Systemd: the good and the bad

Systemd certainly seems to divide opinions. This “new” init system, which also seeks to be a daemon and a central building block of the Linux today is without a doubt both good and a bad thing.

The good thing about systemd is that it does provide some much needed new functions and keeps things well within “the one single cover”. However, since systemd tries to be very versatile its design also tends to evolve more complex every time a new version gets done. Complexity by itself is not a problem when things do not break and everything goes well. The reality of computer world is however that things do, in general, break sooner or later and in this regard systemd is not perfect. For example: My more powerful computer was able to boot Debian Jessie easily but my Intel Atom build greeted me with a message saying that Systemd malfunctioned – and nothing ended up working. From the previous example it is easy to see that systemd (like all programs) do get bugs which can really ruin the user’s experience. Continue reading →

PostX 0.3. beta1 is finally here (Release notes and must read information)

After very long and careful fine-tuning I am proud to release PostX 0.3 first beta.

Download PostX 0.3. beta from my Sourceforge.net page

If you have comments about the PostX 0.3 beta navigate this Deviantart entry and drop a comment.

Some general questions and answers about the beta:

Q: Is it unstable to use?

A: It should not be. However, there might be some minor errors since 0.3. marks a major transition in PostX Gnu/Linux.

Q: Are the packages compatible with Debian Jessie?

A: Yes. Do not upgrade the base-files package though and do not install the apt-configs package if using Debian. The packages in question might break things or alter them in a ways you may not desire.

Q: How final is this the beta version?

A: General outlines are in place. The next beta will be more about fine-tuning things further and upgrading some old dusty things and building more optimized packages. Since the 0.3. beta is a moving target I will release upgrades via techtimejourney’s software channel and build a meta package, which pulls in all the latest things when they appear.

Q: Does the beta fit to a cd?

A: The iso size is about 764 megabytes. The release got bigger due the appearance of Libreoffice and likes. You should get a dvd or an usb stick. Burn image to usb stick like this:

sudo dd bs=4M if=Audax-0.2.iso of=/dev/sdb && sync

The beta user name is: audax and the password is live

Extra note (16th of August): to installthe beta to hd open a terminal client and type sudo live-installer during the live-mode. To switch between opened windows within openbox press ALT + TAB Continue reading →

PostX 0.3 beta status and update

PostX 0.3 beta’s original release date was supposed to be today. Unfortunately, I have not been able to finalize things due to an injury, which took place during Monday. Due to this unfortunate event I have been quite off from computer during the last few days. Rest assured PostX 0.3 is soon complete. Since I have been able to pick up some slack now I am quite sure that the beta will arrive within seven days. The current target date is around 5th of August -or even sooner if everything goes really well.

Here are the features, which will appear on PostX 0.3. beta Continue reading →