r/debian • u/BoggledMind • 1d ago

Debian quirks

I have been running Debian on my servers for donkeys' years and been quite happy with it despite systemd, so when I had problems on my desktop computer with my YubiKey setup on a more obscure distro that also changed their package manager in a way that for me required a reinstall, I thought Debian, of course.

I don't know if I have been unlucky or if Debian (and its packaged programs) just has some strange quirks — actually, my web searches seem to indicate the latter.

When I turn my screen off and on again, like overnight, the HDMI sound sometimes doesn't work — never a problem with my previous distro. Depending on the mood of my machine, I can turn the screen off and on again or unplug the cable and replug it — and it may work … or it may not.

And Chromium on Debian seems to dislike a certain HTML date entry widgets where it consistently uses the US American date format despite everything on my computer set to UK. Trying the same widget with Firefox on the same machine, no problem. Trying the same widget with Chromium on another distro, no problem.

XFCE4 on Debian has a quirk that it turns off the NumLock indicator on the keyboard when the screen is locked, but NumLock is actually on. Why??? If I also turn the screen off, NumLock and the indicator are turned off. Never happened with XFCE on the other distro.

Sigh!

This is more of a vent than a request for help, TBH, I will probably live with it as it is as I have already tried many "homeopathic" remedies from the interwebs and used quite a bit of time with no particularly good outcome.

9 Upvotes

74% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

11

u/dkopgerpgdolfg 1d ago

"Despite" Systemd: Likely irrelevant for this topic. If you don't like don't use it, otherwise no reason to mention it.

"Other" distro: Name it, be specific.

HDMI thing: Not actionable like this. Infos about your hardware (like, all GPUs and screens), installed drivers etc., log messages, etc. ... would be a start.

Chromium: Well, clearly you foudn out that Chromium can do what you want in general, and it doesn't here, so not "everything" is set to UK (either on your end or because of a general bug). What is "everything" to you, what version of Chromium do you have from what source, and so on...

Mentally connecting Numlock with Xfce and HDMI screens is a questionable stretch. In any case, again more details...

"Homeopathic" remedies: The way the post is written makes me suspect you broke some more things yourself. As this seems to be a clean new install, I recommend to start over, and if necessary come back with more infos.

-1

u/BoggledMind 1d ago

As I said, this was more a vent than a call for help, therefore the mix of opinion and problems.

The "despite systemd" is really an indication that I consider systemd an ill though out idea that is contrary to the UNIX principle. It is at the same time more or less unavoidable as all the major distros use it, so I did bite the bullet for my desktop distro. And by calling it unavoidable, I mean that due to the amount of usage it has, problems crop up if you try a non-systemd distro as they sometimes have to jump though hoops to ensure certain programs work without systemd.

And about the "homeopathic" remedies, the term was meant as a joke and I have carefully vetted each proposed solution before implementation and rigorously undone them if they did not provide the expected result.

3

u/MrGeekman 1d ago

If you really don't want Systemd, maybe you should try Devuan. It's Debian, just without Systemd.

2

u/BoggledMind 1d ago

I did try Devuan some time ago but was hit by some stuff that didn't work, so I had to abandon it — it might be better today, but I simply didn't have time to check it out in case it failed again as I needed the YubiKey to function correctly for work (and no, the YubiKey problem was not related to Debian/Devuan but the reason I had to reinstall urgently).

4

u/dkopgerpgdolfg 1d ago

that is contrary to the UNIX principle

Oh yeah, another user that a) can't see that the whole program collection is a "collection", b) thinks that Linux is Unix therefore needs to follow its principles (it is not), c) thinks that Unix follows the so-called Unix principle (it does not), d) thinks that this so-called Unix principle is a good idea for all software (no), ... and so on.

It's funny really that "Unix principle" is always the go-to reason for the sysd haters, because they have better to complain about. Again, even Unix nowadays ignores what Reddit calls Unix principle.

I mean that due to the amount of usage it has, problems crop up if you try a non-systemd distro

That's true for literally all things that aren't the most common choice in their area.

2

u/lisploli 1d ago

The only downside of not using systemd is the occasional hate on reddit.

3

u/cjwatson Debian Developer 1d ago

Do the details of the date entry widget problem match up with https://bugs.debian.org/1108940? I ask partly because that one seems to not just be a Debian problem. But if it's the same kind of HTML elements that are a problem in your case, then it might be worth following up to that bug with what you know.

3

u/michaelpaoli 17h ago

despite systemd

It's a choice. Debian gives one many choices. Many distros remove such choices.

