Before going too far into it, what is systemd? This is a suite of software tools for modern Linux distributions that essentially unifies the entire Linux kernel, streamlining development for the once obscure platform. With the rising prominence of Linux in the home computing market, distro developers increasingly turn to it to simplify their OSes into something more useful to the average non-savvy person. Basically, it can be thought of like Microsoft Service Host, in that it co-ordinates many different processes and makes them work together toward the common goal of allowing users to run the operating system brainlessly. Without a bootstrap like systemd, users would need to launch components individually, by hand in the terminal.
However, its strength is also an attack vector for the corporate feudal theocratic complex to further undermine individual rights. It is not an exaggeration to say that systemd has its fingers in everything in the most popular Linux distros; every single program calls upon it for one reason or another, and the operating system itself could not run without it. In this way, its purpose can be perverted into something more like a corporate cop, gathering personal information and deciding whether or not to grant access based upon what it finds.
On 5th March 2026, commit #40954 to systemd's Github repository added the ability of the bootstrap to require a full birthdate from the user, explicitly to comply with California's age verification law, justifying it as a "natural fit" alongside the user's email address, real name, and location in the file, userdb.json. While it requires admin privileges to change this field, it can be accessed by any program that reads this file, including programs which would transmit that information to an offsite source, such as Google, Facebook, Amazon, or whatever clearinghouses the world's national governments set up to track and verify people's ages.
Let's play a little hypothetical game, shall we? Let's assume that you're smart about your privacy and you intentionally gave your systemd-enabled Linux distro a "real name" and birthdate that are not actually your own. Rather than declaring your real actual name to systemd, you used your vtuber handle instead. So like, rather than Kyler Lopez, you said your name was Kitsune Shuntaro-chan, and your 16-year-old self claimed you were born on Halloween 1988. Now, assume that your national government sets up an age verification clearinghouse based upon data from many different sources; such as credit card companies, Paypal, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Nintendo Switch Online, and corporate employment providers; which uses analytical AI to perform skip-tracing. The clearinghouse discovers, based upon data you provided other services from your Linux PC, that your name is in fact not "Kitsune Shuntaro-chan" and you are not actually 38 years old. Under the law, you have now committed perjury and can now be arrested and your computers and phone can be confiscated. This is purely hypothetical at the moment, but it exposes a rather significant security hole in what you thought was your own sovereign domain.
The problem here is that Linux distros outside of the most popular choices (viz. Linux Mint, Debian, Ubuntu, and Fedora) are still highly specialised. Even using Mint as I've been suggesting to get your feet wet in the Linux pool will not prepare you adequately to just leap into something like Gentoo or Arch Linux. Most of the available alternatives to these, such as the Debian fork, Devuan, or PCLinuxOS are either unstable or out of date. While name-brand Debian claims to be "exploring alternatives" to systemd, you can bet that was only said to save face and no such exploration shall occur.
It is, sadly, as I said before. Home computing is in a shambles. Government morality police and AI training are taking a sledgehammer to its shattered remains and breaking the shards up into smaller bits.