The latest changes implemented in the Systemd repo, related to or prompted by age-verification laws, have made many people unhappy (I suppose links about this aren’t necessary). This has led to a surge in Systemd forks during the last days (“surge” because there have always been plenty of forks). Here are some forks that explicitly mention those changes as their reason for forking (rough time ordering taken from the fork page):
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paramazo/systemd “The systemd System and Service Manager without age verification”
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ganitam/systemd “Systemd fork just before the Age Verification addition. Hoping more capable developers and maintainers do same…”
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GSYT-Productions/systemd-fork “The systemd System and Service Manager, without the stupid Age Verification”
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speedythesnail/unret arded-systemd “The systemd System and Service Manager, without the ret arded age-verification commits”
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ta13579/systemd “The systemd System and Service Manager WITHOUT THE FUCKING AGE CHECKS”
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r4shsec/systemd-no-age-verification “This is systemd but without the age verification made via pull request https://github.com/systemd/systemd/pull/40978”
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Pingasmaster/fightthesystemd “Systemd without the nonsense: no age verification, no lighthouse built-in.”
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Jeffrey-Sardina/system “Liberated systemd – no surveillance. Ever.”
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HaplessIdiot/systemd-saneagecheck “The systemd System and Service Manager with age verification bypass and polling rate options for said feature”
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Queer-Coded-LGBTQ/systemd-fuck-california “The systemd System and Service Manager, but without age bs added in.”
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Codiak540/unshitted-systemd “A fork of systemd aiming to strip the Age verification. Sue me california.”
Hopefully the energy of this reaction won’t be scattered among too many alternatives, although some amount of scattering is always good.
Good luck trying to maintain the mammoth that is systemd… why not just switch to an alternative init system and focus your efforts on contributing to those, instead of trying to single-handedly maintain such a huge codebase?
It’s more the question of why is everyone folding to this age verification nonsense. One dumb state makes a law, now everyone is bending over backwards to comply. A state full of corruption no less, like what are the alteria motives.
Maybe parents should start, parenting their kids, rather than making the government parent them.
Because it is not only one dumb state but also multiple countries with such laws, either already active or as plans.
We should be not complying with any of them, but actively resisting it. This is authoritarianism, pure and simple.
As long as it’s offline I don’t see a problem of implementing this. It’s a nieche use case, but why not? No program has to use the interface. It does what’s on the can: If I have a kid with a user not in wheel, it can install stuff on user level but might be “safe” from programs it is not supposed to use. Are people saying this is a slippery slope?
Yes, thin end of the wedge. Authoritarianism happens little by little, then all at once. It must be furiously resisted by those of us who care about freedom and privacy.
It is a slippery slope, because it came as a response to a law. The law itself does not require a real verification for now, but it is clearly a step in this direction. If we look how governments world wide push for laws to undermine privacy for control, these laws are part of this push.
The birth field itself might even be a “good” tool for parents (I am not a fan of restricting your kids, but I know many are). The problem many people have with the changes by systemd is their anticipatory obedience with these laws.
the linux community is funny sometimes
Yes, this whole thing is very silly. Linux installers ask for your full name already. You can just make one up. Same with the birthday.
The slippery slope total surveillance state paranoia is hysterical.
“If you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to worry about”, people used to say.
Yeah, its not like there is a big push by many governments around the world, for more surveillance and therefore less privacy, right?
When those governments find out I’m 150 years old I wonder what they’re going to do
Not to discourage anyone, but a big problem with maintaining a systemd fork is how much the “init” covers. But it’s encouraging to see see just how many people are attempting a fork, if they join forces it could doable.
Worst case scenario there is alternative init systems that don’t have the kitchen sink
@Liketearsinrain @pglpm An init system is not a kitchen. There isn’t supposed to be a sink there in the first place.
Let that sink in.
