Systemd on Ivon's Blog

Brief Review of the Beginner Linux Reference Book Trying LINUX on a Computer: Hardware Test Notes

infoivonblog.nkfjt@aleeas.com (Ivon Huang) — Sat, 28 Mar 2026 18:00:00 +0800

Is there a Chinese book I can recommend to beginners for learning about Linux, but that is not entirely about server operations and maintenance knowledge?

Recently, while attending a Software Liberty Association Taiwan member meeting, I learned about Trying LINUX on a Computer: Hardware Test Notes written by member Chao Wei-lun, so I downloaded it and took a look. I found it pretty well written.

Trying LINUX on a Computer: Hardware Test Notes, written by Chao Wei-lun (bluebat, FSF member) and published by the Software Liberty Association Taiwan, is a very detailed Linux reference book. It combines a bit of computer science basics with operational knowledge of modern Linux systems, helping readers understand how Linux runs.

The subject of this book is not the operating principles of the Linux kernel. Instead, it analyzes problems encountered when operating Linux in practice, and explains how to debug system services. Compared with 鳥哥的Linux 私房菜, this book talks more about situations you encounter when actually dealing with hardware.

The book uses the latest Fedora 43 as its example, explaining the operating principles of Linux boot flow, graphics systems, audio systems, network connections, power management, and more. After briefly introducing the principles, it supplements them with actual command operations, using Systemd as the main means of system management. Users interested in everyday use of Linux free software can treat this as a practical reference book and consult it to understand what commands can help debug the system when something goes wrong.

However, the author’s explanations are still mainly command-based. Although the FreeDesktop XDG standards are mentioned, there is relatively little discussion of graphical operations in Linux desktop environments such as GNOME or KDE Plasma, which is quite a pity. And to a large extent, it still discusses operations in the X11 environment, without saying much about Wayland technology as the future trend.

The Linux desktop environment with the highest market share is GNOME. Although the GNOME desktop often randomly moves UI positions in every version update to mess with users, I think the desktop workflow has already “settled” after GNOME 40. It should be possible to explain GNOME’s characteristics a bit; there should not be too much difference caused by Linux system version updates.

This book is published in both print and electronic editions, and the full text can be obtained on GitHub. The book is licensed under CC BY-SA.

Source code: https://github.com/cc-books/testnotes

Buy the physical book: 電腦上試跑Linux: 硬體測試筆記 - 天瓏網路書店

Linux Has Become Too Mainstream. Switch to BSD

infoivonblog.nkfjt@aleeas.com (Ivon Huang) — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 10:00:00 +0800

Linux Has Become Too Mainstream, So I Considered Switching to BSD or Systems That Follow the Unix Philosophy.

Linux vs BSD for desktop, which one?

Lady Suwako told me that Linux has become too “mainstream”, so should I switch to a BSD system to inherit the Unix spirit? For the past week, this thought has kept appearing. After comparing Linux with BSD (or systems that follow the Unix philosophy), I kept wanting to switch over.

While writing this article, I felt that my digging into these rabbit holes had gone a bit too far.

Life is a well of delight; but where the rabble also drink, there all fountains are poisoned.

The Systemd Controversy: Once Again Standing in the Eye of the Storm
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When Systemd first appeared in 2010, it was heavily criticized by the Linux community. It was merely an init system, yet it tried to cover everything. But time has passed, and now it has become the common standard of mainstream Linux distributions, almost an indispensable system management tool.

Systemd has made everything too complicated, and the spirit of traditional Unix philosophy is disappearing. Systemd’s design affects every aspect of Linux, permeating major distributions and influencing developers’ future decisions. We, domesticated by modern technology, can no longer understand the principles by which operating systems work. Switching to a system without Systemd seems necessary.

Recently, in order to cater to age verification bills being promoted by U.S. states, Systemd developers added an OS-level age verification mechanism: userdb: add birthDate field to JSON user records#40954 This PR was quickly approved by Lennart Poettering and others, and they refused to revert it. Presumably Systemd 261 will officially include this feature.

This caused people’s grievances against Systemd to erupt again. Although Systemd’s age verification field is not mandatory and merely provides a field for other programs to access, some users with extreme pursuits of freedom and privacy believe this is the beginning of mass surveillance. The system’s low level fundamentally should not store sensitive data about user identity, and some people are extremely disgusted by public authority intervening in the issue of “os-level age verification.” Systemd manages too much, replacing many system services and violating the Unix philosophy. Now, it is aligning with the interests of large companies and governments. People are forced to swallow it, because Systemd is already the common standard of all major Linux distributions, and upstream changes quietly affect everyone downstream. Anyway, whatever function upstream wants to add, Systemd developers have the final decision-making power. What, you are not convinced?

