Something like 6 years ago, I already described desktop environment I used over years. I was, since then, decently satisfied by KDE/Plasma/however you name it. Mostly because kmail works properly with IMAPS and handle CardDav-cloud server out of the box, because Dolphin is the best file browser (immediate filter and group files and directories by day are the feature I enjoy most and none other file browser I know got right) and the rest (akregator, korganizer with CalDav) ok.
But systemd arrived. I was curious at first and encouraged, on this very blog, people to give it a try. But soon enough I found out I was faring better without, reaching the conclusion that “Point is with systemd, I’m able to do less and it takes me more time”. I moved away from systemd and, then, as consequence, of Debian. And I found out that KDE was increasingly getting dependant on systemd, with bug reports about regression in their software being closed advising to use systemd. It led me, in 2015, to ask on /. Will You Be Able To Run a Modern Desktop Environment In 2016 Without Systemd? as follows:
Early this year, David Edmundson from KDE, concluded that “In many cases [systemd] allows us to throw away large amounts of code whilst at the same time providing a better user experience. Adding it [systemd] as an optional extra defeats the main benefit“. A perfectly sensible explanation. But, then, one might wonder to which point KDE would remain usable without systemd?
Recently, on one Devuan box, I noticed that KDE power management (Powerdevil) no longer supported suspend and hibernate. Since pm-utils was still there, for a while, I resorted to call pm-suspend directly, hoping it would get fixed at some point. But it did not. So I wrote a report myself. I was not expecting much. But neither was I expecting it to be immediately marked as RESOLVED and DOWNSTREAM, with a comment accusing the “Debian fork” I’m using to “ripe out” systemd without “coming with any of the supported solutions Plasma provides“. I searched beforehand about the issue so I knew that the problem also occurred on some other Debian-based systems and that the bug seemed entirely tied to upower, an upstream software used by Powerdevil. So if anything, at least this bug should have been marked as UPSTREAM.
While no one dares (yet) to claim to write software only for systemd based operating system, it is obvious that it is now getting quite hard to get support otherwise. At the same time, bricks that worked for years without now just get ruined, since, as pointed out by Edmunson, adding systemd as “optional extra defeats its main benefit”. So, is it likely that we’ll still have in 2016 a modern desktop environment, without recent regressions, running without systemd?
I replied once to comments in this article, for instance (not that l like to quote myself, but I’d rather avoid repeating myself):
Yeah and no. As pointed out in the article, the culprit is upower. But upower is mandatory for KDE power management. So it does not really matter whether it is Powerdevil that requires systemd or upower. ConsoleKit2 recently gained support? Was ConsoleKit2 actually been packaged? Does upower supporting ConsoleKit2 been packaged? If not, user experience wise, that is not palatable. And moreover, what to expect from upower? Did they not purposefully removed pm-utils support, that worked until then, in favor of systemd? Why removing support for a working solution (pm-utils) and, later, much later, adding support for some ConsoleKit2? What is the exact plan of ConsoleKit2? Providing some systemd-like interface without being systemd? Is that what ConsoleKit2 offers that pm-utils could not? If so, wow long will it work, to attempt to write a parallel to systemd, in order to make sure that all the software that in the past worked without systemd can now work with the systemd alternative? Just as a reminder, ConsoleKit2 exists “because there isnâ(TM)t currently a standard for system actions like suspend/hibernate anymore. We use these features in Xfce and it would be nice to keep the session manager and power manager in sync (i.e. you inhibit something and the session manager doesnâ(TM)t see it). Obviously thereâ(TM)s systembsd in the works, so this is a stop gap until that matures (however long that may be). But Iâ(TM)ll happily continue to maintain and support ConsoleKit2 as long as someone finds it useful”. https://erickoegel.wordpress.c… [wordpress.com] The acknowledged benefit of systemd, as pointed out by Edmunson (link in the article) was to drop code. If ConsoleKit2 and al needs to write code to compensate from all the dropped code, following systemd, that unlikely sustainable. The stop gap project won’t do. And it is really the funny thing now with systemd: if you dont want it, you need to write everything that it does because all the anterior/historical parts, good or bad, are getting deprecated and removed. So in order not to use systemd, you need to clone it. Bonkers. Hence the question: will KDE be still usable in 2016 without systemd.
Since then, I noticed a few other small issues which I did not bother to report: the answer would have been the same. So it is near one year later after my question asked on ./ and the answer is grim. More KDE parts got broken for me (sound, etc).
