Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Monday, April 11, 2016 01:10:15 AM Raymond Jennings wrote: > Please don't do this. I want my system left alone. Please don't top-post, I want to have a logical flow of the text. > On Sun, Apr 10, 2016 at 11:41 PM, J. Roeleveld wrote: > > On Sunday, April 10, 2016 10:04:42 AM James Le Cuirot wrote: > > > On Sun, 10 Apr 2016 02:09:35 +0200 > > > > > > "J. Roeleveld" wrote: > > > > I actually write my own initramfs because neither dracut not > > > > genkernel end up with a convenient boot system. > > > > > > > > I have 2 disks, both encrypted. > > > > I prefer only to enter the decryption password once. Both Dracut and > > > > Genkernel insist on asking for the password/key for every single disk. > > > > > > Dracut on RHEL actually handles this out of the box. Might be worth > > > finding out how. > > > > Might have even been fixed in a more recent version of Dracut. > > I just have passed the point where I am interested in it enough to try it. > > The > > initramfs I use gets embedded into the kernel and doesn't need any kernel > > parameters to work. > > > > It does what it needs to do with minimal work. The simplicity should also > > make > > it faster than the scripts generated by either Dracut or genkernel. (As > > they > > need to parse the kernel cmdline and try to figure out static details on > > the > > fly) > > > > -- > > Joost Please d
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
Please don't do this. I want my system left alone. On Sun, Apr 10, 2016 at 11:41 PM, J. Roeleveld wrote: > On Sunday, April 10, 2016 10:04:42 AM James Le Cuirot wrote: > > On Sun, 10 Apr 2016 02:09:35 +0200 > > > > "J. Roeleveld" wrote: > > > I actually write my own initramfs because neither dracut not > > > genkernel end up with a convenient boot system. > > > > > > I have 2 disks, both encrypted. > > > I prefer only to enter the decryption password once. Both Dracut and > > > Genkernel insist on asking for the password/key for every single disk. > > > > Dracut on RHEL actually handles this out of the box. Might be worth > > finding out how. > > Might have even been fixed in a more recent version of Dracut. > I just have passed the point where I am interested in it enough to try it. > The > initramfs I use gets embedded into the kernel and doesn't need any kernel > parameters to work. > > It does what it needs to do with minimal work. The simplicity should also > make > it faster than the scripts generated by either Dracut or genkernel. (As > they > need to parse the kernel cmdline and try to figure out static details on > the > fly) > > -- > Joost
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Sunday, April 10, 2016 10:04:42 AM James Le Cuirot wrote: > On Sun, 10 Apr 2016 02:09:35 +0200 > > "J. Roeleveld" wrote: > > I actually write my own initramfs because neither dracut not > > genkernel end up with a convenient boot system. > > > > I have 2 disks, both encrypted. > > I prefer only to enter the decryption password once. Both Dracut and > > Genkernel insist on asking for the password/key for every single disk. > > Dracut on RHEL actually handles this out of the box. Might be worth > finding out how. Might have even been fixed in a more recent version of Dracut. I just have passed the point where I am interested in it enough to try it. The initramfs I use gets embedded into the kernel and doesn't need any kernel parameters to work. It does what it needs to do with minimal work. The simplicity should also make it faster than the scripts generated by either Dracut or genkernel. (As they need to parse the kernel cmdline and try to figure out static details on the fly) -- Joost signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On 04/10/2016 08:14, Rich Freeman wrote: > On Sun, Apr 10, 2016 at 7:55 AM, Joshua Kinard wrote: >> >> Create like, a table on the Wiki or some kind of metadata property >> per-package >> that can contain a boolean or tri-state flag indicating whether it works or >> doesn't work (or kinda works) on split-usr. Or a tracker on Bugzie. >> Something. >> > > I'm sure there will be a tracker for packages that don't work on a > merged /usr. (We are already on a split /usr.) > > Honestly, I'm still not quite sure why we're even having this > discussion. I don't think anybody actually intends to make any > changes at all. If they do, they should issue some kind of plan and > indicate what they're looking for from everybody else. Agreed. A plan is most definitely needed if we ever choose to pursue a policy of only supporting non-split-/usr installs, especially if we want to handle cases like mine where we try to make migration of existing installs