<i>&gt;So they completely miss the elegance that comes with simplicity and minimalism</i><p>For anyone following Linux since 2000 at least, this statement is so funny.<p>X11 was never simple nor minimal. The various init daemons were never simple nor minimal. The mess that is the collection of kernel drivers has never been simple nor minimal. Linux has always been about <i>choice</i>: if you like stripped-down, you go and strip it down; if you like full-featured, you go and pack everything. There is no one-size-fits-all, no single design. Anything else would not be Linux.<p>The un-linuxness of systemd is exactly that it&#x27;s becoming less and less optional. We whined for years that X11&#x2F;Xorg was really a non-optional piece of crap, and when it&#x27;s finally seeing some competition, we&#x27;re being saddled with a non-optional daemon that takes over the rest of your system -- and unlike X11, it&#x27;s not even desktop-only.