Differences between Siduction and Debian Sid?

[computerworm01001]

Hello everyone,

If this is the wrong category for my question, I'm sorry. I wasn't sure where to post it, so I just put it here.

Anyway, I have about 1 year's worth of experience with GNU/LInux, and I have tried many distros in an attempt to find the perfect one for me. I'm considering trying Siduction or Debian Sid next, but first I would like to know the differences between the two. Under what circumstances should I (or should I not) use one over the other? Or to put it another way, what advantages will I derive from using Siduction instead of just plain old Debian Sid?

Kind regards,
computerworm01001

[devil]

Hi there and welcome to our forum. To answer your question: formally the difference is that Debian Sid is a repository that is not officially released and siduction is a distribution regularly released based on that repository.

That being said, we use our own kernel, that is kept very uptodate (5.13.3 at the moment) and a few scripts to ease the handling. Most importantly though, we provide support for our releases here on the forum and on IRC. We recommend siduction for weathered users or users who are willing to learn. Siduction (and sid at that) want to be dist-upgraded regularly, I would recommend at least once a week, you can do it daily, if you want). We also recommend doing that in a terminal (apt update && apt full-upgrade). So to be able to handle problems that might occur, you need to know how to use apt and dpkg. So if you like Debian and are willing to learn, be our guest.

[edlin]

In short: siduction is like assisted living. welcome.

edlin

[computerworm01001]

Hello Devil and Edlin, it's nice to meet you both. The perks that Devil cited (special kernel, dedicated support for Sid packages, and special management scripts) sound like good reasons to choose Siduction over vanilla Sid. And I've been using GNU/Linux for over a year now, so while I'm not quite "weathered", I'm also not a complete noob. Either way, I'm very willing to learn new things.

Daily upgrades are not a problem for me; I'm currently using Artix (Arch without systemd) as my main system, and I upgrade packages every day. The terminal is also a non-issue; in fact it's my preferred method for package upgrades on every GNU/Linux OS I've used (except Linux Mint which has an awesome software updater GUI). And I've learned a handful of other commands that I regularly use to manage my system. Also, I like Debian, so it looks like I meet all of your requirements.

From my end, I want a distro with: An enormous official repository (including runit and elogind packages), the newest software, and adequate support (including security patches and bug fixes) from a team of developers and/or the community, and it appears that Siduction may have all of that, so this might work out.

I just have a few more questions to ask before I make a decision:

What special scripts are provided to "ease the handling"?

Do the Siduction developers provide bug fixes and security patches that users otherwise would not receive as soon or at all with vanilla Debian Sid?

Which breaks more often, Siduction or Arch?

[devil]

Hey computerworm,

I guess you know that we are using systemd and will go on doing so. As I am a bit in a hurry, I will help  you find out about the scripts yourself: you can look at

Code: [Select]

apt show siduction scripts and check them out at https://github.com/siduction/siduction-scriptshttps://github.com/siduction/siduction-scripts.

We do fix things, if we know, Debian will not fix them in a timely manner. But we are limited by manpower in doing so. Siduction usually does not break. Packages break, which is why we have the section »Update Warnings« on the forum. Right now, we have quite a tricky kernel situation going on which seems to cripple network functions on older installs of siduction. But as we recommend to always keep a couple of kernels installed, this is not a problem. Most users are not affected, and so far, no one on the team can reproduce the problem, which makes it hard to debug. But other than that we are fine. Right now, things are quiet, since Debian in deep freeze for the release of Debian 11, but as soon as that is out the door, things will become more lively when it comes to upgrades. Enjoy.

[computerworm01001]

Hi again Devil,

Thank you for all your help. Yes, I am aware that Siduction officially uses systemd. However, packages for runit (https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=runit&searchon=names&suite=all&section=all) and elogind (https://packages.debian.org/search?suite=all&section=all&arch=any&searchon=names&keywords=elogind) are available in the Debian Sid repo, so I'll set those up first thing after installing the OS. And if I break anything by doing that, I will take full responsibility. I will figure out how to make it work by myself, or failing that, just go back to using Artix. I love Artix, but the big (albeit only) sticking point for me is that the official repos are very small compared to Debian's, and I've needed to install several packages from the AUR. The AUR makes me nervous because of it's very lightly regulated nature. I always read the PKGBUILD scripts, but I'm not an expert in bash, so while I have learned what a normal script looks like, I'm afraid I wouldn't recognize a malicious script if I encountered it. And then I'm afraid that if I did contract malware from the AUR, I wouldn't recognize the behavior of malware, and thus would never know I was infected. And yes, I know that sounds awfully paranoid, but there have been so many cyberattack reports on the news over the past few months . . .

Basically the reason I'm interested in Siduction is that it seems I can get all the features I get from Artix without having to use random scripts written by random people.

Also, I took a look at those scripts on the Siduction GitHub, and they look cool, and the other research I've done (including this forum post) are encouraging, so I think I'll give Siduction a go. Thank you again for all your help.

P.S. One last question - you say that you all do fix stuff when you can, but that you are "limited by manpower in doing so". Can you please tell me how many developers are currently active on the Siduction project?

[tranquil]

Siduction is easier to install than Debian Sid/Unstable.