As previously reported, the KaOS Linux devs have decided to move away from systemd and the KDE Plasma desktop environment after more than 12 years of using them by default. Earlier this year, in February, they dropped KDE Plasma for a Niri/Noctalia setup, but they were still working on replacing systemd with another init system.

As of today, they have succeeded in delivering a stable ISO image that users can use to install the distribution without using systemd as the default init system. The replacement is #Dinit, a modern and lightweight init system and service manager designed as a fast, dependency-based alternative to systemd.

I'm curious how this works out in the real world. I hope all will go well, so that there is a serious alternative to the #systemd madness.

KaOS Linux 2026.06 Launches Officially as First Release with Dinit - 9to5Linux