Governments and corporations always love squeezing people’s freedom. When commercial companies develop software, they seem to like rushing to push new technologies and force everyone to swallow them. This is called Agile development or whatever. They only pursue 90% usability, not 100% stability. Anyway, after release, they keep iterating, exhausting users, and thereby achieve their goal of monopolizing the final right of interpretation. Then, in order to respond to commercial competitiveness and cater to so-called trends, they often make technical changes without regard for user experience, and so individual freedom is sacrificed. Users who have come into contact with the free software movement will surely be dissatisfied with this phenomenon.

Explaining the Systemd Controversy Through Literature: I Was Defiled by Systemd

infoivonblog.nkfjt@aleeas.com (Ivon Huang) — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 14:00:00 +0800

The book Savaged by Systemd: an Erotic Unix Encounter will tell you just how evil Systemd is… or perhaps, let you be seduced by Systemd’s charm?

I was defiled by Systemd… Systemd, this new-generation Linux init system, tramples the dignity of traditional MIS underfoot.

This book really exists!

Amazon purchase link: Savaged by Systemd: an Erotic Unix Encounter by Michael Warren Lucas

Just from reading the synopsis, the character that came to mind was the S-type character from Prison School, Meiko Shiraki.

The novel has no illustrations, so I southern-style Photoshopped this fantasy image from my head myself.

Adult version

1. Brief Introduction to the Novel
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You are in the server room. This is not an ordinary Friday night. Seriously, this is not normal at all. Terry is the stereotypical old-school Unix system administrator. He cares for every server with a delicacy verging on mysophobia, while keeping a safe distance from all “latest-trend garbage technology.” Running a KDE or GNOME desktop on a server? Please, stop screwing around. Want a GUI? Then obediently go back to the FVWM window manager: clean, sharp, no bullshit. And one of the “latest trends” Terry rejects, the one almost the entire world has quietly accepted, is precisely the thing that claims it will replace traditional init: Systemd. Then… Systemd shows up at the door. Wearing absurdly tight leather pants. Yes, this is really not a normal night in the server room.

2. Plot Summary
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The PDF version can be found online.

The protagonist, a greasy middle-aged system administrator who follows the Unix philosophy, meets a woman named Systemd while handling things at the office. She knocks on the door in the pattern of the Fibonacci sequence, and only then does the protagonist let her in. Then she immediately kisses him.

She shows him where her allure lies, making the protagonist submit to her, letting Systemd enter your body and possess you.

Why Choose Mainstream Linux Distros Over Niche Ones?

infoivonblog.nkfjt@aleeas.com (Ivon Huang) — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 14:00:00 +0800

Why Do I Recommend Choosing Mainstream Linux Distributions? Niche Distributions Have Plenty of Problems!

What Linux distribution do I recommend? I can only say that people should use mainstream Linux distributions more.

The longer I use Linux, the more I want to solve fragmentation through dictatorship. Yet free software can never be unified.

The deeper I go down the FOSS rabbit hole, the more I gradually discover that I am standing on the anti-diversity side.

There is a joke that it is hard for Linux computers to get infected because there are too many distributions, and every system’s libraries are different, so viruses easily show no such file or directory when executed.

To solve this problem, all we can do is call on everyone to think clearly about what they are pursuing.

I have no decision-making power over the Linux community. These are only my own thoughts. This is yet another rant.

Diversity for Diversity’s Sake
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Let’s start with an article: Grub & Systemd, A FOSS Monopoly. Am I the only one that sees Linux Unity as a bad idea?

Seeing this, I could not help thinking of the meme: “Can you be smarter than the ancestors? Zhang Xianzhong.jpg”

People who refuse to accept change and casually bring out the “Unix philosophy” to pontificate need to change. Even now, there are still people opposing Systemd, deliberately choosing distributions with other inits. Their reason for insisting on this, “do one thing and do it well”, looks more ridiculous as time passes. The same applies to other new Linux technologies, such as Wayland, Pipewire, Flatpak, and so on. These things are slowly becoming the standards of the next-generation Linux desktop. Although they are not perfect, we should remain optimistic. Yet there are still many people who do not criticize the progress of these things from a technical perspective. Instead, they rely on mockery and insults (just think of the ranting tone of 4chan /g/ users), believing everything is a RedHat conspiracy to rule the world. Someone even created a flatkill.org website to attack Flatpak.