$ sudo ls -l /proc/1/exe && dpkg -S /usr/sbin/init && cat /etc/debian_version && apt-cache depends init
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Oct  2 12:50 /proc/1/exe -> /usr/sbin/init
sysvinit-core: /usr/sbin/init
13.7
init
 |PreDepends: systemd-sysv
  PreDepends: sysvinit-core
$

The universal operating system

If desired, one can also configure to avoid accidentally switching back to systemd:

$ more /etc/apt/*.d/*init | cat
::::::::::::::
/etc/apt/preferences.d/98init
::::::::::::::
Explanation: Avoid unintended installation of systemd-sysv.
Explanation: init can be provided by: systemd-sysv | sysvinit-core
Package: systemd-sysv
Pin: version *
Pin-Priority: -1

::::::::::::::
/etc/apt/preferences.d/99init
::::::::::::::
Explanation: Avoid unintended installation of systemd
Explanation: Note that systemd doesn't require systemd-sysv (systemd's
Explanation: init system).
Package: systemd
Pin: version *
Pin-Priority: -1

$

3

u/listbox 14h ago edited 13h ago

There is honestly no OS that comes close to Debian in universality and sane policy choices, while also mustering such a vast field of expert volunteer contributors, all coordinated on release/branch policy. It's a marvel that this exists at all - let alone being a stable reference basis for dozens of distributions.
I say that, even knowing the dubious board vote that endorsed systemd - ultimately a sane choice if not without repercussion and lingering grumbles.

I first ran Debian 2.0 Hamm on a DEC Multia UDB and a Sparc Classic - already better improvements than their vendor supplied OSF/1 and Sun Solaris.
25 years later, Debian is recognizable and every bit of that experience is useful today. I can't say the same for old skill with Redhat Vanderbilt and Colgate releases.

3

u/michaelpaoli 8h ago

dubious board vote that endorsed systemd

Alas, Open Source, fork happens, e.g. Devuan. Really rather wish those resources had instead stayed with Debian and rather better enabled more Debian packages to generally have less systemd dependencies - or at least have that be more generally an option. Ah well, and so it goes. And yes, I do manage fair number of Debian systems both with, and without, systemd. Where systemd doesn't muck things up, or there's otherwise no particular reason to get rid of it, I generally let it be. But where it causes significant issues, I banish it ... sometimes even varies on same hardware across major version upgrades ... systemd may seriously break stuff with one release, then be fine with some subsequent major release, then seriously break things with yet some other major release some years after that, so, yeah, not too uncommonly does some goin' back and forth. But at least where it's an issue, easy enough to banish it ... no need to be switching distros just to change init system.

Heck, I've seen far too much whiney sh*t like, "Debian uses systemd, I hat systemd, therefor I hate Debian" bullsh*t, I've even given and posted demonstrations of quickly changing the init system on Debian ... in fact at the time, rotated through all the available init systems in quick order, showing just how easy it can be.

3

u/listbox 7h ago

I have to say despite resisting, writing oneshot systemd units is a lot easier than delving through SysV init runlevels to place your 41_foo shell snippet. I may not remember how to do that anymore.
I also gripe about Ubuntu, of course. But I think Upstart would have been the "right" choice for modernizing asynchronous init with service dependency. It would have banished the creeping featurism and black-box workings. I'd still be able to hand-edit things like resolv.conf in a pinch, without re-discovering they were generated by a systemd run state. Ugh.

3

u/michaelpaoli 8h ago

first ran Debian 2.0 Hamm

Yeah, back in 1998, I well researched, evaluated, and tested, and went with Debian, migrating from SCO UNIX at that time. That was too Debian hamm ... bit before it was released, though it was well into its beta phase by the time I made that jump ... so it was released as the new stable 1998-07-24, rather shortly after I'd completed my migration to Debian on 1998-07-16.

Never regretted that choice. Debian remains far and away my highly preferred distro.

Also always found Debian to be of better quality and better supported than even the big name commercial distros. Typically far far fewer bugs and headaches encountered on Debian, and if/when there is any issue, can generally find relevant information (and often fixes or work-arounds) far more quickly and efficiently with Debian, even compared to paid expensive support from commercial distros. Alas, some of that commercial distro sh*t I've encountered really poor quality seriously drain bamaged bugs and issues - in of course their commercial production "enterprise" releases ... yeah, far worse quality and bigger and more seriously problems, than I've ever at all encountered with Debian. I'll spare folks the horror stories ... this is r/debian, after all, and no Debian horror stories.

3

u/listbox 7h ago

I mean, do you remember how complicated SuSE was back then and the original YaST? Argh. It was like AIX or something!

The biggest problem with looking for Ubuntu community support and similar, is hundreds of dead-end pages from stackexchange clogging search results.

The good old Linux HOWTO days. "This worked on Slackware."