I would love some type of toggle, or "last chance to turn back" during install as far as being able to signal what type of init system I'd like to use.
The problem is that no-one has incorporated a modification to the Debian installer to have this. There are so-called "preseed" hooks that one can use to manually alter what packages the Debian installer installs. Putting in place pre-seed hooks that permitted something other than systemd to be installed ab initio was one of the first things that the Devuan people did, about two and a half years ago.
But no-one to my knowledge has yet done the work to give the Debian installer this capability without the need for pre-seed hooks, as a menu item/checkbox/question for the administrator to pick/tick/answer. Such work is more than merely writing code, note. It involves testing it too. Thoroughly.
Ironically, this was once a problem the other way around. Attempted changes to enable administrators to select systemd at install time (and indeed upstart, as you can see) failed to make it past a Debian gatekeeper.
Oh man, preseed is a pain in the ass too. I wish they'd support using kickstart files or that there were a kickstart to preseed conversion/migration tool.
