[xraystyle]

I don't get it either. Systemd units are so much more powerful and flexible than init scripts. Writing those bash scripts for everything was a complete pain in the ass.

You may disagree with the architecture or design decisions made with systemd, but I don't see how it's possible to argue that SysVinit was in any way actually "better".

[rektide]

They're neither more powerful nor more flexible. Init-scripts can iterate & build whatever complexity they want. They can be far wilder. There's almost nothing constraining what an init script could be.

Systemd does establish easy-to-use & incredibly-powerful access a wide range of super-powerful knobs. And in a consistent & clear way, where-as each init-script would have a totally different way of doing config & slightly different approaches to the various hacks. And init scripts arent composable, where-as you can take your distro's regular unit, and drop-in some additional configuration easily, in a very eloquent way, across any bit of config. I think systemd is amazing & brings enormous clarity. It has enormous power.

But init-scripts still had more power. But it was reckless chaotic power that was enormously hard to tap, and required prodigal talent to develop these individual artisinal artefacts, which became, as a user, a thing of horror to rework. Init-scripts almost never were particularly flexible or powerful, but so help you if you ran into such an artefact.