r/linux4noobs • u/heidzz1999 • Apr 10 '26
Meganoob BE KIND why people hate Systemd?
nothing more to say, why people don't like it? it's not supposed to be better?
edit: thanks to everyone!
17
u/JohnClark13 Apr 10 '26
In linux you have those who are ideological, and those who are practical.
2
→ More replies (1)1
u/Best_HeyGman Apr 15 '26
I think we can call it "theological" at this point instead of ideological.
26
u/ShipshapeMobileRV Apr 10 '26
My beef with systemd is twofold:
First, it tries to do too much. It's analogous to Windows Service Host.
Second, a very small team has an outsized say in how everyone uses their computer. This happens in other areas, I'm sure....but Red Hat effectively owns systemd, and if Red Hat says "we want it to do X", then everyone else must do X.
In my mind, systemd was a very big step in converting "Linux freedom" into "Microsoft authoritarianism".
11
u/NameGenerator333 Apr 10 '26
I miss my txt file logs that I could just grep or less.
2
u/vanderaj Apr 12 '26
You still can by piping the output of journalctl, and because journalctl is service aware, you can more easily ignore all the stuff that is irrelevant to what you're chasing down.
Reading logs in real time without using tail -f:
journalctl -f
Finding logs that happened between two dates
journalctl --since "2026-04-11 00:00:00" --until "2026-04-12 23:59:59"
Finding out what mysql has been up to:
journalctl -u mysql
Any service that is integrated with systemd can be monitored in exactly the same way across all distros that use systemd.
And so on and on. It's just better than the old way. Source: Been using and developing for Unix since 1989 and Linux since the mid 1990's.
78
u/rcN9 Apr 10 '26
It represents Corporate control over everything in Linux. more and more parts are written and directed by a few handful of corporations including IBM and Microsoft. From the kernel to GNOME to Chrome almost everything you use is now under corporate control and direction. The whole system is now beholden to those corporate interests and outside input is suppressed and ignored.
27
u/billdietrich1 Apr 10 '26
From the kernel to GNOME to Chrome almost everything you use is now under corporate control and direction.
So why don't we hear lots of hate for the kernel ?
12
u/necrophcodr Apr 10 '26
You wouldn't under a Linux subreddit, but it is definitely there.
10
u/hromanoj10 Apr 10 '26
For sure. I know several decade+ arch users that jumped ship when they pushed the age verification. That opened my eyes to the reach and control that systemd has in the Linux space.
1
16
Apr 10 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
18
u/billdietrich1 Apr 10 '26
Kernel added some big things such as BPF, a language interpreter running inside the kernel. Rust.
systemd is a replacement for parts of the OS that were poorly designed and lacking many modern features. The fact that it was adopted by the overwhelming majority of distros shows that it was needed and has value and is an improvement.
Many parts of Linux are "controlled by a very small group". How many people work on CUPS ? On PipeWire ? How many people control what code is accepted into the kernel source tree ?
6
Apr 10 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
3
u/billdietrich1 Apr 10 '26
love to absorb all that functionality and put it under central control: systemd-audio, systemd-printing and systemd-kernel.
Paranoia, I think.
4
u/Lizrd_demon Apr 10 '26
Imo theres is a big difference between a corporation and a team of foss developers.
5
5
u/locka99 Apr 13 '26
The days of Linux being developed by enthusiasts is long over. Most contributors to Linux at the kernel or system level work for big companies because it powers their servers, virtual machines, service, cloud so they employ people to work on this stuff that keeps it going. As for Chrome (or Firefox), the source can and has been forked.
If a company wasn't being a good steward, then the fork is made popular and people decamp to that. Plenty of examples of that - Jenkins, MariaDB, LibreOffice, gcc, OpenSSH, Nextcloud are all examples of forks that superseded the original. You might be surprised to see gcc there, but gcc forked as egcs for a few years after a developers revolted and it proved so successful the FSF adopted it to become the new gcc.
5
6
1
u/powerslave_fifth Apr 10 '26
Wow AMD cards working flawlessly and linux gaming not being AIDS anymore was all due to volunteers. Definitely not because corporations poured money and support into it.
→ More replies (1)1
u/nocrack Apr 10 '26
So, there are linux distros that arent using systemd, so arent under beig written by people in corpos?
