HyperForum — Concerned about init freedom in Guix, only left Dragora and Hyperbola?

Re: Concerned about init freedom in Guix, only left Dragora and Hyperbola?

2026-04-13T10:16:16Z

Many systems cannot even run on more and most modern hardware without binary / non-free firmware-blobs at least. But even the FSF itself does not look close enough as we are at a point where even meson and cmake have their own package-managers. Meanwhile python is doing circular dependency-management, gcc-rust or gcc-rs needs rust to build and more flaws and fallacies surely incoming. So the listing is very long now at least only on the project-side. Alike inkscape cementing non-free platforms in their templates (Twitter, Facebook etc.), supertux including Discord, openttd including Discord and Steam. Well, not so good and nice at all.

Re: Concerned about init freedom in Guix, only left Dragora and Hyperbola?

2026-04-13T10:05:04Z

throgh wrote:

There is none to be clear: No FSF-approved system around use a different method. As I noted we search for replacement fully as even eudev is not enough for our stance. There are further tryouts for mdevd - with success already. But we need surely more time and if you lend us a hand in that we can go on that.

I see. Yes, I believe I understand perfectly now. I think that Hyperbola can really be something great - FSF-approved, nothing systemd-adjacent, nothing built with CMake, Python or Rust in the base system, at least. Even avoiding the corporate culture of the Linux Foundation entirely. Right now, please do correct me if I am wrong, it is possible to have this on a system which I do not wish to endorse because it can be optionally free and meets these other criteria, but installs restricting blobs if not stopped, hence not FSF-approved... That is not enough. :)
I am not sure how I can help, but this project, with it's stated goals, has my endorsement!

Re: Concerned about init freedom in Guix, only left Dragora and Hyperbola?

2026-04-13T09:55:19Z

Here more information about: https://forums.hyperbola.info/viewtopic.php?id=1028

Re: Concerned about init freedom in Guix, only left Dragora and Hyperbola?

2026-04-13T09:54:56Z

There is none to be clear: No FSF-approved system around use a different method. As I noted we search for replacement fully as even eudev is not enough for our stance. There are further tryouts for mdevd - with success already. But we need surely more time and if you lend us a hand in that we can go on that.

Re: Concerned about init freedom in Guix, only left Dragora and Hyperbola?

2026-04-13T08:43:29Z

throgh wrote:

Hello and welcome to the forums,
Hyperbola is currently using eudev as so-called dropin-replacement for udev itself. It is not finally sure if there is a timeslot where a replacement wit mdevd could be possible - before a switch to HyperbolaBSD might happen. Personal I would like to do such for sure, but for this there is more help and time needed. Regarding independently compiled system: Hyperbola is using pacman / hyperman but all packages are built from scratch and are not cloned elsewhere. :)

Hello! :D
Since you bring it up, I just booted up both Dragora and Hyperbola ISOs quickly to check, and discovered that both of them run udev at boot by default! I had previously assumed Hyperbola was using a full-fleshed alternative to udev (at least in the installer.) Dragora I was even more surprised, as I assumed it may have been using bare devtmpfs or static /dev, the latter of which I use on my system, and have experience with using the former.
I intend to now check if the latest release of any FSF-approved USB ISO installer for PCs doesn't load /sbin/udevd at boot. :)

Re: Concerned about init freedom in Guix, only left Dragora and Hyperbola?

2026-04-13T08:29:39Z

Hello and welcome to the forums,

Hyperbola is currently using eudev as so-called dropin-replacement for udev itself. It is not finally sure if there is a timeslot where a replacement wit mdevd could be possible - before a switch to HyperbolaBSD might happen. Personal I would like to do such for sure, but for this there is more help and time needed. Regarding independently compiled system: Hyperbola is using pacman / hyperman but all packages are built from scratch and are not cloned elsewhere.

Concerned about init freedom in Guix, only left Dragora and Hyperbola?

2026-04-13T04:08:49Z

Shepherd is forced on the user which would be one thing, this is understandable due to the reproducibility and Bootstrappable goal, using an easy-to-audit language like Scheme is fitting for that purpose. However, correct me if I'm wrong, the USB ISO installer of the Guix System loads udev without ever giving you the option not to do that at any point?
One can be pragmatic about it such as those who download non-FSF approved distributions and remove firmware blobs following installation, but this is not the approach that is taken here, as such I think using the Guix USB/DVD installer to set up your machine is wrong from the init freedom perspective, still I appreciate the Guix package manager itself and love the project's goals of making a fully bootstrappable system.

I believe Dragora and Hyperbola are the only self-hosting and online-capable (meeting these two criteria is crucial for development) distributions that are 100% free of udev and blobs by default? Another question I had is that Dragora seems to be considered the only independently compiled FSF-approved distribution for PCs, but I thought that Hyperbola also is.