After the release candidate phase kicked off last month, systemd 248 is now officially available as the newest feature release for this dominant Linux init system and service manager.

With still no sign of BUS1 on the horizon for the mainline kernel or any other successor to BUS1 or KDBUS for in-kernel IPC, Dbus-Broker remains the best bet currently in 2021 for a more performant D-Bus implementation while retaining compatibility with the D-Bus reference implementation.

It looks like the official release of systemd 248 is quite imminent but for now a third release candidate has been issued to help facilitate last minute testing.

The first release candidate of systemd 248 is now available with a number of improvements ranging from a new "system extensions images" concept to the out-of-memory daemon (OOMD) being declared stable.

For those with TPM2 security chips in your system or various hardware security tokens like YubiKeys, the upcoming systemd 248 will make it much easier to use then for unlocking your encrypted LUKS2 volumes.

The systemd service and system manager had another busy year with the merging of "homed" for modernizing and reinventing home directory capabilities to "oomd" being merged for improving the Linux memory pressure / out-of-memory handling, among other new features coming to light.

Systemd 247 is out today as the latest major version of this Linux init system. Like most systemd releases, systemd 247 is very heavy on new features.

Following last month's systemd 247-RC1 release that was headlined by the systemd-oomd service being merged for better low memory / out-of-memory handling and many other changes, a second release candidate is now available.

The first release candidate of systemd 247 is now available for testing and it's a huge feature release.

Merged just minutes ago into systemd Git is the new systemd-oomd component pushed along by Facebook.

Systemd developers are still hoping to introduce systemd-oomd as part of the next release.

Systemd 246 is out today as the newest version of this dominant Linux init system and system/service manager. Systemd 246 has a lot of new functionality in time for making it into at least some of the autumn 2020 Linux distributions.

Systemd 246 should be shipping in the days ahead.

With systemd 246 releasing soon, it looks like the new out-of-memory daemon will be merged shortly afterwards in allowing sufficient time for testing ahead of systemd 247.

The first release candidate of the forthcoming systemd 246 is now available for testing.

There is a last minute change from a Microsoft engineer to the upcoming systemd 246 that is now undergoing release preparations.

With it already having been a few months since systemd 245 debuted with systemd-homed, the systemd developers have begun their release dance for what will be systemd 246.

The BUS1 API did see some activity back in March but with that in-kernel IPC mechanism not yet on approach for landing in the mainline Linux kernel, the Dbus-Broker project for a high-performance D-Bus implementation remains the best solution for the time being.

Beyond the new systemd-homed functionality, another improvement to look forward to in the systemd space this calendar year is systemd-oomd materializing as its new out-of-memory daemon.

Systemd 245 RC2 was released just earlier this week while now it has been succeeded by the stable release of systemd 245.

Released one month ago was systemd 245 RC1 while now a second release candidate is available. Systemd 245 stable should be shipping in the near future as well in order to make some of the spring Linux distribution releases like Fedora 32.

Coming with the imminent systemd 245 is systemd-homed that is making fundamental changes to Linux home directories. Systemd lead developer Lennart Poettering presented at FOSDEM 2020 last weekend on systemd-homed and that video recording is now up.

Systemd 245 is soon shipping as the first feature update of 2020 and it's another big one.

Systemd-homed has been merged as the latest (optional) fundamental change to Linux distributions in how home directories are handled.

While more Linux distributions have begun packaging (and in the case of Fedora, potentially deploying by default) EarlyOOM as the out-of-memory monitoring daemon for trying to improve the Linux desktop's handling of low memory situations, systemd ultimately should be picking up its own out-of-memory daemon in the months ahead.

A new work-in-progress feature for systemd is "PathImages" though there is a suggestion this option be renamed to "MountPaths", but in any case is about allowing arbitrary images / block devices to be mounted at any path by systemd.

As of New Year's morning, systemd's Git tree was at 1,273,896 lines spread across 3,522 commits built up over 42,700+ commits from around 1,500 different authors.

Systemd got its start in 2010 in providing a better init system and expanded its scope from there. As part of our year-end and end-of-2010s articles, here is a look at the top systemd stories from the past distribution controversies to new features and other highlights.

Announced back in September at the All Systems Go event in Berlin was systemd-homed as a new effort to improve home directory handling. Systemd-homed wants to make it easier to migrate home directories, ensure all user data is self-contained, unify user-password and encryption handling, and provide other modern takes on home/user directory functionality. That code is expected to soon land in systemd.

Systemd has a present for you with a new release that comes bearing more features for this Linux init system.