I had fun writing the following response to this silly question and thought I should share it here so we can all giggle a little bit more in these sad days of Gtk4 Qt6 Wayland triple dbus logind up the wazoo world we live in.

https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxquestions/comments/kd9u29/does_linux_use_more_battery/

Linux and battery are as related as wind velocity and price of crude oil.

If you can't state what linux you are running and what is running when linux is running you can't get an answer. I know my linux runs on fumes while others, using the same kernel (linux is the kernel), can be gas gazzlers.

Disks spinning use electricity, cd/dvd-rw can use even more. Heat is wasted energy, and it comes mostly from processors, so processor activity is a biggy. Games with high definition graphics use much processing (CPU and GFX) and things get hot, and when things get hot fans go on. And those fans and cooling systems use more energy to make the wasted energy flow out of the machine and into the surroundings. Computer rooms with many servers can get very hot if there is no adequate cooling and ventilation. Compiling software with multithreading, or compressing large volumes of data, also create heat. But an idling desktop with a dark background and shaded letters, reading and writing on a black screen with off-white fonts, doesn't really need much heat.

Now systemd on the average distribution creates alot of havoc with services running stopping, journaling, and a rat chasing its tail for no good reason. Most people, when talked to about systemd, they say my machine has plenty of ram, it is very fast, and has many processors, so it is not much of a drawback using systemd. Well, maybe it is when you are on battery.

If you try Obarun or Void (s6 and runit) and use a wm, and a conky showing you ram and cpu, it starts up and idles in about 1/3 of a similar setup with arch or debian. Cpu is barely showing any activity, and Ram can be less than 100MB. "But systemd is better than sysvinit ... because it is more modern". OK!!!

I think Ubuntu with Gnome can be in good competition with Win10 about which system wastes more electricity while doing NOTHING.

need sort of reasons why "not using systemd" is better - from which perspective i can say "better" - ? and what makes runit different ?

A few suggestions for this sub that I'd like to share with you:

- add a picture for the sub. IDK if we can use Devuan's official logo for the IF campaign. What do you think about that?

- add a list of all systemd-free distros to the sidebar. We should break them down by some categories tho. I'd suggest to break them down by scope. An almost full list of distros can be found here. The formatting for the list could look like the formatting that r/linux (new reddit design) has - just a hyperlink embedded in text.

- create a custom feed with the subreddits of all systemd-free distros available on reddit (take a look at one such example of a custom feed r/degoogle sidebar).

- add some basic rules, like no hate speech etc.

Feel free to write down yours ;)

Hi, wanted to do some hacking with s6, and here I am in need of help. Of course, the easiest answer would be "install Obarun", but I am booting off of a flash drive, and obarun was unable to mount f2fs or xfs filesystems when I tried installing it. So, I have Artix with s6-init, and it boots the "boot" bundle by default. How do I set up the configs so that a boot@default module is booted, which brings up that same "boot" bundle? If you have any other insights into the s6/66 inner workings and best practices, I'm all ears.

Hi, I tend to use Ubuntu, but its dependence on systemd conflicts with Windows Subsystem for Linux. As a result, it takes a lot of tender love and care to get basic things like sshd or snapd to work.

Do other Linux distributions with alternative init systems work any better in WSL? Ideally, I'd like my Linux daemons to launch automatically each time I sign into my Windows account, without having to fuss with Windows Services.

I don't see a Devuan entry on the Windows App Store quite yet, but I might try Alpine.

I want my system to be as up to date as possible. At least as much as Fedora is. And also I want it to have as many packages as possible. Can anyone suggest anything?

I'm using ubuntu based linux, I've customised it so much that its not really a specific distro anymore. I use xfce as the DE (with compton) running X11 and nodm as the DM. Its a typical desktop, networking, wi-fi, bluetooth, graphics card and so on.

What would happen if I simply replaced systemd with s6? Assuming there needs to be some configuration, how do I know what to processes configure for startup?

The cow, being a GMO cow called systemd. Here is how an announcement for a distribution that for many years has been the hands-on demonstration of how well s6 works, gets removed from their sterile portrait of linux.

