Gentoo is not exactly a systemd-less distribution—you do have the option of installing it instead of going with the default (OpenRC). Personally, though, my Linux use predates systemd and no one has ever presented what I would consider a compelling reason for me to switch to it, so I install all my systems with OpenRC. I've reached a stage in my life where I dislike unnecessary churn in utility software.

From a less-personal standpoint, I consider the philosophy behind systemd to be wrongheaded (as in, it looks very much like Microsoft's embrace-extend-extinguish—and no, I do not trust Red Hat not to be sold to someone who will take advantage). Many of the other reasons-not-to-use given by others here also ring true to me.

I use a wide variety of OSs both personally and professionally. Personally, FreeBSD has become my favorite as I love Jails. Being able to have a minimal number of simple scripts to manage tasks makes troubleshooting easier and helps stability (IMO). I'm also currently experimenting with Void Linux, expecting OpenRC to be similar in some ways.

Professionally, I tend to go with Systemd-based OSs (Almalinux is my favorite when possible), as I often need to spin up servers quickly and offload management to others. I've found that with Systemd it's much easier to transfer this control as it is so ubiquitous now.

TL;DR: they're different tools and different approaches can work best for specific scenarios.

Caviat: I use a distro with systemd. But these are generally the reasons people don't:

Violates the Unix principle (that Linux has mostly inherited) that every program should do one thing only, and do that thing well.

Subsequent theorizing that the things systemd does could be done more efficiently.

Subsequent theorizing that allowing a single dev team, in this case, Red Hat, a US corporation aimed at enterprise use, to control a large chunk of Linux development could be a bad thing. There is some merit to this, as some applications require systemd specifically as a dependency.

The reality is that these systemd isn't particularly inefficient, and no power moves from Red Hat have been made. Is this the absolute most ideal situation? Perhaps not, and I'm glad people are crafting other solutions. As of now, it does not factor into what distro I choose at all.

I'm the type of person who wants more systemd in my computer, but if I think the arguments for a systemd-less system are:

• Making sure that apps remain open and compatible with other init systems, so that if systemd turns evil there is a easy way to escape.
• Trimming and removing bloat that some people feel systemd provides.
• Testing out other init systems just for the fun of it, like distro hopping.

I think some people are simply nostalgic for the Linux/Unix of yesterday. Systemd is a pretty big change to the system of established norms

With that being said, the strong suite of systemd is complex systems. For embedded Linux like buildroot and openwrt busybox init makes way more sense.

I'm using Guix which uses Shepherd. It's really nice if you're comfortable with Lisp or Scheme/Guile to be specific.

To people wanting to move away from SystemD though, I'm personally partial to OpenRC. It's not very complex at all. As for distros that use it, Void Linux comes to mind. I was also pretty comfortable daily driving Alpine Linux for a while. Both are very much "get out of the way and let me work" distros in my eyes.

im not wild about it but im lazy. I guess its more that I like the way the init system worked. honestly im kinda like that with things that start feeling more like a database than simple text files.

I'm still stuck on systemd because I'm a lazy coward, but I know Dave from You Suck At Programming uses void linux to avoid the horrors of systemd and he is a reasonably down to earth fellow and seems fine with it.

Dacctal is even more particular and opinionated about it and used to use ArchLinux with OpenRC, but he said he was moving to Gentoo not sure if that ever happened or if he landed somewhere else.

So there's a few options.

The systemic reason people in general should use a non-systemd distro, is that systemd has too much control over the direction of Linux development and the developers are beholden to big tech instead of end users. This inevitably leads to bad outcomes as we see with Linus and AI the past few days even assuming everyone started out with pure intentions.

As far as the end user experience, there are some things that just assume systemd and you have to start bashing around and guessing from logs to get it running (eg Tailscale). Systemd is honestly a good user experience for new users and simplifies a lot of annoying tasks. It's insidious.

I use Alpine Linux which uses OpenRC. For me, I like to understand how things work and SystemD is too complex for me. It's presence discourages me from wanting to learn it because there are other things I would prefer to do with my time instead.

I really enjoy writing scripts and OpenRC is far easier for me to understand. I think Runit on Void might be even more simpler than OpenRC but I have no real experience with it. Alpine just happened to cross my path first.

I write a lot of POSIX scripts so portability is something that is important to me. It gives me the freedom to move around to different types of distributions whenever I want.

Also, without SystemD, I've learned so much about how Operating Systems work in a more low level and detailed way. I've always struggled with keeping hobbies so this has been a nice change. There's always more to learn and it's easy to get lost in all the logic puzzle pieces.

When I don't feel like tinkering, I still have a copy of Linux Mint Debian Edition set aside as a backup. It's base installation is simple, has everything I need and it just works.

i use slackware. the init system here is extremely easy and simple. (mostly shell scripts)

i see no reason to use systemd on my machine. it's an unnecessarily complex beast i can't fully understand myself.. i get it there's some useful features included but i don't need them. and i personally had issues with machines using systemd (waiting for some daemon to start with some timer going and hanging there, idk if it's a config issue but it was a vanilla debian box with barely anything changed)

The main argument I hear is about portability. Systemd integrates deeply with Linux and isn’t available on BSDs or other Unix-like systems. This in itself wouldn’t be an issue but major desktop software started to integrate systemd locking out BSD users. A recent example is KDE Plasma Login Manager (KDE itself still works).

Providing systemd-less option is something very in line with Gentoo Linux portability goals so I’d take a look at what they do if you’re interested.

Recently I started experimenting with Alpine Linux. Initially because I wanted something for a Raspberry Pi which had newer packages than Raspberry OS and was quite minimal. Now I also installed it on a spare laptop and set up a desktop environment with the River Compositor mostly just to try it out. Most things I want to do are already working as expected while after boot it uses only 380MB of RAM. So I like how minimal it is, the package management is really nice and stable and it just runs very nicely on this older laptop.

I very heavily use systemd for containers and timers on my servers and main Desktop. I run Void on an X200, because trying to use thag Plattform today requires squeezing out every iota of performance improvements.

I wanted to try out a systemd-less distro because I didnt like how much authority the systemd project seems to give itself. Now I've fully switched from Arch Linux with KDE Plasma to Void Linux with Noctalia and Niri.

Its been pretty smooth so far. The only hickup has been that I had to raise some sort of memory limit to run heavier steam games. I had to compile like 2 programs I use from source but I dont mind. Loving how slick Niri is!

To be fair, there is no reason for a standard user to not to use systemd. You can easily find tutorials when you need them, which won't be a lot for your daily usage.

I switched to a systemd-less distro because I want simplicity and want every service on my system to be in my control. I cannot use systemd without copy-paste commands. With runit everything is simple.

Note that, some programs specifically check for systemd and for those you might need to adjust things accordingly, if you want to use an init system other than systemd. So again, if you don't want to deal with init systems, systemd just works.

I use Void Linux. It has runit and it's simple. If you want things kinda old-school there are distros that use OpenRC. There are a lot of init systems in the wild and that is a good thing, though you might find some of them quite barebones.

So if you want more control, why not? Just be ready to learn more things because systemd has more than what an init system do.

Void linux and Alpine are KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid)

while Arch become KAOS (Keep Astonishingly Overcomplicated, Stupid)

You should try slackware, itll put hair on your chest

http://www.slackware.com/~msimons/slackware/grfx/

Systemd is insecure bloat at best.