this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2026
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SystemD is only adding the possibility to store an age for the user, and the PR is being debated still
Why would a glorified scheduling service need to store my birthday? Or age. Am I soon supposed to show/store my ID to all services running on my computer?
An equally valid question is why does a glorified scheduling service want to act as my UEFI boot manager?
The systemd service in question is probably already managing your accounts (if you've got systemd, that is)
It may be so, but it doesn't know my birthday nor my ID 🤷
And it won't unless something else tells it
Trojan horse, so to speak.
Preemtive capitulation is a loss for everyone but the fascists.
I think the point people are making here is why does systemd need to store an age for the user.
It can already store location data and other random metadata
Define "location data".
Systemd stores location data for unit files, it does not store geo lookup data. Again, why does systemd need to store user age?
It can store your location data (i.e City/Address), because this service is specifically a user database. The systemd init isn't storing your age anytime son.
Good way to lose your market share overnight
Ah yes, systemd is gonna lose so many sales over this, they're gonna have to lower their monthly subscription price from $0.00 to a measly $0.00
🤡
There are a lot of Linux distros. Capitulation to age verification is a good way to know that a distro is compromised generally. Now I need to figure out how not to use systemd.
If you have some Linux experience, you could try something like void linux , alpine or gentoo. Sadly, systemd is entrenched so deeply on most distros that removing it would be painful.
There is also devuan (debian without systemd) but I can't recommend it.
If I ever find
systemd-ageverificationdon my computer I'm nuking it