Hi! I’m actually the creator of unshitted-systemd (the one at the bottom of the list). I had my eye on systemd for a few weeks due to the whole AI code fiasco, but the second my friend DM’ed me saying “they just added age verification” I said “I’m forking it”, forked it, stripped the DoB field, and submitted a PR
Not even an hour later my PR was closed due to being “Spam”.
So I went further, stripped all the AI code, the realName field for User Accounts, and started fixing issues that haven’t been fixed by systemd themselves. I also saw a 4.5 second boot time speedup from installing mine. I have NO IDEA how, but it’s happened.
I plan on going further and taking out parts that go against user privacy and control over their system (I.E: systemd makes the /etc read only by default, I’ve removed that code in my fork)
I can’t do this on my own though, if anyone wants to help, please let me know! you can email me at [email protected], or contact me through github. You might be able to DM me on this platform idk I’m new to it, and my discord is @codiak540
If the original description hasn’t made it clear, I’m not afraid of California. I don’t live in California and as such believe I am not subject to their stupid laws. Keep that in mind if you’re considering helping me.
I also saw a 4.5 second boot time speedup from installing mine. I have NO IDEA how, but it’s happened.
If I saw a speedup that I didn’t understand, then I’d worry that I had accidentally broken something. It’s easy to get speedups by not doing things correctly
Lovely!
I wanted to fork too but wanted a more carefully planned one (avoid reverting the new time utility names in case they will be re-used in the future & to make syncing newer changes from upstream straightforward otherwise it will not be a one-to-one replacement)
I would love to help with your fork, allocate a worker to build a binary from the CI, create an AUR package (I already studied the systemd arch package a little bit), start using the fork and hopefully with some PRs too. Discord is blocked where I am so it would be cool to have a matrix group / space for this effort and let’s see how far we can push this. Because if this doesn’t work, I will be moving to Artix or Gentoo 100%
well you’ve already won from the marketing point of view compared to the others because yours isn’t a shit (lol) name
I saw a fork coming when the AI drama started, good on you. Don’t have the time budget for it right now, but you should contact the other fork devs, maybe you could join forces.
Nothing more dramatic than Linux users angry-forking a repository
As somebody that uses valkey, I’m happy there’s drama.
Yup, and MariaDB, and LibreOffice, and Nextcloud…
Systemd still has no age verification, so all those forks are absolutely pointless.
If and when Systemd adds age verification, I’ll move away from it.
But the recent change adds literally nothing. Just leave the field blank, like you always did with those for your home address and full name.
The age field is malicious compliance. It satisfies the letter of the law while being completely and deliberately useless for its purpose.It doesn’t work quite that way. Typically you have a sequence of very small changes, all “innocuous”, that lock you more and more into the previous ones. When you suddenly realize that the cumulative change is bad, you also find it’s very difficult to “move away from it”. This is why it’s important not to give away a single inch, from the very start.
That’s why I think the law is bad, but it doesn’t really apply to open source software. You see the actual limit crossed, you can still fork the version from before that.
Even the law itself, as it stands, is pretty alright. It’s effectively just a parental control system, the OS needs to provide the user age to applications, but that age is just whatever you type at install, without any verification. In general, if enough applications implement it, that’s not a bad system to help protect kids without invading anyones privacy. Of course, it can be circumvented by the kid installing the OS themselves, but that possibility is a feature, not a bug.
The problem there is the slippery slope though.
That’s simply not true in this case.
With age verification, there’s a very clear cut-off point that you can see and act upon:
Age verification is when you’re required to verify your age.
Not just enter a number.And the way to fight against this law isn’t to “boycott” systemd.
Literally no one will notice. It’s free, so using it doesn’t support it.
And no one even knows whether you use it or not.
I think there is an intention to convey a clear message. I will be warching the distro’s. Red Hat, being an IBM company, will probably back this age verification farce. I’m not so sure about the community distro’s like Debian or Arch. Maybe even Ubuntu will stop short.
