Yes it is bound to systemd. While they are stll shipping sysvinit and openrc in apt there are enough pieces of software, mostly from the GNOME crew that have marked dependencies on systemd. The general dd attitude currently is to retain those packages (sysvinit, openrc) but not care should any package break them by explicit dependencies on systemd. My desktop's jessie install started with openrc, I have no idea which package update came in and switched it all over to systemd but I rebooted after a hardware influenced panic and boom, systemd. I was not impreseed on how my X desktop refused to finish starting because systemd seen mysql's inability to start as blocking.
I am running Jessie as well, and systemd showed up after I did a dist-upgrade. You can actually remove systemd but there are systemd-xxxx files that have depends. There is also systemd-shim to resolve depends. But I am going to migrate to Devuan. They are going to release Jessie as Jessie but without systemd. Much easier than screwing around with trying to remove systemd.
Seems like these this fork will take some time to be available, and even more time to prove yourself something stable and trustworthy. With more and more distros adopting systemd, seems like there is no way to avoid it. The next natural step is more and more packages start to depend on systemd, at the point that we will have no choice but be forced to use it. May I being pessimistic, but seems unavoidable. I think systemd isn't a good name, they should change it to "BorgD", resistance is futile. Meanwhile, I think that's a good time to start looking at those *BSD distros.
I would recommend distrowatch.com to those who are looking for information on various Linux operating systems.
distrowatch com is a very good site to find many many linux distros. I myself however am looking for a specific feature, (or lack of in this case), of not having systemd forced into being my init. That is why I am looking at the distros at without-systemd.org.
Not allowing systemd into your OS is very understandable. I have tried Slackware before and I found it to be full of utilities that cannot really do their jobs. In other words, most of the Linux operating systems without Systemd tend to lean toward limitation as compared to those which have it in the default installations.
I don't know, I'm currently rrunning Debian 8 (Jessie/Sid) without systemd. The only issue right now is network-manager isn't updated in testing so I have to wait to do another dist-upgrade to bring my system completely up-to-date. Slackware is pretty hard-core. Manual configuring all over the place, but I can remember enough of it from when Debian was that way so I think that I could convert easily with some refreshing myself. And it runs KDE that has anything that could be needed, for me at least, as a daily driver. FreeBSD is looking intresting to me as well if they can get the true-UNIX DE going full steam.
I think it is a Linux OS with limited networking utilities capabilities, most especially, the WiFi ones. They are bundles of added feature that fail to meet up to expectation. The only thing I found interesting is it being a lightweight and can be run without installing it to your system, like many others out there.
It is (Slackware) one of the last remaining true-Linux distros around. I have never found it lightweight though, 1 DVD for install (~4GB) and 1 full of source code (~2GB). Slax however, based on Slackware is ultra-lightweight. @ a little over 200MB I think.
The DVD is big because it have everything to install without internet. What will be installed is up to you. Tried Slackware before, very good distro, editing files by hand is a plus to me, but found the same issues that Hadron-Curious found. The big problem to me is that slackwacke package database is a bit limited compared to debian. It's a matter of time that more and more developers will adopt systemd, and you will end up forced to use it, or start compiling your packages from source without systemd support. I wonder if will worth fight against systemd. Looks like Ubuntu position against systemd and their posterior adoption answer that.
Many people who just switch over don't even know the difference between systemd and Init. Since 2-3 months i am looking for a distro that will replace my windows 7 soon. So far all debian based distro's are not running wel and arch based do. I have read that systemd is something like svchost for windows.
There is no Linux out there that can fully replace Windows OS at the moment due to limitation in many areas like gaming, social networking and limited applications. I am currently trying Android X86 Linux with features you will find in Chromebooks. However, it is a new OS that might have some appealing features commonly found in android based system like the mobile phones and Chromebook.
It's a lot like svchost. All the systemd based distros are crashing and hanging, at least in my experience. That is one of the latest reasons I wont go near them. When systemd was forced into my Debian default init, I had nothing but issues. I'm not on a new PC so its not like there is a lack of drivers or support, my daily driver is a 2007 Dell Inspiron 1520 laptop. Still, in Debian I need non-free WiFi drivers that are not on the install DVD. How lame is that? I don't think that there is a an issue with social networking or limited programs, gaming yes very much so but the Linux community has never been big on gaming since it is more of a server side OS. Unfortunately I don't trust anything Googe as far as I can throw it, along with any "social networking".