Pros: Really useful AIO program that does everything Cons: Really useful AIO program that does everything

Great example:

Systemd makes it very easy to bring up DNS with systemd-resolved, and it bridges a gap from the old resolv.conf file and newer DNS standards n stuff.

But then it also means that any alternative DNS clients have to tell resolvd to go away if they want to run, or often times make a systemd service to autostart with systemd and ensure it works perfectly with every possible systemd setup.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with this method of having a centralized AIO thing that handles a a lot of stuff for you, but lots of early Linux people preferred the hardcore KISS principle and found it very beneficial to have everything neatly separated and modular with the service manager’s job to only start and stop services.

Overall, systemd has been remarkably (and relatively) stable and beneficial which people thought would be impossible back when it became initially popular.

It’s a giant mess of interconnected programs that could theoretically still be disentangled, but in practice never are. It was very quickly and exclusively adopted by pretty much every major distro in a short period of time, functionally killing off any alternatives despite a lot of people objecting. Also, its creator was already pretty divisive even before systemd, and the way systemd was adopted kinda turned that into a creepy hate cult targeted at him.

There’s nothing actually wrong with systemd. I personally wish there was still more support for the alternatives though. Systemd does way more than I need it to, and I just enjoy having a computer that only does what I want.