Debian. For the sweet, sweet, rock stable-ness.

That’s funny you should say that, because that’s EXACTLY what I did due to the above issue.

I can’t share it all here for reasons I can’t detail.

I may do a second write up at some point for public distribution and if so, I will share it with you here.

I am trying to get people I know personally to stop posting and reading and instead begin to focus on the very basics of actual organization, in the form of simply being able to communicate effectively and securely.

I have collected and written up information for them with the consideration that they are non-technical, pertaining to secure and private communications primarily, but also many more potentially useful emergency-scenario information and data which I will not speak about here.

The package I have started giving to my friends contains information such as:

• How to communicate securely using something like Simplex or I2P
• How to correctly configure and use a VPN
• How to flash a security distribution of Linux such as TailsOS to a flash drive and how to boot to it from a computer
• How to securely encrypt data to a device using an encryption software with hidden volume features such as VeraCrypt
• A litany of manuals for all kinds of useful information you can use in emergencies, which I will not detail here
• Files containing the data required to build potentially useful items in emergencies given access to the correct hardware which I will not detail here

I firmly believe that the majority of Americans will not do anything until someone is actually showing up at their door, coming after them in the street, or destroying the regularities of their personal day to day life, so my intention is to distribute materials which they can turn to when the fear sets into them well enough that they are scared to talk about such things openly.

It is clear to me that most of my American friends at least, at this point, still only feel superficial fear and outrage. The other day I asked them “If you had to vandalize a public space with a piece of art, what would you draw or paint? Let’s say it is the side of a bank”.

One said “tits”, one said “flowers”, one said “a fox”.

Even in a fantasy, they would not express fear or outrage in a public setting.

It will differ by distro, but generally for debian, you begin uninstalling systemd by installing something else like SysV init:

apt install sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils
cp /usr/share/sysvinit/inittab /etc/inittab

Then you will need to configure grub by editing /etc/default/grub changing:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="init=/bin/systemd console=hvc0 console=ttyS0"

to

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="init=/lib/sysvinit/init console=hvc0 console=ttyS0"

and then executing update-grub as root.

Then you can reboot so that the system boots off of sysvinit instead and then purge systemd with apt-get remove --purge --auto-remove systemd. This also removes packages that depend on systemd.

Then you pin systemd packages to prevent apt from installing systemd or systemd-like packages in the future.

echo -e 'Package: systemd\nPin: release *\nPin-Priority: -1' > /etc/apt/preferences.d/systemd
echo -e '\n\nPackage: *systemd*\nPin: release *\nPin-Priority: -1' >> /etc/apt/preferences.d/systemd

Depending on if the distro is multiarch, you might also need:

echo -e '\nPackage: systemd:amd64\nPin: release *\nPin-Priority: -1' >> /etc/apt/preferences.d/systemd
echo -e '\nPackage: systemd:i386\nPin: release *\nPin-Priority: -1' >> /etc/apt/preferences.d/systemd

This information was sourced from this wiki dedicated specifically to removing systemd on multiple distributions and replacing it with something else:

https://without-systemd.org/wiki/index_php/Main_Page/

Off only the top of my head.

-Potentially faster installation

-Free

-More control

-Many distributions from LinuxFromScratch to Mint, making it meet the interests of nearly every demographic

-Wonderful sense of community

-No spying

-No bloatware depending on distro

-No ads

-Many window managers supporting different workflows

-Incredible command line power

-Easy installation of software with package managers

-Less malware

-Fully customizeable ux/ui

-Can uninstall anything you don’t want

-Will help you learn how a computer works at a deeper level if you want to