Init system comparisons?
2026-07-11 18:44 UTC
Replies (5)
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@communism@lemmy.ml 2026-07-11 18:52
You can just try them out in a VM if you’re interested. Systemd can become quite a deep rabbit hole, but most of the others are quite simple and best learnt by doing.
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@tom_s@friendica.ambag.es 2026-07-11 20:16
@GaumBeist@lemmy.ml wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Compariso… pistack.xyz/posts/2026-05-25-s…
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@corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 2026-07-12 05:08
Dood. Boot times are useless ‘flex’ metrics more influenced by processor and disk speed than init systems. My el5 and el6 archive systems boot faster than my el7 ELS system, which itself is faster than el9; but not by enough to matter when you’re booting every week to a month. It’s never BEEN an issue. Compare complexity: Has your init system metastasized over the entire host and re-implemented (poorly) other core systems, so long-dependable features just simply don’t work, and everything has its own rinky-dink silly-walk to configure instead of /etc/fstab or /etc/exports, instead of staying in its lane? No? You’re good. Diversity and specialization will give you excellent results and security. Yes? You have systemd. There’s your comparison.
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@hunger@programming.dev 2026-07-12 08:01
These comparisons assume the systems do the same thing, resulting in a comparable system once everything is up and running. That is just not the case. Systemd does a ton more wrt. security, hardening and reliability. E.g. it has udev integrated and not running “stand-alone” since it tends to lock itself up when it needs to start long-running services in response to HW showing up. Yes that happens rarely but there is nothing you can do about it. Logind locks down permissions to HW way more tightly than the “forks” that have the same problems that the pre-logind system had – and that led to logind getting developed in the first place. Lots of sandboxing options are built into systemd and widely used tomrun services (I rarely saw any sandboxing elsewhere so far outnofmthenbox), measured boot is pretty much a systemd-only thing at this time, … .
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@Eggymatrix@sh.itjust.works 2026-07-13 20:59
One init system is the new standard, widely adopted by all serious distros, installed and configured by default. It is opinionated, spits in the eye of most experienced IT admins but is the only real alternative for who needs to earn a living with linux. It is well supported and understood… The others are well established standards that did not survive the test of time and are slowly dying out, kept around by nostalgic hobbyists that will catch any mention of systemd as an excuse to profess their hate for poettering, binary logs or some udev babbling.