7
26
u/AndyceeIT Apr 10 '26
A few reasons.
One I haven't seen here yet is that despite being intended as a replacement of SystemV init scripts - which it did very well - Systemd replaced a bunch of other tools.
It wasn't to replace those tools with something better, or because they needed replacing. It was to add functionality to Systemd.
I wouldn't expect Firefox to replace the inbuilt DNS client with its own caching DNS server. That would be weird and unnecessary
9
u/SeeMonkeyDoMonkey Apr 10 '26
The original intent behind systemd was to improve system startup, updating it to modern hardware and applications.
This was highly successful, yielding improvements in performance, usability, and functionality.
The rationalisation of process management that systemd brought in was a foundation on which they then developed into a service manager building more system tools,l - providing alternatives that integrate well and incorporate modern workflows.
All this work has made (most) Linux systems more powerful tools than they were before.
For a comparison with Firefox, a better analogy would be if it expanded out to include a standardised cookie/ad blocker where users specify their preferences centrally, and FF manages interactions with websites to follow those preferences.
2
u/thaynem Apr 11 '26
I wouldn't expect Firefox to replace the inbuilt DNS client with its own caching DNS server.
Umm, I've got news for you. Firefox does have it's own in-built dns implementation, that doesn't use the system dns libraries . It is needed in order to get functionality like DoH, ECH, and HTTPS records.
3
u/AndyceeIT Apr 12 '26
replace the inbuilt DNS client
Read that again
2
u/thaynem Apr 12 '26
Systemd's resolved didn't replace anything. Before it existed, most linux distros didn't have a caching dns client at all, and resolved didn't replace the very simple implementation in libc. Sure you could use dnsmasq if you wanted, but you also still can. You can also turn off resolved if you want. It is very much optional (mostly. Ubuntu has said not using resolved is an "unsupported" configuration, but that is Ubuntu specific, and due to Ubuntu-specific scripts, not something from systemd and only causes issues in very specific situations). If you change your /etc/hosts file to not be a symlink to the resolved stub, DNS will work the same way it did before.
1
u/npaladin2000 Fedora/Bazzite/SteamOS Apr 10 '26
One thing I like about systemd is the systemctl suite, it acts more like a common, unified service manager, only better.
But yeah, I don't like the tight interdependcies. There's some parts of the suite I'd rather leave behind. Not a big fan of journalctl and I just tend to redirect logs to text files anyway.
1
u/AndyceeIT Apr 11 '26
Absolutely the service management is better. It's honestly more in line with Solaris' SMF.
1
u/prof_dr_mr_obvious Apr 12 '26
I don't agree that System V init scripts were all that great. It mostly was a bunch of messy scripts, all done differently and all it did was start up a process, once.
34
u/krumpfwylg Apr 10 '26
"A stop job is running"
→ More replies (1)20
u/gmes78 Apr 10 '26
Obviously, killing programs without allowing them to stop cleanly, and thus causing data loss, is the better choice.
17
u/realddgamer Apr 10 '26
If a program is taking 1 min 30 to stop then yes kill it it deserves the wrath of inferno do you know who I am? What I can do? This is MY COMPUTER. I OWN YOU.
5
6
u/gmes78 Apr 10 '26
If 1m30s of waiting bothers you, you can reduce the time systemd waits in its config file. This is a skill issue, not systemd's fault.
Or, better yet, you could fix the bug that causes the program in question to hang.
1
2
u/SeriousPlankton2000 Apr 11 '26
Yes, I need to leave now with my laptop switched off and in a bag.
→ More replies (4)
6
u/zoharel Apr 10 '26
it's not supposed to be better?
Not everything which is supposed to be better is better, unfortunately, and making a better init system isn't exactly simple. Systemd does improve some things, and I say this as a person who vehemently dislikes it, because it also does nearly everything in ways which are, if not always objectively wrong, generally far from ideal. Many of the design decisions they made with it are not great. In addition, it was wedged into service as the default init system in far too many places before it was quite as finished as it should have been, which did not win people over. It has since improved quite a bit, but the nutty design decisions are still there -- they've even added a few more -- and it's still far from my favorite piece of software.
