see here the discussion `systemd vs upstart` (the default on ubuntu): http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/5877/what-are-the-pros-cons-of-upstart-and-system

see here the discussion `systemd vs upstart` (the default on ubuntu): http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/5877/what-are-the-pros-cons-of-upstart-and-systemd http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/5877/what-are-the-pr... and here the design docs of systemd: http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html overall i think systemd is a much better implementation toward the same goal. some distros have already switched from upstart to it, not saying that upstart is not an extremely popular choice as well.