this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2025
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Off the top of my head, in no particular order:
Most (though not all) of the popular complaints are completely unreasonable. Those people usually see themselves as moral and righteous and expect the world at large to follow their personal creed. I especially consider the UNIX philosophy to be outdated, and strict adherence to it to be an obstacle for modern apps and systems.
I have some issues with systemd, and I don't like that one for-profit company has such a massive influence over the entire Linux ecosystem, but I have to acknowledge that it works, it works well enough to counter my personal issues, and that the people whose opinion matters the most (specifically Debian and Arch maintainers) chose it for a good reason.
Now I want a shirt that says "Linux ecosystem peaked in 1980s"
Wasn't Linux first released in like 1993?
1991 and yes, that why it would be so great. It would trigger so many linux users
My personal reasons for disliking systemd (note: I still use systemd):
The biggest feature I like about systemd is run0, though I wish it was a drop in replacement for sudo. Secondly, I do like that services can be sandboxed.
I mean, so does GNU.
And I dont like GNU even more than systemd lol.
For me the portability issue wasn't really solved. I still work on embedded devices where I need to squeeze out every cycle and every byte of memory i can. Running systemd is an automatic no go, but in the *nix way of doing things I do have other options, so that's good.
But the more people depend on the systemd ecosystem rather than an open standard, the availability for me to use other projects goes down. Again there are usually options, but it's sad to see no one really thought about that when everyone jumped on board.
I also love the BSDs and other Unix systems. I remember decades ago downloading FreeBSD on my Gentoo box and was able to load the same Gnome desktop on both systems. Two totally different operating systems running the same UI. It sucks that targeting systemd might make software not run on other *nix operating systems
That's pretty niche use-case devices that can run linux but at the same tume limited enough that systemd is the bottleneck. I do get it that running systemd on some embedded devices makes little sense.
Systemd has stable API so nothing stops other systems from implementing parts of it that interest them, thing is, *bsds aren't interested or resource constrained so much that they can't.
it's honestly not that niche. it's just not a use case that hobbiest run into. there is a lot of devices in your house or in your life running linux and you just never think about it. none of the devs of these devices are loud about systemd because we are hand crafting distros ourselves so dealing with scripts in an init system is the least of our worries.
I have worked on gas meters for your house, refridgerators, two way radios for your car, home automation systems, TVs, gas pumps, A/C controllers. All hand crafted, tiny distros, all things you never see a penguin on but still run linux.
yes, now it does as an afterthought. it wasn't a public standard, seeking comment. no taking input from other developers. systemd was created to solve a problem distro were having, a system manager that is plug and play and makes everything just work. it is a good problem to solve, it's one of the few reasons that so many distros exist.
But there are tons of design choices that had very narrow views. Polkit, logind and the rest of credential management come to mind as something that needs a lot of massaging if you are rolling your own distro. When running a non-systemd distro there are often pain points getting apps and services that need to have a wider reach or interact with other priviledged code. none of it makes the system any more secure, just more of a pain in the ass.
Interesting, I've worked on car infotainment system for a short while, it was based on yocto, I think, and it was build with systemd support, tbh not once developers had a problem with resources on that thing, a lot of problems were with safety and regulatory requirements.
Before that I had an experience with wind river based system for network appliance and there were no systemd but that was when systemd was still a new thing.
Modern hardware is extremely powerful and has a lot of resources, I think there is some project that runs more or less standard linux on esp32.
it is definitely a question of power. had a debian based device because it was plugged into mains and needed to do a lot of tasks. i also had a yocto based system that ran on solar pannels and scavenged power from vibrations of the pipes the computer was attached to. power and resources setting limits on what i was running.
Wow, that's incredibly cool!
Linux was released in 1991.
It's called a hyperbole.
(edit) But, honestly, it's still kind of accurate. Many of the most significant software suites that define the Linux ecosystem in more recent decades were written in the 80s or earlier. X (the display protocol) was released in 1984, and X11 in 1987. GNU Emacs was released in 1985. Vi, in 1976. UNIX System V, from which
sysvinitand compatible init systems were adopted, was released in 1983. It's not a stretch to say that certain people want to regress to the 1980s state, even if the kernel wasn't around.Funny thing is, nothing in the list adheres to the so called unix philosophy.
It's a little known fact that the first answer to Linus' first message announcing his new OS was βYou stupid thing, why did you created it? It ruined it! Linux was better before!β.
This sign won't stop me! I can't read!
That makes the shirt funnier
If they don't like systemd but are forced to use it for some reason, I can understand why they might have some negative feelings
Once I switched to a distro with OpenRC, I stopped feeling the need to argue about systemd
You are forced to use a lot of things bit systemd is where you draw a line? πΊ
I see from your other comment in the thread that you're enthusiastic about systemd, and that's great.
I'm glad we inhabit a software ecosystem broad enough that we can both be happy
I'm not enthusiastic about it, I'm just old enough to remeber how bad were good old times before systemd and a bit miffed how old and untrue statements about it are perpetuated.
I was a long-time Linux user at the time of the systemd switchover.
Your memories of the good old times are your own
systemd DOES do one thing really well. Too well. It's a service manager.
People noticed that it works really well as a framework for their stuff and started plugging all the other stuff in your first bullet point into it. And that also worked really well.