Hi, On Sun, 2021-08-22 at 12:29 -0400, Marvin Renich wrote: > * Ansgar <ans...@43-1.org> [210822 05:08]: > > To get a filesystem layout equivalent to merged-/usr via symlinks > > farming *every* package shipping files in at least /usr/bin, > > /usr/sbin > > and possibly some of /usr/lib would need to include symlinks in > > /bin, > > /sbin, /lib. This would affect far more packages than updating the > > packages currently shipping files in /bin, /sbin and /lib* to ship > > these under /usr instead. > > It is true that for a symlink-farm-usr-merge system to be strictly > equivalent to a symlink-dir-usr-merge system, many packages that > never > had /bin/foo but had /usr/bin/foo would have to add a symlink > /bin/foo, > however this is clearly unnecessary.
No, it is required if we want users to be able to run scripts that use `#!/bin/python3` (or similar for other interpreters). Such scripts exist in the wild, they were not initially written on Debian. These would need Debian-specific patches to work on Debian. It is just the opposite of now having to patch software packaged in Debian to use /bin/rm instead of /usr/bin/rm (that also happens in the wild for software not developed on Debian). We also happen to miss such instances and needlessly make software buggy on Debian. Not having to worry about yet another small incompatibility between distributions is a nice feature. Ansgar
