Bug#793932: systemd: fails to boot default kernel with all packages up to date

[David Liontooth]

Package: systemd
Version: 215-17+deb8u1
Severity: important

In a regular upgrade, I unsuspectingly installed systemd, but can only boot into the sysvinit kernel boot option.

I installed linux-image-4.0.0-2-amd64 (4.0.8-2) and should not be missing any requirements in the kernel.

I'm five thousand miles away from my server and rely on it coming back up. There is no conceivable benefit to systemd over the sysvinit system that 
justifies failing to boot -- please remember many linux users are in my situation. It doesn't matter what that advantage might be if I lose access.

The systemd transition is the greatest disaster I've seen in my twelve-year history of using Debian. For now all I can do is revert to sysvinit. 

-- Package-specific info:

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 8.1
  APT prefers stable
  APT policy: (990, 'stable'), (500, 'testing'), (500, 'oldstable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 4.0.0-2-amd64 (SMP w/16 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8) (ignored: LC_ALL set to en_US.UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: sysvinit (via /sbin/init)

Versions of packages systemd depends on:
ii  acl             2.2.52-2
ii  adduser         3.113+nmu3
ii  initscripts     2.88dsf-59
ii  libacl1         2.2.52-2
ii  libaudit1       1:2.4-1+b1
ii  libblkid1       2.25.2-6
ii  libc6           2.19-18
ii  libcap2         1:2.24-8
ii  libcap2-bin     1:2.24-8
pn  libcryptsetup4  <none>
ii  libgcrypt20     1.6.3-2
ii  libkmod2        18-3
ii  liblzma5        5.1.1alpha+20120614-2+b3
ii  libpam0g        1.1.8-3.1
ii  libselinux1     2.3-2
ii  libsystemd0     215-17+deb8u1
ii  mount           2.25.2-6
ii  sysv-rc         2.88dsf-59
ii  udev            215-17+deb8u1
ii  util-linux      2.25.2-6

Versions of packages systemd recommends:
ii  dbus            1.8.18-0+deb8u1
pn  libpam-systemd  <none>

Versions of packages systemd suggests:
pn  systemd-ui  <none>

-- no debconf information