Bug#746577: closed by Michael Biebl <biebl at debian.org> (Re: Bug#746577: systemd-sysv: for upgrade safety, systemd-sysv and sysvinit-core must be coinstallable)

[Zack Weinberg]

On Fri, May 2, 2014 at 12:48 PM, Michael Biebl <biebl at debian.org> wrote:
> This is already possible today: The systemd package (intentionally)
> doesn't conflict with sysvinit-core since there are no file conflicts.
>
> You can install it and boot with init=/lib/systemd/systemd.
> The systemd-sysv package is intentionally conflicting with
> sysvinit-core, since systemd-sysv ships /sbin/init (as a symlink to
> /lib/systemd/systemd).
>
> So no, I'm not entirely sure what you are looking for.

Oh good, almost all the work has been done then!

1) Switching from sysvinit to systemd (and vice versa, if necessary)
should be accomplished via a command dedicated to the purpose; it
should *not* occur as a side effect of installing, removing,
upgrading, or downgrading any package.

2) The procedure I described should be the official procedure for
making the changeover.

zw