Despite being a minor technical feature, I think this will have a disproportionate response from people.
The age field is one step closer to age verification in a program that already has made it more than clear that they don’t respect their consumers. Not only that but it also opens the door for other distro’s to force age verification.
This is nonsense. Do you feel like having a “user name” field brings “real ID one step closer”? Just don’t fill that field or enter some bogus data - nobody is checking this.
a program that already has made it more than clear that they don’t respect their consumers
Could you elaborate on this? I don’t get it.
Systemd isn’t going to add age verification
!remindme 1 year
This isn’t Reddit
/whoosh
I don’t know why we downvoted the correct answer.
It sucks and is stupid but the alternative is banning Linux. You wanna have ICE knock on your door for “harboring a foreign operating system that doesn’t comply with the Christlike values of patriotic Americans”?
It sucks and is stupid but the alternative is banning Linux.
Good. Have it banned in the one state that probably relies on it the absolute most. Silicon Valley would start to implode and the law would be changed very quickly.
They will not ban it on Servers or for Corporate use, but ban it in youth Centers, in schools, in public libraries, and everywhere else where kids could have access to Computers. This will create another generation of people who only know close source Systems, most likely from Microsoft, who will have no issues with making their Systems compliant to the bindig laws.
They will not ban it on Servers or for Corporate use
That’s the thing, the law doesn’t differentiate.
as far as I read the law, but i am neither a lawyer or even american, are those Option only needed for Systems with users and a user, as defined by the same law, is
(i) “User” means a child that is the primary user of the device.
The law says nothing about Systems that don’t have such a “user”, or at least i could not find anything.
So, there could be a valid argument that the law does differentiate.
- Providing courses for kids to learn linux? Not longer possible
- Providing older, but still perfectly fine running, Computers with Linux to low incoming or otherwise in need families? You are now a criminal!
Systems have to be ready and in place when the law becomes bindig and active, it is to late to beginn with the work then.
It’s almost like the latest changes are unpopular or something… /s
Angry nerds get upset about a nothingburger.
I don’t like age verification either but that feature is optional and it’s up to the OS distributor to use it or not. Picking a distribution that doesn’t use it is easier than building your own distribution with a systemd fork.
I suppose people are afraid that this is just the step one of a series of incremental changes that will make systemd more surveillance friendly. Regarding changing distros, starting a fork and doing couple fixes is not the same thing as maintaining it and being vetted by the community. So I would too change distro to a non systemd one, although options might be quite limited.
People were already mad about systemd in general. This just gave them more ammunition.
Optional as far as systemd is concerned, perhaps, but it’s designed to support a whole suite of software which will expect it to be used.
They’re also making dubious decisions about how it will be done, such as how they’ll handle the fact that date of birth is PII and something advertisers will be delighted to know. The laws they’re trying to support require very limited information, but they’re storing far more than that and they’ve actively decided not to protect it properly.
However optional it may be, they’re effectively defining the standard for what will be stored and how it will be accessed by all of the software which will use it
I will simply not store any data there. There is no need to resort to building my own distribution with a systemd fork, just as I don’t use this week´s Firefox fork because the shitty features of Firefox can be disabled with 1 click.
Using barely maintained forks because of optional features is a security risk.
The laws they’re trying to support require very limited information, but they’re storing far more than that and they’ve actively decided not to protect it properly.
All systemd is storing is the DOB in YYYY-MM-DD format.
Which is more than the law requires. What they’re supposed to report is an age bracket. You don’t need to store someone’s precise date of birth, and you certainly don’t need to make it available to other software, to report a broad age bracket
In California they require date of birth IIRC but some other state requires an age bracket. From a technical standpoint asking for an age bracket is removed. It requires maintenance and also actions from the user. How will the system know when you become an adult? Should I keep nagging you every year asking if you are now over 18? Give it a date of birth and it’s set and forget.
