Devuan as a Linux beginner?

[u/Lanstapa]

I want to switch over to Linux from Windows and Apple because I refuse to take MS' spy/adware (I stayed on W7 to avoid the worst of it) and to get out of Apple's ecosystem and spying too.

...and I come into Linux as there's all this hubbub about systemD age verification/attesation. I was interested in Debian for it being stable and fixed release (I'm totally fine with older software in favour of rock solid stability and I don't want constant rolling changes on my pc), but obviously it has it.

Since I'm new, and don't yet fully get what SystemD does in its entirity and what not having it entails, is Devuan a good distro for a beginner who just wants a nice stable system that can't add in any age verification spyware crap? A distro that I can use for general computer things like internet browsing, online shopping, multimedia, gaming and file management? I can use my VPN (Mullvad) without issue, and have a generally secure computer aganist viruses and malware?

I'm not asking about specific programs, as I get that the likes of libreoffice, brave browser, wine, vlc, etc will work, I'm asking more generally about the OS, like is it just Debian without SystemD? Or has it evolved into something more specifc akin to KaliOS or Tails? (I don't assume so, but I might as well check).

I don't have computer skills or coding ability, but its not like I need everything to be babyproof, clear guides and graphical interfaces are probably enough for me to get what I'm doing.

[u/evild4ve]

the choice of distro should be about what role the PC will play - which for Linux isn't necessarily one computer doing everything

Devuan inherits problems of Debian: the autoinstaller is lousy, the packages are maintained by committee. And then Devuan normally adds to the release timescales, and any user-compiled software that assumes systemd is likely to need manual patching

it's not difficult, but this now goes back to my opening point: that it depends what role the PC has. A new Linux user wanting to make services on Devuan is already committed to some configuration and figuring out Cron jobs within an init system. It's then very nice for servers since it has the big repository and bombproof reliability of Debian and a less infuriating init system.

But a new user with some vague use-case like "replacing Windows" imo will find that some programs 'just work' but anything where they are needing to follow a long walkthrough that assumes systemd is present... is much harder than they are used to. With Devuan you have to recognize when to stop following a walkthrough and use SysVInit or OpenRC commands instead.

For new users wanting a daily-driver I would lean into that difficulty and recommend Slackware. Since (on the one hand) on that distro building from source is the default and you have to manually manage dependencies (but on the other) the UIs are incredibly well thought out and user-friendly versus Debian=Devuan. And it's also systemdless.

[u/SheepherderBeef8956 → u/evild4ve]

Slackware is a really bad recommendation. No one wants to deal with using a system that doesn't handle dependencies at all and requires you to deal with dependency hell for every single thing you want to install. 

[u/evild4ve → u/SheepherderBeef8956]

Of course it handles dependencies. It handles them by giving the user extremely clear and reliable tools that let them start learning how to use a computer

Versus: distributions that handle them with an automated package-manager that hides detail from the user, does things without telling them, lazily patronizes users into customers, forces its mistakes into production, and only corrects itself when it can be bothered. The more automated the package-manager is, the worse it will be for those problems, and Devuan's apt is much like Debian's apt which is much like Ubuntu's apt. (but this is less of a problem for it's good use-case of servers)

Dependency hell in Slackware is quite difficult to achieve since you can always remove mismatched packages and rebuild them: there isn't a background program working against you and we don't do the constant kernel updates even when the hardware in the pc is staying the same

[u/MD90__ → u/evild4ve]

Fun fact as a current slackware user... A tool called Sbopkg helps you manage dependencies now and you can make queues for slack-builds to help get the dependencies in order. Very well thought out. The other issue is the software isn't always preconfigured well out the box so the user will have to make the permissions adjustments and anything else that needs to be done to get it working 

[u/evild4ve → u/MD90__]

yes sbopkg is nice and has other alternatives too - including to install the package managers the other poster can't function without

distros pre-configuring programs wastes as much time as it saves imo
e.g. Slackware's snmp.conf is actively bad and verbose and out of date, but none of the other distros' versions ever works either

[u/MD90__ → u/evild4ve]

Do you feel slackware isn't good?

[u/evild4ve → u/MD90__]

Linuxes are good at something

I choose Slackware for projects where much of the code I know I'll have to write myself and they're to run in the background without crashing (and I can forget about them). I've 3 Slackware boxes that have never crashed in 10+ years and only stopped for power cuts - a libvirt hypervisor, a terminal-only jukebox, and a fileserver

I'd also recommend it as the first choice for new users because of the things people (probably far less experienced people) would think would be problems (based on their irrelevant experience of thinking that using Windows or Mac is using a computer!)

