[Discuss] Systemd & not Re: I, uh, deleted the wrong kernel....

[slitt at troubleshooters.com (Steve Litt)]

On Sun, 2 Oct 2016 00:28:06 -0400
Bill Ricker <bill.n1vux at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sat, Oct 1, 2016 at 3:08 PM, Rich Pieri <richard.pieri at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
> > Yes, you
> > can break the dependency chains but that's not the same thing as not
> > having the dependencies.
> >  
> 
> ?Probably time to ask ...
> 
> What's the state of Systemd-free variant distros?

The state is good. This is an excellent time for those not allowing
systemd on their computers.

I've used Void Linux for 9 months, and it's wonderful. It inits with
the runit init system, which in my opinion is better than
sysvinit, which in my opinion is better than systemd, which in my
opinion is better than a computer whose mobo has swollen and popped
capacitors. Void requires some tech chops, though not nearly as many as
Funtoo.

Funtoo is a compile-to-install distro like Gentoo, but has made the
pledge of being systemd-free forever. If you like a compile-it-yourself
rolling release, Funtoo's ideal.

Devuan is Debian Jessie with sysvinit instead of systemd. I've used it,
it works well.

Alpine is a sans-systemd distro that's so light weight that Docker
recommends it. Apearantly its footprint is an order of magnitude
smaller than all the rest.

Manjaro-OpenRC swaps in OpenRC instead of systemd. My experience from
18 months ago is that it works well, but various bugs make you do
little adjustments to keep it running.

Any computer initted by OpenRC or sysvinit can easily be retrofit to
init via runit, s6 or Epoch, each of which I have high regard for.

OpenBSD and FreeBSD currently don't use systemd or anything like it.

Here's a list of other distros reputedly not using systemd:

http://without-systemd.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page#GNU.2FLinux_distributions

With all these excellent distros around, the only reason to use systemd
is because you like it, because you don't care, because your
employer/client forces it upon you, or because you've drunk the
Kool-aid.

SteveT

Steve Litt 
September 2016 featured book: Twenty Eight Tales of Troubleshooting
http://www.troubleshooters.com/28