When this works, it's great, but when even mounting NFS (what used to be quite a simple thing) can cause the system to hang because of errors, it's not really a step forward.

On previous init systems, if your NFS mount wasn't available before the subsystem that needed it, then that subsystem might not start up correctly, but the system would finish booting and give you a login prompt A little tweak to a startup script to add a check and the problem is solved for the next boot, with only a little time when the service isn't available (after a manual start). But, I've seen systemd just stop the boot process when it can't fulfill a dependency like this, and the only solution was to reboot into single user mode, tweak config files, and try the boot again.

Money

The more opaque and difficult you make the system, the more likely people will pay for support.

In which case, you shouldn't have picked the 840 EVO to start with, but rather the 840 Pro (or 850 Pro now).

If you want true performance, you have to pay for it. I have a pair of 840 EVOs myself because I don't need the extra speed from faster drives, and the price was right.

The right thing to do is go in with "best world" and "worst world" numbers, and when asked what you want, give your "best world" number.

That number shouldn't be a pie-in-the-sky, set you for life number, but instead a real idea of what it would take for you to live at your standards in that part of the country. This means you have to think about what commute you are willing to put up with and what that means for housing prices, and what the overall cost just to keep alive (electricity, transportation, food, etc.) will be. Add enough that you can save about 15-25% per year, and then add on enough to be able to relax when you want to. That means you have to define what "relax" means (go skiing, play video games, travel the world, etc.). That'll be close to your "best world".

You're "worst world" depends on your current situation. If you already have a job that is OK, maybe you only drop about 10% from the best to get your worst. If you've been unemployed for a while and bill collectors are camping on your door, maybe you'll take less.

With those numbers firmly set in place, you don't have to let them make the first move, as you know your upper and lower limit. It's just up to you to decide what happens if they counter and are still above your worst. Then, it's a matter of how much the quality of the job fits with what you want.

I don't generally negotiate at grocery stores because it's just not a good ROI. Sure, getting an extra $0.25 off a 2-liter bottle of soda might be a 12% savings, but it's only a quarter. On the other hand, if I wanted 50 pounds of meat for a party, I might ask them for their normal "sale" price even if it wasn't on sale right now, because that could save me $100.

I already do this with items like appliances, where I ask for the best sale price. I'm likely to get that price, because whatever store I'm in knows that some other store either currently has a price close to what I want, or will soon. And, no store sells those kind of things at a loss even on sale, so it's not really a problem for them.

Strangely enough, The Flash gets this right. Barry Allen is a CS tech, and he goes to the scene, gathers evidence, and writes up the report for the cops. Sure, he's now a superhero and does other stuff, but when doing his normal job, he is much closer to what a CS tech does in real life than any other show has given us.

Here's a test: uninstall all those other "optional" processes and see what happens. Is systemd still installed, or does it get uninstalled because of dependency resolution? Does your system still boot? Can you log in?

Report your results back here, so we can all see how "optional" those extra processes are.

Really, you can glance at one screen of hex dump (typically 1-2KB) and know exactly what all parts of a 10MB program are doing?

BTW, firearms are a bad example of "looks like magic" to somebody 500 years ago. Those automatic weapons haven't changed much in 100 years, and single-shot firearms very similar to what we have today have existed for over 400, with gunpowder-fired projectiles around 800 years old.

The only significant firearm-specific advancement from 1600 to the late 1800s was the cartridge (which also made clips possible). Better metalworking techniques, etc., also helped, but those were general-purpose. At that point, the first self-loading firearm that didn't use human power to load the next cartridge (i.e., a semi-automatic) came along in the early 1900s. Since then, the change in firearms is almost identical to the change in rocket technology...scale is larger, and materials are stronger, but the design really hasn't changed much.

There were rockets in 1903. They weren't as powerful, but the physics of rocket flight was pretty well known at the time.

The only difference between fireworks and the Saturn V is scale...more powerful fuel, stronger materials, etc.

If you didn't know any of Tolkien, why would you feel "terrified" by a ring?

Everyone (children, too), learns through exposure to things. They learn that hot stoves hurt you when you touch them, and that ice cream tastes good. So, where, exactly, would you have "learned" that a ring has the power to turn you invisible other than fictional stories like Tolkien? If your home life has led you to believe that magic is real, then you have a lot more problems than being threatened by a magical ring.

And yet, all personal income taxes are based on revenue.

Sure, you might have some deductions from income, but unlike a business, you can't subtract all the money you paid for food, housing, and paying your "employees" (like babysitters, taxi drivers, etc.).

How about writing his own character out of the next movie?

The problem with the "reboot" is that there are thousands of stories that can be told in the Star Trek universe without involving Kirk, Spock, McCoy, et.al., as proved by four television series.

I don't need any licensed (or even installed) Adobe software or Microsoft Office in order to play games or browse the web, but I need the OS.

Please provide a step-by-step list of the commands needed to remove systemd from CentOS 7 "minimal install", or a pointer to such a list.

I have now been told literally dozens of times that "you don't have to install systemd", but no one has yet to back that up with steps for an install without it, or how to remove it from an existing install.