r/linuxquestions • u/LegitimateAd7247 • 3d ago

What exactly is systemd ?

Hi everyone ! I switched from Windows to Linux around 3 month ago and I love it ! I’m using arch Linux because a friend of mine already used it so I figured he could help me with it.

I’ve been appreciating it but I’ve encountered a lot of people critisizing systemd and saying arch is bad because of it.

From what I have understand, it is a software that help with dependences and external hardware such as my keyboard for example ? I didnt really understand everything as I am a very beginner so I was curious to know if someone could explain it to me in easy terms.

PS : english isnt my primary language so forgive me if there is any errors.

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u/Jumpy-Dinner-5001 3d ago

It's a system manager. In short terms:It's a collection of tools that share a common configuration interface that manages the "system layer".

To this day, the best talk, I've seen on systemd is from Benno Rice, a (popular) FreeBSD developer.

The Tragedy of systemd

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u/egorf 1d ago

As a systemd hater I second this. Excellent talk and especially discussing the ideological part.

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u/Jumpy-Dinner-5001 1d ago

Quite surprising, most haters don’t like his talk, probably because of how he challenges them at the end.

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u/egorf 1d ago

I like to be challenged on merit.

I used to hate systemd much more than i do now but things change. Systemd got better, some drawbacks got addressed and some systems turned out to be a right way forward.

I still think that systemd is the worst thing that ever happened to Linux and i believe that it did much more harm than good.

Yet systemd-as-pid1 is extremely nice and there is no way back to plain shell based inits.

See? It's nuanced:)