# Go back from systemd to openrc

## devsk

I moved one of my custom machines to systemd to test it out (to see if and when the hammer falls on Openrc, I am ready) and because gnome 3.x was forcing my hand. I don't like it much. In fact, I hate it. I lose a lot of control I have in the boot process with Openrc. The sysinit is much more easier to hack around with and recover from (frustration resulted from a system which will not give me a login prompt because a custom service is deadlocking with Network Manager and no amount of debugging helped resolve issue).

Can someone please point me to a guide which takes you from systemd to back to openrc? I hope I just need to add -systemd in USE and reemerge world with -N, and change grub command line to remove the real_init. I am not sure what I am going to do for gnome at this stage.

Also, to anyone in the knowhow: Is Gentoo committed to Openrc or is my favourite distro moving to systemd eventually (like Ubuntu)? Is Gnome going to be ever supported under Openrc (even if its through some half-baked backdoor hack)?

Please note that this is not intended to be a systemd bashing thread. I genuinely gave it a try and I think its not worth the trouble and is too complex to be easily debuggable and hackable (I am a control freak... :Very Happy: ).

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## The Doctor

Yes, it really should be as simple as you say. At least, it was when I did this a few years ago.

As for gnome, I hear Funtoo striped it to a sane state, but I don't know if/how that is going in Gentoo.

I'm also going to bet that enough of us are committed to OpenRC to keep it alive. At least, I'm crossing my fingers.

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## tclover

You have to... a chose an init system beside a service manager (virtual/service-manager) before hand to ease switching. Actually, you can also use S6 as well... but follow the link on my sig. because of missing Init-Stage-{1,2,3} for it to work out of the box. And the version in the tree is outdated. Easy choice would be SysVinit/Runit--follow the same link for an improved Init-Stage files for Runit and/or look at the official wiki.

Lastly, it should be easy as that... the big blocker being GNOME and some USE flags combinations like *Kit crap. You may feel like removing that crap with a single shot.

Good luck.

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## mv

 *devsk wrote:*   

> I hope I just need to add -systemd in USE and reemerge world with -N, and change grub command line to remove the real_init

 

Actually, it is even easier than that: You just have change the kernel boot line back; removing the "USE=systemd" and recompiling is not necessary.

In fact, althuogh I do not use systemd anymore, I am still glad to have it as a fallback in case openrc breaks (e.g. if setting up udev in the very beginning does not return which can happen in some exceptional situations; in such a case, systemd for some reason might still be able to get at least to some rescue shell).

Unfortunately, it is not possible to have udev and eudev installed in paralllel...

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