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 <wooledg@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