The developers are waiting for systemd to mature

May 11, 2015 07:11 GMT  ·  By

After Debian had adopted systemd, many of the distros based on this operating system made the switch as well. Ubuntu has already implemented systemd, but Linux Mint is still providing dual options for users.

A good chunk of the Debian community was not happy with the systemd integration, but those problems didn't go beyond Debian. The Ubuntu transition was painless, and no one really put up a fight, and the Linux Mint team chose the middle ground. As it stands right now, Linux Mint is providing users with the possibility of running their favorite system either with systemd or upstart.

From the looks of it, this decision was not taken lightly by the developers, and it will remain in place for the time being. The devs consider that the project will wait enough for systemd to become more stable and mature. Only after this happens, systemd and all the other components in the family will be implemented by default.

Linux Mint doesn't bet on systemd just yet

The fact that the Linux Mint team is not getting systemd just yet is not a cause for concern or relief. In fact, the developers have chosen to put the choice into users' hands and to give themselves more time.

"Both Betsy and Mint 17.x use sysvinit (with upstart in Mint) as well as consolekit for session management but with a functional logind there as well (afaik that’s needed these days since some components made the choice to depend on it). In a way that’s good, because it means we’re using old and reliable technologies while systemd matures. It’s good also because users are able to switch to systemd in Betsy if they want to.So as you can see, right now, we’re in the best position cause we've got multiple choices and we’re defaulting to proven techs," wrote Clem Lefebvre on the official blog.

This means that at least Linux Mint 17.x things will remain mostly the same as they are now, with two options.