Ubuntu developer Martin Pitt has announced the official switch to the systemd startup daemon for the upcoming Ubuntu 15.04 "Vivid Vervet" release. Ubuntu's plan to switch to systemd has been known for some time. Canonical founder and Ubuntu godfather Mark Shuttleworth announced the change a year ago after the Debian project (which is the basis for Ubuntu) elected to adopt systemd. Still, the official announcement marks the end of an era for users of the many Ubuntu variants and other derivative distros that depend on the Ubuntu development system.

The init startup daemon served the Unix and Linux communities for years, but many developers believe a change to a newer system is necessary. Those clamoring for the  change believe modern methods require a service management system with better parallel processing and more efficient handling of complex dependencies. Debian's migration to systemd caused some controversy within the community and even precipitated a fork, known as Devuan, which will continue to develop around init.

Ubuntu had previously determined init needed replacing and was working on its own init alternative, known as Upstart, in recent releases. With this change to systemd, Ubuntu is discontinuing work on Upstart.

Debian plans to enable systemd by default in the upcoming Debian 8 "Jessie" release. Fedora, Arch, openSUSE, and Mageia have installed systemd by default for 2 years or more. Red Hat Enterprise and SUSE Linux Enterprise made systemd the default in 2014. Ubuntu's announcement means that systemd is truly the new standard service startup daemon for the Linux universe.