I run a similar setup, on a X60, with more "modern" adaptations :
- systemd allows me to have insanely fast boot, and perfect control on what get started at boot. Debian likes to start everything and the kitchensync by default, after you installed it. My systemd is compiled with a non-standard path so only the .services I put there get run.
- coreboot replaces the bios, likewise for the added freedom, the hackability, and the speed gains. At the moment I can boot to a command line in less than 5 seconds (because of grub and stuff), but I want to optimize that further (the kernel and systemd each take less than 1 second, coreboot a bit over their total - 3s is feasible now by removing grub menus, but I'd like less than 2s so I guess I'll have to dig into things :-)
- xorg is nice because it's like having an almost infinite number of VTs. Yeah I know screen and the likes, but there're other nice things you get from X, like the ability to display many different fonts, a very large unicode range, graphs, etc.
- lxde is quite minimal and non intrusive, yet you get modern things like default application, .desktop file to start programs, etc.
- for all my office needs, I use Microsoft Office in wine. Runs very fast, fully unicode aware. That's cool because I'm using a xmodmap for mathematical greek letters in the 3rd level, it all works!!
I fully agree that starting from a minimal debian install is the way to go to avoid too much cruft. There are many things I'm glad I'm not using, such as NetworkManager and the likes (hopefully to be superseded by systemd some day) but my setup is generally modern enough to do everything I need, while fast enough even on 2006-era hardware, and old-school enough as in "if there's a problem, I can pinpoint where it comes from and fix it"
It even replaced a very-recent macbook as my default computer.
There're many gains from using "modern stuff". I'd have killed to get something as good as systemd and the current support of wine in the early 2000.
My take is to take the best free software has to offer, whether it's old or new, to match your needs.
EDIT: I boot my laptop whenever I want to use it, because a few seconds is a rounding error, and this saves more power than software suspend. I do suspend when I take a short break. Congrats on the fast boot time without systemd, but it's not the easiest way :-) My systemd starts a minimal debian testing in 700 ms. The kernel takes a bit above that.
I'm of the old-skool Unix generation when 500 day uptime on a SPARC or similar was normal and even 1000 day wasn't considered particularly impressive. And we never worried about what was or wasn't started at boot, cos that was easy.
That's great for my home server, which only gets rebooted when something goes wrong and/or I swap hardware.
But I've yet to experience those kind of uptimes for my laptop - either I forget to plug the charger in, or I've dropped it, or it's decided to shut down because "someone" in my house decided that covering the went with a blanket was a good idea.
It just lives a much harsher life, and as a result boot times matter because these things have a way of always happening when I urgently need to do something.
To me, a fast bootup is a non-issue. I want "less magic" with my computers. I want to have control over my system. Surely it must be possible with systemd. But the good old sysv-init works for me and I am familiar with it. Shoehorning any system for every possible need is probably a bad idea. True with systemd and true with sysv-init or any system.
- systemd allows me to have insanely fast boot, and perfect control on what get started at boot. Debian likes to start everything and the kitchensync by default, after you installed it. My systemd is compiled with a non-standard path so only the .services I put there get run.
- coreboot replaces the bios, likewise for the added freedom, the hackability, and the speed gains. At the moment I can boot to a command line in less than 5 seconds (because of grub and stuff), but I want to optimize that further (the kernel and systemd each take less than 1 second, coreboot a bit over their total - 3s is feasible now by removing grub menus, but I'd like less than 2s so I guess I'll have to dig into things :-)
- xorg is nice because it's like having an almost infinite number of VTs. Yeah I know screen and the likes, but there're other nice things you get from X, like the ability to display many different fonts, a very large unicode range, graphs, etc.
- lxde is quite minimal and non intrusive, yet you get modern things like default application, .desktop file to start programs, etc.
- for all my office needs, I use Microsoft Office in wine. Runs very fast, fully unicode aware. That's cool because I'm using a xmodmap for mathematical greek letters in the 3rd level, it all works!!
¬∞ / ¹≈ / ²≠ / ³∇ / ⁴∀ / ⁵∪ / ⁶∩ / ⁷∈ / ⁸⊂ / ⁹≽ / ⁰≿ / ⁻ ⃗ / ⁺±
θΘ / ωΩ / ɛƐ / ρϱ / ꚍꚌ / ψΨ / υϒ / ι∫ / ϖϵ / πΠ / ̂ ̈ / ̃ ̧ / ̊ ̀
α∂ / σΣ / δΔ / φΦ / ɣΓ / ηϘ / ϕϑ / 𝟀κ / λΛ / ̅ ́ / ̆ ̇
ζϟ / ξΞ / ςϚ / √⊥ / βϐ / νͲ / μϡ / ≤≺ / ≥≻ / / ⃝
I fully agree that starting from a minimal debian install is the way to go to avoid too much cruft. There are many things I'm glad I'm not using, such as NetworkManager and the likes (hopefully to be superseded by systemd some day) but my setup is generally modern enough to do everything I need, while fast enough even on 2006-era hardware, and old-school enough as in "if there's a problem, I can pinpoint where it comes from and fix it"
It even replaced a very-recent macbook as my default computer.
There're many gains from using "modern stuff". I'd have killed to get something as good as systemd and the current support of wine in the early 2000.
My take is to take the best free software has to offer, whether it's old or new, to match your needs.
EDIT: I boot my laptop whenever I want to use it, because a few seconds is a rounding error, and this saves more power than software suspend. I do suspend when I take a short break. Congrats on the fast boot time without systemd, but it's not the easiest way :-) My systemd starts a minimal debian testing in 700 ms. The kernel takes a bit above that.