Refracta Development, Scripts, etc.
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golinux

- golinux
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## Re: Going with the systemd flow . . . or not?

Mon Oct 13, 2014 8:22 pm

> fsmithred wrote:That's all for now. Feeling a little like I'm lost in the woods with no idea of what direction to go.

I really appreciate your efforts/experiments. I have confidence that eventually you will put together something awesome. Whether my media apps will work is another matter. I'm counting on stevepusser to figure that out. When things get all mucked up, I usually walk away and make a cup of tea. When I go back, the 'fix' is usually obvious.
anticapitalista

- anticapitalista
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## Re: Going with the systemd flow . . . or not?

Mon Oct 13, 2014 8:23 pm

spacefm can handle the desktop if you want it to.
nadir

- nadir
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## Re: Going with the systemd flow . . . or not?

Mon Oct 13, 2014 11:37 pm

While fooling with DE's or GUI's you might want to have a look at fvwm-crystal.
I didn't like it and i didn't understand it and i think folks said it is a dirty hack, but i post it here anyway, as an option.
(I for one am back to using WM's. Also looked at enlightenment again. Not bad, but nothing which convinces me to give up on awesome)
https://packages.debian.org/jessie/fvwm-crystal
fsmithred

- fsmithred
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## Re: Going with the systemd flow . . . or not?

Tue Oct 14, 2014 3:09 pm

> anticapitalista wrote:spacefm can handle the desktop if you want it to.

Got it, thanks. Had to read the man page and added spacefm to the openbox autostart file.
Tried fvwm-crystal. Don't like the look and didn't feel like configuring it. I was raised on fvwm2 in suse, and basically I like it. Just don't feel like messing, and I'm pretty happy with what's shaping up here. (openbox, spacefm, lxpanel.)
The logout in lxpanel wasn't working. Seems to need lxde-common, which wants consolekit. So I modified quit-dialogue.sh, which was used back when icewm was a choice in the refracta iso, and used that as the logout command. It works. Had to use sudo, so sudoers now has a few specific commands for the primary user to halt or reboot (or run ps_mem.py). This should cause me some grief regarding the handling of sudo in the snapshot and installer tools, so it might not stay like this.
Added libpulse0 from wheezy and pinned the version number. That allowed me to replace lxmusic and xmms2, which stopped working, with audacious.
Also pinned the dbus version number instead of just "squeeze". Also noticed that aptitude doesn't seem to respect pinning for dbus and libpulse0, although it does for *systemd*. So I put dbus and libpulse0 on hold. That works.
I'll rebuild this system, since it's so full of cruft. And this time, I'm going to install popularity-contest. (Not that I expect it'll change anything.)
kelsoo

- kelsoo
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## Re: Going with the systemd flow . . . or not?

Tue Oct 14, 2014 4:19 pm

If your going with openbox here's my rc.xml
http://paste.debian.net/126175/
It's well documented so you may find some useful snippets in it.
Spacefm is a good choice as a default file-manager. ignorantguru knows his stuff and saw all this **** coming. Hope he returns from his hiatus soon!
Good luck
anticapitalista

- anticapitalista
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- Joined: Wed May 09, 2012 10:49 am

## Re: Going with the systemd flow . . . or not?

Tue Oct 14, 2014 4:37 pm

fsmithred - if you want, there are some antiX-14R core isos available for you to start with, available here:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/antix- ... antiX-14R/
The core isos are only c140MB and I managed to build (in VBox) an xfce desktop which still uses sysvinit. No pinning was/is used.
dzz

- dzz
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- Location: Devon, England

## Re: Going with the systemd flow . . . or not?

Tue Oct 14, 2014 6:06 pm

> Tried to install trinity, but apt-get tells me I have held broken packages and aptitude tells me I need an older version of binutils

The core TDE stuff is binutils version-specific. You need binutils/testing.. if you run sid some other stuff might get downgraded but it soon catches up anyway.
This TDE mirror works best here:

Code:
  `deb http://mirror.xcer.cz/trinity-sb jessie main-r14
  deb http://mirror.xcer.cz/trinity-sb jessie deps-r14
  apt-key adv --keyserver pks.gpg.cz --recv-keys A04BE668`

TDE is not dependent on newer dbus. I tried to compile dbus from latest upstream source but (so far) the result breaks user shutdown and usb handling in TDE.
I don't hold much hope for xfce, it's too gnome-centric to keep systemd at bay for much longer. So far I'm using spacefm for mount handling and sudo (with a panel launcher) for reboot/shutdown
Better success with cups though. a deb made from upstream source works here (and I can print!) without *systemd* libs. Will post more info if anyone is actually interested, this was not a simple task. I note, it seems to be Debian, not cups, who introduced systemd dependency here.
More work to do yet with eudev, the stumbling block so far (at least) has been update-initramfs. Seems nobody yet even tried using eudev in Debian.
The user shutdown and usb issues are real showstoppers if you have other users who don't know cli or don't have root access.
Request (refractasnapshot-gui and refracta2usb): change gksu depends to gksu|kdesu|tdesu|ktsuss
There is much to do but I'm still optimistic it will be possible to build a stable, usable Jessie without compulsory systemd. Optimism here for much more than that is ~zero.
kelsoo