possible or not. [snip] > It seems to me that we're just having a general discussion about the > pros/cons of a /usr merge. That is nice, but people are getting > worked up because they think that somehow whoever "loses" this > "discussion" will get something shoved down their throats or won't be > able to have something nice. "General discussion" -- hah! Maybe it's the way Thunderbird is displaying it, but I have five distinct, top-level threads in my gentoo-dev folder for this discussion. I think we left "general" back there after we broke through the plaid barrier. That said, I don't really think there are any pros or cons of split or merged. Largely, what's being discussed is the after-effects of what once was a common approach to filesystem layout. Myself, I only went the split-usr route because of habit, itself which started because when I set up my first Gentoo system. I studied both the then-Gentoo Security and Debian Security manuals, which indicated a split-/usr layout had certain advantages in that you could limit capabilities via mount options. Mainly, /usr didn't need devices, so "nodev" was common there. Along with /var having "noexec" and "nodev". I've pretty much stuck to that layout approach since then out of habit. Certainly, I've got a few VMs where I have just /, /boot, and /tmp as my only partitions, and there's no real noticeable difference except what's in /etc/fstab. --- I think where the problem ultimately arises is a subtle conflict between filesystem semantics and system-design philosophy against the Linux kernel's device architecture and management. It's long regarded that /bin and /sbin contain system-level binaries, and /usr/bin and /usr/sbin being for almost everything else. A.k.a., a two-level binary installation hierarchy (and the BSD's extend this with a third level under /usr/local). >From the kernel angle, you have a monolithic kernel design where device drivers run in kernel space most of the time. This worked okay with traditional, static devices that didn't change a whole lot and whose resources could be determined at boot-time, before userspace is brought up. But once the Linux ecosystem needed devices that can come online from userspace or need their resource determination to be dynamic (e.g., for hotplugging), we went to the approach that the kernel needs to get out of managing devices altogether, and thus came up with udev for device management from userspace. Since udev is supposed to run from userspace, but kinda needs to interface with the kernel a lot, the split between what's system-specific and what's not clashes with the two-level file system layout. This wasn't anything new...this conflict has existed elsewhere for a long time (namely in X11), but it came to a head when udev maintainers (and later, systemd maintainers) questioned the approach, and largely decided it wasn't worth it, and a merged filesystem, with /usr not separate, was simpler and more elegant. --- But really, does it matter where the binaries all live? It's just a design decision. Every OS had a different approach, such as NetWare running virtually everything out of SYS:SYSTEM, and Windows out of C:\WINDOWS. Heck, for the longest time, you could *not* install Windows on anything other than the first partition of the first drive, because software literally hardcoded filespec strings as "C:\WINDOWS\...". And even why C:, the third letter of the alphabet, for the first fixed disk? Because A: and B: were reserved for systems that needed two floppy drives. Yay MS-DOS! If it were possible to give every binary and file out there a unique name, you wouldn't even need directories. You could have a totally-flat namespace with all files of any kind under /, and let security models handle who sees/accesses what. But in that setup, would you even need "/"? > Almost every big change that has become popular in Gentoo just started > out as another alternative, and support grew organically. I don't > really see the need to
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Fri, Apr 08, 2016 at 09:18:37PM -0400, waltd...@waltdnes.org wrote: > On Fri, Apr 08, 2016 at 04:30:04PM -0400, Rich Freeman wrote > > Half the reason we don't officially support running without /usr > > mounted during early boot is that if we actually put everything in / > > that could conceivably be needed during early boot we'd end up with > > everything there. Bluetooth keyboards is a common example. The > > console should work during early boot, right? > Seriously... how many people run Bluetooth keyboards on Gentoo anyways? I had a BT keyboard on my last Gentoo-based mediacentre box so that I could sit on the couch and still use it... -- Robin Hugh Johnson Gentoo Linux: Developer, Infrastructure Lead, Foundation Trustee E-Mail : robb...@gentoo.org GnuPG FP : 11ACBA4F 4778E3F6 E4EDF38E B27B944E 34884E85
