this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2026
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I've been using Linux since like October and I barely have a grasp on what systemd even is. I only know that my WSL Ubuntu at work doesn't have it as some sort of security measure. Security against what, I can't say. But somehow it makes it so that I have to say "service docker start" instead of "systemctl start docker"
Yup, basically. Systemd is "the first program" that runs, and then its job is to start all the other programs that make up a modern computer, most of which run in the background and a user will never see. It's not the only such "init program", though, and some people are grumpy that it does too much itself, rather than simply starting other programs to do those things.
But unless you're involved in starting and stopping background processes, you can't really tell which one you've got. Users aren't "meant" to care which process was the one that started the power management daemon, or whatever.