Debian – if I upgrade from Debian Wheezy (7.x) to Jessie (8.x), will systemd run by default

aptdebiansystemdupgrade

I am wary of systemd for various reasons which are irrelevant to this question. Now, I'm about to upgrade my Debian Wheezy to Debian Jessie. Will systemd be used by default after an apt-get dist-upgrade? If so, what do I need to do to stick with sysvinit?

Best Answer

Yes, it will run by default. A dist-upgrade from wheezy to Jessie will switch to using systemd as the init system. The Jessie release notes devotes a whole section to this issue, also giving a recommendation about how to stay with your current init system:

to prevent systemd-sysv from being installed during the upgrade, you can create a file called /etc/apt/preferences.d/local-pin-init with the following contents:

Package: systemd-sysv
Pin: release o=Debian
Pin-Priority: -1

It also mentions that "some packages may have degraded behavior or may be lacking features under a non-default init system."

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