So I resorted to old answers, tested previously using desktop. I found Fluxbox to be the easiest to set up in a way that suits my needs.
Along with fluxbox, you need tint2 and xcompmgr, all properly packaged in Devuan. Then it is just a matter of editing files in ~/.fluxbox (after starting it once):
~/.fluxbox/startup :
#!/bin/sh # # fluxbox startup-script: # # Lines starting with a '#' are ignored. # background image fbsetbg ~/.fluxbox/backgrounds/selje.png & # modern panel tint2 & # desktop transparency xcompmgr -c & # sysinfo panel conky & # required for dolphin to show up cleanly export XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=kde # desktop pager fbpager -w & # XMPP client pidgin & # cloud sync client owncloud & # gpg/ssh agents eval "$(gpg-agent --daemon)" & eval "$(ssh-agent)" & # screen temperature redshift & [...]
~/.fluxbox/keys :
Control Mod1 A :Exec urxvtc Control Mod1 I :Exec firefox Control Mod1 M :Exec kmail Control Mod1 E :Exec emacs Control Mod1 D :Exec XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=kde dolphin [...] # if these don't work, use xev to find out your real keycodes XF86AudioRaiseVolume :Exec amixer sset Master,0 2%+ XF86AudioLowerVolume :Exec amixer sset Master,0 2%- XF86AudioMute :Exec amixer sset Master,0 toggle #XF86AudioPlay XF86AudioPrev :Exec /usr/local/bin/switch-sound XF86AudioNext :Exec /usr/local/bin/switch-redshift [...] # sleep fluxbox CTRL-ALT pause Control Mod1 127 :Exec sudo hibernate-ram [...]
~/.fluxbox/init (just to set of fluxbox toolbar since we use tint2 instead) :
session.screen0.toolbar.visible: false
~/.conkyrc (need to be edited, for instance eth device names, etc):
conky.config = {
alignment = 'bottom_left',
background = yes,
border_width = 1,
cpu_avg_samples = 2,
default_color = 'white',
default_outline_color = 'white',
default_shade_color = 'white',
draw_borders = false,
draw_graph_borders = true,
draw_outline = false,
draw_shades = false,
double_buffer = yes,
use_xft = true,
font = 'Oxygen Mono:size=10',
gap_x = 25,
gap_y = 25,
minimum_height = 5,
minimum_width = 5,
net_avg_samples = 2,
no_buffers = true,
out_to_console = false,
out_to_stderr = false,
extra_newline = false,
own_window = true,
own_window_class = 'Conky',
own_window_type = 'override',
own_window_colour = '#3d3d3d',
stippled_borders = 0,
update_interval = 2.5,
uppercase = false,
use_spacer = 'none',
show_graph_scale = false,
show_graph_range = false
}
conky.text = [[
# in red if sound off
${if_match "[on]" == "${exec amixer get Master | egrep -o '\[on\]' | tail -1}"}$
{color #4d4d4d}${else}${color Dark Salmon}${endif}
# assume left/right channels have same volume level
${execbar amixer get Master | egrep -o '[0-9]+%'| sed s/\%// | tail -1}
############
#${color #4d4d4d}$hr
${color grey}↑${color #4d4d4d}${upspeedgraph eth2 25,140} ${color grey}↓${color
#4d4d4d}${downspeedgraph eth2 25,140}
###########
#${color #4d4d4d}$hr
#${color grey}CPU: ${color white}${i2c isa-0228 temp 2}°C$color - MB: ${color wh
ite}${i2c 9191-0290 temp 1}°C
###########
#${color #4d4d4d}$hr
${color grey}Name PID CPU% MEM%
${color lightgrey} ${top name 1} ${top pid 1} ${top cpu 1} ${top mem 1}
${color lightgrey} ${top name 2} ${top pid 2} ${top cpu 2} ${top mem 2}
${color lightgrey} ${top name 3} ${top pid 3} ${top cpu 3} ${top mem 3}
${color lightgrey} ${top name 4} ${top pid 4} ${top cpu 4} ${top mem 4}
${color lightgrey} ${top name 5} ${top pid 5} ${top cpu 5} ${top mem 5}
${color lightgrey} ${top name 6} ${top pid 6} ${top cpu 6} ${top mem 6}
${color lightgrey} ${top name 7} ${top pid 7} ${top cpu 7} ${top mem 7}
]]
With this setup, the only thing I actually miss is a icon-tasklist.
# cd /scratch 