> In one of the wholesalers I frequent, there’s a sign up behind the counter for their staff - it basically says “no one ever won an argument with a customer”. It then goes on to point out that the customer is the reason for them being there, the customer pays their wages, and so on.
>
> Basically (and I know there are limits to this), if you want the customer’s business, you have to be prepared to answer their questions - even if you think the question is stupid.

That's not my point at all. My point is "do whatever the customer ask you to do or do not take the job". If a customer wants a SystemD distribution, I install a SystemD distribution. 99% of the system I manage are SystemD based, I do NOT care at all, I'm a sys admin, I can handle both SystemD and non SystemD based OS.

Now, if a customer wants a serious, stable and secure system, I install a *BSD and I configure and compile additional softwares one by one ... that's the 1%.

My real point is that SystemD is bloated, but GNU/Linux is bloated as well. Add SystemD does not change much, Linux systems have turned bad over the years because it's victim of its own success. Microsoft is even paying the salary of Linus Torvalds himself, thousands of people build thousands of unaudited software that we run blindly. Everybody comes to think that an updated system is a secure system, there is nothing more wrong than that. Updates have never brought any kind of security, they just bring "updates".

It's a good reaction that a minority of techies see the danger in SystemD and try to build alternative solution, it would be better if 99% of the software available in Devuan packages were removed and the 1% remained would be strongly audited. It would be good to have a non bloated Linux distribution.

Today, what is the Devuan base that can be considered safe to use ? I give you the answer : None. There is no OS base like BSD, no minimum that can be considered safe.

> True. But I suspect there are now a lot of “admins” who really don’t have the skills outside of the toolset provided by SystemD. Just like there are a lot of Windows admins who can’t cope with anything beyond randomly changing settings in the GUI.

Good, more opportunities for people like me who can handle most kinds of UNIX systems.