# SysVinit 19 Hacker News commenters recommended SysVinit and 26 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 6 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 30 years (3 owners). **Verdict:** Simple, easy-to-understand init system that stays small and out of the way and is easy for newcomers to learn. Critics say its shell-script runlevel approach is hacky and brittle. ## Why people recommend it - Simple to understand and learn (4 comments): "while it may have given people headaches and lacked some functionality, was IMHO simple to understand" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46859674)) "I find it a lot easier than learning systemd, or learning anything else." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49061685)) "it is clear and human-friendly, with easy uptake by newcomers" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46859359)) - Small components that stay in lane (2 comments): "The thing I appreciated about sysv was that it stayed in its lane and didn't want to keep branching out into new parts of the system." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46859806)) "The whole point of sysv is the components are too small and too simple to make it possible for "showstoppers"" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46860716)) - Reliable on servers (2 comments): "Run scripts worked. They always worked. They were simple." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46860997)) "SysVinit was... fine.. on servers." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49759851)) - Familiar to Unix users (2 comments): "for personal preference, I am more traditional and favor SysVInit." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46859944)) "If people are accustomed to UNIX systems, the sysvinit is better." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49057552)) ## What people warn about - Per-distro shell scripts are inconsistent (4 comments): "a bunch of shell scripts, each complex enough to support different commands, sort-of-declare dependencies, etc, is not such a great idea" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46860590)) "With sysv, the difficulty depended on the local tools because the launching scripts could not be shared across Linux distributions." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46869010)) "the difficulty depended on the local tools because the launching scripts could not be shared across Linux distributions" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46868682)) - Old code that lacks features (3 comments): "sysvinit is an old 90s application and its code does have some cruft built up over the years" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46875708)) "even in the 90s it was notably behind, say, Windows NT 3 in a lot of ways which matter" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46859973)) "a lot of people dismissed the sysvinit early on because it had no features" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46879340)) - Abuses runlevels to start daemons (2 comments): "SysVInit is abusing runlevel scripts for starting daemons which has always been a hack to be able to resolve dependencies between daemons." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46870240)) "the way it abuses runlevels to start daemons was never intended by the original designers of init" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46870251)) - Weak on laptops and desktops (2 comments): "Before you say "so does sysvinit", no it does not. It was janky-but-workable on servers and desktops in the 90s" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47489097)) "In contrast SysVInit worked ok on servers and sort of on desktops, but on laptops forget it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50271179)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [OpenRC](https://hackerapproved.com/p/openrc.md): 21 recommend - [runit](https://hackerapproved.com/p/runit.md): 19 recommend - [Upstart init system](https://hackerapproved.com/p/upstart.md): 11 recommend - [dinit](https://hackerapproved.com/p/dinit.md): 9 recommend - [s6](https://hackerapproved.com/p/s6.md): 9 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "SysVinit", https://hackerapproved.com/p/sysvinit/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).