Everyone is explaining what systemd is, but if you’re just someone who wants to use their computer it doesn’t matter if you know what it is or not.

I’ve been using Linux for years and still don’t really know what it is. I don’t even know if my current distribution uses it or not.

The init system is the first thing that runs on boot and kind of allows other stuff to run. It’s not really something the average user needs to worry about.

Systemd is probably the most common init on Linux distros these days. Some people don’t like it. One reason is because it does a lot of things in addition to what traditional init systems do and that goes against the Unix philosophy (do one thing and do it well).

SysV, OpenRC, and runit are all more traditional init systems. I don’t really have experience with them.

Devuan is basically just Debian without systemd. It’s name is derived from Debian and VUA (Veteran Unix Admins, if I remember correctly).

Debian is a Linux distribution, meaning that it’s a complete operating system based around the Linux kernel.

Ubuntu is another distribution and is derived from Debian. Ubuntu makes a lot of changes from Debian. It would be better to think of their relationship as parent and child rather than a superhero’s alter ego.

Ubuntu is run by a company called Canonical. Over the years Canonical has made a number of controversial decisions (which I won’t get in to) and that’s why a lot of people don’t like Ubuntu.

Debian, on the other hand is community run. Additionally, they tend to not make radical changes since their focus is on providing a stable operating system.

As for why there are more Ubuntu based distros than Debian, I’m not certain. My guess is because Ubuntu is (or was?) more user friendly out of the box and it was a lot of people’s first distro for many years.

For your last question, I’d just go with the Debian version. As a beginner it would probably be easier to find help with that version. The Devuan version is aimed at more experienced users and old school sysadmins.

As this is linux4noobs, you don’t want Devuan. Use a systemd-based like 95% of people. Debian is just very stable but sometimes lags on application versions because of that. Ubuntu has newer versions and is supported by a company, which is why lots of people use it. Everyone hates it because that company also made some questionable decisions for Ubuntu. But in the end it is decently well supported

I’m not an expert but have at least a basic enough understanding. I’m sure someone will come correct me /expand on plenty of things.

Think of systemd like a service manager. It’s software that orchestrates other software that is running. Like systemd will start to your ssh server service for you when the OS boots up, but it knows to wait until the main networking services are running first since ssh won’t work without networking anyway. That kind of thing. For systemd specifically, some people don’t like it because (and I may get this wrong) they don’t like one piece of software being so in control of how a system operates. They think it’s too overpowering, and prefer alternatives. I don’t understand enough about the alternatives and personally have only ever used systemd and it works perfectly fine for me.

As you say, Debian is a Linux distribution. People can fork (make a copy and edit it separately) Debian to make other distributions. This is what Ubuntu does. They’ll use Debian as a base, and make tweaks to it, and basically just made enough tweaks it was worth calling it something different. Other distributions like Mint take Ubuntu as their base and edit it into a whole new thing. Kind of makes Mint the grandchild of Debian in a way. The other main Linux base distros you’ll see are Arch and Fedora (there are others but they’re less common).

Devuan is just a fork of Debian (just like how Ubuntu is), but they decided to make their main edit be the removal of systemd, keeping most of the other things the same. (This is my first time hearing if Devuan, so there may be other significant changes I’m overlooking).

A lot of people don’t like Ubuntu because of the inclusions of specific systems. The one I see the most would be snap. It’s something that was made for end users to have things be easier, but it’s not the most efficient way to install programs so some people don’t like it.

As far as Debian vs Devuan, unless you have something against systemd, I would just stick with a Debian base since that’s one of the most common you’ll find, so there will be a lot more help available out there when you’re searching for things.

Hope that breaks it down well enough to get the basics of it at least!

Debian makes the deliberate choice to have older versions of software in the repository so that there is plenty of time to become aware of and fix any problems that come up. This is a reasonable stance to take, but in practice often newer software is stable enough, so Ubuntu essentially starts with Debian as a base and then adds newer version of software into the repository. This approach made it very popular, and as a result it effectively became a standard (in addition to RedHat/Fedora), which is significant because it means that a lot of software is now packaged to work best with Ubuntu. Both of these factors motivate many distributions to base themselves on Ubuntu. Unfortunately, Ubuntu also adds in a lot of stuff that… people disagree with, but the good news is that a distribution is just a collection of software, so there is nothing stopping someone from picking all of the parts of Ubuntu that they like, and leaving out all of the parts that they don’t.

