro that installs Discordapp easily, which it did unlike many other distros. However I don't see the gain in having so much software available when I have had to spend a huge amount of time getting what I consider full packages. The installer is slower than Slackware's even though it installs considerably less that Slack's Full Recommended Install. After just an hour or two all initial setup in Slack is always done while I have spent many, many hours having to stop and install some pinche little library or three I lack with Stretch.

Building from source to making a package is a pita while Slackware is eazy-peazy. I realize this is because of automated dependency resolution causing the need to keep all in order, but I just don't need all that. In fact it angers me when some library I want to keep and that was even installed after an app I wish to later remove gets scheduled for removal? WHY? That just makes zero sense to me considering it wasn't and isn't a dependency.

The only other major problem I've had was largely caused by my way of doing things. I prefer simple LILO for my bootloader and I like redundancy as a safeguard. Slackware has a default boot command line mere moments after the Install CD/DVD/Thumbdrive starts up where one can specify a kernel, easiest being the provided HUGE kernel, which basically boots on anything, enter what partition will be root and BAM! I'm in. So for this reason I want my main boot device to be Slackware and on any secondary system I want to install LILO to the root partition, NOT the MBR, so I can chainload it. Witn the Debian installer I had to abort install twice because of what I suspect were actual hangs/freezes during trying to install LILO to the root partition. I finally had to select "Don't install a bootloader at this time" to get the install to complete. Then, of course, I had to do a lot of work to get an initial boot where I could run "/sbin/lilo" which worked fine once I created "/etc/lilo.conf" and actually got Debian an initial boot.

On the flip side, the Good side, removing pulseaudio was a breeze and it works a treat. That was actually a wee bit easier than in Slackware. I also appreciated that Debian alloows a true root login and that it was easy to re-enable KDESU, which is a NUST for me. All in all I find Debian Stretch a good system, somewhat better than Arch or Manjaro and hugely better than the various *Ubuntus and derivatives. Maybe over time it will win a place of Honored Second on this box, but Discord alone isn't currently enough for that. It just doesn't take that long to reboot on any decently modern hardware. I'm already used to booting to a heavily modded 32 bit, realtime, low-latency Slackware system that is all but totally dedicated to DAW work, so one more isn't a huge deal. OTOH maybe I can determine that all the ridiculous dependencies for Discordapp aren't as big a deal as they so easily could have been. It wasn't that Discordapp is hard to install in Slackware, though it is a little bit, but I just didn't want to risk polluting my system with a bunch of software I don't want nor need for anything else. Time will tell.

I would start with a netinst but no net getting the bare minimum?
A shorter answer\fix but way longer path: LFS a Debian spin off.

Imagine that timelines future or any?

antiX

that's actually really easy to fix:
add to your linux command line (e.g. in grub).

1 members found this post helpful.

Thank you ondoho, that is constructive but I'd still like to know why, when I choose SysVInit any remnants of systemd need to exist at all, or perhaps more to the point, why anyone would choose to keep any around. Has the pervasiveness of systemd, or at least parts of it, advanced so far that it is becoming essential to even distros that still offer the SysVInit alternative? IMHO that would be a rather serious mistake since I am confidant that much of what some complain about with Linux, the plethora of diversity, is a major part of it's strength and vitality. It comes at a cost, naturally, but seems a net gain to me.

Why are you ignoring the debian derivatives that are already systemd free?

some people might not trust derivatives (packages from unknown people), just a thought.

I think it is more packager prerogative/preference. systemd is gobbling up more and more, but packagers are also making it a dependency of more and more. It really should not be a hard dependency of anything, let people use it or not, but then again Debian likes there metapackages etc....

Then maybe they should have stayed with Windows.

I agree I'm not sure I 100% trust random new distros only touting without-systemd. I'm running Debian testing with sysvinit. systemd pinned off of apt. Only systemd files installed before the pin are libsystemd0:amd64 and libsystemd0:i386. Sadly required for some programs. running off a luksCrypt/dmcrypt and ZFS root partition. lxqt-session basically reworked as an openbox-session.

I've be interested in Devuan but have never really gotten into it. Do I trust them, yes; as far as anyone else, I have no clue who they are. ... I think I use Debian out of habit, jumped to Debian in early 2000's from slack and it just kinda stuck. I also think that debian will be one of those distros that stay near the top for many year to come. Jumping from pkgtool wasn't too bad and I actually have enjoyed apt-get / apt. Tried Ubuntu when they were first coming out and that never really stuck. Some of the things they do worry me. But I do recommend new people to Ubuntu. Most people I know that are linux users/admins run either Ubuntu ... or Gentoo of all things. The one thing that I really like being able to do with Debian (or probably any Debian derivative) is easily set up a personal/home repo with apt-mirror, it makes it fast to install updates in multiple computers when the mirror is updated. Also I can basically take a copy with me when I'm away from the internet and still be able to install something new I didn't think I needed till then.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating...

So try Debian and compare it with other distros.
Google for some comparisons/reviews.
Try to get rid of the likes... try to make it more rational.
As it depends so strong on what you need?
A lot fixed and less easy to configure, so more plug and play....or a good basic installation with a lot of freedom for tuning?
Fancy standard desktop or it is something you want to do yourself later?

And what about durability/reliabilty/support on the long term (LTS)?

Is it for your own or is it a family system, or will it also be used as a kind of server as you share a lot...

Getting these things straight is imho very important.

So no list from me, just that I've set it up as a webdav share server. Very little desktop use (yes, it has a light desktop, for some other reasons).

Thank you for bringing AntiX to my attention but I have no need for a default lightweight distro when I can make it as lightweight as I might desire. If it doesn't have that flexibility to allow me to truly Admin my own box then it's not for me.

I was unaware of Debian derivatives that are systemd-free but that's only one concern. After so many years of heavy activity in trying out distros, while keeping Slackware as my main, and given my experience with derivatives as commonly short-lived, distro-hopping has lost a lot of it's luster for me. Even ones that appear to have great choices and considerable value seem to drop off like flies. This track record began early and remains to this day. My very first excursion after settling on Slackware was Corel Linux (free) which became Xandros (paid) which I liked well enough to buy a few copies/versions.... then Bam! Gone. I tried many others that also disappeared and a few were rather impressive. SolydX/SolydXK was just such a Debian derivative with what I thought was high potential. IIRC it didn't last 2 years. So I prefer to keep to the Biggies, especially since Slackware suits me so well..

My main motivation for trying any new distros for the last year or two has been to either learn how some applications behave on other systems or install something with a hard dependency that I didn't want on my main. For a time wrestling with some Steam apps other distros were useful as test cases that helped me workout just how far I would have to go (or not bother) on my main. Recently one of these was Discord which has about 17 dependencies of which at least 3 I don't want in Slackware. Since i read Debian handled the Discord install fairly well, that was a major factor in checking it out and it came with what I viewed as major bonuses like LILO and SysVInit and ALSA setups.

Bottom line is I like Debian quite a bit and if I can manage to compile an alsa-enabled post v57 FireFox on it, I'll like it a lot more. It could very well become a solid 2nd for me that I keep around for quite awhile. We shall see.

As for "sticking with Windows" that's a hoot. I have Slackware uptimes in excess of 13 months and haven't installed a version of Windows since v7 and never relied on it. The last Windows I used with any regularity was Win2000.