''As a personal note, I do not like this decision. To me LFS is about learning how a system works. Understanding the boot process is a big part of that. systemd is about 1678 "C" files plus many data files. System V is "22" C files plus about 50 short bash scripts and data files. Yes, systemd provides a lot of capabilities, but we will be losing some things I consider important.
However, the decision needs to be made.''
I will soon be releasing a distro that is free of systemd, wayland, dbus, and other troublesome software. It is built starting from LFS in 2019, and now consists of over 1,500 packages, cross compiling to x86-32/64, powerpc32/64, and others if I had hardware to test. It's built entirely from shell scripts which are clean, organized, and easy to read.
I need help to get the system ready for release in 60-90 days. In particular, I need a fast build system, as my current 12+ year old workstation is too slow. Alpha/beta testers are welcome too. Anyone who wants to help in some way or hear more details, please get in touch:
domain: killthe.net
user: dave
What makes you decide that these are troublesome software's? Systemd is usually argued that it is monolithic and breaks the Unix paradigm.
But then you are going for X over Wayland? X is a monolithic application that breaks the Unix paradigms.
Are you just picking things because they are old, or is there a reason you decided to go with this setup?
(I recommend staying far away from "X11libre" also, for the same reason, with no further comment.)
Monolithic stuff is OK too, where it makes sense. The kernel is monolithic. ZFS is monolithic.
(Yes, this system has ZFS support. The module is built in to the kernel. In time it will support booting from ZFS also, when I finish the initrd code.)
There is a clear, solid reason for everything this system is or does. I'm not a contrarian or a purist, just someone with opinions gained from long experience who is not happy with the direction mainstream Linux is headed. My system is a zen garden of bliss compared to buggy garbage like Ubuntu.
Really, it's like someone added a turbo button. Ubuntu and friends are so bloated, laggy, and slow. I regularly use this system on 15-20+ year old hardware. The default window manager is Enlightenment e16. It's snappy and responsive everywhere.
KDE, Xfce, etc are supported also and are noticeably peppier than on mainstream distros, just due to the lack of bloat, gazillions of daemons running in the background, etc. Out of the box, nothing runs by default. You enable only what you want.
Another inviolable principle is that no application is allowed to originate or receive network traffic unless the user specifically requests it. There is ZERO network activity going on in the background. None of this steady stream of who knows what contacting who knows where that goes on with other systems. No auto update etc. No internet required or used during the system build. Python module installs do not consult the central repository or download anything. Meson or cmake does not download anything. Etc. All that's patched out and disabled.
It's a distro that is meant to be forked. It's very easily done. It's a blank slate, a vanilla Linux system with subtle and tasteful improvements that is the ideal starting point to customize to your exact specifications. If you want to add in systemd and wayland, fine, I don't care, it's your system and you can build it according to your desires. People can use this platform to build their own custom OS and save themselves a ton of work vs. starting completely from scratch.
It's a system that can be audited. Everything is built with shell scripts, starting with source archives and patches that are applied during the build process. It's all inspectable and the process can be understood step by step.
It's a way to hit the ground running with a full featured, working system, while learning in the process. This distro will teach you what LFS would teach you, but with less of a "sheer cliff face" learning curve, letting you focus more on higher aspects of building the system while still learning the low level details in time.
The build is actually overall simpler than LFS despite being way more featured, with things like Ada support. (Yes, it has GNAT.) I just found a way to do it better, and kept iterating countless times to simplify and improve to the max.
Existing systems did not satisfy my requirements or standards of quality, so I just had to create a new one.