An init system is essentially infrastructure that runs underneath the hood to orchestrate what things get activated and when. Some people (not myself) consider systemd to be overly complicated so they prefer something that they consider to be simpler, and others oppose systemd on essentially ideological grounds for not being sufficiently “Unix-like”. If you do not understand enough about init systems to understand the difference between these systems and their pros and cons, then I would highly recommend that you not care at all about what your init system is (outside of curiosity for its own sake), and be a little suspicious of distributions for which their init system is their main selling point compared to other distributions, because it probably means that they focus their time and energy on things that you have do not care about in practice. (Having said that, don’t get me wrong: the great thing about Linux is that if someone really cares about this kind of thing, then they are completely free to tinker to their heart’s content until it is exactly the way that they want it!)

I’ll TLDR the answers you’ve gotten already: Stick to systemd. It works.

…because beyond that I think the debate of systemd is mostly astrology at this point: Systemd is basically what handles startup and monitoring of services on your PC. It has largely replaced the older initd on most systems.

Systemd was somewhat controversial when it was first adopted by many distros as it was seen as bloated compared to initd, plus it was a fundamental shift in how services were handled.

Today it is a mature system and while it still has its detractors, I think it mainly comes down to astrology and elitism. Personally I’ve used both for ages, and it’s fine. So was initd. I just wish DNS wasn’t rolled into systemd, but I don’t care that hard, though.

Debian is a Linux distribution, which means a “version” or “flavour” or Linux. Many distributions are just variations of other distributions. As you already said for instance Ubuntu is based on Debian, but adds additional stuff on top of it. Devuan is another distribution based on Debian.

Ubuntu is unpopular in some circles because the company behind it made some very unpopular decisions. Like keeping the server software behind their new way of packaging software (“snaps”) closed source.

The init system of a Linux system is the first process the operating system starts, which then starts all the other processes - it initializes the system. It is also often responsible for managing running background processes and other things.

Systemd is one such init system and widely used by most of the biggest Linux distributions. It is sometimes critisized for “doing too much” and taking over more functions of the system than an init system should, but many people think thats what makes it so practical. Devuan was created by people who wanted to use Debian, but not Systemd.

If you do not know about the specifics and want to use Debian, I would recommend going with its default version, as most of the resources you find online will help you with that.

I do not know what an init system is. I don’t know what systemd is. I do not know what Devuan is. I do not know what SysV init is. I do not know what OpenRC is. I do not know what runit is.

If you are a “noob” as per this community suggests, you don’t need to know any of these things. You don’t ever need to know what these are in order to use a computer. You only need to know about these things if you want to be a poweruser/nerd.

I vaguely understand what debian is. Although I would be the wrong person it explain it. I know it’s the type of linux that ubuntu is. And I know it seems like every disto I look at says it’s based on ubuntu, and therefore is debian since ubuntu is based on debian.

What I don’t understand is if everyone hates ubuntu, but ubuntu is based on debian, but nobody hates debian, why is everything based on ubuntu and not debian?

Debian and Ubuntu are “distributions” of Linux. Linux is just a kernel, not a full operating system—that means it’s a low-level piece of software that allows the OS to communicate with your hardware. So there are Linux “distributions” which are full operating systems that contain the Linux kernel but will also contain an entire operating system, so everything else your computer needs to run.

People dislike Ubuntu for the decisions it’s made that make it different from Debian, e.g. its promotion of Snap. Debian is a pretty good choice for first Linux distro. I’d probably recommend either Linux Mint or maybe Fedora KDE—both widely used and supported, with communities where you can seek support, and they come with desktop environments pre-installed that should be familiar and easy to use for users coming from Windows.

You might want to look up in a search engine “how to install linux” for articles covering a lot of this stuff, including advice on starter distros. And the distro you choose will have their own installation guide—follow that in the last instance.