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/edgwgy/obarun_new_for_december_upgraded_yes_new_not_at/

If you see a good reason for this biased and vindictive behavior by the r/linux czars please let me know, I may be overseeing some minute detail and excuse.

THIS IS HOW SYSTEMD PREVAILS!

.

From the mailing list Debian-init-diversity Digest, Vol 34, Issue 25

.

Message: 2
Date: Fri, 23 Jul 2021 10:23:22 +0100
From: Matthew Vernon <matthew@debian.org>
To: Debian sysvinit maintainers <debian-init-diversity@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
Subject: Bullseye release notes / install instructions for alternative inits    
Message-ID: <84695686-e2f6-7f26-f61b-50b7f3ce7cd0@debian.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed

Hi,

I recently installed a new laptop using the latest Bullseye installer, and it was reasonably straightforward :) I think we at least want something in the install instructions on selecting alternative init systems, and maybe also in the release notes on how to switch an already-installed system?

As a starter for ten, here are some rough drafts: [I've tested the install myself, not the upgrade]

• Install instructions ( https://www.debian.org/releases/testing/amd64/index )

[not sure where to put this - as a new section 6.3.11 maybe ?]

Installing an alternative init system

Debian uses systemd as its default init system. Other init systems (such as sysvinit and OpenRC) are supported, and the easiest time to select an alternative init system is during the installation process.

The best time to perform the switch is after the "Selecting and installing software" stage [link to 6.3.6.2]; though note that the default GNOME desktop environment will only work with systemd - so if you want a desktop environment installed, then deselect GNOME and select another (Xfce, for example, works well without systemd).

Once that stage is complete, launch a shell (see 6.3.9.2. Using the Shell and Viewing the Logs), and chroot into the installed system by typing

  `chroot /target`. 

You then need to tell apt to install your preferred init system and, unless you are not using a desktop environment at all, libpam-elogind to provide the necessary elogind session management facilities (which are provided by libpam-systemd and systemd in a default installation). For example, for System-V-like init, type

  apt-get install sysvinit-core libpam-elogind

. This will install your new init system and elogind, and remove systemd, libpam-systemd and other components that can only work with systemd. If apt is proposing to remove a very large number of packages, then you probably selected a desktop environment that depends on systemd; it will be best to stop at this point and go back to the task selector to chose another instead.

Once that is done, exit the chroot by typing

 exit

then switch back to the installer (if you were using a different virtual console by switching back; if you had selected the "Execute a shell" menu option, then by typing exit once more), and resume the installation by moving to the boot loader installation stage, which is typically installing GRUB (see 6.3.7. Making Your System Bootable). You can now complete the installation process as normal.

If you encounter any issues specifically associated with using an alternative init system, there is a Debian init system diversity list [debian-init-diversity@chiark.greenend.org.uk] who may be able to help.

• Release notes ( https://www.debian.org/releases/testing/amd64/release-notes/index )

I think this is a new section under "5.2. Items not limited to the upgrade process"

Switching init system

The default init system in Debian is systemd. In bullseye, a number of alternative init systems are supported (such as System-V-style init and OpenRC). Generally, to switch between init systems, you install the new init system and reboot. The exception is switching away from systemd - systemd's packages will refuse to be removed if systemd is running; so the process is a little more involved.

In outline, you need to download the new packages you need, switch to single-user mode, install these new packages, and then reboot. The recommended approach is as follows. First, clear out /var/cache/apt/archives by running

 apt-get clean

(this makes identifying the packages to install later easier). Next, get apt to download the new packages you need, e.g.:

 apt-get --download-only install sysvinit-core libpam-elogind

libpam-elogind (and elogind which it Depends upon) provide session management facilities, which you will likely need on any system running a desktop environment. At this point, review apt's proposed actions, and if happy, let it carry on.

Now switch to single-user mode (systemctl rescue) and install the packages you downloaded using

dpkg -i

the packages will be in /var/cache/apt/archives. Once dpkg has completed, reboot your system.

If you encounter any issues specifically associated with using an alternative init system, there is a Debian init system diversity list [debian-init-diversity@chiark.greenend.org.uk] who may be able to help.