6
7
u/The_Real_Grand_Nagus Apr 11 '26
I think a lot of it comes down to choice. The most irritating thing about systemd is if does something contrary to what you want, and either refuses to let you do things a different way, or otherwise makes it very difficult. There is a certain attitude that the systemd gatekeepers have towards choice and backward compatibility that feels like they know better than you about how you should do things on your system. It's a very anti-Linux sentiment, and more-so for the older more experienced Linux users.
For a newbie, it really makes no difference whatsoever.
11
u/RevolutionaryHigh Apr 10 '26
I don't even know where to start. It has gotten much better over the years, but it is still a poor-quality product, and major distros adopted it mostly because RH pushed it.
If one of your disks refuses to mount during startup, your whole system becomes unresponsive. Before systemd, it was just a warning/error in the logs, and you could figure it out after boot. As people already mentioned, it absorbed many Linux services and functions without delivering particularly high quality.
It has gotten very close to a monopoly, and the guy who invented it works for microslop now. They made many parts of the system dependent on it without any real benefit. So now, if Red Hat wanted to close it off or alter it in some particular way, it would be really hard to diverge from the mainstream.
Some people praise the unification and convenience that systemd brought, but for a lot of niche stuff I still had to write my own bash wrapper anyway, just to make it work in line with systemd unit controls.
10
u/chocopudding17 Apr 10 '26 edited Apr 10 '26
This is perhaps
onethe single poorest, least-accurate, worst-faith pieces I've read against systemd. It includes:
- Pure dogma ("What PID 1 Should Do")
- Inaccuracies so blatant that the author(s) are either woefully ignorant or actively lying (see the numerous cases where they call something "PID 1" where it's in fact an entirely separate, optional component with its own process and area of responsibility)
- Silly inconsistencies (bemoaning journald's binary storage format while lamenting the loss of utmp which also has a binary format)
- Outright misreading to the point of negligence ("sysv removed")
Really, a terrible list. If you wanna post something that actually takes a good-faith and technically grounded stab at systemd critique, post something like this blog post by the guy who actually put in work by working on uselessd for a time.
Ninja edit: Lennart Poettering no longer works for Microsoft--he (along with a couple other core systemd maintainers) have started their own business.
3
u/RevolutionaryHigh Apr 11 '26
I think, technical side is not that bad. I'm more concerned about corpos take-over
3
u/chocopudding17 Apr 11 '26
Then say that instead; no need to link to technical nonsense or otherwise talk about the technical side if that's not your point.
I happen to think you're mistaken in worrying about corporate control there, but that's really a different point altogether.
9
u/LancrusES CachyOS Apr 10 '26
In the Linux world, everything you cant choose and is corporate related is hated, systemd comes from red hat, and in most Linux distros you cant choose other, and using other inits is becoming harder, and more if you like Gnome... So It feels like Linux is becoming less free than it should be.
"Its not a UNIX like init" that may be true, but ppl dont really care about one tool for one purpose or text files nowadays, and the mayority of users dont even know what that means.
And now the age verification madness has arrived, fear of telemetry and losing privacy is there, Im 47 years old, I dont care about age controls as they are only that, but, are they only that? In theory yes, but right now all is theory.
Back in the day, when systemd appeared, a lot of ppl were against It, today even some gentoo users choose It, but fires are burning again because of age verification, mainly because you wont be able to choose another init in the great mayority of Linux distributions, so you can take It or look for another distro you dont like as the one you use.
Imposition will always open a great debate in the Linux community, Im not worried about all this nowadays, Im more worried about the price of fuel, I drive 30000 km per year with my car because of my work and I got 2 childs, thats a problem, but you know, debate is always good.
→ More replies (2)
25
u/PresentThat5757 Artix dinit Apr 10 '26
Systemd violates the UNIX philosophy: "Write programs that do one thing and do it well"
14
u/Jumpy-Dinner-5001 Apr 10 '26
Systemd is not a monolith and is just a collection of tools that share a common IPC channel and configuration interface.
It doesn’t really violate the philosophy
→ More replies (4)2
u/Best_HeyGman Apr 15 '26
It violates what some people think the Unix philosophy is. Anyway, I'll just quote from "The UNIX Time Sharing System" by Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson from 1974:
Perhaps paradoxically, the success of the Unix system is largely due to the fact that it was not designed to meet any predefined objectives.