That said, I don’t like where we are headed with surveillance of citizens and I think it would be a lot better to handle date of birth on the websites you use rather than your whole operating system. It’s Metas responsibility to make sure their users are not underage. It’s not our responsibility.
Let’s be realistic. All these forks will get us nowhere because systemd has become a platform on which major components of the Linux system depend. KDE’s new login depends on systemd, as does Gnome.
These forks are just a reaction to the latest addition. They will fizzle out.
I’m on OpenRC reminding you systemd is slop you really don’t need for most systems.
That the Linux system depends on? No.
That your chosen distro depends on? Sure.
Sure, if you choose a distro like Artix that doesn’t use systemd, then yes. However, the major distros use systemd and will continue to do so because it is a critical component of Linux. Once the Linux kernel has finished loading into memory, systemd takes over in user space. Major distros cannot simply switch to a fork on a whim because they need to be completely sure that it is stable and will not cause any compatibility issues.
Let’s not forget that Ubuntu, SUSE and Red Hat are used in professional settings, so they won’t change to a fork.
Gentoo with OpenRC.
Fair Warning: Long anti-systemd rant ahead.
Here’s a list of some fine, totally usable, and well maintained Linux distros that don’t use systemd:
- Artix Linux (offers 4 different supported init systems)
- Gentoo Linux (supports systemd/openrc, with documentation provided on how to manually support others)
- Void Linux (uses runit)
- Alpine Linux (uses openrc, most docker containers use this as their base)
- Devuan (offers 5 different supported init systems)
- Antix (offers 5 different supported init systems)
- MX Linux (offers systemd/sysv init)
Honestly, I was on Artix for 8 years and am on Gentoo/openrc now (been about 6 months). I never really got the systemd hype. I don’t even bother with it on my servers where I just run Alpine Linux. It’s just…not really needed unless the dev of a particular DE or app doesn’t know how to use basic GNU tools and/or doesn’t know they don’t need init for such and such feature.
Yeah yeah, systemd isn’t just an init system. People make that argument all the time, but honestly, that’s actually an argument against using it.
Systemd is poorly designed if the init component can’t be separated out from it’s various other utilities. If I could use systemd just as init, maybe it wouldn’t be…y’know, crap. But no, it has to handle DNS, cron, logging, login managment, etc.
Again, no problem if the systemd devs wanted to make it a suite of optional tools, but init systems are and always will be best if their codebases are as tiny as possible while still being usable and secure. Init’s only job is to fork other processes that the user specifies, that’s it.
Honestly if some software uses systemd, I’m not likely to use it unless someone’s paying me to. Heck, at work I use all sorts of shitty tools that frustrate me to no end in exchange for money.
But if I do happen to use software that requires systemd, on a system that I own, I’m likely to just go into the code, rip out the parts that utilize it, rewrite it, and recompile the binary because fuck that. Yes, I’ve done this. Most of the time, it’s not that hard. But I can count on one hand the amount of times this has been necessary, because the maintainers of these non-systemd distros are able to write basic scripts that hook into the various init systems and you just use them.
And if some major DE like GNOME or KDE relies on systemd, I’d just say, fuck’em. There’s plenty of DE’s that don’t and a multitude of WM’s that never will, and good, they shouldn’t.
Rant over.
I hear you and I respect your opinion.
Linux ran just fine before systemd was created. It can be removed again. It’s not a critical dependency.
That was in 2010. We’re now in 2026, more and more components depend on systemd. For example: https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/gnome-to-have-stronger-dependency-on-systemd.98260/
Gnome is not Linux.
That dependency can be removed.
By basically forking Gnome, sure.
Gentoo already has Gnome working without systemd
Gnome 😂 oh god, what a clown 🤡 you think gnome is critical. The worst DE that has been successfully forked more than once because it’s so poorly managed 🤣 and you’re still wrong ☠️ it works without systemd
What critical components do think require systemd? Name them.
