Linux

I think my main objection at the time was that I didn't (and still don't) really trust Poettering, given his history. I still don't like how opaque systemd is - a lot of functionality feels gated behind extra steps that used to be unnecessary.

But I will grant that the benefits have outweighed the downsides. The distro standardization alone has been a benefit for developers and users alike.

I still think we could have standardized on a better solution, but I don't know what that better solution would have looked like.

no

The traditional init systems suited me just fine, i saw no need to change them. If they were so bad, then they could've been fixed or replaced.

The migration to systemd felt forced. Debian surprised everyone with the change. Also systemd's development is/was backed by corporate Red Hat, their lead developer wasn't exactly loved either and is now working for Microsoft. Of course Canonical's Ubuntu adopted it as well. Overall feels like Windows' svchost.exe, hence people accusing it of vendor lock-in.

It's not just an init system, it's way waaay more. It's supposed to be modular, but good luck keeping only its PID1 in a distro that supports systemd. It breaks the "do one thing right" approach and, in practice, does take away choice which pisses me off.

I had been using Debian since Woody, but that make me change to Gentoo on my desktop which, to me, took the best path: they default to OpenRC but you're free to use systemd if you want to. That's choice. For servers i now prefer Slackware and the laptop runs Devuan whenever i boot it up.

To be fair systemd hasn't shown its ugly face in the Ubuntu VMs i'm forced to use at work.

YMMV. If you're happy with it, fine. This, of course, is only my opinion.

It works well and it's low maintenance. As a "it needs to -just- works" kinda person, it works for me. If it needs -any- amount of configuration and keeps me from actually doing the work I need to do, I don't want it.

Don't try to take its components apart to use individually though, it doesn't work that way.

If you want to tinker, go with OpenRC.

Why do people keep insisting on capitalizing it wrong? It's systemd, all lowercase. Never has it been Systemd, and never has it been SystemD.

God damn I'd forgotten about Plymouth

I guess I'm in the camp if it doing too much. I prefer each program has its own script to run in a more isolated manner from anything else the system does so if one program locks up everything else on the system runs independent from the other software that has stopped responding to system calls.

1. systemd hasn't become a better project built by better, smarter people to deliver a better set of features. It's still hot garbage.
2. it's okay to continue pointing out it's hot garbage, in the hopes we can go forward or back or just get on something better/else (same thing).

Boot times aren't really an issue and not really relevant to good vs bad. You should be able to rice each one for speed on your particular use case if you really want to.

Be wary of anything you get from RedHat. I use their stuff sometimes but ensure I can happily live without gnome, systemd, pipewire, wayland or whatever else they are generously gifting to us freeloaders.

Not against systemd (although it’s bad and needs replacing), just against pottering.