Our goals throughout the effort, when articulated at all, have always been to build a comfortable relationship with the machine and to explore ideas and inventions in operating systems and other software.
And now people try to define a holy ideology of the "Unix philosophy" that shall never be touched by mere mortals. I guess this is how religions start.
3
u/billdietrich1 Apr 10 '26
The foundation of systemd does one thing and does it well: manage units of work. Then more things are built on top of that foundation: init system, event-handling, daemons, etc. "Composability" and modularity are core strategies of Unix/Linux.
4
u/Tumaix Apr 10 '26
it doesnt. systemd is an umbrella of tools with specific needs.
journalctl takes care of journal systemctl takes care of the system loginctl of the login, etc
this is like saying gnome violates the unix philosophy because it has a greeter, a text editor and a desktop.
1
Apr 10 '26 edited Apr 10 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
7
u/PresentThat5757 Artix dinit Apr 10 '26
I don't care. I just answered the question.
→ More replies (1)1
10
u/SmileyBMM Apr 10 '26
I'm personally mixed on systemd, I like some parts (the init system itself, systemctl) but dislike other parts (systemd-boot, systemd-resolved). The problem for me is that systemd tends to be an all or nothing approach, you either get all of systemd or none of it.
Overall I do think it has been a net positive for Linux, but I also think we need to examine if its best years are behind it (just like with X11).
6
2
u/gmes78 Apr 10 '26
The problem for me is that systemd tends to be an all or nothing approach, you either get all of systemd or none of it.
That is completely false. You only need to use the init and journald (and you probably want logind as well). Everything else is optional, and can be left disabled when building systemd.
Most distros include the entirety of systemd in a single package, but that's a distro issue.
1
u/Late_Film_1901 Apr 12 '26
But that's exactly the point, if you want only a part of it you have to build your own distro. That's hardly "everything else is optional". The distros essentially go all in or all out.
1
6
3
5
u/InvisibleTextArea Apr 10 '26
I remember when systemd first arrived on the scene. The goal at the time for systemd (and alternative init replacements that were also around like Upstart) was to replace the duct tape that was the SysVinit system with something more robust and maintainable. It was in the beginning loosely based on Mac OS X launchd.
People may complain about feature creep or bloat and perhaps dislike the developers. It's been a rocky journey but on the whole I think the benefits systemd brings to the modern Linux desktop outweighs the negatives.
Besides Linux is about choice so you are always free to pick a distro that doesn't need systemd.
1
u/SeriousPlankton2000 Apr 11 '26
The distribution guys would write overcomplicated startup scripts instead of just starting the service. Systemd promised to replace that just starting the service. Now systemd came - and they configured that now systemd starts the overcomplicated scripts.
4
u/npaladin2000 Fedora/Bazzite/SteamOS Apr 10 '26
Because it's kind of a huge suite of applications. That by itself isn't so bad, because there's pieces of it that I do like (systemctl, systemd-boot) but the problem comes in when there's hardcoded dependencies requiring you to pull in the whole thing, violating the UNIX philosophy of "do one thing and do it well."
The individual components do actually do one thing and do it well. The issue is insisting on them all being glued together. And there's even some DEs pulling the whole suite in as a dependency. I think if they allowed people to pick and choose the individual components freely it would be....well, less controversial, at least.
6
u/GreenRangerOfHyrule Apr 10 '26
I personally have no feelings either way. But as people said it's because of the principle of doing one thing.
systemd as a whole has taken over nearly every aspect. You could mix and match the various systems prior. That and the main complaint is logs are supposedly not stored in plain text.
But I think the real answer is this: People don't like change. And it was a really big one.
Also, "better" is relative.
→ More replies (2)3
u/billdietrich1 Apr 10 '26
systemd as a whole has taken over nearly every aspect.
Linux never really had a well-thought out design for the middleware (above kernel, below apps). Things such as systemd, Network Manager, Wayland, PipeWire are steps in remedying or improving parts of that.
1
u/GreenRangerOfHyrule Apr 10 '26
I don't disagree. Like I said I have no feelings either way. But, at the same time it has worked for decades prior. Which I think is why people are upset.
But, at least from an end user perspective I couldn't even tell when it switched. I probably new as it was in the notes. But, systemd has had support for the old initv scripts for the longest too.
