Well, as the two discussions and poll about systemd show a number of users ae most certainly not happy with the TC's decision to adopt systemd, so I decided to create a thread for suggestions regarding a replacement.
We are all familiar with Ubuntu, Gentoo and Slackware to some extent, but whatless well-known options, preferably Debian forks/derivatives that have a large-enough user and developer base to be considered separate from Debian?

All suggestions are welcome.

Well I'm not ready to jump ship yet. I'll see how things go once systemd takes over. At the moment, if I stray away, it would probably be either Gentoo or FreeBSD.

I'll wait and see, too. I haven't had any problems with systemd in Arch. I figure the Debian devs will work things out; maybe this won't be a big deal for Debian Stable users like me. Also, I'm wondering if "legacy" sysvinit will be an option for Debian users.

I like how init is handled now, I see no reason to use systemd, if it, or any part of it, becomes default on Debian and I can't switch to openrc or the old sysvinit I see no reason to stay with Debian.
I would rather keep the old packaging scheme though, as I have grown accustomed to apt and dpkg, and the various specific config files as well.

I will most-likely go with Gentoo or Slackware, or ditch Linux altogether for Free or OpenBSD.

If you choose a BSD make extra certain that your hardware is 100% supported. Nvidia graphics are highly recommended. Some sound cards are supported by the BSD audio driver, but if not, there is the OSSv4 driver which work well for many others.

Slackware, Gentoo, and maybe LFS (if you're adventurous) are good alternatives. There's also Ubuntu distributions. Xubuntu is Ubuntu with Xfce as it's default interface. I'd recommend that one more than the others. If you like Slackware there's also SalixOS which provides some dependency resolution.

As far as transitioning, you're choices are fairly good. However, I'd recommend a wait and see.

I am using an ATI card currently, it is donig pretty well with the radeon open-source drivers for linux, are the BSD AMD drivers that bad, I have been running FreeBSD on VMs and my raspberry pi and I've never had much trouble where drivers were concerned?

Ubuntu is out of the question, I don't particularly like Canonical's stuff, Mint is one possibility, but I am not that familiar with it, also I have absolutely no desire to use upstart.

I don't know why people can't wait and see what happens.

If push come to shove and Systemd broke Debian so it wasn't usable for my needs I'd either run an LFS or do a minimum *buntu where the only packages that got into my system were the packages I wanted.

Mint is based on Ubuntu, and there's also Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE).

I've compared minimal installs with Debian and Ubuntu using debootstrap. I don't like Ubuntu's defaults, or that it tries to force Unity on you.

Have you tried it this way? http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/minimal

FreeBSD's AMD drivers have been a work-in-progress so you should check the HCL before installing. However, I have heard they do work better now and should have 3D acceleration.

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That's pretty much like Debian's expert/net-install. debootstrap is even more minimal than that. I was able to get Fluxbox running with a 250MB install.

+1.
Fedora and Arch seem to have made it work - just something else to learn.

(Note I have never used native Debian, just commenting from the sidelines here)

I'd suggest it is exactly like it.
I've debootstrapped Debian but never Ubuntu. I know I can do a mini Ubuntu using a mini install disk and it won't force Unity on me that's why I suggested it to you.

I see at least two posts musing about switching to Buntu or Mint. Those derivatives are slightly modified Debian. If Debian switches to systemd, how likely would it be that the folks at Comical and Mint would invest the effort to change the initial system on all those thousands of Debian packages they use? They survive by letting Debian developers do all the work. That is unlikely to change. Where Debian goes, Buntu and Mint have little choice but to follow.

From memory Ubuntu uses Upstart (and has done since 6.10) which Debian doesn't default to. Upstart was an option in the CTTE vote. So by all appearances Ubuntu at least has done its init independent of Debian for over 6 years. Of course I may be wrong and would admit it if proven so.

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