I managed to install a virtual machine of Debian with no SystemD! I mostly followed the instructions on the wiki, with the following modifications: 1) During the graphical installation, I selected no desktop (just standard system utilities and base system). I waited to install Plasma until after fixing the init system. 2) The wiki suggests running chroot /target. I tried it and got an error that no such directory exists. Instead, I ran chroot / . I would try changing this on the wiki but account registration is disabled. 3) When the wiki suggests installing apt --purge --allow-remove-essential install sysvinit-core libpam-elogind dbus-x11 systemd-sysv-, I also installed openrc at the same time. 4) apt gave a bunch of errors claiming it couldn't uninstall systemd. However, after rebooting, it used openrc to boot. I could then run # apt purge systemd followed by #apt-mark hold systemd without trouble. 5) Only after purging systemd and holding it from my system did I install Plasma, Konsole, and SDDM. Systemd started to AI-ify with version 260. Debian Trixie uses systemd 257, but Forky will probably use ≥260. My current plan is to stay with Debian until Forky rolls around, and then either a) Switch to Void b) Switch to Alpine, or c) Stay with Debian but replace systemd with openrc.