Regardless of who proposed it, merged /usr is still a reckless change that needlessly complicates things.
The /usr and / split hasn't been perfectly followed, ever, but, still achieves the goal of having a system that can be recovered from various problems easily. I should be able to substitute /bin/sh for init, and directly mount / and go from there to a fully working system, regardless of my partitioning. Period. If I can no longer do that, it's a broken system. On Fri, Jan 1, 2016 at 9:25 PM, Steve Litt <[email protected]> wrote: > On Fri, 1 Jan 2016 19:33:41 +0100 > Didier Kryn <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Le 01/01/2016 18:07, Steve Litt a écrit : > > > On Fri, 01 Jan 2016 15:45:49 +0100 > > > Micky Del Favero <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > >> Daniel Reurich <[email protected]> writes: > > >> > > >>> So the potteringisation continues... > > >> If I remember well Solaris has /bin linked to /usr/bin since many > > >> years, so linking /bin to /usr/bin is not a poetteringisation, or > > >> almost it's not an original idea of poettering. > > >> > > >> Ciao, Micky > > > Well, OK, if we're really going to discuss this... > > > > > > This *is* poetterization, regardless of what Sun or anyone else did > > > before. It's supported by Freedesktop.org, and I think everyone > > > here can agree that anything Freedesktop supports is anti-init > > > choice, anti-simplicity, anti-modularity, and pro-systemd. > > > > > > > http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/TheCaseForTheUsrMerge/ > > > > > > Those of you who have tried to lay down an alternate init system, to > > > replace systemd, without the aid of a package manager, will probably > > > agree with me that the toughest obstacle isn't udev, it isn't dbus, > > > it's initramfs. I looked up the word "black box" in the dictionary > > > last night, and they had a picture of initramfs. > > > > > > Hey, I'll be the first to admit that sometimes you need an > > > initramfs. Maybe you have LUKS plus LVM plus software raid. Merge > > > or not, you'll need to compile yourself one heck of a kernel to > > > avoid needing initramfs. But for the very prevalent use case of > > > Ext4, no raid, no LVM, no LUKS, no silly merge, and a few > > > partitions, initramfs is as useful as udders on a snake. I mean > > > seriously, in such a use case, you forego initramfs: boot to the > > > root partition, run /sbin/mount -a, and bang, you have all > > > resources available to you. But nooooooo. > > > > > > Initramfs does have one big benefit for the Poetterists: It > > > provides a dark, safe place for them to start up their > > > megacomplexities and call it magic. Oh, there are tools with which > > > you can periscope into initramfs, but have you ever really looked > > > at everything in an initramfs? It's a jungle in there. Just right > > > for the Poetterists to incubate their plague. > > > > > > Now, the Freedesktop.Org to which I referred earlier in this email > > > has a link to the following Rob Landley page explaining what they > > > call the "historical reasons" for separate directories: > > > jitsi_2.8.5426-1_amd64.deb > > > http://lists.busybox.net/pipermail/busybox/2010-December/074114.html > > > > > > Note that Landley's #1 reason for merging is the existance of > > > initramfs. Now I'm not stupid enough to call the author of Busybox a > > > Poetterist. He wrote this in 2010, before anyone really knew the > > > Napoleonistic aspirations of systemd, back in the days when a > > > complex and opaque "early boot" wasn't a big deal. > > > > > > But now it's 5 years later, and that early boot black box is exactly > > > where the Poetterists fester most virulently. > > > > > > In summary, if you accept the merge and /usr on a separate > > > partition, you need initramfs. And if you have initramfs, you've > > > just made it three times as hard to lay down Runit or Epoch or s6 > > > or Suckless Init plus daemontools-encore plus Littkit. > > > > > > We all have to pick our own battles, and I'm not sure how much > > > effort I'd make to roll back the merge. It may indeed be a good > > > thing that only 3 changes are required to patch up Devuan for the > > > merge. But make no mistake about it: regardless of its initial > > > motivation, today the merge's primary beneficiaries are Red Hat and > > > their proxies, Freedesktop.org and Lennart Poettering. > > > > > > SteveT > > > > > > > Sorry Steve but I think you are making some confusion. > > > > Before initramfs, there was initrd for the same major purpose: > > to load the necessary device driver to operate the hard disk drive. > > initramfs is just more clever than initrd. The kernel developpers, > > IIRC, have developped their own set of applications for use in the > > initrsmfs/initrd. > > > > Busybox OTH was not developped for initramfs at all, and Rob > > Landley was only one of many developpers of Busybox (he's now > > developping his own alternative). The fact is that Busybox has > > superseeded anything else in the initramfs because it contains a > > whole Unix base system in a very small program which doesn't even > > need a dynamic library. > > > > I doubt Rob Landley had Systemd in mind when he advocated to > > merge /bin and /usr/bin. As a matter of fact Busybox installs its > > symlinks in /bin, /usr/bin, /sbin and /usr/sbin by default. > > > > Didier > > Hi Didier, > > Everything you say above is true, and none of it contradicts what I > originally said. > > SteveT > > Steve Litt > November 2015 featured book: Troubleshooting Techniques > of the Successful Technologist > http://www.troubleshooters.com/techniques > _______________________________________________ > Dng mailing list > [email protected] > https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng >
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