[Solved - sorta - part 2] Re: how to switch a Debian buster system from systemd to sys-v init

[Rick Thomas <rbthomas@pobox.com>]

> On Jun 23, 2019, at 2:24 AM, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:
> 
> On Sat, Jun 22, 2019 at 05:45:39PM -0700, Rick Thomas wrote:
>> 
>> Purely out of curiosity, I'd like to see what's involved in
>> switching a Debian buster system from systemd to sysv init.
> 
> The short version [1]:
> 
>  apt-get install -y sysvinit-core

So our goal is to start with a working Debian buster system with the Mate desktop using the systemd init, and convert it to a working buster system with no desktop gui, and using the sys-V init.

As Tomas points out, basically all you should have to do is “apt-get install sysvinit-core”, and the rest should be fully automatic.  This may have worked with Debian stretch, but it’s a bit more complicated with buster.  In particular, there seems to be some parts of the old dbus stuff left around that cause the long pauses I’ve mentioned previously.  This may be a bug and should be reported, but I have no idea what package to report it against, or what a suitable proposed fix would be.

In any case, the solution I came up with is

    apt-get --purge install -y sysvinit-core dbus- glib-networking- libgtk-3-0-
    apt-get --purge autoremove

Note the trailing minus-signs on dbus- glib-networking- libgtk-3-0-  These packages need to be deleted in the same pass as sysvinit-core is added.

Hope this helps somebody in the future…

Enjoy!
Rick