Bug#727708: init system discussion status

[Josh Triplett <josh@joshtriplett.org>]

On Sat, Jan 04, 2014 at 11:27:26AM -0800, Steve Langasek wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 04, 2014 at 06:14:30PM +0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> > > ...  (Note that the latter would work better if upstart stopped
> > > conflicting with sysvinit, similar to how systemd can be installed
> > > without being init.)
> 
> > There does seem to need to be some work there.
> 
> That has already been resolved in unstable, with the split of sysvinit
> contents out of the Essential: yes sysvinit into sysvinit-core.  (A
> necessary precondition for switching to either systemd-sysv or upstart for
> jessie.)

That solves one part of the problem, in that the package upstart
conflicts with is no longer Essential; however, that still doesn't allow
installing upstart without making it /sbin/init.  A split similar to the
one between systemd and systemd-sysv would make that possible, allowing
users to try out upstart by setting init= on the kernel command line,
and allowing packages to use upstart for purposes other than running it
as init (for instance, for graphical session startup).

- Josh Triplett