Normally, I don't care what distros choose for various things as long as it works, doesn't get in my way, and lets me do what I need to do. I came up with a need to run a particular script first at shutdown, before any other shutdown processing. Apparently, systemd does not let me do that -- or at least I cannot figure it out, nor can about a dozen unix experts on this and other such sites. I did some research on what systemd brings to linux which I've posted here:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ml#post5599000. In my opinion, it solves no real problems and, worse, it reverses the traditional "small independent modules" philosophy of Unix and creates a monolithic program of tightly coupled interdependencies that control many aspects of the OS normally done by individual daemons, thus making things 'systemd' difficult to impossible for lowly sysadmins to debug. In short, it Windows-izes Linux.
In any case, since systemd in not capable of doing the one simple thing I need, whereas sysvinit and Upstart could, I will do what I normally do with new programs that don't give me the features of what they replace and are more difficult to use: I will not use systemd. I've tested my needed shutdown script using the so call "old" init systems, and it works perfectly.
I've removed systemd from my Ubuntu 16.04, and it mostly works. Unfortunately, I get no login screen. I've posted a question about that
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...-a-4175588444/. If Ubuntu 16.04 is so tightly coupled with systemd that it will not run without it, I will be changing distros.