Why not to use different init systems on different kernels? Debian already supports 3 (three) init systems *at once*, sysvinit, upstart, systemd. This is much harder that using single system. FYI, on Dyson [1] I've made dh_installinit noop, and working on dh-smf [2] [1] http://osdyson.org [2] http://cgit.osdyson.org/dh-smf.git