[pdkl95]

> How practical is it

Very? Contrary to the popular meme that suggests that systemd is required for features like automounting hotplugged hardware or roaming network configurations were possible a decade before systemd. Several pre-systemd distros even handled a lot of the work for you automagically, though the UI for some tools wasn't the best (or, rarely, was missing).

> I'm very used to GNOME

That's another matter, unfortunately. GNOME is firmly in the systemd-only, "screw portability"/"it's not a regression when we removing working code because it's 'old'" camp.

That said, Gentoo has implemented a workaround[1]. I haven't tried it (I still use enlightenment DR16), so I don't know if the workaround involves any loss of features, but that might be worth investigating. The install process appears to be a typical level of work for Gentoo.

edit: oops - forgot the URL

[1] https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-1022050.html