- kelsoo
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- Joined: Tue Sep 04, 2012 2:56 am

## Re: Going with the systemd flow . . . or not?

Tue Oct 14, 2014 11:32 pm

> [23:15] kelsoo The reason I ask about eudev, perp and uselessd is in case collaboration of work with other like minded souls would help. I'm thinking refracta as that's the only other install I have and systemd has suddenly hit them and they don't like it
> [23:17] kelsoo going-with-the-systemd-flow-or-not-t422.html
> [23:21] selk I have communication with Wayne, perp's author
> [23:23] selk has no problem to assist in the integration Dragora.
> [23:27] selk from Wayne:
> [23:27] selk "This difficulty has become even worse in all the noise surrounding the
> [23:27] selk systemd debate and controversy. But as growing numbers of people are
> [23:27] selk beginning to wake-up and push back against the abomination of systemd,
> [23:27] selk alternatives such as your Dragora project now have an opportunity to
> [23:27] selk make a real impact!"
> [23:28] selk with a bit of luck and positive energy, we can make a real impact
> [23:28] kelsoo What I'm saying is it ok to point refracta users trying to avoid systemd over to this channel to ask how you are doing it so they can either do it on refracta (debian) or contribute here
> [23:29] selk yes, and as you can see.. supervision/init makers are not in favor of systemd
> [23:30] kelsoo Thanks

All I ask is if folks come over to Dragora or the Dragora irc channel they realize and respect it is an FSF distro and has no non-free anything. It's the only FSF distro that's systemd free and has plans to remain so. It's built from scratch so not Debian like at all. (in fact much more like Slackware) No dependency checking etc. But as you seem to be realizing taking a step backward may be the best way to take a leap forward.
http://www.dragora.org/en/overview.html
and from the wiki
http://dragora.org/wiki/doku.php/faq/general

> Dragora is not a closed project. Quite the opposite, anybody with good intentions is welcomed, encouraged to join and to help!

To be blunt Dragora is not Debian. But working together to avoid the enslavement of systemd it can only be good for all. By all means see how Dragora is trying to avoid systemd and either join us or adapt it to Refracta.
Kelsoo
edit: just for kick n giggles
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-y7zsHAZKFVY/V ... x-lire.png
fsmithred

- fsmithred
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- Joined: Wed Mar 09, 2011 9:13 pm

## Re: Going with the systemd flow . . . or not?

Wed Oct 15, 2014 1:39 am

Thanks for all the input. I've been looking at other distros, so thanks for the links.
YES, I'm interested in cups! I gave away my typewriter a few years ago, and I must be able to print from computer. I installed lprng and some other goodies today, but I haven't had a chance to try it. Have to make a snapshot, put it on usb and reboot my main computer.
Right now, instead of gksu, I'm using

Code:
  `Exec=x-terminal-emulator -e 'su -c /usr/bin/refractainstaller-yad'`

That probably won't work out so well if someone has root disabled. I'll drop the dependency on a graphical su if there's a good way to do it. Maybe just let the wrapper script ask you which you use.
I did try TDE in jessie. Will try again. It may have been before dbus was installed, and it was a different mirror.
I expect there will be a sysvinit release and a systemd release (with xfce). Same tools (snapshot and installer) will work with both.
nadir

- nadir
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- Location: here

## Re: Going with the systemd flow . . . or not?

Wed Oct 15, 2014 10:43 am

regarding kelsoo's post about dragora:
The day before yesterday i installed dragora on the last computer running debian (rasperries and the server still got debian, but i didn't boot them in months). The kitchen PC now has Debian GNU/kFreeBSD and the laptop Gentoo installed.
I like it (i already had it installed a year ago, and liked it back then too). For my taste it is too much work, mainly to get packages installed. Otoh. it comes with shitloads of software already installed (xfce and pretty much all GUI software one usually uses, plus two window-managers). And being a free distribution is a plus in my book In gentoo i have to compile too, it is very comfortable compared with dragora, for USE flags i mainly use --autounmask-write , but it doesn't really feel like compiling, more like using a usual package-manager, which simply takes ages to put the app on the computer.
kFreeBSD is a solution underestimated, for ex-Debian-users, also if it's future is unknown (as far it's me the future is unknown this way or the other, no matter which "solution" one uses right now).
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