Just like social activists who desperately insist DRM is a bad thing, they emotionally say, I oppose it! But if they cannot offer a better solution (such as making something like LibreDRM), then it is just blind opposition.

Although open source community fragmentation has long been in the genes of Linux distributions, and some users deliberately love promoting weird distributions just to be different, even claiming diversity purely for the sake of being different, some things really should be standardized. This solution will not satisfy everyone, but at least the result will not be too bad.

What Counts as a Mainstream Linux Distribution
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Now to the main topic.

My view of non-mainstream Linux distributions is shown in the image below. This image is truly hilarious. Hannah Montana Linux, made for the TV series Hannah Montana, is absolutely one of the most famous meme distros. And this thing wants to fight other distributions?

Solutions when Termux proot cannot use the systemctl command

infoivonblog.nkfjt@aleeas.com (Ivon Huang) — Sat, 31 Aug 2024 23:00:00 +0800

Systemd is an init program. Almost all Linux distributions use Systemd to manage system services, and common commands include systemctl, journalctl, and so on.

However, Termux cannot use Systemd. If you run commands related to systemctl start inside a Termux proot-distro or chroot container environment, you will see this error: System has not been booted with systemd as init system (PID 1). Can't operate. Failed to connect to bus: Host is down

This is because the container environment does not support Systemd.

There is actually no real solution, unless the Termux development team learns from Microsoft WSL and finds a way to make Systemd run. However, we do have some alternatives to address this problem.

Method 1: Start the program directly from the executable path
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First, understand that Systemd is just an init program for managing system services. It is responsible for starting programs after Linux boots and letting users turn programs on and off. But simply starting a program does not actually require systemctl.

For example, to start the SSH service in proot Debian, the Systemd way is to run the following command:

sudo systemctl start sshd

If we find Systemd’s service file /etc/systemd/system/sshd.service (most Systemd service files are here), we will see that what follows ExecStart= is the command it really executes:

[Service]
EnvironmentFile=-/etc/default/ssh
ExecStartPre=/usr/sbin/sshd -t
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/sshd -D

Therefore, the SSH service can be started directly with this command and run in the background:

mkdir -p /run/sshd

/usr/sbin/sshd -D

Note: programs inside Termux proot-distro cannot use ports below 1000. When logging in to proot-distro, add the --fix-low-ports parameter to redirect SSH port 22 to 2022.

If you want to automatically start a specific program after logging in to proot-distro, the simplest way is to add the command you want to run to ~/.bashrc in the user’s home directory.

Method 2: Switch to a distribution that uses OpenRC
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OpenRC and runit are more traditional init programs. They are not as complex as Systemd, and they can run and manage services in proot. Users unfamiliar with OpenRC commands can refer to the Systemd and OpenRC command comparison table below.

At present, the proot-distro distribution that uses OpenRC is Alpine Linux, while Artix Linux and Void Linux use runit.

Install Alpine Linux

proot-distro install alpine
proot-distro login alpine

Install the OpenRC package

apk add openrc

After that, append this command when logging in to proot, and the OpenRC program will start

proot-distro login alpine --fix-low-ports -- /bin/ash -c "/sbin/openrc default; /bin/ash -l"

After that, you can use OpenRC to manage services. For example, SSH can be managed with the rc-service command, without typing the executable path

sudo rc-service sshd start

You can also configure the SSH service to start automatically after logging in to proot-distro.

sudo rc-update add sshd

Method 3: Run a full Linux system virtual machine
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The ultimate solution is to emulate a full Linux system so that Systemd can run.

Systemd on Ivon's Blog

Brief Review of the Beginner Linux Reference Book Trying LINUX on a Computer: Hardware Test Notes

Linux Has Become Too Mainstream. Switch to BSD

The Systemd Controversy: Once Again Standing in the Eye of the Storm #

Explaining the Systemd Controversy Through Literature: I Was Defiled by Systemd

1. Brief Introduction to the Novel #

2. Plot Summary #

Why Choose Mainstream Linux Distros Over Niche Ones?

Diversity for Diversity’s Sake #

What Counts as a Mainstream Linux Distribution #