System has not been booted with systemd as init system (PID 1). Can't operate. Failed to connect to bus: Host is down

John,

Would you please share some additional information?...

1. What version of Ubuntu are you running Cubic in?
2. What version of Ubuntu are you trying to customize? (Please provide a download UR for the original ISO you are using, so I can download the same ISO to test with?)
3. Which *.deb files are you trying to install? (It would be good if you could provide some URLs, so I can download the same deb files to test with?)
4. Has the environment you are running Cubic in been modified in any way?
4b. If so, what are the changes you think are important/significant that you think may help me investigate this?
5. Has the environment you are customizing ~inside~ Cubic in been modified in any way, prior to attempting to install these deb files?
5b. If so, what are the changes you think are important/significant that you think may help me investigate this?

6. What is the output of `$ ps -p 1` executed inside Cubic's virtual terminal?

1. Using Ubuntu 20.04 Desktop
2. Trying to customize a clean Ubuntu 20.04 Desktop version. Clean from https://Ubuntu.com/download/desktop/
3. Example .deb is Mullvad VPN-client. Https://mullvad.net/sv/download/deb/2020.4/
4. No, only updated OS
5. Same as above, added universe and multiverse repositories
5b. Is it a problem related to service?
6. PID TTY TIME CMD
      1 Pts/0 00:00:00 bash

//J

QUESTION:

Is it a problem related to service?

RESPONSE:

I think so.
But services never worked in the old version of Cubic, either.

Do you think the vendor of the software you are attempting to install changed their application to require services to be running during installation? (Otherwise, you should have faced this problem using Cubic prior to 2020-06?)

For the packages I've dealt with that require services during installation, I was able to install the package anyway (because `apt` or `dpkg -i` or `gdebi` would would still the copy necessary files to the correct directories). Then, after creating the ISO, the package requiring services would run normally in the Live environment or in the installed OS, where services are enabled. Could that approach work in your case?

The same package worked flawless on installation prior to systemd, but I agree. Earlier installation probably installed fine to work as service when I booted the live ISO. At this moment, no installation method works to finish installation of package.

If you know which specific services ~must~ be running during installation of this software, it may be possible to manually run those services, instead of relying on systemd to start (or stop) those services for you.

As an example, you can start the samba service using...

$ /usr/sbin/smbd --daemon &

(This also depends on if the installer is just blindly checking for systemd, or is it looking for certain services).