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Comment by LooseMarmoset | Hacker News Reader

systemd-resolved is an effing nightmare when combined with network-manager. these two packages consistently manage to stomp all over DNS resolution in their haste to be the one true source of name resolution. i tried enabling systemd-resolved as part of an effort to do dns over https and i end up with zero dns. i swear that /etc/resolv.conf plus helper scripts is more consistent and easy.

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It’s why I always say in the typical “systemd bad” threads that systemd the init system is great, it’s the systemd-* everything else’s that give it a bad name.

I want systemd nowhere fucking near my NTP or DNS config.

Thank god you can enable and disable each of these components in complete isolation, so you don't suffer any kind of lock-in from systemd.

devuan saved just enough of my sanity for me to function

Yes! I'm hoping for another Devuan release after this.

Yeah, pretty incredible distro. Some rough edges here and there but man, even maintenance is a dream. It's just plain simpler to diagnose, and actually control what the system does. Instead of having to go down abstraction hell land.

Don't get me wrong, systemd is cool. But my god people really abuse of it. Especially distros. Some really make it hard to understand what service is in actual control. Why wrap daemons in daemons in daemons? With the worst possible names and descriptions to boot.

fighting your distro in practice is a total nightmare.

I ended up in gentoo mostly just to avoid systemd

(used it before, mostly to learn. went to debian for new laptop. gave up after fighting systemd. I'm aware of devuan and artix, but gentoo just worked (after all the time spent))

Debian, at least until bookworm works perfectly without systemd. The easiest way to make this transition, is to installed Debian with nothing but 'standard system utilities' and 'SSH server' (if you want) during install:

https://forum.qubes-os.org/uploads/db3820/original/2X/c/c774...

Once install is done, login and save this file:

  /etc/apt/preferences.d/systemd

  # this is the only systemd package that is required, so we up its priority first...
  Package: libsystemd0
  Pin: release bookworm
  Pin-Priority: 700
  /etc/apt/preferences.d/systemd

  # exclude the rest
  Package: systemd
  Pin: release *
  Pin-Priority: -1

  Package: *systemd*
  Pin: release *
  Pin-Priority: -1

  Package: systemd:i386
  Pin: release *
  Pin-Priority: -1

  Package: systemd:amd64
  Pin: release *
  Pin-Priority: -1

After:

  apt-get install sysvinit sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils

Reboot then:

  apt-get purge systemd

There are a few edge cases, packages which require systemd, but I've been running thousands of systems including desktops this way for a decade.

Yes, I also run thousands of systems with systemd too.

It's important to remember that it has to be this aggressive in excluding systemd, too. There is quite a lot of strong coupling amongst the parts of systemd, so there are very few half-measure scenarios, where one can have only some systemd stuff, that will actually function correctly in toto.

Moreover, there are the odd one or two unrelated packages that just happen to have the string "systemd" in their names. (-:

Have you looked at Devuan? Genuinely a good experience.

Note that this will still allow systemd-udevd because it's packaged under its original name, udev.

yeah. you need eudev instead. still, I appreciate the guide!

MX Linux for the win. Debian based, but defaults to 'init'. Booting with systemd is an option. Just enough systemd-* running to make things easy and seamless.

  $ ps agxf|grep 'systemd'
      607 ?        S      0:00 /lib/systemd/systemd-udevd
     2201 ?        S      0:00 /sbin/cgmanager --daemon -m name=systemd
     2726 ?        S      0:00 /lib/systemd/systemd-logind

Also can install Nvidia or AMD video drivers.

I’ve been dropping systemd-timesyncd and using chrome since forever, and it works well. I’m sure some systemd-* things are harder to replace, but not every replacement is a fight against your distro.

I've not had any problems with swapping out systemd-* with other packages, including -coredump, -cron, -oomd, -resolved or -timesyncd. Even journald was fairly painless to swap out. Unlike systemd itself, the distros' approach them not so much as a core part of the userland, but as lightweight basic implementations that meet many user's needs, but which are in no way a replacement for more fully-functional implementations.

it’s not possible to swap out journald.

There are reasonable ones out there. Just use a well maintained one that aligns with you.

I've been using this combination successfully for a long time with no issues. In fact it is the only way to handle complex DNS setup on Linux.

If you have specific issues, please file them over at systemds GitHub issue tracker.

  chattr +i /etc/resolv.conf

It's the only long-term solution to that problem that I endorse. Every attempt of working with the system, whether via systemd.network, resolved.conf or resolvconf, has always eventually bit me one way or another.

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