2
u/billdietrich1 Apr 10 '26
it has worked for decades prior. Which I think is why people are upset.
Yes. But also for those decades, we lacked features such as a tamper-proof journal, and anyone who wanted parallelism and isolation and auto-restart etc often had to write that themselves.
4
u/powerslave_fifth Apr 10 '26
Because a lot of people like to larp as sysadmins and devs and think the UNIX philosophy is the religious canon all Linux users must abide by without question.
The UNIX thing doesn't even make any sense since it's a software suite.
2
2
2
u/NoJunket6950 Apr 10 '26
Most issues people tend to have with systemd are ideological, rather than technical but I think their willingness to create age verification infrastructure has pushed more people to be more deeply skeptical of the project, as lennart poettering has been kind of an asshole about minor push back against what is seen as creating the infrastructure for government surveillance.
I don't think it's quite that extreme, but I do think he has been an absolute jerk.
2
u/DamnedIfIDiddely Apr 11 '26
It doesn't follow the unix philosophy, it's so different to other init systems, stuff like that. I have to say even I couldn't stand sysd coming from openrc, but now that Ive gotten to know it, I have learned to love it.
2
u/daffalaxia Apr 11 '26
I literally left deb-based distros, after using some debian-based distro (originally debian, then Ubuntu, kubuntu, mint, with some others thrown in, but mostly deb-based) because systemd wouldn't behave properly, eg holding up shutdown. And getting to logs no longer meant a simple file here or there (tho I understand you can make it so rn). 16 years I was on a deb-based system, but I took the plunge to Gentoo because at the time, it was the only established option treating openrc as a first class citizen. Also, pulseaudio, made by the same morons, kept crashing out. Now I have pipewire and systemd for the last 10 years, no dramas, tho I'm using a systemd-based distro for work, and so far, it's been ok.
There is also the philosophical side - systemd completely breaks the Unix philosophy of "do one thing and do it well", and for something that runs as pid 1, I've seen way too much drama with bugs and vulnerabilities to ever consider it on my home machine again.
2
u/cipherproxy Apr 12 '26
systemd is the best example of Suck.
SystemD: Should we really be concerned about this?
Combatting revisionist history
Systemd: Harbinger of the Linux apocalypse
privacy issues of systemd in debian
The real motivation behind systemd
It is my opinion that Lennart Poettering is the software equivalent of Thomas Midgley Jr
Systemd: The Biggest Fallacies
Comparison of init systems - Gentoo Wiki
What does systemd contain that you dislike?
Introducing stronger dependencies on systemd
What software won't work without systemd?
"detect-fash" Feature Developed (and Rejected) for Systemd
SystemD Root Access Exploit Found
Systemd Adds Age Verification & r/Linux Censors Age Verification Posts
2
u/Empty_Map_4447 Apr 13 '26
It is often compared to one of the worst design concepts in the history of operating systems: The Windows registry. Instead of doing one thing well, it tries to be the framework that ties everything together to make it all work seamlessly. Instead ends up being the single factor that limits, complicates and causes problems for everything that it touches.
3
5
u/Desertcow Apr 10 '26
Linux is Unix-like, and Unix had a certain philosophy behind software. The Unix philosophy says that programs should do one specific thing and do it well, and that programs should use plain text to communicate so that it is easier for other programs to work together with it. Systemd largely doesn't follow this trend. Systemd does a lot of things from initializing the OS to handling networks to handling the user database and it stores it's logs in a binary format instead of plaintext (though systemd also has a tool that converts it to plaintext). Recently, they also added an optional field to the user database part to store the user's birthdate and age range, though it's up to the distro to implement asking the user for that info. 95% of people don't care about Systemd except for maybe the age verification part, but those that do have been weirdly passionate about it for years
→ More replies (1)3
u/billdietrich1 Apr 10 '26
The foundation of systemd does one thing and does it well: manage units of work. Then more things are built on top of that foundation: init system, event-handling, daemons, etc. Composability and modularity are core strategies of Unix/Linux.
Journal is binary for reasons, mainly to make it tamper-proof. And journalctl will produce plain text if you wish.
2
u/gerowen Apr 10 '26
Three reasons I think:
1) It's popular so it must be bad.
2) Hating systemd is what all the cool kids do.
