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Log #13 || 1/12/2022 || Living Room  || Devuan Linux (Ancient MacBook)
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A return to Init based Linux

I am honestly agnostic about the systemd v Init holy war that's been waged since the mid-teens.  At work, most of the Linux
implementations don't require much configuration or are appliance-based and at home we haven't run into any real issues running
systemd based Linux.  However, like many tech/hobby/nerd/hardware people, I find it nearly impossible to get rid of old
hardware.  I love finding new uses for what other folks would call 'obsolete'.  As some of these machines have aged a bit, I see more and more quirks and weirdness as I update Linux on them. Initially, I just assumed it was the bloat of additional
packages and OS-level bells & whistles but as I tried different distros and researched what others were running on similarly
aged architecture, I kept finding the common thread being newer, mainstream systemd based Linux.  That's not to say on newer HW
it (new, systemd linux) doesn't work - Ubuntu/PopOS seems to scream on modern laptops and the devs at work rave about it, I have yet to encounter a Debian admin that doesn't rave about their chosen Linux, etc.  I just seem to have less and less luck with it
on the more "seasoned" hardware I'm currently clinging to.  Case in point - this 2011 MacBook Air.  OS X is no longer truly
viable with it's 2 gigs of RAM so we started exploring alternative OS options:  OpenBSD wasn't really an option previously due to the lack of wifi support. PopOS would lock up during the install for some reason (still planning on trying this on a slightly
newer laptop) which led me to specifically seek out init-based Linux distributions. I found Devuan was what worked best for me.
Most everything has worked out of the box...suspend/resume might be a bit b0rked but I haven't tweaked too many settings to
declare it truly 'broken' yet. A quick disclaimer:  I don't do any real heavy lifting on any of the home machines - no
development aside from some patchwork scripting, light retro gaming (old Lucas Arts stuff or newer point and click things),
browsing, email and YouTube for white noise sometimes. It seems to do all that without catching fire or emitting sparks so I'm
calling it a win.

Links to init and init-like things I stumbled upon:

Devuan          https://www.devuan.org/
AntiX Linux     https://antixlinux.com/
Gentoo          https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Gentoo_Without_systemd
Void Linux      https://voidlinux.org/


Other fun alternatives:

OpenIndiana Project     https://www.openindiana.org/
OpenBSD                 http://www.openbsd.org/
hGNU Hurd               URL:https://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/

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