An introduction to systemd

All Systems Go

Article from Issue 176/2015
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Wondering what all the fuss is about systemd? We explain the basic concepts and capabilities of the new system management suite – coming soon to a distro near you.

Some people swear by systemd [1], the new systems and services manager. Others swear at it – loudly and frequently. However, now that systemd is starting to be installed by default in most major distributions, you probably need to begin to familiarize yourself with at least its basic concepts, including its basic commands and how it handles runlevels, logs, and starting and stopping systems.

To be sure, the latest version of Debian lets users install without systemd by using preseed [2] or adding an argument at the boot menu [3], but at that point learning systemd seems easier than avoiding it. Additionally, that option may not be available in future releases.

If you have not been following the controversy about systemd, you may wonder what the fuss is about. After all, systemd is generally summarized as a replacement for init [4], the process that controls other processes. Ubuntu's replacement for init, called upstart [5], did not meet with anything like the same opposition, so why should systemd?

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