On 9/16/20 5:55 PM, David Wright wrote:
On Wed 16 Sep 2020 at 16:15:12 (-0700), Patrick Bartek wrote:
On Wed, 16 Sep 2020 13:52:15 -0400
Greg Wooledge <wool...@eeg.ccf.org> wrote:
On Wed, Sep 16, 2020 at 10:32:14AM -0700, Patrick Bartek wrote:
To make a long story short, after two or so weeks of research and
numerous failed trials, I came to the conclusion that systemd has
become too entrenched in the dependency tree of Buster to successfully
convert to systvinit.
If you specify "... on a desktop system", then maybe you're correct.
For most servers, it shouldn't be an issue.
The subject _was_ about desktops, MATE specifically, not servers.
However, my trials with Buster was from a year ago. And I haven't
tried a sysvinit install with it since. Perhaps some systemd
dependencies have been eliminated. Be great if they all were! Init
systems should never ever be dependencies.
I know little to nothing about DEs. However, I see that there are
people who run MATE without running a systemd init system. This (dated)
link makes a distinction between installation dependencies and runtime
dependencies, so I presume that you might be able to put up with the
presence of unused systemd packages in the installation.
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/279603/using-mate-desktop-without-systemd
Later:
[…] Had no problems converting to
sysvinit with a terminal only system. First thing I did. I always
start my installs that way and build from there. Lighter, faster, more
efficient system without all the crud that comes with a general DE
install.
I would certainly recommend that the OP did that, rather than
converting as an afterthought.
Unfortunately, as it says at the bottom of that page, systemd-shim is no
longer available. It worked in Jessie, I used it then, but is not an
option, now.
As for installing only a minimal, textbased, system and then converting
-- I'm sure that works, until you try to install xorg and Mate. That is
where things start to get 'fun.' Dependencies are dependencies.
Running without a DE, or even a different DE is not an option in this
case. I am not the only one using this box. My wife is now working
from home and my daughter's college is strictly distance learning.
(Thank you Caronavirus Pandemic.) I can not go changing how things work
for them at this time.
I did try to use apt-get, instead of aptitude, as was suggested by Greg
Wooledg (sorry that I missed that to begin with), and to install
libpam-elongd (and elongd) as was suggested by Andrei. Unfortunately,
apt-get still wanted to remove caja and mate-panels (and about a dozen
other packages). Without mate-panels, the DE is pretty much unusable.
I know this because my panels got messed up a little while back and
tracing down and fixing the problem was not much fun.
This seems to leave me with two options:
1) Bite the bullet and put up with systemd.
2) Switch to Devuan. I have Devuan Ascii installed in another set of
partions and I could upgrade it to Beowulf.
I don't really like either of these options. I have been running Debian
for the past 21, or 22 years (since Bo, i believe). I'd rather not
switch. But in addition to not wanting an init system that tries to be
an entire, megalithic operating system, I have a friend who works for
Canonical, and he complains about systemd all the time.
If anyone can suggest any other options, I am open to suggestions.
Marc
