Shane Rainville

I.T. professional with over a decade of experience, ranging from application development to system & infrastructure administration. He's worked with small startups to large corporate companies, using unique and creative solutions to solve problems.

Summary

Not everyone wants their server to be managed by SystemD. The reasons why range from being too different to not being a mature enough solution. I don’t mind running it, but if you are one of those individuals that wish not to use it, Ubuntu allows you to boot into Upstart or, if you want a more permanent fix, to remove SystemD all together.

Removing SystemD may seem like a major change to the operating system. However, Ubuntu 15 continues to use a subset Upstart to manage user profiles. This minimizes the impact of removing SystemD. You may still want to make a backup of your server before the conversion, as there is a small chance it will impact some of your installed software.

Removing SystemD

To remove SystemD from Ubuntu, you can install and revert back to Upstart. This is a fairly simple and straight forward task. When you install Upstart back onto the server from the Ubuntu repository, SystemD will be removed.

1. Install Upstart using Aptitude

   sudo apt-get install upstart-sysv

2. You will be prompted to confirm the download and installation. Press “Y” to continue.
3. SystemD will be removed during the Upstart installation process.

Linux is all about options. It is about having the ability and right to modify your system as you see fit. However, a lot of applications are built with the expectation of certain packages or services also being installed on a system. There may come a time when you will have no real choice between Upstart and SystemD, without some kind of hacky solution. With nearly every distro moving towards SystemD, it may be better to just adapt to using it.