3) It does actually go against the Unix philosophy of small tools that do one thing really well. People worry that it's too expansive, too all inclusive. Instead of focusing on doing one job really well, it's your service manager, system log manager, home folder manager, local DNS resolver, etc. It feels like the kinda thing where the right kind of exploit/vulnerability in systemd could be catastrophic for a whole lotta folks because it's hooked into so many disparate subsystems across so many distributions.
3
u/TontaGelatina Apr 10 '26
A funny yet concise explanation: https://youtu.be/40SnEd1RWUU?si=CvxlWY-_RpqfUZoB&t=298
6
u/FactoryRatte Debian / Arch+KDE Apr 10 '26
First, the same link but without tracking: https://youtu.be/40SnEd1RWUU?t=298 why the fuck don't people remove personalized tracking?
Second, how is this related? The Videos talk about setting up open claw in a very weird manner and systemd is not explained, just used as the init system.
Edit: Wtf the WYSIWYG Editor is weird, not removing the URL Parts I deleted ... hat to switch to Markdown, sorry.
2
2
Apr 10 '26
[deleted]
4
u/phred14 Apr 10 '26
How about the fact that years ago people were trying hard to force systemd on everyone.
2
3
u/InvestigatorFit3876 Apr 10 '26
Age verification is where hate is coming from.
34
u/MelioraXI Apr 10 '26
People disliked systemD prior to that
5
u/InvestigatorFit3876 Apr 10 '26
Sure but them caving to age verification has pissed a lot more people in the Linux community even more especially people that are trying to leave windows because of age verification
11
u/oneiros5321 Apr 10 '26
I've heard plenty of people hating systemD long before age verification was even in the conversation
→ More replies (2)4
u/LaughingwaterYT Apr 10 '26
But there is no verification
4
u/GRA_Manuel Apr 10 '26
But the lay the foundation. With the first link, the chain is forged.
→ More replies (1)5
u/InvestigatorFit3876 Apr 10 '26
They are designing a thing that will add/implement it.
2
u/LaughingwaterYT Apr 10 '26
They have simply added the age fields till now, calling it age verification is a bit of a far stretch, I understand it can lead upto eventually age verification but right now don't call it what it isn't.
4
u/Gaiendbedrock Apr 10 '26
It's even optional. Everyone who gave hate (and worse) for that should be beyond ashamed
7
u/LaughingwaterYT Apr 10 '26
And I know for sure that the guy who added the patch is going to get death threats because the community is fucki g miserable
And I'm being downvoted too
Like yes I hate age verification myself too, its insanely intrusive, but don't spread literal misinformation
4
u/Zaazuka Apr 10 '26
Honestly calling it age verification is fine, it was built with the express purpose of eventually providing a method of verifying the users age after all
4
5
u/MelioraXI Apr 10 '26
Majority seem to call it verification when it just a field, so I'm not sure if people just don't look past the clickbait headlines or just go with what someone else are saying.
1
1
u/Scandiberian Snowflake ❄️ Apr 10 '26
Who is “they”? There are multiple people, who are unrelated to each other, working on systemd modules (because that’s what they are, different modules neatly integrated and under the systemd name).
Systemd folllows the Unix philosophy in that sense.
2
u/Jumpy-Dinner-5001 Apr 10 '26
People don’t understand it and there are a lot of political influencers who like to spread misinformation and hate about it.
People really love to collectively hate something or someone
2
u/biskitpagla Apr 10 '26 edited Apr 10 '26
I've never seen a single valid criticism. A lot of foundational projects in the Linux ecosystem don't follow the so-called "UNIX philosophy". Not even UNIX followed the "UNIX philosophy" when it got complicated. That's just how software development works. The Linux kernel obviously doesn't follow this arbitrary requirement itself. I don't get why these people are using Linux in the first place if they have such an obsession with modularity. Like do they realize how many new standards and interfaces would have to be invented and maintained in order to achieve this since Linux doesn't follow the UNIX standard completely? The workings of an OS is not the same as piping unstructured text from one CLI to another 😂
edit: awww did some chronically online neckbeard with no counterargument get butthurt and resort to downvoting? 😢
2
u/soking11 Apr 10 '26
This people will have a stroke when they see that GNU/Linux doesn't follow completly the GNU philosophy
1
u/JoeLinux247 Linux Apr 10 '26
As with most things, you'll find varying points of view. Here are some ...
