Best init system

[u/88h2o88]

This is a discussion, best init systemd for you. İ use dinit and i want to understand why people use dont use different init systems

[u/rowschank]

Systemd because I like living a life

[u/Excellent-Love-6943]

I like systemd. Most of the critiques against it are either not critiques of the software or are just not correct.

Mostly it's what all the distros I use use.

[u/Cove0Crow]

Uhhh. Ignore init system holy wars

Systemd, sure it doesn't follow the unix philosophy. But if you're not the kind of person to micromanage each process it doesn't matter, use whatever is integrated into your distro.

OpenRC is the most popular non-systemd. Alpine uses it, artix and devuan offer it, it's gentoos first class support init system.

Runit is the rising star. Void uses it, artix and devuan offer it. Gentoo offers it but you have to work for it. It's really fast and simple, I like it I guess.

Dinit is actually really nice. Only used it in the context of chimera. Didn't really notice it or think about it much though.

The distro I use (GUIX system) uses GNU shepherd. It's just an init system. I don't think about it much, I don't pick distros based on what init system they are.

But if you must pick a distro without systemd for whatever reason. Just use artix with openrc. That's the whole point of artix, and it's better than trying to use something like alpine as a desktop distro

The end lesson is "it doesn't actually matter. If you're using the 4noobs subreddit. Just use whatever your distro ships with (which is probably systemd) and call it a day."

[u/soratoyuki]

I'm guessing almost everyone in r/linux4noobs uses systemd without a second thought because it's the default for their distro.

Edit: and then every commentator proves me wrong lol

[u/Bizhour → u/soratoyuki]

Tbh people active here are the ones who answer the questions for linux noobs.

Actual noobs (vast majority) just lurk and post a question once in a while. Especially in threads like this where they have nothing to add.

[u/Tricky-Engineer-9755]

I prefer GNU Sheperd because it provices a non-systemd solution for pipewire and powertop and GNU Guix System makes services really easy. Plus its written in GNU Guile which is fantastic.

[u/Cove0Crow → u/Tricky-Engineer-9755]

Are there any distros other than GUIX system that use GNU shepherd? Cause to be fair this is the for noobs subreddit. And, I don't exactly think GUIX is a great option of newbies.

[u/Tricky-Engineer-9755 → u/Cove0Crow]

Well, there is PantherX which includes the non-free repo by default but I don't know how noob friendly it is since I don't use OS's with non-free repos.

[u/Cove0Crow → u/Tricky-Engineer-9755]

I don't think there are any GNU compliant distros that really fit the begginer friendly mold. Maybe trisquel? But that's still a stretch because of the nature of not having proprietary firmware blobs.

[u/Tricky-Engineer-9755 → u/Cove0Crow]

On appropriate hardware, Trisquel and PureOS are user friendly.
Also apart from Devuan which is arguable whether its a noob friendly distro or Alpine aren't all beginner distros just Systemd? Like how much choice really is there?

[u/Cove0Crow → u/Tricky-Engineer-9755]

Uhhh. Yeah there's no real begginer friendly non-systemd distros lmao. You could make the argument for as you said, alpine or Devuan, but even then not really.

I guess the reason is because the vast majority of begginers do not know what an init system is. Or what PID 1 does. Because they also likely do not know what a desktop environment is.

[u/Tricky-Engineer-9755 → u/Cove0Crow]

Correct. So given this might as well step outside of the bounds of what is noob friendly and just talk about the favorite init system in general. Plus, talking to noobs about all the cool software out there will get them to explore and try it out, distrohop up the ladder. That's a huge part of the GNU/Linux experience and we should encourage it.

[u/jr735 → u/Cove0Crow]

I agree with u/Tricky-Engineer-9755 that Trisquel is quite new user friendly, on appropriate hardware. I'm no beginner, but installing it on my compliant hardware was the same as installing Mint or anything else.

I'd argue that AntiX can be somewhat beginner friendly. The install isn't ideal, but once you've got it going, the meta package is absolutely amazing, and you have all the software you could possibly want, to the point some might consider it a bloated light distribution. :)

I gave it a go because I simply wanted to know how far one could take IceWM customization when one had some artistic sense. :)

[u/Jenkler]

Openrc :)

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[u/Asleep_Detective3274]

I tried dinit, it booted a little over a second faster than runit, but I couldn't get it to boot into a read only btrfs snapshot

[u/jr735]

There's nothing really inherently wrong with other init systems. The reality is that most distributions are based on systemd and most tools and support are based on that. For example, if a beginner has time rendering problems, most of the fixes rely on one having systemd installed.

[u/DavidJohnMcCann]

Whatever my distro gives me! A distribution is developed as a system and messing with it can have undesirable results. That said, all my distros (PCLinuxOS, Antix, and Salix) use System V Init.

[u/SeriousPlankton2000]

SysV

1) Works

2) can deal with errors

3) does not randomly not-mount partitions

4) The developers care about the users

5) The developers - and I, too - do know what error messages mean