richard lucassen <mailinglists@???> wrote:

> I'd rather go for a, like Tobias suggested, a libsystemd telling
> the package that is linked against, that it runs on a non-systemd
> system.

> But maybe that solution is too simple, clear and wrong.

I think it's a *possible* solution and has certain attractions - but (excuse my ignorance), isn't there something already ?

A library that contains *only* the call to find out if systemd is running, and returns the correct (no it's not) response would seem a pragmatic way of keeping stuff running. If a package in it's own right, would that allow it to show up in Debian's popularity contest, or doesn't it work like that ?

So the upside is all that software that "uses systemd if it's there" could run as it as long as the maintainer properly respects non-system systems.
The downside is that it legitimises having a hard dependency on (at least) libsystemd0 and fully justifies not trying to be "more clever" about it.

Of course, it won't help for stuff that actually requires systemd functions.