> timezones, RTC, DNS resolution, providing getpwent/getgrent, inetd, VMs and containers, bootloader
How many of those are you actually required to use systemd for? At least for DNS, inetd, containers and bootloader I'm pretty sure I run a few different alternatives across my systems. I think major distros (running systemd) still ship with different dns and inetd, for containers its a lot more common to use a docker-like (probably docker or podman) than it is to use systemd-nspawn.
> oh and you also have to add significant complexity in other things (like the kernel!) to use it, like namespaces (which have been a frequent source of vulnerabilities)
Namespaces were implemented before systemd, have been used before systemd in widely used systems (for example LXC and many others). Namespaces and similar kernel features are not tied to systemd.
> How many of those are you actually required to use systemd for?
That depends on what other software you want to run, because systemd's design heavily encourages other things (distros, libraries, applications) to take dependencies on various bits. See also: every mainstream distro.
> Namespaces were implemented before systemd, have been used before systemd in widely used systems (for example LXC and many others). Namespaces and similar kernel features are not tied to systemd.
Didn't say they were. But I don't have to use LXC or many others in order to use the most popular distros and applications.
How many of those are you actually required to use systemd for? At least for DNS, inetd, containers and bootloader I'm pretty sure I run a few different alternatives across my systems. I think major distros (running systemd) still ship with different dns and inetd, for containers its a lot more common to use a docker-like (probably docker or podman) than it is to use systemd-nspawn.
> oh and you also have to add significant complexity in other things (like the kernel!) to use it, like namespaces (which have been a frequent source of vulnerabilities)
Namespaces were implemented before systemd, have been used before systemd in widely used systems (for example LXC and many others). Namespaces and similar kernel features are not tied to systemd.