Bug#758825: systemd: Installs without warning despite beeing unable to run

[Helge Kreutzmann]

Package: systemd
Version: 208-6
Severity: important

Hello,
this bug has two parts; I will clone it after submitting. Brief
description:

1) Before switching init systems, a warning should appear
2) When installing systemd, checks are required to ensure it is able
   to run on this configuration

Long description:
I have two machines, one is my "testing" machine ("A"), which is running
testing (updated every few days to weeks, usually) and one machine which was
running stable until last weekend ("B"). Both machines are
"traditional" machines, i.e. they do not use an initrd and have a
separate partition for /usr (amongst other).

Due to this configuration, they are unable to run systemd, and I never
intended to switch them to systemd.

On machine A (which is headless) the boot suddenly failed. One install
CD and a few commands later I had reinstalled the sysv-init system and
everything was working. (Fortunately I had access to an keyboard and
the monitor was not too far away).

Obviously, I had never requested systemd to be installed nor was a
warning presented.

On machine B I dist-upgraded from stable to testing on last Sunday.
udev stopped the installation because my (locally compiled) kernel was
missing some features. After I had rebuild the kernel with those
features included, I rebooted and continued the installation,
including of udev.

During this installation I also saw the installation of systemd, both
before udev was complaining as well as afterwards. Both times I
removed systemd, the second time also some other packages were removed
as well, so I assumed they pulled systemd in as a dependency.

Again, this machine is similarly configured to machine A and hence
unable to boot with systemd.

What I would have expected:
a) When systemd was selected, the user would be informed about the
switch of the init system, especially since a broken init system
(irrelevant which init system) might render the entire system
unusuable. This would allow users early to abort the install if
necessary. Earlier on file-rc (which I used in the past on other
machines) printed a fat big warning if the user switched to it.

b) During installation of systemd some checks should be executed. For
example, if /usr is on a separate partition and if the current kernel
uses a ramdisk. I remember some tables which compared sysv and systemd
and showed cases which sysv was able to boot but systemd not (and
possibly vice versa, I do not remember the details).

-- 
      Dr. Helge Kreutzmann                     debian at helgefjell.de
           Dipl.-Phys.                   http://www.helgefjell.de/debian.php
        64bit GNU powered                     gpg signed mail preferred
           Help keep free software "libre": http://www.ffii.de/
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