I could simply trace shell scripts with some file io, or echo statements. Now there are systems using python, even better I can set breakpoints and modify, no need to recompile.
Configuring the system with textfiles only works if the system anticipated all your needs, and to anticipate all needs is not only complex but error prone.
There have been times where I needed to do something that wasn’t available in the unit file syntax, so I just do it in a shell script and ExecStart that.
Configuring the system with textfiles only works if the system anticipated all your needs, and to anticipate all needs is not only complex but error prone.