[LoneWolf]

As a Gentoo user I can confirm it works well without systemd, using openrc, you can use systemd on Gentoo if you want, I personally avoid it.

[jpgvm]

As an upside OpenRC is simpler and even more configurable than systemd whilst being almost as fast, having had dependency based boot since before systemd was conceived.

[LoneWolf]

Wait does it mean other init systems did not have dependency based boot? I have always been a Gentoo user so always used OpenRC, if that's the case it explains why I never understood why systemd was so "revolutionary".

I do find it harder to configure and understand than OpenRC, after I edit some configurations I can just restart the service and it's working, with systemd I have to run more than one command and they are not intuitive at all.

[lottin]

The init system is easily replaceable. The problem is things like polkit, which now depend on systemd (logind).

[LoneWolf]

I do have polkit installed, there is an use flag "systemd" that I have disabled and so far I had no problems, it keeps systemd away from my system, and everything works.