BTW the community can pressure Red Hat and Novel to switch, their contracts have to be renewed periodically.
There plenty of distros that don’t use systemd.
Slackware and Mint DE come to mind.
Because systemd isn’t required for Linux. It’s just one popular init system.
Slight correction: I think you’re mixing up LMDE with Peppermint OS.
This like comes from distrowatch. Yes means the distro is using systemd:
- 1 CachyOS: Yes
- 2 Linux Mint: Yes
- 3 MX Linux: Optional
- 4 Pop!_OS: Yes
- 5 Debian: Yes
- 6 Zorin OS Yes
- 7 EndeavourOS: Yes
- 8 Manjaro: Yes
- 9 Fedora: Yes
- 10 Ubuntu: Yes
- 11 AnduinOS: Yes
- 12 openSUSE: Yes
- 13 Bazzite: Yes
- 14 Nobara: Yes
- 15 Arch Linux: Yes
- 16 elementary OS: Yes
- 17 antiX: No
- 18 NixOS: Yes
As we can see, the major popular distros use systemd.
So your claim is both that the Linux kernel operates perfectly fine without systemd for certain distros, and also that the Linux kernel is heavily dependent on systemd and it would be difficult to re-engineer to work otherwise. Do I understand your argument correctly?
You said it’s part of Linux. Which it isn’t. Just because some popular distros use it doesn’t mean it’s required.
Changing to another init requires major re-engineering and it’s not easy.
If they could switch to systemd in the 2010s they can switch away from it in the 2020s if they really wanted to.
I use Void which has runit by default. you don’t need systemd, like at all.
KDE can be used absolutely fine with any other login manager, I personally use Ly https://codeberg.org/fairyglade/ly to login Info kde on wayland.
I liked ly, they changed at some point to not allow me to type in any username, had to select from list of valid users and it didn’t list AD users. No amount of futzing could get it working so I switched to lemurs. Just mentioning it as another good console-based-login option
Because KDE and GNOME can’t possibly choose to use something else…?
This is so incredibly dump
As someone who has used Linux for over a decade, I have no idea how I would even go about replacing Systemd on my computer; even if I wanted to.
Ageless Linux, now that’s something I can get behind: a script that I don’t understand, to accomplish something I think I might need, or just think is neat.
Unfortunately, I don’t use a Debian based distro, so I’m SOL on that front as well.
For arch… generally if there’s a core/extra official package, there can be alternatives in the AUR that list the system package as a “provides” alias.
From a quick AUR search, the systemd-liberated-git package is already up there. To replace systemd you’d install the AUR package which would tell you it conflicts with the official/core systemd package and ask if you wanted to replace it. If the package maintainer has everything right, it should just work.
Personally I’ll wait to see if a viably stable and well-maintained fork of systemd without age stuff shows up and switch once it sounds problem-free(ish).
I use Fedora, and honestly, I’m not even going to look for alternatives or work arounds unless and until my system actually tries to verify my age.
But that’s good to know, thank you. I imagine that if I do have to dump Fedora, I will probably go to an Arch based system purely for the AUR.
Use a distro without systemd?
I use Linux Mint DE for steam games which I barely play anymore so this whole Systemd/age-verification mess has next to no effect on me. It’s still really interesting to see everything play out in real time.
Speaking strictly as an outsider looking in, I still can’t help but feel uncomfortable and slightly worried about what has happened already. People who seek authoritarian powers over others will always start small, even if it’s “just a joke.” Always pushing boundaries and normalizing new boundaries that are further away from freedom. It’s never ending.
Fighting back against people who’s only source of creativity or identity is labeling and categorizing other people is fucking exhausting. And they don’t even make an effort for their one creative outlet either…
🤝 Well said. Not only normalizing the new boundaries, but in the case of software or hardware, even locking you into the new boundaries.
There is no age verification. There’s an optional field for a birthdate, just like there already is for your full name, email address, and address.
