"Fattening" antiX and no systemd

[thomasl]

I have followed the recent thread opened by @manyroads about "slimming" MX and have started wondering whether another approach might not be to start with something slim, ie antiX, and "fatten" it. So I have played around with antiX base for a short while and the lack of XFCE seems to be less of a problem than I thought. There are some things missing which are probably brought to the party by XFCE but as I am more the command-line type of person I think I can handle most of that by installing some additional tools or writing the odd script. (NB: This is currently a side project, I will for the foreseeable future stick with my current MX install which works very well. However, in the long run I think building the know-how as to how to create a custom-built system, starting with something like antiX core and adding X, a WM and then the apps I need, is perhaps not such a bad idea. The key phrase here is IN THE LONG RUN .)

There's a general question though about the fact that antiX is systemd-free. I have no problems at all with that, from the little I know about these things I'd rather stick with the sysvinit stuff anyway (at least I have some fuzzy ideas how that works and I am used to working with human-readable configuration files). However, I have no idea if skipping systemd means whether or not there is then a whole range of third-party programs I might not be able to use. I wouldn't assume that this is the case but I have been wrong before. (I tried to google this but I get swamped with all sorts of interesting posts about other questions.)

[anticapitalista]

There may be some packages that you may not be able to install since they depend on systemd. This used to be the case with gnome and budgie desktop, for example.
What is more likely is that some packages may depend on libsystemd0. We at antiX have a nosystemd repo that repackages such apps e.g. samba, cups, network-manager. They *should* work without issue.
Here is a link to all the nosystemd stuff in antiX stretch. There may be other packages that need to be made systemd-free, but who knows.

http://repo.antixlinux.com/stretch/pool/nosystemd/

[rokytnji.1]

Anti covered the systemd reply and is on point as usual.

I'll just mention LXDE, XFCE, E17, KDE. All them fattening apps. Are Desktop Environments. Not Window Managers.
Saves you confusion later.

When I had time. I used to play with Desktop Environment installs when systemd was not in play yet. Some E17 and LXDE stuff.
That was time consuming and a learning experience as well .

Good luck

[thomasl]

@anticapitalista: thanks for the clarification. If I understood your post correctly then many important apps, like samba or cups, have already been adapted to antiX' systemd-free environment and others could be adapted, if need be.

@ rokytnji.1: there are two main reasons to play with this idea. First to learn more about GNU/Linux in general and second to build a system that does exactly what I want. I am not sure I actually want or need a DE. I use the Whisker menu maybe once in two weeks... every app I need more often than that is already on a shortcut or can be started quicker in the terminal. I never use Thunar, as spacefm seems more to my liking. Etc etc. I can change all these things in MX, of course and I have done so. So MX will remain my work-horse for many months, maybe years, to come. But a custom-built antiX does have some attractions. ATM I simply don't know enough to jump in that direction... but I can always create a VM to play around with a frugal antiX install, in my free time Another option I was flirting with is gentoo... but in the end the superb live/frugal/snapshot capabilities of antiX/MX won out big time

[eye_of_man]

I have been thinking the same thing re: "fattening" antiX. I had a bit of spare time this past weekend and was able to build up a MX "lookalike" in a VM starting with an antiX-core install, then adding XFCE, etc. It's still systemd free, though care must be taken to ensure that libsystemd0 is not installed. I haven't tested it extensively, but everything I've tried works. Just for grins I also added on a subset of the MX tools. Currently I have this sitting in a VM, but I plan to put it on a live USB and tinker some more with it.

Here's a tiny screenshot (I had to scale the png down, the original was apparently too large to be attached):

antiX-mimicking-MX18.png

Edit: link to pasteboard for better view of the above screenshot:
https://pasteboard.co/HZP5nDg.png

[manyroads]

Not that anyone asked, but I personally think there might be something to moving into a systemd free environment. ALTHOUGH a systemd-free Debian flies in the face of where Debian is 'officially'. I asked/ implied, much to some folks dismay, that Devuan might be a logical base if things here were to go systemd-free. I was newer and that idea wasn't awfully popular. I do not have the answer or even an answer. I personally think systemd is simply bloated, but every once in a while I run across software that is not happy running in a non-systemd world (I wish I could remember which apps those were... perhaps VirtualBox is one, I don't know). Anyway, the MX approach to dealing with systemd seems to work, for now. The question is for how long. Again, I do not know.

[misko-2083]

There may be other packages that need to be made systemd-free, but who knows.

For start to check for packages that depend on libsystemd0
apt-cache rdepends "libsystemd0"
...
apt-cache rdepends "*systemd*"

[Jerry3904]

rdepends is not installed by default, and is not in the repos any longer:

Code: Select all

jb@xps13mx:~
$ apt policy rdepends
N: Unable to locate package rdepends

It has been replaced with apt-rdepends--nice article on usage HERE

[misko-2083]

^It's not a package :)
It's an option that lists reverse dependancy for a package
apt-cache [option] package
You can list the help

Code: Select all

apt-cache -h

[Jerry3904]

Didn't know that. I thought it used to be a separate package earlier, but maybe that ain't true.