So what's the real reason why Fedora, RHEL, and Ubuntu moved from Upstart to systemd?

So it's not an option during installation? I have to let Devuan lock me out of Win7 and then hope I can fix it later?

You didn't say it had to be a Linux desktop...

My understanding of the situation is this:

(1) For the end-user, it doesn't make much of a difference. When you choose to use a Linux distro specifically because it doesn't use systemd, you're taking sides in an ideological battle more than you're making a decision on practical grounds.

(2) At the time when systemd was created, Sysvinit and Upstart were the only init systems around. They had certain unsustainable problems for developers that systemd fixed, and that's why all of the major Linux distros switched to it between 2011 and 2014.

(2) Sysvinit, Upstart, and systemd are no longer the only init systems to choose from, so the case for using systemd is much weaker than it was in 2011-2014.

(4) The real issue is not whether systemd is "good" or "bad". The real issue is whether monopolization of the linux ecosystem by any one init system is good or bad. Spoiler alert: it's very, very bad. Systemd occupies that slot now, but in an alternate timeline where systemd never existed, we'd probably all be whining and bitching about Upstart instead.

Google is only as powerful as we allow it to be. I already don't use it for anything, so problem solved.

Facebook is a different story. FB benefits from a phenomenon that I call interopoly, a portmanteau of "interoperability" and "monopoly". It's a difficult concept to define but easy to describe; basically, it's any platform, language, standard, format, etc. where the advantages of using the same thing as everyone else outweigh the advantages of using whatever is actually best. We see examples in the VHS vs. betamax format war, the inability of DVORAK keyboards to displace QWERTY, and of course, Microsoft's domination of the operating system market. In Facebook's case, lots of better social networks exist, including Mewe and Diaspora... but I rarely use them because there's nobody to talk to! If I want to talk to anyone, I have to be where the people are, and that's Facebook.

It's one of those weird edge cases where free markets don't work quite as well as they usually do. When a particular interopoly isn't privately owned, then this isn't too bad. VHS, for example, was an "open format". But when an interopoly is owned by one company, and they use that power to extract unearned money from the economy while constantly lowering the quality of their product or service, as Facebook does, then it's time for the government to step in and start beating someone with a stick. In the specific case of Microsoft, their monopoly on Windows-compatible OSes is propped up by patent and copyright laws, so that problem can be solved by less government involvement in the economy.

It was on the first page of the subforum. I didn't look at the dates. *shrug*

In that case, could I ask you for a favor?

There are software packages that are theoretically supposed to replicate the look and feel of the Windows Classic and Luna themes on Linux systems. I could only ever get them to partially work. If you could get them fully working and include them in future versions of Devuan, that would be awesome