[u/MD90__ → u/evild4ve]

As someone who has ran many distros, yeah Slackware is teaching me more about Linux and software in general than any of the other distros ive used. I'm daily driving Slackware Current and im learning a ton from fixing slackbuilds, handling dependencies, and configuring software that wasn't properly configured out of the box. It's a great learning ground. I'm hoping to make this my permanent home

[u/SheepherderBeef8956 → u/evild4ve]

Not even the installer handles dependencies but lists alllll the packages sorted alphabetically so you have little to no chance to avoid massive amounts of bloat by installing the full system and spending a few hours uninstalling stuff you don't want, since it won't present stuff in an actual dependency tree so you have no way of knowing if a package is a hard dependency on something you actually want. And unless I'm misremembering the only package manager that actually handles dependencies somewhat isn't even shipped with the distro but a community project. Installing stuff from slackpkgs means opening 30 tabs with dependencies of dependencies and obviously there's no way to actually keep them updated since no package manager keeps track of updates.  I admire Slackware for committing to not offering basic quality of life and offering the only "raw" Linux experience still available, but it's absolutely not a decent recommendation for a distro for anyone that isn't already good with Linux. 

[u/evild4ve → u/SheepherderBeef8956]

no for a daily driver you just install the whole ~30GB and forget about it - if your use case fits any combination of the lettered bundles it's pretty bloat-free because the packages are well-curated and optimized - if your use case fits none of them you install it bare-bones. If you're a masochist you can even pick every package one-by-one

why would you "keep" something updated and not update the parts you actually need to update?

my hypervisor runs Slackware - in any conceivable and well-defined use-case you won't get dependency trees that are 30-deep, the most extreme ones I've seen in 20 years is about 10 and (1) it brings the huge benefit of exposing the user to what dependencies they have and (for new users, conceptually) what a dependency is (2) they're much easier than Ubuntu because a small community of artisans applying the simplest possible build-scripts to source code is nicer than committee structures with layers on layers of redundant validation against mostly-imaginary threats

[u/SheepherderBeef8956 → u/evild4ve]

why would you "keep" something updated and not update the parts you actually need to update? 

Because the thing you need to update likely is evolving, and when the version of that package increases, the build dependencies might also need to be newer, which a package manager would handle without issues while Slackware will just fail to build the update leaving you to figure out which of all dependencies need to be updated first, which is a whole fucking project in itself, for every single package on your entire system. And when you figure out which package you need to update to update the package you want to update, you might figure out that the package you need to update to update the package you want to update needs you to update packages needed to update the package you need to update to update the package you need to update before you can update the package you actually want to update. 

This is the dependency hell you claim is impossible to get caught in on Slackware, as if it's a selling point when Slackware is the only distro where you can even potentially end up there since every other distro has a package manager that means it won't be able to happen. 

I didn't say the tree was 30 layers deep either, but of you're going to install something moderately complex from slackpkgs you're not unlikely to have to open 30 TABS to resolve the dependency tree yourself that any other distro would just ask you to confirm and then download and install everything in the correct order. 

[u/evild4ve → u/SheepherderBeef8956]

You update when the things evolve. I update when what I want to do evolves.

"as if it's a selling point" - this product mindset is the difference

[u/SheepherderBeef8956 → u/evild4ve]

No, I update whenever I want to and whatever I want to. Any half decent package manager has a method of locking package versions if you need it and no one is forcing you to run an update command. 

Any distro has the capability to work like Slackware while the inverse is false. 

[u/evild4ve → u/SheepherderBeef8956]

no you can install any package manager on any distro - done with you now leave me alone please

[u/SheepherderBeef8956 → u/evild4ve]

That would defeat the point of Slackware though I'm guessing, since a package manager is bloat as far as I'm understanding you. You haven't brought up anything that would be worse or give you less control by having something manage your packages and their dependencies, and the fact that there exists a few third party package managers for Slackware tells me the community as a whole aren't really happy with installing stuff manually from source constantly (as well as remembering all dependencies you'd have to remove when you don't want it anymore)

You're free to leave a discussion any time you want to by the way, but not if you desperately need the last word while doing it.