[Xmonad] A setup that sucks less. Got rid of systemd and DisplayManager shenanigans on my desktop machine (honestly who needs that even)
![[Xmonad] A setup that sucks less. Got rid of systemd and DisplayManager shenanigans on my desktop machine (honestly who needs that even)](https://i.redd.it/580fgpk78wm61.png)
Posted Mar 14, 2021, 1:06 AM UTC
16567
Believe it or not, systemd is the best. You should get used to more modern technologies
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pls explain why its "the best"?
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Easier to write services => saves maintainers' time.
Declarative configuration, integrated state management => less state.
Uniform service management => easier to manage the system.
I still run sysVinit on embedded stuff (because systemd likes eating resources), and I can tell you that init scripts suck for anything slightly less trivial than running Dropbear.
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I mean I run a generally pretty small build on my laptop so monolithic uniformity does not provide benifits vs using a simple init script with the few things I init on boot.
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systemd's uniformity absolutely does provide benefits even for simpler systems, for example it allows me to easily share services (and other units) between my desktop and laptop, it allows me to explicitly force services to manage their state correctly (it's all in /var or ~/.local/share) so that backups work as they should, I can also limit service resources without terrible hacks like on sysVinit. Oh, and also I get centralized, uniform logging with metadata and the ability to easily sort/filter by that metadata, and automatic vacuuming. Oh, and user units, which allow me to manage all my user services with the same set of tools as the system services.
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i dunno man, this is my experience, but any systemd distro with xfce took nearly 1.5x to boot than void and runit. And systemd based distros with xfce ate my ram
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So 10 seconds? Also systemd only uses like 50-70mb of ram, & if you're using a DE, you don't care about ram usage to the degree that this would matter.
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nah, see i have this acpi bug that i dont wanna fix, but it increases the boot time a lot....like in normal circumstance it would boot @ idk 5 seconds but now it takes like 2-3 mins. When i used arch n systemd, boot time was like 10 mins.
idk wht ate my ram, but arch + xfce took like 900 mb and void+xfce takes 600 -700 mb of ram.
i care about both, ease of use n ram, xfce offers both. And i do care about ram as i am trying to learn zig and it's in beta [or whtverer it is called] soo the compiler takes up a lot of ram.
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Void will only have marginally less ram usage. Also its your hardware if it takes an absurd 10 minutes to boot your computer. I as an experiment, made a 300 gb swap file & that was a 20 minute boot. Ive never heard of zig, but while you may care about ram to an extent, as you're on xfce, its nonsensical to care about it under 1gb if you're still fine using ram on a DE
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Believe it or not. You can believe what you want and I can, too. I did my reading and I came to a conclusion and I don’t wanna argue about it.
0†
Don't really get the idea of a setup that sucks less that depends on a separate language ~1GB+ large for a window manager! I joke of course, looks dope!
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You don’t have to take it to literal. I said it „sucks less“ in the sense if „I got rid of things that generated problems for me“. Doesn’t mean it completely follows the suckless philosophy.
Thanks for coming to my ted talk
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Yeah dw I was mostly messing around anyway!
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My xmonad config compiles down to a 3.5MB binary...
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Yeah I realise the wording is a bit mangled here, I meant the compiler install is a lorg boi, not the WM itself.
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depends on a separate language ~1GB+ large
what?
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Its a joke about a suckless setup using a haskell window manager, which has an obscenely large compiler binary size vs say, rust, c or python.
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as in the compiler is big? or the produced binary is bloated
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Compiler is big, produced binaries by haskell are large mostly coz of static linking afaik.
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GHC compiler with transitive dependencies is about 2.2GB.
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dear god
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This is great!
I still use systemd, not sure why people don't like it but I haven't used a display manager in ages.
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There are some legitimate arguments (albeit flimsy) against systemd, but most people who vocally oppose it mainly do it because they think unironically parroting a meme without fully understanding exactly what systemd even is will give them some kind of Linux street cred.
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Or maybe they (hopefully some of them) actually really understand why they don't want systemd (https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/guides/linux-hardening.html#choosing-the-right-distro). But if you are not into security/hardening, then it should matter.
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Void gang
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systemd is bloat
-someone
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systemd is bloat.
Linux is also bloat, have you looked at how complex it is?
And yet both systemd and Linux are more useful than the alternatives most of the time.
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well. actually: I knew systemd had some inherent issues but I didn't know how much it sucked until i read this: https://suckless.org/sucks/systemd/
Edit: honestly I don’t even know what’s wrong with that comment. Is it that I found out new things by reading articles in the web? How do you come to conclusions? Is it that something can only be replaced as soon as it blows up your machine? I don’t get the hate. Use what you want. That’s what I do ;)
-2†
So it worked just fine until you read some article on the web, lol.
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Gotta say, i just installed artix on an old laptop to try to boost its life and the primary feature of it to me is the runit init system.
I had the same attitude but having experienced how much simpler and more understandable an init system can be im going to be switching most of my machines to something with an alternative to systemd
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Well, I only use it to start and stop services and the like. It's very simple as far as I'm concerned.
In terms of performance, I've looked at some tests and systemd was faster, lol. Don't know if it's true, but I haven't seen it the other way around either. For me it's just unnecessary complexity to think about and work around for no tangible benefit.
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It still works just fine. That doesn’t mean it can’t suck. Only because it never blew up my dorm doesn’t means it’s good software, does it?
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Doesn't mean it's bad software either.
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Ok well who can argue against an elitist like you?
I mean you installed Arch...
-2
What makes me an elitist? I didn't say anything about Arch. Nothing elite about systemd either.
How about you stop throwing around words for no reason.
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True that.
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Fun fact: in the early days of Bitcoin someone put out a hit against the lead dev of systemd on the dark web.
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Some of those have been fixed since. As for others, I suggest you try and evaluate if those matter to you personally.
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Thanks man. I did. But good recommendation.
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Ok guys:
- OS: Void Linux
- WM: Xmonad
- Theme: Dracula
- fetch: ufetch
- background:https://imgur.com/a/fqyekqa
- editor: doom emacs run in console
- spotify-player: ncspot (this is awesome, best one ever encountered)
- PDF reader: zathura
- webbrowser: well... firefox
- bar: xmobar
... if you're wondering how huge my display is: This is a 32" 2k display with a vertical 27" full hd on its right. so up to the right it's actually not that high, that's just what scrot makes it look like ;)
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Love it, I have a crush on Xmonad. She's not too happy with me because I haven't given her the time she deserves to reach her full potential, but, gotta do what you gotta do.
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I agree with you who needs a machine? /s
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+1 for void
Thanks man. I love your rices. So clean and clear. The light one had me looking at it for 5 minutes. Awesome.
Thanks. Without the wallpaper it's crap tho lol.