Bug#747535: systemd pulled in automatically

[Bas Wijnen]

On Sun, May 11, 2014 at 08:20:33PM +0200, Svante Signell wrote:
> Can we please separate the bugs in this thread: This one is about
> dirnmgr not network-manager and gdm3 dragging in systemd as init
> default, #747535.

Speaking of that, I made a suggestion that AFAIK fixes the issue, which isn't
in the bug log yet.  So here it is again:

If the order of the dependencies of libpam-systemd is switched, so it becomes
systemd-shim | systemd-sysv, the result will be:
- If systemd is not installed, systemd-shim will be installed and the original
  init system will continue functioning.
- If systemd is installed, it will satisfy this dependency and systemd-shim
  will not be installed.

Sounds like exactly what I would expect when upgrading random other packages
such as Network Manager.  Systemd is not "the next version of my init system",
and switching to it is a switch, not an upgrade.  It shouldn't happen
automatically as if it is an upgrade.  Especially because there is no technical
reason for it at all.

This dependency order is different from the "regular" order of dependencies,
where the recommended alternative is listed first.  There is a good reason for
this.  The recommended alternative is an init system, which replaces other init
systems.  For other packages, the main question is "if this functionality is
not installed on the system yet, which package do we recommend to use for it?"
But that question is not applicable here, because there always is an init
system installed.

Thanks,
Bas