diff --git a/cdist/conf/explorer/init b/cdist/conf/explorer/init
index 1b921c68..f27c77ef 100755
--- a/cdist/conf/explorer/init
+++ b/cdist/conf/explorer/init
@@ -221,6 +221,7 @@ check_systemstarter() {
 
 check_sysvinit() (
 	init_path=${1:-/sbin/init}
+	test -x "${init_path}" || return 1
 	grep -q 'INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-[0-9.]*' "${init_path}" || return 1
 
 	# It is quite common to use SysVinit to stack other init systemd
diff --git a/cdist/exec/util.py b/cdist/exec/util.py
index 9787f431..90a26ad3 100644
--- a/cdist/exec/util.py
+++ b/cdist/exec/util.py
@@ -22,6 +22,7 @@
 import subprocess
 import os
 from tempfile import TemporaryFile
+from collections import OrderedDict
 
 import cdist
 import cdist.configuration
@@ -199,7 +200,9 @@ def resolve_conf_dirs(configuration, add_conf_dirs):
 
     if add_conf_dirs:
         conf_dirs.extend(add_conf_dirs)
-    conf_dirs = set(conf_dirs)
+
+    # Remove duplicates.
+    conf_dirs = list(OrderedDict.fromkeys(conf_dirs))
     return conf_dirs
 
 
diff --git a/docs/changelog b/docs/changelog
index 9b8e22cb..66db8849 100644
--- a/docs/changelog
+++ b/docs/changelog
@@ -5,6 +5,10 @@ next:
 	* Core: Add trigger functionality (Nico Schottelius, Darko Poljak)
 	* Core: Implement core support for python types (Darko Poljak)
 
+6.5.4: 2020-04-11
+	* Explorer init: Do not grep on non-existent init (Steven Armstrong)
+	* Core: Bugfix to preserve conf dirs order (Steven Armstrong)
+
 6.5.3: 2020-04-03
 	* Type __cron: Make non parallel due to race condition (Nico Schottelius)
 	* Type __pyvenv: Use python3 -m venv on Alpine (Nico Schottelius)