I’m less concerned if it’s age verification or if it’s an optional field. The issue I feel is that it’s pushing boundaries and normalizing new boundaries.
I’m viewing this with a focus on authoritarian power and manipulation. There seems to be far less resistance to change if it’s not immediate. That’s why small acts such as “making a joke,” creating optional fields or reversing laws can be so dangerous. It normalizes a new boundary that can be pushed further. At the very least, it’s enabling the behaviour to push new boundaries.
Focusing on the definition of what it’s called seems to distract from what’s happened, the response to what has happened and what that could mean in the future for large groups of people’s personal identity, safety and freedom.
Authoritarian power and manipulation should not be enabled or normalized.
Not every tiny step is an inevitable slippery slope.
Minimizing small acts enables manipulative behaviour.
Since 2020 I’ve spent a lot of my personal time learning about manipulation and learning how to identity and handle manipulators. I’ve also spent a lot of my personal time teaching others how to identity and deal with manipulators in their personal lives.
After learning so much about manipulation, it’s hard not to see how much manipulation has been normalized in our everyday lives.
Ignoring the small acts means letting a new boundary be normalized. Minimizing those small acts is attempting to ignore them. It is important not to enable and normalize the boundaries that are being pushed.
Authoritarian power and manipulators will not stop pushing boundaries. To them, enough is never enough.
It’s hard to fight back because of all the people who down play everything as insignificance, “it doesn’t affect me”, “it’s optional” or others.
It’s happening in this very comment section too and every comment section where anything attacking our rights is mentioned. Our freedoms will be slowly eroded away, then these people will be affected and they will suddenly be surprised: “how could this have happened?”
This is a stupid reason to fork systemd, this is an optional features. I can think of totally reasonable use cases/situations where such an optional feature makes a lot of sense.
Mind you, while I don’t have children, I have no intent to restrict their usage of the internet. Teaching them critical thinking and providing them a broad cultural exposure seems like a much more productive approach.
Merging something so conflictive and blocking the revert make it look suspicious, more after knowing Meta have invested billions on gettinh age verification everywhere.
Systemd has now vibed code and reviews, in the most critical process on most Linux machines. I see red flags.
I do think it would be better as a optional systemd add-on type of package, if such a thing exists.
Why they censor retarded? According to translator is just word for disabled what i miss?
You mentioned translator, so I’m going to assume English is not your native language.
Retarded actually means slow or slowed down, not specifically applying to people. For example, in a cumbustion engine you might have to retard the timing to get the spark and piston to sync correctly for firing.
Historically, it has also been applied to people with mental or learning disabilities which then became a common insult used to imply someone was stupid. Once it became an insult, it was considered rude in it’s original context even though in many ways it is an apt description. As such, many auto mods will filter out the word regardless of context.
Yes i german. Thank you for explain.
Depending on the context, it is a slur in English.
Es bedeutet mentale Retardierung.
It’s a pretty bad slur in English.
Zurückgeblieben wurde mir auch vorgeschlagen aber das wird meines Wissens hauptsächlich für mentale Behinderungen verwendet.
It’s used for both in English.
So retard can mean “to slow something down” or it can mean “a mentally deficient person”
The second usage is considered offensive and for that reason it’s not normally used in speech except for scientific descriptions of something slowing down.
Im Deutschen: Es wird im Englischen für beides verwendet.
„Retard“ kann also „etwas verlangsamen“ oder „eine geistig behinderte Person“ bedeuten.
Die zweite Bedeutung gilt als beleidigend und wird daher im allgemeinen Sprachgebrauch normalerweise nicht verwendet, außer in wissenschaftlichen Beschreibungen von Verlangsamungen.
It’s seen as offensive, but I was surprised that they censor that and don’t censor “fuck”. Even the link was censored, managed to bypass the censoring by using percent-encoding.
Because fuck is a swear word, the other is used as a slur.
