Brian Masinick
It’s just the long game of vendor lock-in. Brian and I saw this in the 80’s UNIX wars.
You’ve got that right; the “differences” were ridiculous too. The practical features were the same;
it was primarily the GUI that had the differences. Doesn’t that sound familiar here too?
It’s also true that the systemD stuff was invented by people working for IBM/Red Hat who have also
had ties to Microsoft, so that shouldn’t be any surprise.
Linux has always had variety, and that part is fine. For the most part, until systemD, the variations
in desktops and window managers are simply an expression of different tastes, which is fine. But when
you mess around with process initiation, that’s another matter.
As far as systemD goes, like other modern replacements to SysVinit, it has some advantages. Management
of multiple processes is a core feature. Unfortunately, so is the single location for service management.
Touted as an advantage, it’s a single place for handling of various activities, but it complicates
process handling and if there is a problem, the entire system is affected. Moreover, some people also
bristle that it’s under the control of those considered to be “Big Brother”, so there are multiple
causes for concern.
I deliberately keep a few additional distributions around, including Endeavour OS and MX Linux, both
of which have systemD present. I have not encountered any stability issues with them or Debian when
I’ve used them, but I do prefer the simple, light approach because I mostly use my systems for writing
and browsing these days. Therefore it doesn’t matter much what I use, but it also means that I don’t
need any fancy extras; all of the other systems are superfluous; I use them mostly because I still
have some distro hopping in my blood, though much less than a decade or two ago when I’d usually have
at least a dozen distros on a single system.
--
Brian Masinick
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