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On 4/10/16 8:14 AM, Rich Freeman wrote: > > Honestly, I'm still not quite sure why we're even having this > discussion. I don't think anybody actually intends to make any > changes at all. If they do, they should issue some kind of plan and > indicate what they're looking for from everybody else. > Because William started this thread, http://www.mail-archive.com/gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org/msg73010.html and because the passive voice in the sentence "I thought that since the usr merge is coming up again" begs the question: Who is bringing it up and why? So ... questioning minds want to know. -- Anthony G. Basile, Ph.D. Gentoo Linux Developer [Hardened] E-Mail: bluen...@gentoo.org GnuPG FP : 1FED FAD9 D82C 52A5 3BAB DC79 9384 FA6E F52D 4BBA GnuPG ID : F52D4BBA
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On 4/10/16 7:55 AM, Joshua Kinard wrote: > On 04/04/2016 21:19, William Hubbs wrote: >> All, >> >> I thought that since the usr merge is coming up again, and since I lost >> track of the message where it was brought up, I would open a >> new thread to discuss it. Why is this coming up? What problem(s) are we trying to solve with the usr merge. I'm still not clear on this. @William can you please answer this? >> >> When it came up before, some were saying that the /usr merge violates >> the fhs. I don't remember the specifics of what the claim was at the >> time, (I'm sure someone will point it out if it is still a concern). >> >> I don't think creating usr merged stages would be that difficult. I >> think it would just be a matter of creating a new version of baselayout >> that puts these symlinks in place: If you give me a prototype baselayout (or I can write one myself but I'd rather see what you have in mind) I could test some catalyst runs and see. I could put these on the /experimental for others to look at. >> >> /bin->usr/bin >> /lib->usr/lib >> /lib32->usr/lib32 >> /lib64->usr/lib64 >> /sbin->usr/bin >> /usr/sbin->bin >> >> Once that is in place in a new baselayout, I think portage's colission >> detection would be able to catch files that had the same names and were >> originally in different paths when building the new stages. >> >> I put some thought also in how to nigrate live systems, and I'm not sure >> what the best way to do that is. I wrote a script, which would do it in >> theory, but I haven't tested because I only have one system and if >> it breaks it the only way back would be to reinstall. >> >> The script is attached. >> >> >> Thoughts on any of this? >> >> William > > I looked at Thunderbird, at my folder labeled "gentoo-dev", and it had "666" > unread messages. I should've done the smart thing and closed my mail program. > But n, I had to look inside the folder. I am now regretting this > decision. Did you round off to the nearest evil? > > *sigh*, I can see the thread has gone clongie 'round the blonger, so all I'll > have to say is we should still try to maintain the choice for users. But, in > order to evaluate what amount of effort is needed to maintain that choice, we > need to know what packages break on such a setup, what the level of effort > needed to fix them is, and do those fixes impact the non-split crowd. I tested and it will affect systems using RBAC. So if we force people to migrate, then users of hardened-sources using RBAC will have to update their policy file. To be clear, I'm not against moving forwards with this, but we can't these people hanging because hardened-sources+RBAC is one reason people in the industry consider gentoo at all. I'm willing to help with backwards compat. > > Create like, a table on the Wiki or some kind of metadata property per-package > that can contain a boolean or tri-state flag indicating whether it works or > doesn't work (or kinda works) on split-usr. Or a tracker on Bugzie. > Something. +1 > > Once we know this, then we can work out what's the minimum system that can be > successfully run on split-usr. Then, knowing *that*, we can see if that > system > can be supported by our @system target or some minimal subset of @world. As > new package versions come out of upstream, we update this metadata with > changes > to the split-usr status, and this then provides a history of the more or less > amount of difficulty needed to maintain support for split-usr, and *then*, we > can make an objective decision to continue supporting or not supporting the > capability. > > As for me, I am flat