On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 1:22 PM, Mark David Dumlao <madum...@gmail.com>wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 28, 2012 at 12:28 AM, Kevin Chadwick <ma1l1i...@yahoo.co.uk> > wrote: > > > > Again you don't break the spec unless you have to and you don't change > > the spec unless it is an improvement or you have no choice. Non of > > which is the case. Just like you do not mould a mail RFC to a > > widely used technically inferior hotmail implementation. > > The spec - or implementation - of / and /usr separation is broken and > has been for quite a while now. Nobody here's even bothered answering > how the modern Gentoo distro / sysad would survive /usr being out of > sync with /, for instance, If the basics are kept in /, with prod-additionals kept in /usr, then you should be able to boot to "basics", and restore /usr. > or the fact that some udev programs tend to > be located in /usr, That's either a bug with those programs, or a need for architectural improvements within udev. Both plausible answers. > or even just a solid detailed specification on the > precise criteria for inclusion into /. For anyone arguing that / and /usr should be separate, the answer to this is "that ought to be common sense." Since I'm not someone who knows all there is to know about the software and interactions thereof, the most I can say is: * / ought to contain all binaries, libraries and static data necessary for booting beyond the point where / is mounted, and any machine-specific binaries, libraries and static data. * /usr ought to contain all binaries, libraries and static data not necessary for its own mount. > Even the FHS is mum on all the > extra crap we randomly decide between / and /usr to land in. So fix it. FHS was a document written to say "we have a standard" that happened to map almost cleanly to all the implementations of the day. Kinda like how SQL mapped "almost cleanly" to the existing RDBMSs that existed when it was introduced. Such is how standards documents are born. > You'd > think, for instance, something as clear cut as filesystem manipulation > tools, e.g., xfs_admin, would belong in /sbin rather than /usr/sbin. > But no it's not. Or - for crying out loud, at least a text editor that > isn't ed. > I'd say that warrants bug reports against those programs. Also, isn't busybox under /? I think it has nano built-in. > > Again, the broken state of the / and /usr split is a different thing > from the usefulness state of your own already installed distro. > > TLDR: The spec is broken. > It's not that the spec is broken. It's that the spec doesn't lay out every single detail imaginable, and as a consequence, people assuming that the spec should be able to do their thinking for them assume the spec is broken when it's silent on a given query. -- :wq