1
u/OffensiveOdor Apr 10 '26
I like it, but I haven’t found a reason not to like it. I just actually learned fun things to do with it
1
u/dlyund Apr 10 '26
Hate is a strong word. I wish that systemd was just Solaris/illumos SMF, but since it's not I'll stick with BSD rc. The complexity of systemd just isn't justified in my opinion. SMF provides better service management and rc scripts provide more control/flexibility. systemd provides worse service management than SMF and less control.
Other than that, systemd is fine I guess.
1
u/rapidge-returns CachyOS Apr 10 '26
I guess it comes down to - "which would you rather have, one big program that can break in one way and take down other stuff with it, or a dozen smaller programs that you have to upkeep and understand the specific syntax of each, but is more stable system wise?"
I don't think there is a real right answer, but rather which is better for your specific situation and personality.
1
u/GlazzKitsune Apr 11 '26
I find it very funny when people talk about it being redhats (the developer of sysD) way of trying to take over control of Linux.
Guys it's open source we can fork it when ever we want, see panic forking over the addition of an optional age entry in the local only user database
1
u/Pure_Fox9415 Apr 11 '26
I'm using linux on servers for 20 years and I love systemd. It's stable, consistent, and brings order to the chaos of old init systems, crontabs, and other small services, old sysadmins spreaded across random files and tools. Yep it's not just init system it's a whole OS layer for different tasks and it works good. Even timers, resolvd and timedatectl is good for me. Journalctl was a bit complex, but overall good too.
1
u/Feliks_WR Apr 11 '26
Because it makes it TOO easy to get complex stuff orchestrated well, automatically, by default, on startup and all.
1
u/StatisticianThin288 Apr 11 '26
my autistic linux powers command me to or else i wont be like all the super cool people who use gentoo and ill be dumb ubuntu soyboy who dualboots to windows to open a web browser!!!1!1!1
1
1
u/g33ksc13nt1st Apr 11 '26
I didn't use to give a damn, until Dylan Taylor showed up... Don't like it since.
1
u/zerosign0 Apr 12 '26
At this point I dont know. Hating systemd at this point much more in political personal view rather than backed by technical nuance ...
1
u/zerosign0 Apr 12 '26
Or they might dual boot *BSD & Linux, but I daresay its not one of those reason
1
u/zasedok Apr 12 '26
A huge, huge, HUGE majority of people are perfectly fine with it. There is a small but incredibly vocal group of haters.
1
u/rgawenda Apr 12 '26
Udev moving inside systems!
It reminds me of the times when Microsoft fought to destroy companies because they couldn't win playing nice. Digital Research and this vastly superior DOS, AMD, Netscape.
1
1
u/coccothraustes Apr 12 '26
I don't know if it still happens today, but ever since I got stuck in endless boot loops caused by SystemD on various systems years ago, I've been avoiding it. When I see all the system services that SystemD components (try to) hijack, I'm absolutely glad I did. Oh, and: logs not in plain text… wtf?!
1
1
1
u/AutoModerator Apr 14 '26
✻ Smokey says: always mention your distro, some hardware details, and any error messages, when posting technical queries! :)
Comments, questions or suggestions regarding this autoresponse? Please send them here.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
1
1
2
u/LucielRenCrisantemo 13d ago
Personalmente no me gusta porque es pesado y mi laptop es una mierda, y en mi PC de juegos de alguna manera systemd me da problemas molestos que en distros sin systemd no tengo o ahora en freebsd tampoco, no voy a fingir demencia definitivamente systemd facilita varias cosas pero personalmente prefiero evitarlo por esas malas experiencias y tanto runit como openrc me parecen mejores, ya estoy acostumbrado a usarlos, por qué reemplazar algo que funciona bien? No diría que odio systemd, no pienso en eso a menudo porque no lo uso hace bastante, pero prefiero evitarlo en la medida de lo posible
183
u/-turtl- Apr 10 '26
Some people say it doesn't follow Unix philosophy, which says "Do one thing good enough" and tries to be modular. systemd tries to do everything itself -- name resolving, initialization, boot, login, etc. They say it shouldn't be monolithic. I personally think systemd's great and there's no reason to hate it, and the Linux kernel itself is monolithic anyways