Have a look at this discussion
It reads as if Debian , in the Trixie release, have deliberately removed a small piece of code which allows derivatives such as MX and antiX to boot alternative init systems.
Such an action seems to me to be unhelpful and maybe vindictive.
The code is easily restored, but it is just another thing for derivative distros to care for.
I for one will be voting with my feet. No more Debian until they repair the damage.
With my last MX install, I opted for the sysvinit to be installed. At least MX makes it easy to select which option you want.
It sounds like Debian is trying to reduce the support burden. They support many platforms and I could see trying to eliminate something if it is used by some low percentage. That’s a hard call to make. It’s like deciding to eliminate 32-bit, HP PA-RISC, or Digital Alpha.
It is a small thing
"This was a minor addition to the grub-mkconfig scripts to autodetect installed init systems and make alternate entries with ‘init=foo’ on the kernel command line. "
They have not removed the init= parameter from grub … that would kill one of our favourite breakin tricks.
It is the intention that is being questioned. Is it as you suggest or is it political?
I feel Debian is leaving itself open to the political question, by removing something that other distros are using.
There are many packages in the Debian repo that are unused and unmaintained,
but they never do anything to clean that up… instead they pick on something that is being used.? Please explain?
Instead of removing things, maybe Debian could consider moving them to an archive repo.
There are plenty of patches present in the debian build of GRUB which really are unrelated to Debian (& only specific to Ubuntu/Kubuntu)
Julian Andres Klode (the primary maintainer of GRUB - who removed the mult-init patch) is an Ubuntu (Cannonical) employee. He didn’t hesitate to remove perfectly working code that MX & antiX use, but I can’t see him removing code that relate to Ubuntu (equally unrelated to Debian eg mkconfig-ubuntu-recovery.patch & plenty of others).
I’m not judging the person, but his actions do not show allegiance to the Debian GR outcome but to something else…
Hmmm…
That could explain why Pop!_OS and System76 don’t use grub - they use SystemD-boot - which will make many on here shudder with horror 
…
I must admit - I kinda prefer GRUB… But I’m ambivalent… I don’t dual boot - in fact - I hardly ever boot - I leave my Ubuntu 24.04 desktop on for weeks at a time… I did the same with Pop!_OS - at the end of the day - I just power off the monitors…
And I need my Ubuntu machine on as it’s the Synergy KVM server that I drive my two Macs with…
Trouble with that is it is a lockin.
I dont care whether it is grub or syslinux or respin or whatever, as long as it is independent of the OS or its components.