The latest changes implemented in the Systemd repo, related to or prompted by age-verification laws, have made many people unhappy (I suppose links about this aren't necessary). This has led to a surge in Systemd forks during the last days ("surge" because there have always been plenty of forks). Here are some forks that explicitly mention those changes as their reason for forking (rough time ordering taken from the fork page):
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paramazo/systemd "The systemd System and Service Manager without age verification"
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ganitam/systemd "Systemd fork just before the Age Verification addition. Hoping more capable developers and maintainers do same.."
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GSYT-Productions/systemd-fork "The systemd System and Service Manager, without the stupid Age Verification"
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speedythesnail/unret arded-systemd "The systemd System and Service Manager, without the ret arded age-verification commits"
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ta13579/systemd "The systemd System and Service Manager WITHOUT THE FUCKING AGE CHECKS"
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r4shsec/systemd-no-age-verification "This is systemd but without the age verification made via pull request https://github.com/systemd/systemd/pull/40978"
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Pingasmaster/fightthesystemd "Systemd without the nonsense: no age verification, no lighthouse built-in."
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Jeffrey-Sardina/system "Liberated systemd -- no surveillance. Ever."
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HaplessIdiot/systemd-saneagecheck "The systemd System and Service Manager with age verification bypass and polling rate options for said feature"
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Queer-Coded-LGBTQ/systemd-fuck-california "The systemd System and Service Manager, but without age bs added in."
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Codiak540/unshitted-systemd "A fork of systemd aiming to strip the Age verification. Sue me california."
Hopefully the energy of this reaction won't be scattered among too many alternatives, although some amount of scattering is always good.
Sure, if you choose a distro like Artix that doesn't use systemd, then yes. However, the major distros use systemd and will continue to do so because it is a critical component of Linux. Once the Linux kernel has finished loading into memory, systemd takes over in user space. Major distros cannot simply switch to a fork on a whim because they need to be completely sure that it is stable and will not cause any compatibility issues.
Let's not forget that Ubuntu, SUSE and Red Hat are used in professional settings, so they won't change to a fork.
Linux ran just fine before systemd was created. It can be removed again. It's not a critical dependency.
That was in 2010. We're now in 2026, more and more components depend on systemd. For example: https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/gnome-to-have-stronger-dependency-on-systemd.98260/
That dependency can be removed.
By basically forking Gnome, sure.
Gentoo already has Gnome working without systemd
Gnome is not Linux.
Gnome 😂 oh god, what a clown 🤡 you think gnome is critical. The worst DE that has been successfully forked more than once because it's so poorly managed 🤣 and you're still wrong ☠️ it works without systemd
And yet some have managed to get GNOME working without systemd, with shims.
And for your cherry picked example for your point about being in 2026, that was 2025. XD
... I forget, when did someone get current GNOME working in BSD again? I briefly read about that recently. Was it maybe in MidnightBSD?
Fair Warning: Long anti-systemd rant ahead.
Here's a list of some fine, totally usable, and well maintained Linux distros that don't use systemd:
Honestly, I was on Artix for 8 years and am on Gentoo/openrc now (been about 6 months). I never really got the systemd hype. I don't even bother with it on my servers where I just run Alpine Linux. It's just...not really needed unless the dev of a particular DE or app doesn't know how to use basic GNU tools and/or doesn't know they don't need init for such and such feature.
Yeah yeah, systemd isn't just an init system. People make that argument all the time, but honestly, that's actually an argument against using it.
Systemd is poorly designed if the init component can't be separated out from it's various other utilities. If I could use systemd just as init, maybe it wouldn't be...y'know, crap. But no, it has to handle DNS, cron, logging, login managment, etc.
Again, no problem if the systemd devs wanted to make it a suite of optional tools, but init systems are and always will be best if their codebases are as tiny as possible while still being usable and secure. Init's only job is to fork other processes that the user specifies, that's it.
Honestly if some software uses systemd, I'm not likely to use it unless someone's paying me to. Heck, at work I use all sorts of shitty tools that frustrate me to no end in exchange for money.
But if I do happen to use software that requires systemd, on a system that I own, I'm likely to just go into the code, rip out the parts that utilize it, rewrite it, and recompile the binary because fuck that. Yes, I've done this. Most of the time, it's not that hard. But I can count on one hand the amount of times this has been necessary, because the maintainers of these non-systemd distros are able to write basic scripts that hook into the various init systems and you just use them.
And if some major DE like GNOME or KDE relies on systemd, I'd just say, fuck'em. There's plenty of DE's that don't and a multitude of WM's that never will, and good, they shouldn't.
Rant over.
I hear you and I respect your opinion.
And to fold all that into a single point of failure... a single point of failure on PID 1, ... it's almost like they want to create level 10 critical vulnerabilities and backdoors.
Quick! Put "optional" age attestation (/verification) in there, so we can find out where your children are! MUHAHAHAHAHAHA.
[To all who are dismissing this as a "nothing burger"] See?
What could go wrong?
Way, way, way too much.
There plenty of distros that don’t use systemd.
Slackware and Mint DE come to mind.
Because systemd isn’t required for Linux. It’s just one popular init system.
Slight correction: I think you're mixing up LMDE with Peppermint OS.
This like comes from distrowatch. Yes means the distro is using systemd:
As we can see, the major popular distros use systemd.
You said it’s part of Linux. Which it isn’t. Just because some popular distros use it doesn’t mean it’s required.
Changing to another init requires major re-engineering and it's not easy.
If they could switch to systemd in the 2010s they can switch away from it in the 2020s if they really wanted to.
Have you tried it?
It may surprise you how non-non-trivial it is.
Major re-engineering can stand down. ;)
I use Void which has runit by default. you don't need systemd, like at all.
So your claim is both that the Linux kernel operates perfectly fine without systemd for certain distros, and also that the Linux kernel is heavily dependent on systemd and it would be difficult to re-engineer to work otherwise. Do I understand your argument correctly?
Distrowatch page clicks is a weak measure, and not even one that corroborates the point you're trying to make with your circular definition, with examples that do not.
"major". So funny trying to pomp it up.
https://distrowatch.com/search.php?defaultinit=Not+systemd&status=Active shows plenty active distros don't. Some of them are "major", as in [independent and] having been around the longest.
Not that an appeal to tradition's any more sound reasoning than circular argument and (unsound) argumentum populum. These are not the relevant criteria. All red-herring stuff.
What critical components do think require systemd? Name them.
BTW the community can pressure Red Hat and Novel to switch, their contracts have to be renewed periodically.
Gentoo with OpenRC.
Circular reasoning. Not well hidden enough. ;P
Yes, because that circular definition would then break. LOL.
No, seriously, they can. Init-freedom is alive and well. Many distros do many init systems. It's not as non-trivial as your scare tactic tries to make out.