Systemd vs sysvinit

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What are the advantages/disadvantages of using systemd versus sysvinit?

In brief:

systemd

  • Fast boot time, mainly achieved due to starting services in parallell. This can also be achieved with SystemV init, but has to be done manually, while it is a product of dependency handling on systemd.
  • Automatic dependency handling.
  • Monitoring of started services with the ability to restart crashed services.
  • Modules written in compiled languages, probably hard to debug.
  • Tries to replace several system services, from the actual init over hardware recognition and session management to the logging service, and many more. Not the Unix way.
  • https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Systemd
  • http://freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd

SystemV

  • Boot time depends on the admins optimizations.
  • Due to its static dependency handling relies on a knowledgeable admin. Decide for yourself if you count that as advantage or not.
  • Needs often some hacks to monitor services, services can easily escape the monitoring.
  • Written as Shell scripts, so easy to debug and alter if necessary.
  • Minimal approach, doesn't try to be the one super-service running the system.
  • https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/SysVinit_%28Italiano%29