Buster without systemd?

[Marc Shapiro]

Supposedly, one can install/upgrade to Buster while maintaining sysv as 
init.  Or has this changed.  Over the past several months I have been 
attempting to upgrade to Buster, but I have been completely unsuccessful.

Has anyone managed to upgrade to Buster without installing systemd, or 
jumping through hoops that would drive a lion tamer mad?

I made a copy of all of my partitions so that I could do the upgrade 
while maintaining Stretch in case something went wrong. I'm glad that I did!

The first time that I tried this, I actually managed to upgrade to 
Buster and have everything appear to work.  Then I realized that I had 
only done an "upgrade" but not a "full-upgrade".  After that, X would 
not start.  I have, as I said, spent several months trying to get X 
working on Buster without systemd.  I have not been successful.  None of 
my later attempts ever got a working Buster with X, at all.

Is it possible to do what I want?  Or, after 21 to 22 years of using 
Debian (since Bo), do I have to switch to another linux distro?  I would 
rather not have to switch, but you choose the distro that suits your 
needs, and if Debian no longer suits my needs then I may have to.


Marc