Are there options that will keep/protect ZorinOS freedom?
Linux Is Becoming Android (And Almost No One Noticed) | Source Code Ep. 21
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I noticed.
I have been voicing my concerns about this for years, now. No one listens.
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@Aravisian I was concerned when SystemD first appeared. It just keeps coming. There maybe some info in the video link I provided that may help. It mentions Flatpak becoming systemd only and more. What other things have you noticed over the years?
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Primarily the Gnome direction, in which it seeks to promote a minimal desktop environment that in their own words; aims to gear the end user toward coming mobile:
LibAdwaita and Gnomes HIG are heavily geared toward Mobile adaptation:
All of the above seeks to limit the End User and independent developers and centralize control within Gnome.
SystemD is very similar, how it branches out and infiltrates far beyond its scope, then becomes a hard dependency.
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@Aravisian That's not good either. Sounds like a ChromeOS move.
What would be a good alternative to Gnome?
Is there a way to prevent run0 from replacing sudo?
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Well, KDE (Plasma), XFCE, LXDE, There are many Desktop Environments.
Mint produces Cinnamon, which can be used on most any GnuLinux Distro.
And due to LibAdwaita and other controls, some distros are producing new Dekstop Environments to push back - Cosmic is such.
If you are using a distro that has it, you can run with sudo and remove run0.
If you mean "replacing Sudo" as in distros bringing it only and dropping sudo from the repos - that is possible in the long term and strong pressure from End Users is the only mitigation I know of - and most current GnuLinux users are not known for applying such strong pressure.
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@Aravisian I may have to look into those other options. I would like to be wrong but this seems to be going in a bad way, and fast. I may check out Cosmic, Cinnamon, & XFCE. Maybe even the new Unity. But this is nuts.
As for run0, I would want to remove run0 from any distro I use, as well as systemd.
Sadly, I agree with you. Not sure about currently Linux users doing that. Especially when they assume their system still gives them true freedom.
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For your interests, I would recommend you chatting with @swarfendor437.
He avoids SystemD like plague (understandably).
I have removed SystemD from a build of Zorin OS before. But, it is not easy and you must monitor problems as they come up. Despite being asked to write a guide on how to do it, I would much rather not. I do not want to be On Call for doing a lot of troubleshooting after.
It is preferable to choose a non-systemD distro to use, instead.
I mean, when I took Zorin OS and removed Gnome and SystemD, and also made the large number of other changes; it was not Zorin OS at all anymore. All of the customizations Zorin OS includes, from apps to themes, were removed.
It was easier to use Debian as the base, at that point.
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@Aravisian I get what you mean. I'll keep at it. It just would be nice to see ZorinOS be one of the few to get away from this mess.
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Zorin OS is unlikely as a candidate.
It is aimed toward Microsoft Windows migrants and these are migrants that come with the expectations that have been taught to them by Microsoft.
Zorin OS seeks more than to just emulate the look of Windows OS, but also it's feel.
"I want my computer to just work without me having to think or operate it" becomes the primary user.
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@Aravisian I like ZorinOS for not having to do too much tinkering. I get the appeal. But I'm afraid you're right. They want to cater to the everyday user, and that's not us.
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Hi and welcome.
RedHat, now owned by IBM, has always seen itself as the MS of the GNU/Linux world. (In much the same way that Mark Shuttleworth, the Billionaire funding Canonical, appears to make himself look like the Steve Jobs of GNU/Linux!)
RedHat and its (in)famous employee, Herr Poettinger, is the person behind systemd and PulseAudio which I hate with a vengeance. Similarly, whilst Poettinger was not involved in developing Flatpak, he attended a meeting of Developers who were looking at ways to make applications install universally, regardless of what distro package management system was in use - enter Flatpak.
Poettinger went back with his findings to RedHat who, like they did with systemd and PulseAudio, tried to push it onto all other distributions.
Canonical responded by producing an even worse option, snapd/snaps, to counter RedHats promulgation of Flatpak.
Other attempts by RedHat have been to try and remove /etc from the system - had they achieved this, I would never have got my SoundBlaster Audigy to work! Further they would love to have be rid of Stallman's GNU C Libraries, but then you would no longer have a viable GNU/Linux - GNU is the OS/Libraries, Linux is the Kernel that holds all the hardware drivers.
Now we also have Wayland protocol compositor, started off by another RedHat employee. It is being pushed as the best display protocol since sliced bread, but I beg to differ. For me the way forward is XLibre - the developer behind it wrote an update to xorg/X11 (xorg and X11 are one and the same thing, X11 merely indicating the last iteration that was ever released) that would have sorted out screentearing back in 2021 I belieive, but don't quote me, but it was not too long ago.
So as a way forward, XLibre is more secure than xorg and because it is a fork of xorg it is better than the ill thought out Wayland. This is just my opinion, others will beg to differ, but a lot of issues when Zorin 18 were released were attributable to the fact that Gnome, on which Zorin is based, make Wayland the default display protocol to draw the screen. I will admit it does have its place with some hardware but not all. My main objections to Wayland are:
- inability to screen capture (I installed KSnip for a client who I installed LMDE 7, then added the Plasma desktop, but it was using Wayland and Ksnip never launched!)
- Inability to stream - capture desktop activity for creating online videos.
- Most objectionable of all is its total disregard for users with Accessibility needs.
If you are wanting to look at distributions without systemd, then in no particular order other than alphabetical:
Antix - an extremely lightweight distribution, suitable for older hardware.
Artix - it is based on Arch but uses nothing of Arch and shuns Arch Linux repo usage as it has its own independent repos. In addition to offering Desktop Environments of Base, Cinammon, lxde, lxqt, MATE, Plasma, xfce, they also offer each DE with different init systems - dinit, openrc, runit, s6
Devuan - this distribution was setup with a large number of Debian developers who objected to the adoption of systemd. It is also the only distribution that a blind user can install unaided, provided they use a Brailliant device. Its default DE is xfce but you can add others, from MATE, Plasma, lxqt, lxde, openbox window manager.
My favourite YouTube video about Devuan: https://youtu.be/VSbNumR9Z8k?si=KnUoJHaBsPFUSpLz
MX-Linux comes in xfce and Plasma DE options. It offers a choice between systemd and SysV Init.
PCLOS/PCLOS Debian - PCLOS is curated by a developer called TexStar (I wonder where he is from 
) who originally worked on Mandrake Linux 9.2. Mandrake used .rpm (redhat package manager), which PCLOS is kind of based on and absolutely no systemd elements are present, not even elogind which was inspired by systemd according to a developers notes I read about elogind. PCLOS offers MATE, KDE Plasma and xfce .isos. I was so keen to try it I had to downgrade my graphics card from a GT-1030 to a GT-440! I really liked the xfce offering.
PCLOS Debian is different, it uses .deb for starters, has no systemd. It does not use a mainline kernel but Liquorix kernel and thus has avoided all the latest kernel exploits that have affected distributions using the mainline kernel. It offers more Desktop Environments than its parent PCLOS - budgie, Cinammon, KDE Plasma, KDE Plasma-mini, MATE, and xfce isos based on Debian 12 and 13.
The other item I am currently also not in favour of is RUST. But that is another story altogether.
The only GNU/Linux OS's that I like that has systemd is Q4OS (based on Debian 12 and 13), and LMDE 7 (Linux Mint Debian Edition 7 based on Debian 13)