Bug#762194: a technical proposal

[Cameron Norman <camerontnorman@gmail.com>]

Hello,

On Sat, Nov 22, 2014 at 5:21 AM, Adam Borowski <kilobyte@angband.pl> wrote:
> Hi!
> As Ansgar requests technical solutions, here's one:
>
> just like systemd-shim|systemd-sysv, switch the "init" package from
>   Pre-Depends: systemd-sysv | sysvinit-core | upstart
> to
>   Pre-Depends: sysvinit-core | systemd-sysv | upstart
>
> The set of packages installed by d-i / debootstrap is steered by hard-coded
> scripts, thus new systems can default to whatever is set there.  On the
> other hand, during upgrades, the init system is driven by apt's resolution
> of the above pre-dependency.  If systemd-sysv or upstart were already
> installed, no change is done; if none of these three packages is present,
> apt would install sysvinit-core, preserving existing init system.

One of Steve Langasek's criticisms of not switching by default was the
pain of having systems still running sysvinit for many years to come,
which makes the distribution more difficult to support.

If there was an intention to do so, how would we go about switching
systems over to systemd in the next release, if we use the solution
displayed here in Jessie?

Thanks,
--
Cameron Norman