out ruling out a full-reinstall of all my systems. I > have > fixed disk partition layouts on all of them that cannot be re-arranged unless > I > tar up each filesystem and temporarily move it off, then rebuild the MD-RAID > and reformat the filesystems. I am simply not going to do that on my many SGI > systems, and whatever facet of upstream, whether it's some core GNU package or > RH itself, can go pound sand for all I care. I'll go back to a static /dev > and > I'll manually mknod any missing devices if I have to. Not just you, but many sys admins out there in the real world are in similar situation. Again we can move forward on this but not without backwards compat planning. > > You know it's getting ridiculous when you can maintain a Windows/NTFS > partition > layout easier than a Linux one. > Has it come to that? -- Anthony G. Basile, Ph.D. Gentoo Linux Developer [Hardened] E-Mail: bluen...@gentoo.org GnuPG FP : 1FED FAD9 D82C 52A5 3BAB DC79 9384 FA6E F52D 4BBA GnuPG ID : F52D4BBA
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Sun, Apr 10, 2016 at 7:55 AM, Joshua Kinard wrote: > > Create like, a table on the Wiki or some kind of metadata property per-package > that can contain a boolean or tri-state flag indicating whether it works or > doesn't work (or kinda works) on split-usr. Or a tracker on Bugzie. > Something. > I'm sure there will be a tracker for packages that don't work on a merged /usr. (We are already on a split /usr.) Honestly, I'm still not quite sure why we're even having this discussion. I don't think anybody actually intends to make any changes at all. If they do, they should issue some kind of plan and indicate what they're looking for from everybody else. Such as: "Hello, I help maintain baselayout and I intend to change /(s)lib and /(s)bin and /usr/sbin into symlinks to /usr/bin and move all the files into those directories there. To test this out now please do xyz, and report any bugs against tracker #123456." Or: "Hello, I help maintain baselayout and I just introduced a new USE flag which does ... I think it is something you should try out. Bugs can be reported at..." Or: "Hello, I think the baselayout maintainers are idiots and I just introduced librelayout which does ... You should definitely switch because only losers run with a split /usr. Bugs can be reported at... Oh, and my fancy librelayout doesn't need gen_usr_ldscript so I select_one_of('won't lift a finger to keep it working', 'will just laugh at the folks who are wasting their time keeping it working')." It seems to me that we're just having a general discussion about the pros/cons of a /usr merge. That is nice, but people are getting worked up because they think that somehow whoever "loses" this "discussion" will get something shoved down their throats or won't be able to have something nice. Almost every big change that has become popular in Gentoo just started out as another alternative, and support grew organically. I don't really see the need to reach some kind of consensus here. I'd love to have an option of a /usr merge and a migration path. I'd love to see it as the default, but that is a different discussion, and if it is optional then it is also a less contentious discussion whichever way it goes. -- Rich
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On 04/04/2016 21:19, William Hubbs wrote: > All, > > I thought that since the usr merge is coming up again, and since I lost > track of the message where it was brought up, I would open a > new thread to discuss it. > > When it came up before, some were saying that the /usr merge violates > the fhs. I don't remember the specifics of what the claim was at the > time, (I'm sure someone will point it out if it is still a concern). > > I don't think creating usr merged stages would be that difficult. I > think it would just be a matter of creating a new version of baselayout > that puts these symlinks in place: > > /bin->usr/bin > /lib->usr/lib > /lib32->usr/lib32 > /lib64->usr/lib64 > /sbin->usr/bin > /usr/sbin->bin > > Once that is in place in a new baselayout, I think portage's colission > detection would be able to catch files that had the same names and were > originally in different paths when building the new stages. > > I put some thought also in how to nigrate live systems, and I'm not sure > what the best way to do that is. I wrote a script, which would do it in > theory, but I haven't tested because I only have one system and if > it breaks it the only way back would be to reinstall. > > The script is attached. > > > Thoughts on any of this? > > William I looked at Thunderbird, at my folder labeled "gentoo-dev", and it had "666" unread messages. I