I'm personally running Artix with runit and things are fine so far, but as ChrisG pointed out, dinit is basically a drop-in replacement for systemd syntax-wise.

Although if you're on Artix, you'll need to enable Arch's [extra] and [multilib] repos or you'll run into dependency issues on some apps due to some packages not being available in the main Artix repos. I learned this when trying to install steam-native-runtime, there were some Python deps which weren't available in the main Artix repos, but that were available in the Arch repos, if I'm remembering right.

Also, I recommend enabling the unofficial [liquorix] repo in order to get a newer kernel with more frequent updates than what Artix provides in their repos, eg. the default and zen kernels in the Artix repos lag a bit behind the lqx kernel from the [liquorix] repo, and I still recommend enabling [chaotic-aur] as a convenience repo on any Arch distro.

I also switched to MATE from KDE out of concern that KDE could end up following GNOME's path after SDDM is deprecated, plus I just wanted a lighter and different desktop, that and MATE's default two-panel layout is completely usable from stock although you might wanna set the panels to auto-hide to maximize screen space.

Dinit for desktop, s6 for server.

Btw, why is systemd even a thing for server distros?

Oh good, this again!

I've not had any gaming issues. The only real perfmance impact is boot time (which can be better or worse than systemd). The future I hope for is dinit with turnstiled. dinit is really quite nice. But openRC also works quite nicely. Unless you wish to excessively engage with system services, none of it makes that much of a difference. The real difference in usability is in how well everything is packaged and maintained (which is why openRC on gentoo is great for example,).

If you use your computer for gaming, probably best to stick to well known/supported (in theory it shouldn't matter, in practice if you are asking this you really shouldn't).

I've been daily driving Slackware since the late 90s or early 00s (don't remember). There's no systemd, and no drama. I run KDE plasma 6, steam with proton, flatpak, rocm for AI shenanigans and whatever else I want. Even the rolling release is solid as a rock. There are dozens of us! And we're not all greybeards. I started going grey in high school, but I ate cookies for breakfast today because I'm both a grown ass man and a child.

If you want the convenient features of systemd without the cancerous assimilation of the entire userland then dinit is recommended. OpenRC is a mature choice. Server folk seem to recommend S6 but I dont have enough personal use of it to verify.

• expect every response trying to provide useful info here to be drowned out by systemd brigading

Try OpenRC. It's pretty simple.

Systemd, systemd-boot, systemd-snapwn

Good stuff

Why you want to switch from systemd? I hate how complex it is, this age verification and that they're trying make make Linux more Windows like, but in that bad way (it's created by people who prefer Windows over Linux so yeah). But if your installation is working and don't have troubles then don't switch.

Switching to "alteratives" shouldn't affect gaming compatibility at all, cause you don't need any daemons to play your games (maybe if you want to host server or use vpn for multiplayer). Remember that systemd is not init system, but software suite which provide init system also. I think that systemd might use more resources than other solutions. Some software can rely on systemd, but when are you installing program from your system repositories it will work cause it's prepared to work if you're using solid Linux distro. I had situation on MX Linux that I downloaded Mullvad VPN from Mullvad's Debian repositories and it wasn't working, because of no systemd. Then I discovered that MX Linux have Mullvad VPN in own repositories and it worked. On every non-systemd Linux distro you can install elogind which is usually preinstalled and it also care about compatibility layer.

If we speak just about other init systems try what you like. My favourite is runit, but the most popular alternatives are OpenRC (this is what I usually using, even right now on laptop and PC) and sysvinit. sysvinit was terrible experience for me on Devuan, on MX Linux okay; OpenRC is just okay, but I have few reasons to hate it.

Systemd is used by the most of people so if something will screw up more people can help you and there's more tutorials on internet, also sometimes you need to tinker more on other init systems from my experience as systemd is more handholding. But using different init system will give important experience and learn you more how your system works.

If you're looking for non-systemd distros check MX Linux which is the really good system, also for not advanced users who just want to run their games. It's using sysvinit and you have GUI tools to control daemons.

systemd....works fine for me. Have changed from systemd-boot to Limine because I dual boot and it's better at handling Windows and Window's EFI partition being installed on a separate drive. It just auto-detects it and means that if I do decide to completely ditch Windows I can just wipe that drive.

What you can expect when switching from a system management tool written for Linux to an init tool targetting the least common denominator of general Unix functionality?

Less functionality, less security, less information about the state the system is in, less reliable switching between states and a whole lot less of linux kernel features exposed to your use in convenient ways.

It's not as if systemd was started to be complicated, the world got complicated. E.g. we used to just create all the device nodes in /dev statically during system installation. Then USB became a thing and supported so many different kinds of devices with thousands of potential ports to connect them to. They would not fit into the device node namespace! So we needed to make device nodes dynamic, which is also convenient.You do not have lots of device nodes that do not exist on your system and you no longer need to change system configuration when you plug your mouse into another port of your system.

Filesystems, security (often linux specific) features, everything is easy more complex (and more dynamic) today than it was when sysv init was a thing. That simple stuff was great when you had to power off your machine to change its available devices. It is less cool when you plug an USB-C cable into your laptop and want to use all the stuff that is now suddenly available.

I use systemd it's fine and requires very little extra thought.

If you have to ask this, then its probably good idea to stick to systemd. I don't see any reason to change, other than to protest. In the process doing so you will probably encounter issues. People switch away from systemd for various reasons, but not for performance. In example they don't like who develops and controls systemd. And they don't like that it does more than just initializing the system, as bunch of other tasks are bundled into it. If all of that does not bother you, stay with systemd in my opinion.

And if you really want to switch to systemd, then I recommend to use a dedicated operating system (a distro) with that in mind. Don't forget, that systemd has many features and services, that its expected as a standard. You do not just change an init system, but replace all other components too.

Systemd is fine. Stop getting trolled by antiquated neckbeards.

Unless you find a specific problem with something, don't go looking for reasons to fix that which is not broken.