So my cups.service is: [Unit] Description=CUPS Printing Service [Service] ExecStart=/usr/sbin/cupsd -f PrivateTmp=true [Install] Also=cups.so

So my cups.service is: [Unit] Description=CUPS Printing Service [Service] ExecStart=/usr/sbin/cupsd -f PrivateTmp=true [Install] Also=cups.socket cups.path WantedBy=printer.target It requires no extra things - Your cups script depends on checkpath and start-stop-daemon. More executables, more dependencies so yeah, I'd argue it suffers coupling and is a mess. You say that systemd makes things a "complex, interdependent mess" but it's better than the brittle dependent mess of the status quo. The usage of start-stop-daemon doesn't even ensure that the app was killed - it acts just as a killall <servicename>. It doesn't catch a process in a Disk Wait state or even if the process has trapped the SIGTERM - It's not just useless, it's deceptive as to its functionality. People continually spew the line about the UNIX philosophy. If you want to use Unix, use Unix. Linux is [becoming] better than Unix.