should've done the smart thing and closed my mail program. But n, I had to look inside the folder. I am now regretting this decision. *sigh*, I can see the thread has gone clongie 'round the blonger, so all I'll have to say is we should still try to maintain the choice for users. But, in order to evaluate what amount of effort is needed to maintain that choice, we need to know what packages break on such a setup, what the level of effort needed to fix them is, and do those fixes impact the non-split crowd. Create like, a table on the Wiki or some kind of metadata property per-package that can contain a boolean or tri-state flag indicating whether it works or doesn't work (or kinda works) on split-usr. Or a tracker on Bugzie. Something. Once we know this, then we can work out what's the minimum system that can be successfully run on split-usr. Then, knowing *that*, we can see if that system can be supported by our @system target or some minimal subset of @world. As new package versions come out of upstream, we update this metadata with changes to the split-usr status, and this then provides a history of the more or less amount of difficulty needed to maintain support for split-usr, and *then*, we can make an objective decision to continue supporting or not supporting the capability. As for me, I am flat out ruling out a full-reinstall of all my systems. I have fixed disk partition layouts on all of them that cannot be re-arranged unless I tar up each filesystem and temporarily move it off, then rebuild the MD-RAID and reformat the filesystems. I am simply not going to do that on my many SGI systems, and whatever facet of upstream, whether it's some core GNU package or RH itself, can go pound sand for all I care. I'll go back to a static /dev and I'll manually mknod any missing devices if I have to. You know it's getting ridiculous when you can maintain a Windows/NTFS partition layout easier than a Linux one. -- Joshua Kinard Gentoo/MIPS ku...@gentoo.org 6144R/F5C6C943 2015-04-27 177C 1972 1FB8 F254 BAD0 3E72 5C63 F4E3 F5C6 C943 "The past tempts us, the present confuses us, the future frightens us. And our lives slip away, moment by moment, lost in that vast, terrible in-between." --Emperor Turhan, Centauri Republic
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Sun, 10 Apr 2016 02:09:35 +0200 "J. Roeleveld" wrote: > I actually write my own initramfs because neither dracut not > genkernel end up with a convenient boot system. > > I have 2 disks, both encrypted. > I prefer only to enter the decryption password once. Both Dracut and > Genkernel insist on asking for the password/key for every single disk. Dracut on RHEL actually handles this out of the box. Might be worth finding out how. -- James Le Cuirot (chewi) Gentoo Linux Developer pgpwkCLInTFjv.pgp Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Saturday, April 09, 2016 09:07:46 PM Rich Freeman wrote: > On Sat, Apr 9, 2016 at 8:09 PM, J. Roeleveld wrote: > > I actually write my own initramfs because neither dracut not genkernel end > > up with a convenient boot system. > > > > I have 2 disks, both encrypted. > > I prefer only to enter the decryption password once. Both Dracut and > > Genkernel insist on asking for the password/key for every single disk. > > You can of course roll your own, but I imagine that it would be more > straightforward to just write your own dracut plugin. They're > basically just scripts that run at whatever boot stage you define. > You might also just be able to modify the existing plugin. Possibly, but that will take longer than it took to create my own. The config-file is 181 lines. Mostly copied from an example. The init-file is 45 lines. And it can be easily maintained. -- Joost
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On 10/04/16 04:49, Rich Freeman wrote: > 1. As you point out, its not a package. That means it works > differently than everything else, and it can't be used as a > dependency/etc. > 2. Genkernel's initramfs isn't all that great. Don't get me wrong - > it was very good back when it was new. However, I find it hard to > compare it to the likes of dracut. > > However, if it were all that serious of an issue somebody would have > fixed it by now. Manually building a kernel and using dracut is easy > enough, and of course some prefer to not use an initramfs if their > configuration allows it. > I haven't dared explore dracut because last I heard it was still experimental. That people are actively using it (presumably in production and not just experimental/development suggests at the very least that the appropriate Gentoo wiki article needs updating (no surprise there!). Perhaps indeed genkernel needs