Does anyone know how systemd will impact Debian? Critics of systemd are saying quite a lot about it making it difficult to discern what is real and what is FUD. As I am keen not to lose any of the current functionality of the CLI, I am concerned. Will systemd make Debian less flexible than its current implementation without systemd?

I tried to RTFM but there is so much criticism out there that I cannot distinguish what is real and what is false.

When the work of conversion is complete, the system should work. The problem is in the conversion stage. Apparently the switch caused so many problems with Arch that discussing systemd was banned on their forum. So theoretically there should not be any functionality problems with Debian Stable, because the future release with systemd will not be released until it is working.

* And yes, I am a systemd hater.

As an Arch user, I sometimes feel "stuck" with systemd. I'm not sure I hate it though. Real quickly, without getting too deep into it; why do you hate it? I just wish I was better at configuring it. I also wish it would let you permanently disable certain services.

In theory there shouldn't be a problem if you stick with stable releases. Debian, unlike ubuntu, doesn't release a new stable if there are serious problems.

What you need to do, and have found out that it is very difficult to do, is separate the FUD from the facts. So here is my interpretation of the situation. To much of the FUD is based on personality, it appears to me many don't like systemd because of who the developers are and I am yet to see any real technical discussion without the personality factor coming into it, at that point my eyes glaze over and I start thinking about a nice home brew cause it is infiitely more interesting than going over the same ol same ol again and again.

Anyway Debian, and Ubuntu, have decided to switch to systemd for Jessie, and associate Ubuntu releases.
Linus has barred systemd devs from uploading and merging anything they do to the kernel (this may have changed in the meantime but I haven't heard if it has) because of a kernel fault that was found because of systemd and the systemd devs refusal to rework systemd to stop this fault from occurring. In actual fact both the kernel and systemd should have been reworked but Linus is the big kahuna in kernal land and what he says goes.

Debian, and Ubuntu, are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Do they stick with migrating to systemd which is banned from further kernel development (last I heard) or do they revert their choice?

The default for Jessie "should" be systemd, I can't find the discussion now but there was a big stink about it on the Debian Mailing List with votes of no confidence etc.

I am sure that it will work fine in Debian Stable too.

I can't imagine what affect systemd could possibly have on any cli functionality at all. This is replacing the system initiation process that we are currently using. Once the system is up there should be no other real affect on anything, particularly with cli functions which are primarily a kernel function with some extra commands and functions added.

There may be some problems with some applications now due to a number of factors but all having communications between the kernel and applications, a process started in the initiation process, that have not been worked out.

Have seen some problems in Debian testing and Sid being possibly blamed on systemd but no real proof that this is the case rather than just normal problems in building a new version. Could well be that it is a factor in some. Could also not be a factor.

What ever the case there is, the Debian release policy on what can be released as Stable have not changed. Therefore the system has to boot. All default installed applications have to have all core functions working properly. As default installed applications include the default DE this means that the cli has to be working correctly. All applications, including the Xwindows stack, are all started by cli functions.

Your menu items, that are so handy to click on to launch applications, are small scripts that invoke cli commands. Without a fully functional cli nothing is going to work. Debian will not be releasing anything in that condition as Stable.

Fedora has been using systemd for quite some time. Now, of course there are going to be problems, as with any new project; especially one entangled into everything such as this project does. Fedora still gets along fine and well, so after some growing pains, Debian should as well.

According to what I read on the debian.org website, systemd can boot without a shell and is more aimed to better support desktops, hence my worries.

It looks like systemd will bring in about 20 more dependencies. This does not augur very well. There are also concerns that it is breaking unrelated packages and forcing dependencies that shouldn't impose systemd to be installed. The latter have been filed as a bug.

My intuition tells me like many others that systemd has the potential to be a complete mess, especially, considering the patronizing attitude of its developers. The fact that we are having them dictating to the kernel developers is more than an eye opener for anyone wanting to see reason. While these, so called developers, are very good coders, they definitely, lack the crucial social ability of adapting to work in a group.

It caused enough problems for Arch users for the discussion of systemd to be banned on their forum.

I am on the fence yet I think

http://antix.freeforums.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=5150

Still waiting for I don't know what.

As Debian introduced LTS support currently for Squeeze, I think, I will stick with Wheezy until systemd's teething problems are all resolved.

We at Arch want to wish you all the best of luck with this.

I'm sticking to sysinit-v on my main machine for now, and I am testing Open-RC on another machine.

That is extremely kind of you. Thanks. Probably need it.

I recently started testing systemd by following the steps in the wiki

The only problem so far was initially there was no sound with alsa. Found the solution in this Gentoo thread.