Note:These instructions are probably outdated, and I haven't fixed them yet. You can probably still install Upstart, but not the no-systemd packages. I have gotten Linu Mint 18.3 MATE to work on these instructions, I think.
Instructions for installing and using Upstart on Ubuntu 16.04 "Xenial", Linux Mint 18 "Sarah", Linux Mint 18.1 "Serena", Linux Mint 18.2 "Sonya", Linux Mint 18.3 "Sylvia" and other GNU/Linux distributions using those repositories. Older versions of Mint already run Upstart.
The instructions have been taken from How to remove systemd from an Ubuntu Xenial installation (web.archive.org version from Without Systemd. They have been tested on Linux Mint 18.3 "Sylvia" MATE and Xfce. These instructions do not work on newer versions of Linux Mint, sorry.
The first commands are to install sysvinit+upstart.
sudo apt-get -y install upstart-sysv sysvinit-utils sudo update-initramfs -u
The first and a half thing to do is to edit
/etc/init.d/lightdm.conf with nano or your text editor
of choice. Fine the lines that contain near the beginning of the file:
and started dbus
and plymouth-ready)
And change it to
and started dbus)
The second set of commands add a PPA for systemd-free versions of the
gvfs, udisks2, policykit-1 and
xfce4-session packages.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:no-systemd/ppa sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get -y upgrade
The third set of commands make logging out work without systemd. You can
read install-custom-session-logout.sh before running it, because it
will be run as root. Hopefully the https:// connections will keep things
secure.
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gdm85/ubuntu16-no-systemd/master/install-custom-session-logout.sh >install-custom-session-logout.sh curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gdm85/ubuntu16-no-systemd/master/custom-session-logout >custom-session-logout sudo sh install-custom-session-logout.sh
Reboot to get your system running sysvinit+upstart.