some updating. When I last looked at the best means of creating an initramfs, it was the least of the evils, but there did seem a genuine lack of tools to accomplish it, which is where I assume dracut came about. Fundamentally, acknowledging a tangent of the original thread, I'd say the jury remains out on whether Gentoo should be forcing the need of an initramfs/rd on its users by default anyway. That kind of thing, however, is of course, subject to a Council ruling if appropriate :) . signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Sat, Apr 9, 2016 at 11:28 PM, M. J. Everitt wrote: > Ok I'm gonna push the Big Red Button here, and assume you may not have > met 'genkernel' .. Genkernel has been around for a LONG time. I'm well aware of it. > ok its not a package, but its the nearest thing to > Gentoo's solution to what you're suggesting ... And it's in the Handbook > .. so, where's the issue, again?! 1. As you point out, its not a package. That means it works differently than everything else, and it can't be used as a dependency/etc. 2. Genkernel's initramfs isn't all that great. Don't get me wrong - it was very good back when it was new. However, I find it hard to compare it to the likes of dracut. However, if it were all that serious of an issue somebody would have fixed it by now. Manually building a kernel and using dracut is easy enough, and of course some prefer to not use an initramfs if their configuration allows it. -- Rich
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On 10/04/16 04:08, Rich Freeman wrote: > I think the bigger issue with the kernel is the huge configuration > space it has. Chromium may have a ton of USE flags compared to most > packages, but those pale in comparison to the kernel. Obviously it > would not make sense to try to create a USE flag for every > configuration option. Now, a package that built and installed a > kernel might have a few USE flags. For example, it might have flags > equivalent to the gentoo config add-ons (for openrc/systemd, and so > on). It might also have flags that give it some default > configuration, or an all-modules configuration, or an all-builtin > configuration. I imagine that most distros ship something close to an > all-modules config. > > In any case, that isn't really any kind of policy issue. For whatever > reason nobody has bothered to create a package. Certainly nobody > would object to somebody adding a new kernel package that builds and > installs a fully configured kernel. It might even become the > recommended default in the kernel (without getting rid of the other > options). > Ok I'm gonna push the Big Red Button here, and assume you may not have met 'genkernel' .. ok its not a package, but its the nearest thing to Gentoo's solution to what you're suggesting ... And it's in the Handbook .. so, where's the issue, again?! signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Sat, Apr 9, 2016 at 10:17 PM, M. J. Everitt wrote: > I take your point, but I would argue that the kernel and boot subsystem > really are special cases .. you don't go hacking around the chromium > sources to fundamentally alter the way/order it works, right?! Likewise, > if you don't like chromium, you might install firefox .. cf. say, Lilo > and grub. It is the flexibility (and, I concede, the complexity, and > hence 'power') that defines Gentoo here. > I think the bigger issue with the kernel is the huge configuration space it has. Chromium may have a ton of USE flags compared to most packages, but those pale in comparison to the kernel. Obviously it would not make sense to try to create a USE flag for every configuration option. Now, a package that built and installed a kernel might have a few USE flags. For example, it might have flags equivalent to the gentoo config add-ons (for openrc/systemd, and so on). It might also have flags that give it some default configuration, or an all-modules configuration, or an all-builtin configuration. I imagine that most distros ship something close to an all-modules config. In any case, that isn't really any kind of policy issue. For whatever reason nobody has bothered to create a package. Certainly nobody would object to somebody adding a new kernel package that builds and installs a fully configured kernel. It might even become the recommended default in the kernel (without getting rid of the other options). -- Rich
