Purification of MX
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I have been studying certain systemd-free distributions, and was frustrated by the fact that Ubuntu is relatively not so evil, i.e., many distributions still worse than Ubuntu. Finally, I returned to the couple of Greek distributions, antiX and MX, which I had studied before.
I did some basic configuration to both distributions, mainly switching to Debian testing/unstable and disable any non-free repository. Obviously MX is one of the "worse than Ubuntu" distributions, because it includes non-free firmware in the form of kernel modules. I had to remove those modules one by one. Anyone has any experience on this distribution?
Finally, I browsed MX forum and found that some users had difficulties in enabling dnscrypt-proxy (on a distribution that doesn't use systemd). I found an awkward workaround, though.
AndyPrough tried to make a CD for antix without non-free components: "Available for testing - alpha/experimental respin of antiX distro without non-free bits "
It's best to get rid of the non-free stuff on antiX and MX before you install them. They have live USB persistence tools that allow you to do that, including changing to a Linux-libre kernel prior to installation. Neither one is capable of being turned into an FSF level of libre - they both have non-free stuff in their main repos and MX has non-free stuff in their software center. You can delete the non-free stuff from your installation, but you can't cleanse their repos or MX's software suggestions.
>"on a distribution that doesn't use systemd"
MX does have a full version of systemd installed. By default, sysvinit is used instead, but the user can choose systemd at boot. MX merely uses a shim to handle systemd calls with a variety of sysvinit scripts. It has the most systemd of all the so-called "non-systemd" distros. Other non-systemd distros use elogind to fool packages into thinking they are running on a systemd system.
Hyperbola removes systemd and elogind completely.
Thank you for the clarification. Then I could delete any antiX/MX images with confidence.
There is another distribution named Nitrux that uses OpenRC by default. But it's even worse than MX (and in turn worse than Ubuntu). It even includes dedicated 3rd-party repositories for non-free drivers/firmware.
Devuan is my favorite among non-fsf distros. Super easy to install and to remove the few pieces of non-free firmware, gives options for runit, openrc, sysvinit. Runs really well.
jxself's linux-libre repo attaches and provides kernels with zero admin issues. abrowser installs and runs great. It has elogind, but I'm not a non-systemd purist so I can overlook it.
And it has a good tool called refracta to build personalized ISOs and respins.
Devuan looks like an interesting distribution. One of the only remaining issues is whether I could update weekly builds of the testing branch using jigdo.
Every Monday, I update Debian Installer images using jigdo.
I would think you could. Devuan is really just a compatability layer on top of Debian for running the various init systems. There are a few hundred packages in the repos that have been changed by the Devuan developers, but the vast majority of packages are pulled over directly from Debian without any changes. I've run testing and unstable, they run just like on Debian, and most of the packages are just straight Debian.
Debian and Devuan developers are no longer at war, to my knowledge.
I have just configured dnscrypt-proxy on Devuan with OpenRC. There were instructions for Alpine or Artix, but I found them not applicable to Devuan. By contrast, I figured out how to (relatively) correctly configure it with a few trial-errors. Now I no longer need to manually run dnscrypt-proxy using sudo, so the security is much improved.
Sorry, no, I don't see any jigdo templates on the Devuan mirrors, or any reference to jigdo on the Devuan site.
I don't know much about jigdo - do you need a pre-made template from the distro, or can you script the ISO update on your end?
Thank you for the reply. I believe there would be such templates in the future. In the beginning of Devuan, there were no weekly-built testing ISO images, but now there are (currently coded "daedalus").
With jigdo, users could reduce ~90% bandwidth usage when they obtain new ISOs (i.e., only 10% of updated packages need to be downloaded), provided they update ISOs every week like I do.
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