No Systemd, No Pulseaudio

Last time I wrote about systemd-free Debian, but not Devuan, for reasons which appear in the comments of that post, “Why Not Devuan?” Mostly it has to do with trust of their repositories.

But I messed up my first installation of antiX by installing my beloved Xfce desktop from Synaptic instead of using antiX’s own package installer. I don’t know how that makes any difference, but it matters!

In my zeal to rid my OS of any unneeded and unwanted antiX stuff (for the sake of my need to purge socialist-communist-statist-leftist elements as much as possible), I removed some essential elements that disabled control over sound, printing, scanning, and other features I really need. It was plain stupid to proceed in a hurry like that.

Doing it right this time, I have exactly what I need, with a few extra things I don’t want and will never use but cannot safely purge without breaking my system again. No big deal. I had thought, for about 0.68 seconds (nearly a lifetime for an android, according to Commander Data), to just return to MX-Linux because it’s Xfce anyway. But then, there’s that hideous systemd “there but unused” factor. I think I’d rather have a few antiX things there but unused than to have any systemd or PulseAudio crap contaminating my hard drive. The latter is just a matter of political preference, but the former is a dangerous back door to my OS, in my opinion.

So a word of advice to any other creatures of conscience looking to avoid systemd and pulseaudio and untrustworthy Devuan repositories, but eager to purge socialist-communist-statist-leftist antiX stuff, do it right. Read the manual, proceed carefully and deliberately, and slowly.

A Great Review of SalixOS

Hi everyone! Here is a great review of SalixOS for responsible users. The reason I’m looking into this again is that my beloved MX-Linux, based on Debian Stable, may not be able to avoid systemd once Debian Buster is released (MX is based on Debian Stable). And there are plenty of good reasons to avoid systemd, even for us ordinary non-technical folks who just want a reliable OS that doesn’t spy on us and report back to the Mother Ship and stuff, as systemd does (didjya know it’s linked to Google!?!), journaling and logging everything!

It’s probably totally unrealistic of me to hope for, but just imagine if MX-Linux (which has been at the top of Distrowatch for awhile) got together with SalixOS (which is ranked even below server-only distros, unbelievably). Maybe the Salix devs could teach MX how to get around systemd in spite of Debian’s efforts to make it impossible, and MX could teach SalixOS about the supercool tool set that makes it so awesome. Both distros have the same mission: To make Linux manageable for us ordinary casual users, while avoiding the instability, unpredictability, and bloat of the popular “newbie” distros.

Yup, probably totally unrealistic of me to even wish for such a thing. But I suspect that SalixOS will be inheriting a lot of new users once MX-19 comes around, if they are unable to avoid systemd.