[markstos]

I'm not sure why this comment was downvoted. I've read all the systemd documentation and this comment is spot on. System is lacking good documentation along the lines of "the least you need to know to setup and manage a service".

No, it's not as easy as "man systemd.service".

What's probably most useful in that documentation is the "hello world" example, which is buried at the bottom of the documentation. Also, key details are elsewhere, in "man systemd.exec" and "man systemd.unit".

The systemd docs a great comprehensive reference, but the man pages are poor introductory documentation.

Some useful tips that are hard to find:

  * man systemd.directives documents every directory and will tell you which man page as the full documentation for it.
  * man systemd.index lists every man page related to systemd.