Thu, 2 Jul 2015 00:43:13 +0200 Guus Snijders <gsnijders@gmail.com>:
Why in the world should util-linux require systemd!? Why do all these packages need it when they were fine without it before?
The first question is a relatively simple, technical question. My guess is that the util-linux won't currently run without system installed, hence the dependancy. Arch packages are usually quite 'clean' in that respect. It's probably possible to recompile it without that dependency for this specific case.
A little fiddling with 'pacman -Qql util-linux' and 'ldd' reveals that the only tools linked to (lib)systemd are 'logger', 'lslogins' and 'uuidd'. Aside from that: Yes, some packages do have too broad dependencies (e.g. systemd instead of libsystemd) and it certainly didn't help that udev became part of systemd, but in the end the train we're on drove off long ago, so until systemd's successor arrives on the scene it's probably best to accustom yourself to it and test it until all the bugs and edge cases are accounted for. --byte