Nobody in gentoo wants systemd. it's there in the handbook, and one step specifically adds two special flags when mounting disks, in order to shut systemd up. But you have to click another link in the handbook to install systemd, because it's <i>not default</i>, and only a few of the default profiles use systemd. many specifically avoid it. If you ask how to install systemd in #gentoo, the first question is usually "why?"<p>Let's put it this way:<p>there are a few of us (including myself) in #gentoo with a file called "FuckLennartPoettering" residing within /etc/portage/package.mask/. in this file, you will find:<p><pre><code> sys-apps/systemd
sys-fs/udev
net-misc/networkmanager
</code></pre>
Some of us have <i>switched distributions</i> because our "choice" has been limited to Gentoo, in order to customize poettering and freedesktop.org's poisonous attack on the GPL and GNU out of our system. I've personally set up JACK, WPA_GUI, and eudev/OpenRC on all my corporate systems (running KDE Plasma 5.5 and Frameworks 5.18) so I can avoid the pain that comes from NetworkManager, PulseAudio and systemd. My life is better for it.
I am a Gentoo user, and I use systemd. I also feel like I am at an AA meeting or something every time I state this fact.<p>I have heard all the arguments against systemd and many are totally valid. Some of the implementations and management of the project leaves a lot to be desired.<p>That said, I have run Gentoo on my home desktop for over a decade, Arch on personal/work laptops, Debian on some personal development shell boxes, and CoreOS/Debian on the hundreds of servers I maintain between work/volunteer projects. I may touch all of these in a given day, and I can't tell you how great it is for my personal sanity to be able to run 'systemctl restart ...' or 'journalctl -fu someservice' on any of them. Having a common set of core system tools available across desktop/server distributions has huge advantages.<p>Also there are some real advantages of systemd design (bloated or not) a lot of people overlook. For one, I help maintain shell services for the general public. Giving users root is of course not sane, but at the same time users are constantly wanting to run their own databases, webservers, etc. Since migrating to systemd we can just tell them "create a unit file in ~/.config/systemd/units with whatever you want, and it will become a system daemon run as your user". This is a huge win for security, administration ease, and usability.<p>I have also used Gentoo to build base images for embedded systems with minimal resources, and systemd would of been a terrible choice for those use cases. It would of been a terrible choice for ChromeOS.<p>Choice is what Gentoo has always been about. Let's quit the zealotry and ensure Gentoo continues to be the Linux OS that offers the maximum choices to include the right tools for the problem you are solving.<p>I fully support the author here.
Curious, are there any HN readers out there who use Gentoo? If so, how do you find that it differs from other linux distros?<p>I have been intimidated with the idea of 'building from source'. Recently I have been curious about trying Gentoo and BSD, but every time I do some research it is not encouraging.