The main functional difference between systemd and others is that systemd will just work. Others will require you hand tune and hand tinker with a non-mainstream Linux distro.

If your hobby is init systems by all means mess around though.

I personally quite like systemd. Unit files are clean, timers services and sockets are easy to manage etc.

Honestly it’s a non-problem. Best advice is to use what is best supported. Don’t let the extremely fringe (but loud) tiny group of systemd haters throw you off.

Are you using systemd or an alternative, what do you recommend?

systemd in one machine pending the switch and Artix on another (switching after the introduction of the age field to comply with the age verification law). I have been using GNU/Linux for 15 years, more than a third of that without systemd. So going back to something else felt normal and I recommend switching away from systemd

What are some significant differences to expect when switching to an alternative

Systemd is bloated so expect better performance here and there

can that affect gaming compatibility and performance?

Compatibility issues yes, but performance difference no

What last thing to consider is using the systemd forks like the unshitted one, you get the best of both worlds

I use OpenRC on most of my systems, which honestly works well enough that I’ve never felt the need to change. SystemD at work though, which is also fine. If I have any complaints, it’s just not what I’m used to.

Switching could be tricky, and may not be worth the hassle. It’d really depend on what you want to get out of it. As always though it’d be a good way to learn as you’ll inevitably break something and need to figure out how to fix it.

OpenRC here, on Gentoo.

It works pretty well, fast and simple, honestly I never felt the need for SystemD.

I use the latter at work sometimes, I don’t really like how it changed the way stuff works, but I have nothing against it. I just feel the extra complexity is not needed in all of my home setups (laptops, servers, etc). So it’s OpenRC everywhere for me.

If you are asking about “gaming compatibility” you should not switch to a non-systemd distro. You will end up going through extra hoops for zero benefit.

I’m using shepherd right now and i’ve used runit in the past. Shepherd is definitely a beast of its own since it’s configured in guile scheme, but in the case of runit it just runs schell scripts and the commands are for the most part just as simple as systemd. I’ve seen people claim that some programs won’t work without systemd but i’ve never come across something that didn’t work.

If you have to ask this, then its probably good idea to stick to systemd. I don’t see any reason to change, other than to protest. In the process doing so you will probably encounter issues. People switch away from systemd for various reasons, but not for performance. In example they don’t like who develops and controls systemd. And they don’t like that it does more than just initializing the system, as bunch of other tasks are bundled into it. If all of that does not bother you, stay with systemd in my opinion.

And if you really want to switch to systemd, then I recommend to use a dedicated operating system (a distro) with that in mind. Don’t forget, that systemd has many features and services, that its expected as a standard. You do not just change an init system, but replace all other components too.

Except for systems with very limited resources, systemd or not won’t make much of a difference in performance. A lot of tutorials on reading system logs and managing background services will assume that you are using systemd.

I’ve only ever used distros with systemd, not necessarily with intent, but because it was the default and well-supported. Probably won’t switch unless

• Debian switches
• there’s a change that breaks my workflow
• it somehow starts phoning home to a big datacenter.

Systemd is fine. Stop getting trolled by antiquated neckbeards.

Unless you find a specific problem with something, don’t go looking for reasons to fix that which is not broken.

I use systemd it’s fine and requires very little extra thought.

it’s one of those cases where if you have to ask, you should probably just use systemd. anything else is outdated or a passion project based on some idealism, which i’m all for, but if you’re worried about gaming performance as a primary concern i’d put it out of your mind. for example, i’m an obsessive tinkerer that uses NixOS and Arch before that and i use nushell and Neovim and Hyprland, but i use systemd cuz i don’t see a reason not to. it’s well supported and stable.

i actually like systemd. i’m not sure why I wouldn’t want to use it.

I would say the big thing that might give you trouble is not the init system, but NetworkManager. NetworkManager is the… network management software (wow who woulda guessed?) used on desktop linux distros.

People have many criticisms of it, that are similar to criticisms applied to systemd (it’s also Red Hat software), so I see my friends switching to iwd, wpa_supplicant, or other alternatives when trying something other than systemd as well.

It gives them a lot of pain. None of the other alternatives are as reliable as NetworkManager when it comes to connecting to Wifi. Switching away from Systemd shouldn’t be too hard, but NetworkManager is much tougher to give up. Thankfully, you can run NetworkManager on non-systemd setups.

I have heard that systemd is “heavier” than alternatives. I haven’t experienced that. I don’t think gaming is impacted at all.

I use openrc on Gentoo for desktop. It requires some script hooks for things that expect systemd, but works quite well. I don’t pay attention to it much, unless I’m writing an init script.

I’m switching to GuixSD. Fortunately I have an old laptop and can build up my system there until I feel confident enough to do the real switch.

Pros I have encountered so far: booting in 20 seconds. Nice, although small, community. Scheme is cool. When the time comes, I will just need to copy two text files (and my dotfiles) to the main laptop, and my system will be (theoretically) the same, and it will be (theoretically) unfuckable.

Cons I have encountered so far: some kinks that were quick to research and fix while on an Arch-based distro, now are a bit more of a pain (but most of them in the fun way at least). For now I have given up trying to make the Thunar archive plugin work and switched to PCmanFM. Also I had to install Logseq as a flatpak. I have started very recently and I have not installed much yet so no idea about the impact on gaming.

ETA: there’s !guix@lemmy.ml and !guix@infosec.pub on Lemmy.