Linux From Scratch, a project and book that teaches you how to build a complete Linux system step-by-step entirely from source code, has announced that future releases will no longer support or develop System V init, marking a reluctant but decisive shift to a systemd-only direction.
The decision was communicated by long-time LFS contributor Bruce Dubbs in a message sent to the project’s announcement, support, and development mailing lists yesterday, on February 1, 2026.
The primary reason cited is sustainability. Dubbs mentions that LFS and its companion project, Beyond Linux From Scratch (BLFS), which helps you extend your finished LFS installation into a more customized and usable system, are maintained entirely by volunteers.
LFS currently tracks 88 packages, while BLFS covers more than 1,000. During the current release cycle alone, editors have processed 70 commits in LFS and more than 1,150 in BLFS. According to devs, supporting both System V init and systemd requires duplicating package checks, updates, and release validation, which the maintainers say has become unmanageable.
Another reason for the decision to end System V init support was upstream software trends. And more specifically, major desktop environments, including GNOME and KDE Plasma, are increasingly introducing a hard dependency on systemd-specific functionality that is not available in System V init.
All this led to the final result: the development of System V init books will stop with LFS/BLFS version 12.4. These books will remain available, and users may still be able to build newer software versions using the existing instructions, but such configurations will no longer be tested or supported by the project’s editors.
Finally, I cannot fail to mention the slightly bitter feeling with which Dubbs ends his announcement:
“As a personal note, I do not like this decision. To me LFS is about learning how a system works. Yes, systemd provides a lot of capabilities, but we will be losing some things I consider important.”
The next release, LFS/BLFS 13.0, is planned for March 1, 2026, and will focus exclusively on systemd-based systems. You can see the original announcement here.
And this is exactly how Red Hat always make you dependent on their software and lock you down into their software so as to control the Linux stack as much as they can. They’re Microsoft-level toxic.
There are several distros offering systemd-free experience, Void, Artix, Devuan, etc… It’s not such a big deal. Life without systemd is good.
Either way, maybe SonicDE will drop the systemd reliance for people to be able to use the KDE experience.
As for Gnome, it is steadily losing market share and momentum. It’s barely a 2nd class citizen at this point.
And there are at least 5 to 10 DEs that can do most of/a lot more than what Gnome offers. It’s really not a big loss for anyone. Just use whatever you fancy among dinit, S6, openrc, runit with any proper DE minus KDE.
Sorry, but what are you smoking?
Debian is not RH
Suse is not RH
Arch is certainly not RH
They all adopted systemd willingly (ok, Debian not so willingly, but they voted it the default)
Also, this post is not talking about a distro, LFS is a *book* about building a distro.
A lot of systemd functionality can be emulated, which is what systemd-free distros do to support the likes of Gnome.
LFS simply has no resources to offer an alternative book, I’m sure if volunteers would care and offer help, they’ll continue with the SysV book, or even make a version with other inits like those you mentioned.
Gentoo supports openrc (besides systemd). Gentoo currently tracks 19234 packages. Compare that to the 88 tracked by LFS and > 1000 tracked by BLFS.
If you find the decision made by LFS regrettable, then you may post them a message that you had to make a regrettable decision as well.
You don’t seem to understand the huge differences between LFS an Gentoo, if that’s you view of the situation.