hope not tied to SystemD

Posted Aug 17, 2025 22:26 UTC (Sun) by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
In reply to: hope not tied to SystemD by pizza
Parent article: Finding a successor to the FHS

> it's reasonable to exclude non-Linuxes. But even sticking to "Linux", it's reasonable to exclude Android and purpose-built embedded systems... and oh look, we're already quibbling over where the outer bounds are drawn.

Well, I run a mainstream (at least, last I knew it was used by kernel devs like Greg KH) distro, and I had to change the init system away from the default, and to systemd. (And yes, I do describe gentoo as somewhat systemd-hostile, but the distro devs prefer OpenRC which I believe predates systemd, so it's not a case of "we refuse to have systemd", just "we don't see the benefit in changing". I don't agree, but I'm not a distro dev, and I've taken advantage of the ability to change the default.)

Any spec that is intended to be a reference for ALL "typical" linux distros should not defer to what just SOME of those distros do. A proper superset should not be defined in terms of a subset - it's just the wrong thing to do.

To put it in your terms, if the spec writers intend it to apply to "all linux distros", or even "all linux distros with typical user spaces like Gnome or KDE/Plasma, then they have extended the boundaries of the spec beyond systemd-distros, so they cannot assume the presence of systemd on the system.

Cheers,
Wol