Given a service definition at ~/.config/systemd/user/do-something.service for UID 1000, which is installed, enabled, and starts automatically at login, I would like the do-something.service to start at system boot instead.
One possible solution would be to install [email protected] as a dependency of the system’s multi-user.target, but then the question becomes whether this is a recommended setup and what its downsides are.
As I learned from the systemd/User entry on ArchWiki, starting the user manager at boot is handled by systemd-logind. For the current user:
loginctl enable-linger
And for a different USER (username or ID):
sudo loginctl enable-linger USER
From the man page:
If enabled for a specific user, a user manager is spawned for the user at boot and kept around after logouts. This allows users who are not logged in to run long-running services.