That sucks for me as a Guix user. I haven't managed to package a GUI app I'm using from Flatpak so it was a nice escape hatch for me.
this post was submitted on 25 May 2026
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No problem. I'm drifting away from flatpak, anyway. Anything that's married to systemd is going to be a problem for an increasing number of people, over time.
Flatpak was a dumb 5 years ago, it's a dumb now, it will be a dumb in 5 years. Flatpak has always and will always just be a dumb.
Every single time I have to use Flatpak they just end up being an unpleasant experience. Every time I think I find an upside to them, it just ends up becoming an inconvenience.
Even the one big upside everyone always claims makes it better the sandboxing. Just ends up being more hassle than its worth almost every single time.
Works for me
Systemd is open source. Its bindings are open source. If snowflake distro's want to maintain this compatibility they can maintain it.
This centralization of Linux worries me
the monolithic kernel must really mess with your noggin
best of luck with devuan
Yes, but the centralization runs so much deeper! We should ditch the centralized linux kernel and create at least 10 completely new kernels that are barely compatible to each other but will ensure our freedom and provide choice to the community!
BSD has entered the chat.
That Hurds 😜
It shouldn't. Linux users are like cats. The harder you try to herd them in one direction, the more directions they find to go. Just because they all happen to be in one place at one particular time doesn't mean they will suffer any obligation to stay there the moment someone decides they want them to.
Sadly I just dont think this is true. For now non systemd distros work fine but eventually if this course doesn't change you'll be heavily inconvenienced at the best and downright struggling at the worst if you choose to not use it I fear.
Meow. I mean... exactly.
Linux users are like cats. The harder you try to herd them in one direction, the more directions they find to go.
This comparison genuinely made me laugh because it's so true. 🤣
It's less that and just the absolute ridiculous scope creep of systemd. Again it was meant to just replace init. All it needs to do is boot the kernel and run at launch services, and people disagree on that last part.
It shouldn't be basically a second layer to the kernel in both application and necessity.
systemd is a name for a set of modular tools. That would be like saying that GNU is scope creeping and should stay in their lane.
Systemd should've stayed in its lane instead of wildly taking up the whole road like an entitled asshole.
Why? Systemd is open source.
Coincidentally, today I removed systemd from my laptop (Debian Trixie.) It was reasonably easy. I booted from a USB drive into a shell through debian's "rescue" mode and typed plausible-looking apt commands until it worked. For some reason it didn't create /etc/inittab and I made a typo when I tried to do it myself, but other than that no problems. Differences noticed so far that a normal user would care about: none. If nothing goes wrong I guess I'll do the same on my desktop at home this weekend, because why not.
Nothing against systemd, but I think it's valuable to continue having other options and it was fun to see that it's still pretty easy to use them (maybe harder if you're a GNOME user, idk.)
I find it extremely hard to believe that worked, let alone left you with a bootable system, let alone properly working.
You know, just maybe...this whole doomsaying about systemd running everything on a Linux system is a bit overblown?
I was surprised as well. I found the instructions at debian.org somewhat confusing, and I'm not sure if they're completely comprehensive or accurate — but they were the most useful reference I found and provide a good idea of what it's like.
NixOS is the only thing that made systemd a reasonable tool for me.
I do not like the entire paradigm of how it works.
I love NixOS, but I hate how coupled to systemd it is.
I tried to make a microVM image of NixOS the other day, using tini as the init system. Large parts of the core NixOS lifecycle simply don’t work at all without systemd.
Guix is your friend with an infinitely better language
Maybe Guix or Finix?
OH NO, they must be devastated!
Looks like postmarketos already put in work to have systemd working in it. That takes care of my concerns there
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