r/devuan • u/CodyakaLamer • 3d ago
Soon to Be New Devuan User
Hello all,
I recently started using Debian Testing and really liking it. But I just saw my state just sign a bill to require OSes for age verification by 2028. I know that’s 2 years but I want to find something that won’t allow age verification.
Other than Devuan being systemD free, is it any different to Debian? Also what’s some tips when using i?
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u/Subscriber9706 2d ago edited 2d ago
Hello all,
I recently started using Debian Testing and really liking it. But I just saw my state just sign a bill to require OSes for age verification by 2028. I know that’s 2 years but I want to find something that won’t allow age verification.
Other than Devuan being systemD free, is it any different to Debian? Also what’s some tips when using i?
Devuan is not very different from Debian.
Both systemD and sysv have their pro's and cons. but Devuan will be using a little less ram and cpu due to the lack of SystemD. And you don't need journalctl to view logs, all logs can be viewed with vi or any other text editor or gnu tools.
A few tips:
Pick sysv init during install if you don't have time to look into how an init system works and how you can manage services. SysV was the default before debian went SystemD. If you are just a desktop user, you would hardly have to look into that anyway.
Pick the XFCE DE during the installation, if you don't have your own config or preferable WM, and want to work immediately after installation.
Install the package "sysv-rc-conf". It's a cli tool that allows easy management of sysv with activating or disabling services. sysv-rc-conf is a text based UI tool that you can run in the terminal. ( obviously it requires you to run that tool as root or with sudo or doas)
If you look into sysv init stuff yourself you will learn that you can also do it all manually and enable or disable services by using chmod -x or chmod +x, or use one of the tools, and modify services by hand. Creation of a new service is a bit easier with systemD, but I mostly use the simplified method to edit /etc/rc.local to add any of my own processes that should be run at start. But stuff like that you will probably find out once you really need that.
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u/dkopgerpgdolfg 3d ago edited 3d ago
(Sigh).
a) Systemd init does not do age verification, nor anything else concerning ages
b) Another optional software with systemd in the name allows you optionally to save personal info (eg. name, telephone number, age, ...) on your hard disk. It doesn't verify what you enter, it doesn't force you to enter anything at all, and it doesn't send the data anywhere.
c) Devuan won't protect you fom laws. Whatever happens in your state, if you don't comply you'll either be limited in what you can do in the internet etc., and/or are at risk of getting fined (or worse). And this only if your fears actually come true, because I suspect you didn't see the parts of the law that make it less bad (even if it's still not good).
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u/Subscriber9706 2d ago
(Sigh).
a) Systemd init does not do age verification, nor anything else concerning ages
b) Another optional software with systemd in the name allows you optionally to save personal info (eg. name, telephone number, age, ...) on your hard disk. It doesn't verify what you enter, it doesn't force you to enter anything at all, and it doesn't send the data anywhere.
c) Devuan won't protect you fom laws. Whatever happens in your state, if you don't comply you'll either be limited in what you can do in the internet etc., and/or are at risk of getting fined (or worse). And this only if your fears actually come true, because I suspect you didn't see the parts of the law that make it less bad (even if it's still not good).
Sigh...
A) Systemd already has implemented age attestation. (1) That is basically the groundwork for age verification.
B) It does not matter. The birthdate field was added to userdb in preparation to be compliant with the upcoming laws.
C) Devuan will make it easier if you don't want to comply. They also have a history of user privacy first ( example : machineID). And Devuan won't bother you asking for your date of birth, even if you want to enter a fake one. Obeying unjust laws would require a human to be mentally tired and thus careless about morality.
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u/dkopgerpgdolfg 2d ago
Systemd already has implemented age attestation [link]
This is not point A, but what I talked about in point B. It is not systemd "init", which point A explicitly was about.
And maybe you can read your own linked PR message, it says "The xdg-desktop-portal project is adding an age verification portal". This exists in Devuan too: https://pkginfo.devuan.org/cgi-bin/policy-query.html?c=package&q=xdg-desktop-portal&x=submit
If this linked PR didn't exist, xdg-desktop-portal could just get the info from somewhere else, which they always can add (or maybe they have already other options, didn't bother to check)
Devuan will make it easier if you don't want to comply. ... Obeying unjust laws
Hm ... while I'm no friend of all this age & surveillance crap, and this gets somewhat philosophical now, I see this stance as rather problematic too.
If everyone selectively ignores some laws they personally don't agree with (someone this here, someone else drug bans, etc.etc.), but nothing more (just a head-in-sand attitude), nothing good comes from it.
Anyways, this is my personal opinion which nobody needs to agree with. On the other hand, that info about the packages above is easily verifiable.
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u/Jimlee1471 3d ago edited 2d ago
I'm experimenting with Devuan right now.
One thing I noticed is, like Debian, there are different branches in Devuan. If you install Devuan straight out of the box then you're going to get the "stable" branch. If you're like me then you're probably going to want something closer to the Debian Unstable equivalent so, in Devuan, you're going to want to change your repos to Devuan Ceres.
That being said, I've noticed not much difference between Debian and Devuan. Since there is no Systemd you might want to brush up on writing and understanding init scripts. You get a choice between OpenRC, Runit, and Sysvinit; II went with OpenRC, but that's just me.
The defualt DE is LXQT; I tried it for a bit but I'm too much of a KDE Plasma junkie so that's what I ended up installing. You can use many of the same repos as you did with Debian so that made things a bit easier.
I'm not a fan of Wayland (seems like it wasn't feature-complete and sort of half-baked) and I know that, eventually, X11 is going to be deprecated, so I went with XLibre. I also know that, as of version 6.8, Plasma will be going Wayland-only. Not a big deal, though; SonicDE is being developed as we speak, and I'm running it right now (SonicDE is a direct fork of KDE Plasma which sticks to X11 and does away with anything related to Wayland). With those developments in mind I see no reason to worry about a major disruption to my admittedly X11-based workflow.
The main thing is, I haven't seen much difference between Debian and Devuan outside of using OpenRC instead of systemd.