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On 10/04/16 03:06, Rich Freeman wrote: > > By that argument, when you run emerge chromium shouldn't it just dump > the chromium sources in /usr/src, so that you can build and install > your own chromium? > > The whole point of a source-based package manager is that it actually > BUILDs the packages. Why do we treat the kernel differently from > every single other package? > > I get that users often want to build their own, and that is fine. We > SHOULD have a package that dumps sources in /usr/src (though to be > honest I prefer to just fetch mine using git). However, why shouldn't > emerge virtual/kernel not just give you a /boot/vmlinux-x.y.z the same > way that emerge vim gives you a /usr/bin/vim? > I take your point, but I would argue that the kernel and boot subsystem really are special cases .. you don't go hacking around the chromium sources to fundamentally alter the way/order it works, right?! Likewise, if you don't like chromium, you might install firefox .. cf. say, Lilo and grub. It is the flexibility (and, I concede, the complexity, and hence 'power') that defines Gentoo here. This also applies to the whole /usr debate .. and yes, I agree there are caveats with both our existing setup and many of the others discussed on this thread. I think there is a debate to be had, and whilst it has born the inevitable bike-shedding, I think there could be some merit in a 'flattened' system. I suppose the natural follow-on question from this, is "how best to achieve it?". signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Sat, Apr 9, 2016 at 9:35 PM, M. J. Everitt wrote: > I think that is the potential for a stage4-style install. I think > previous list discussions have maintained that the flexibility of gentoo > is maintained by having a very basic install image, and a stage3 to > bootstrap into, and have the user compile their own kernel. > > Otherwise, go install debian/ubuntu/choose-your-own-ready-boxed-linux > ... gentoo isn't that kinda distro. Imho. By that argument, when you run emerge chromium shouldn't it just dump the chromium sources in /usr/src, so that you can build and install your own chromium? The whole point of a source-based package manager is that it actually BUILDs the packages. Why do we treat the kernel differently from every single other package? I get that users often want to build their own, and that is fine. We SHOULD have a package that dumps sources in /usr/src (though to be honest I prefer to just fetch mine using git). However, why shouldn't emerge virtual/kernel not just give you a /boot/vmlinux-x.y.z the same way that emerge vim gives you a /usr/bin/vim? -- Rich
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On 10/04/16 02:14, Rich Freeman wrote: > Part of me also wonders if Gentoo would be better off having emerge > gentoo-sources actually BUILD the kernel and initramfs and not just > dump a bunch of sources on the disk. Most distros consider an > initramfs a no-brainer because it just ships already setup, and an > initramfs is a lot more forgiving when you add a new drive and your > firmware/kernel decides to re-number everything. Just label your > filesystems or store UUIDs and the initramfs will figure out what > happened. > I think that is the potential for a stage4-style install. I think previous list discussions have maintained that the flexibility of gentoo is maintained by having a very basic install image, and a stage3 to bootstrap into, and have the user compile their own kernel. Otherwise, go install debian/ubuntu/choose-your-own-ready-boxed-linux ... gentoo isn't that kinda distro. Imho. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Sat, Apr 9, 2016 at 8:37 PM, M. J. Everitt wrote: > I may have contributed to the latter point, but addressing the former > specifically, I, like others, have /usr mounted on an NFS server for > thin clients (not in the full-true sense, but with a very minimal / > currently residing on USB). > What you propose moving binaries from / to /usr would render them > completely unbootable without early mounting via initramfs. I believe dracut will auto-mount /usr. As long as your fstab is accurate (double-check - sometimes people don't have correct settings for root since without something like dracut the root filesystem isn't mounted according to fstab), I suspect it will just NFS-mount your /usr before pivoting. If not you can probably use the fstab-user module to force it to mount (you stick a second dracut-specific fstab file in /etc and it will mount everything it finds in there whether it thinks it needs it or not). I'd start with the auto-magic detection since it tends to work. Dracut needs a root= setting on the kernel command line to get it started, but once it finds that it tends to figure out how to get it mounted read-only, then it looks inside for an /etc/fstab to figure out the rest. When you build the initramfs dracut will also copy files like mdadm.conf