In today's open source roundup: A thread about systemd on Reddit turns into a train wreck. Plus: A game is removed from Steam after the developer threatens Gabe Newell, and a review of SparkyLinux 3.5 by DistroWatch Redditor swarmed after asking a question about systemd In today’s open source roundup: A thread about systemd on Reddit turns into a train wreck. Plus: A game is removed from Steam after the developer threatens Gabe Newell, and a review of SparkyLinux 3.5 by DistroWatch Systemd has long spawned many…er…passionate debates in the Linux community. Most discussions tend to be very polarized between those who support systemd and those who utterly loathe it. A redditor asked an innocent question about systemd and casual Linux users, and then he got far more than he bargained for…ouch! According to Reddit: Well…this blew up. I’m really only into customizing my DE, learning python and gaming, and that doesn’t really have to do with running a server stack or custom init, so I guess it’s not really my problem… yet. EDIT: …what have I gotten myself into? More at Reddit Wow, talk about walking into a minefield! As I write this the thread has more than 325 responses with no signs of slowing down. I give the redditor who asked the question credit for doing so, but he inadvertently kicked a hornet’s nest. Hopefully things will calm down eventually in that discussion. It just goes to show you though that the topic of systemd is still red-hot (toxic?) in the Linux community. If you haven’t been following the systemd saga, here’s a few recent news stories to bring you up to date: The Register: Unix greybards threaten Debian fork over systemd plan ITWire: Feature-creep will ensure that systemd stays I Programmer: Debian and the systemd storm – ready to reconsider? The Register: Linux systemd dev says open source is ‘SICK’, kernel community ‘awful’ Game removed from Steam after developer threatens Gabe Newell GamingOnLinux reports that a game was removed from Steam after the developer posted a tweet that threatened Gabe Newell. According to GamingOnLinux: He may have removed the tweet, but the internet saw it, screenshot it, and sent it to Valve who quickly cancelled relations with the developer and removed his game for sale. All of this because Paranautical Activity’s carousel banner section on Steam said “Now in Early Access” instead of “Now released”. Valve are a company, made up of humans. Humans make mistakes… More at GamingOnLinux What a strange story. Perhaps the developer’s temper just got the best of him. It happens to most of us at times. Maybe he should try the old “serenity now” technique from Seinfeld when he starts to stress out: SparkyLinux 3.5 review DistroWatch has a review of SparkyLinux 3.5, and comes away with a mostly positive impression. According to DistroWatch: Since my time with Qubes was cut quite short I turned my attention to another project. SparkyLinux 3.5 was released a few weeks ago and I thought the Debian-based distribution looked interesting. SparkyLinux (hereafter referred to as Sparky) is available in several editions. At the time of writing there are 32-bit and 64-bit builds of LXDE, Enlightenment, MATE, Razor-qt, Xfce, Openbox and JWM editions. I opted to download the 64-bit build of the MATE edition of SparkyLinux. The ISO file we download is approximately 1.5 GB in size. SparkyLinux does some things well. It is fast and friendly in most aspects. However, some problems with admin modules and the distribution’s style of package management will probably turn away novice Linux users. SparkyLinux may be a good choice for people who want to play with Debian Testing and run a lightweight desktop. All of SparkyLinux’ editions feature low-resource desktop environments and I suspect the distribution will suit people running on older hardware, so long as they don’t mind keeping up with a rolling repository of software. More at DistroWatch DistroWatch You can get more information about SparkyLinux on its official site, including downloads, a discussion forum, and FAQ. SparkyLinux also has a Google+ page where you can find news about this Debian-based distribution. What’s your take on all this? Tell me in the comments below. Open Source