OpenSUSE: Not Everyone Likes SystemD

Posted by Michael Larabel on September 10, 2012

Not everyone is fond of migrating from SysVinit to systemd as the prominent Linux init daemon, with there being many vocal openSUSE users wanting to stay clear of systemd.

The recently released openSUSE 12.2 does migrate from SysVinit to systemd, but the discussion surrounding this init daemon / service manager is ongoing. SysVinit remains an option though on the 12.2 release.

On the opensuse-factory mailing list there's been a discussion for a number of days about dropping sysinit V support for the next release, openSUSE 12.3. "I know, a radical proposal, BUT a bunch of reported issues in 12.2 are around systemd/sysinitV, both trying to do the same thing, differently. It would clearly help the distribution to commit clearly to ONE init system only, officially and formally ditching the other. This allows for proper testing of ONE Init System and fixing issues around it. Not having to worry for an alternative INIT System can only have it's advantages. (Not saying NOBODY can keep on working / integrating SysInitV, just saying: the openSUSE Project should focus on SystemD as the one supported Init System). There are a bunch of issues we could have saved ourselves from by not going the split way."

From people not wanting to kill off this older init system in the openSUSE world, a plan B has been brought up. This new plan would allow SysVinit to become an openSUSE community project while systemd will continue to be the default. "Reading the discussion about dropping sysv init, it seems the number of people are opposing against it is big. I have an idea for people wiling to maintain and use it in the future."

Going forward it will be more difficult to avoid systemd since GNOME developers are becoming dependent upon it within core parts of their desktop stack like with GDM and GNOME Session.

While most Linux distributions are moving towards systemd, even Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 and it's become options within Arch / Gentoo / Debian, within the Ubuntu world is the only major faction still avoiding it in favor of their own Upstart system.

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