Because they can.

I’m not an anti-systemd extremist. I use Void because it is a simple distro that doesn’t break as often as Arch does, while also being very up-to-date.

I do have some things I dislike about systemd though which is why I will continue avoiding it in the future.

• It doesn’t follow the Unix Philosophy. This is a big problem for me, I want to be able to switch out different parts of my system as I please. Systemd is a collection of projects that are all so deeply integrated that you can’t use them without also running the Systemd init system. And now Desktop Environments are starting to depend on Logind for example and there’s no alternative for non-systemd users. (Except Elogind but that’s just Logind ripped out of SystemD)
• It’s bloated and has many features I don’t use. I just need an init system to start all my services at boot and restart them if they fail. Nothing more

Also using a Distro without Systemd is not really that hard

• OpenRC just feels nice
• Runit is simple
• S6 is really fucking fast
• Some distros (e.g. Guix, Void, Gentoo) come with non-systemd init systems by default, but I use them for other reasons

As for why I sometimes use musl, I like BSD. Also, Alpine Linux uses it by default, and most glibc software I’ve tried works just fine with gcompat.

Does Alpine Linux on the docker offical image count as “running”?

SystemD just isn’t necessary for every Linux deployment.

I think enthusiasts often forget that “Linux” has thousands of uses that aren’t “running on bare metal on my customized gaming rig at my computer desk to play steam games and also pretend to look like Mr. Robot”.

My service running on a virtual machine doesn’t need SystemD’s functionality. It does need to be able to spin up and shutdown quickly, though.

Because I left Windows precisely to avoid the kind of shittery that systemd is doing.

It’s absolutely no coincidence that the people who have developed the stuff that’s brought the most degradation to Linux - systemd, PulseAudio, Gnome’s “user has no right to themes” attitude - all come from a Microsoft background or explicitly work for Microsoft.

I’d have far less of a problem if systemd was split into more practical, actually independent things that actually worked and distros didn’t buy their snake oil so easily. But for the time being, to me, the systemd experience is pretty much like the PulseAudio experience, what with the whole “waiting 120 seconds for a network interface to activate that it’s not going to because it’s the damn ethernet port and I’m on the road so the cable is not connected, stupid letter-potter dipshit”.

I use distros with systemd but damn, pretty soon it’s not gnu/linux anymore, it’ll be systemd/linux. systemd already manages services, bootloader, dns and networking. Maybe they’ll replace coreutils next and the transition is completed.

Gentoo comes with OpenRC as default so I roll with it. And it’s simple and it works.

Plus the idea of having to randomly wait for some obscure stuff to block for a minute the boot/shutdown is not my thing.

Sysvinit on gentoo here. Its so simple and clean, all can be managed and hacked via bash scripts.

I see no benefits in my use cases for systemd. Boot speed is unneeded, service auto-restart is done via Monit, anything else I don’t need.

This is true for all my server -and- all my workstations and laptops as well.

Systemd never solved a problem needed to be solved to start with.

Now that it also does coffee and cream for you, i start seeing some benefits like auto-restart services. Was it worthwhile? Meh, dunno.

At first it seemed another case of “I am too young and I want stuff done my way just because” and redhat shoved it down everybody throath to gain marked dominance. That they did.

At least now systemd looks like mature and finally start making sense. I was even contemplating testing a migration on one server.

Then I remembered, I like freedom of choice and keeping up being an old fart, so I didn’t (yet).

(No, for Wayland and network manager I think they are both welcome and needed from the start).

It didn’t help the main Dev suckass attitude, that didn’t made friends.

At this point i don’t care anymore if my system has systemd or whatever, as long it’s works i don’t have complaint
Maybe back when I’m still young i will agree with majority linux enthusiasm that systemd is bloat, GUI is bloat, or whatever. But now as long it’s work & can do job properly i don’t care or even care

I had to debug dns issues with a wm. Was disgusted what Systemd all does what it shouldn’t.

Musl was fine until i had to install the one blob most people hate and love, Steam.

I like how simple and fast runit is. And the added security is nice.

The kernel is already monolithic enough without adding another piece of monolithic software that everything depends on. IMO the Unix philosophy means we should have interchangeable parts.

There’s some amount of user error here but when I did use systemd I had a hard time turning off services I didn’t want because they were in the wants-to-have entry of other services. It’s like a separate config area to maintain with a specific maintenance tool software instead of flat files.

I’m unfortunately using distros with systemd now tho.

It’s a give and take honestly.

System-d has better logging. Until you have something that needs to really really log. You can argue that if you have something that’s that dependent on logging it shouldn’t be logging through the console but it’s worked fine for decades. Auto pruning of logs isn’t necessarily ideal. Getting console logs and assist logs as a pain in the ass.

Same goes for service dependencies we had this sorted it was answered via run levels and naming. It wasn’t necessarily the most elegant solution but it was simple and there was very little to go wrong.

The tools to manage the services and logs are needlessly complicated. Service start, service stop, service status, service log, service enable, service disable. And I shouldn’t have to reload the Daemon every time I make a change.

This isn’t to say that it’s all bad. It’s flexible, and for most workflows, it’s very automated and very light touch. The other pruning on the log file says probably saved a lot of downtime, a whole lot of downtime.

It’s really well suited to desktop.

Service creation is somewhat easier.

Dependencies are more flexible than run levels.

To be honest I wouldn’t go out of my way to run in a non-system distro but I would feel a little sigh of relief if something I was screwing with was still init.d

By importance, descending:

First, I don’t like people promoting systemd. I don’t need it more than other init systems. It’s about picking the right group.

Second, I want a simple distribution so I use Void, which famously uses runit. It’s about being lazy.

Third, I don’t like the idea of it sprouting dependencies which it shouldn’t. It’s about paranoia. See recent news with a backdoor which wouldn’t work if not for this.

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