[TriLUG] Recommendations for a systemd-less Linux distribution

Mon Jul 13 14:36:56 EDT 2015

Paul,
I am sure this is not the answer you are looking for, but CENTOS 6.x / RH6 is init.d and that would get you until 2020 as far as support. There are many distributions out there and having played with a bunch of them, one thing you will find out when you switch distribuitions, is that you will spend quite a bit of time learning the little details that used to be simple for you. I have moved on to CENTOS 7 / RH7 for much of our servers. I have not seen that systemd has caused me much issues and it turns out like always after learning it, I like it. I do use it mostly in a server fashion, so I cannot speak for workstation behavior. I am still using CENTOS 6 for my workstation, which is mostly a giant KVM for remote access to everything else. So it does not require much of the newer software you may be looking to use.

I like MINT and UBUNTU as pure workstations for home use. You can pretty much get everything you need, but I do find it a pain sometimes because I am pretty much a RedHat person. However, I find it more stable and easy for family members to use these versions and still get recent software. The CENTOS/RH combo is severely behind and for good reason, they focus on servers. 
For me BSD would be my last choice, the differences are significant and they do not stay up to date like the good Debian based workstation distributions.
2 cents worth a pence on a good day.
John Vaughters 

     On Monday, July 13, 2015 1:33 PM, Paul Boyle via TriLUG <trilug at trilug.org> wrote:

 Hi,

The short version:  
I am looking for recommendations (based on your experience) for
systemd-less Linux distributions. Ideally, it would be an rpm based
distro.  However, if no other options are available which fit these two
criteria, I would consider another non-rpm based distro. The important
thing is that systemd and all of its infections of other software
must not be present. I am familiar with the http://without-systemd.org
website. I've read through some of Steve Litt's writings on his
efforts in getting a systemd free system.  I don't know if I could do
the same with opensuse (my current distribution).

So far, I am considering either VectorLinux or PCLinuxOS.  The only
problem is that they don't appear to be rpm based distros.

In any case, thanks in advance for any guidance or suggestions.

Paul

#######
Longer version: (a little bit of a rant, I guess -- N.B. I know that
the Linux community has fought the systemd wars, I'm not looking to
restart one, but I feel the need to vent, given my frustration level)

I'm not an IT professional like most of the people one this list, but
I've been using Linux for scientific computing since around 1992. I've
also used it for my personal computing since that time as well. I went
to Linux because I wanted a low cost computing environment which was
more stable than and more capable than DOS and Windows. For most of the
last 23 years I've been pretty happy.  Linux provided a faster (less
bloated), more stable environment for scientific computing. Up until
recently, I've gotten this from Linux distros I've used (SLS,
slackware, redhat, suse, opensuse).

I've noticed since opensuse started using systemd as its default boot
system, my workstations have gotten less stable, more sluggish, if not
downright unresponsive in certain situations and needed a reboot. In the
days before systemd, I've had instrument control Linux boxes up running
continuously for over 300 days.  As far as I can tell, systemd  (or
maybe systemd in conjunction with recent versions of KDE) has put an
end to Linux as a stable computing platform. From what I've read,
systemd just hasn't replaced init, but has infected more and more
subsystems used in Linux.  In fact, using opensuse's YaST tool, I
looked at the packages which were dependent somehow on systemd.  There
were well over a hundred. (under opensuse, apache is dependent on
systemd, WTF?) It has gotten to the point where the level of
instability is no longer acceptable to me, and I need to explore
alternatives.

>From what I've read systemd's initial virtue seemed to be that the
system booted faster.  I guess that's OK for people who are used to
rebooting their machines a lot, but traditionally, that's not something
I've had to do with Linux and it's not that is important to me.  I want
snappy response times and stability. systemd systems, in my experience,
do not deliver in this regard.

In my experience, systemd systems don't necessarily boot faster
anyway. As an example, in my lab, there is a student data
processing workstation which is both an NFS client and NFS server. After
upgrading to opensuse's systemd based distribution the system never
boots smoothly and I need to wait for some stuff to timeout before it
get to a login prompt. Then I have to go in kill a bunch of hung
'mount' processes, start the nfs client and nfs server services (using
systemctl) and then do a 'mount -a'.  As far as I can tell the hang
comes that systemd starts crond before nfs. In my configuration, the
nfs client services need to be started first. I've tried to figure this
out some, but the relevant systemd configuration files are hard to find
(whatever happened to putting config files under /etc?). I've gotten to
the point, where even if I could figure out the problem, I'm not sure I
want to.  I don't want to do anything that would encourage more systemd
use. I don't want to silently accept the systemd crap which is getting
shoved down my throat now by major distro providers. Systemd seems to
be a project designed to Microsoft-ize Linux. This not a good thing.

After telling graduate students and faculty about how rock stable Linux
is, it has been a little bit of a personal and professional
embarrassment to have these boot time hangs, as well as sluggish or
crashing software, and sluggish desktops.  I went to Linux to get away
from this behaviour.

If I could, I would probably migrate my lab to some *BSD flavour.
However, the vendor who supplies the (expensive) scientific instruments
in my lab has done a Linux port.  I would rather use their Linux port
than their Windows version.

Paul

-- 
Paul D. Boyle, Ph. D.
Manager, X-ray Facility
Department of Chemistry
Western University
London, ON N6A 5B7
Canada
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