into the initramfs automatically. You can also configure it to load extra stuff in there (my initramfs doubles as a rescue image, so I stick a few convenience things in there that strictly aren't needed, like btrfstune and a full bash instead of just dash). Part of me also wonders if Gentoo would be better off having emerge gentoo-sources actually BUILD the kernel and initramfs and not just dump a bunch of sources on the disk. Most distros consider an initramfs a no-brainer because it just ships already setup, and an initramfs is a lot more forgiving when you add a new drive and your firmware/kernel decides to re-number everything. Just label your filesystems or store UUIDs and the initramfs will figure out what happened. -- Rich
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Sat, Apr 9, 2016 at 8:09 PM, J. Roeleveld wrote: > > I actually write my own initramfs because neither dracut not genkernel end up > with a convenient boot system. > > I have 2 disks, both encrypted. > I prefer only to enter the decryption password once. Both Dracut and Genkernel > insist on asking for the password/key for every single disk. > You can of course roll your own, but I imagine that it would be more straightforward to just write your own dracut plugin. They're basically just scripts that run at whatever boot stage you define. You might also just be able to modify the existing plugin. -- Rich
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Sat, Apr 9, 2016 at 5:50 PM, Philip Webb wrote: > 160409 Canek Peláez Valdés wrote: > > On Sat, Apr 9, 2016 at 2:49 PM, Philip Webb > wrote: > >> I've always used Lilo, which is simple + reliable : > >> I never see questions re it here, but there are many re Grub. > >> I do use recent hardware, a cutting-edge machine I built 6 mth ago . > >> When setting it up, I suppressed UEFI in the BIOS settings : > >> isn't that what anyone not running M$ would do ? > > I just disabled secure boot, although it's possible to use it with Linux. > > However, it would require to manually sign everything from boot loader > > to kernel modules, since Gentoo has no infrastructure to do that. > > I don't "supress" UEFI, since it's *obviously* so much better than BIOS > > and since bootctl (the program formerly known as gummiboot) > > it's incredible easy to use. You don't even notice it's there. > > Sorry, I meant "suppress secure boot". My mobo doesn't have UEFI. If you have "secure boot", you have UEFI. You can't have it without.
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On 10/04/16 00:53, William Hubbs wrote: > > The original discussion was about the usr merge [1], which is taking the > binary parts of / and putting them in /usr, then inserting symlinks in / > to preserve backward compatibility. Yes, I'm pointing to a document on > fdo, but the systemd guys have nothing to do with the /usr merge; it > originally happened in Solaris. > > I never supported the reverse merge that has been discussed, it was just > brought up I guess as an example of a Gentoo user being able to do his > own setup. Reverse merge meaning moving everything from /usr to /. > I may have contributed to the latter point, but addressing the former specifically, I, like others, have /usr mounted on an NFS server for thin clients (not in the full-true sense, but with a very minimal / currently residing on USB). What you propose moving binaries from / to /usr would render them completely unbootable without early mounting via initramfs. Granted, what I have now is rather a bodge, but it's working fine, and provided I am meticulous about any rare changes from the host build system to /, this is a small problem in the grander scheme of things, and I have one maintained 'install' on my build system. Ok, so a full thin-client would probably be a better* option, but I'm running with what I got, rather than investing a lot (of/more) time/energy in getting that solution working, which failed on (several) previous attempts (hence *). signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Saturday, April 09, 2016 05:15:08 PM James Le Cuirot wrote: > On Sat, 9 Apr 2016 12:09:38 -0400 > > waltd...@waltdnes.org wrote: > > > I never really got the mentality that using an initramfs is a > > > burden. > > > > > One more piece of software that can go wrong. You have to > > > > maintain+configure it; e.g. sync software and library versions with > > what's on the rest of the system. > > Errm, have you ever actually used dracut? > > dracut --kver 4.5 > > Wow, that was hard! It requires zero configuration and that's true even > if you've got LVM on top of LUKS on top of RAID or something equally > complex. If you're already running that kernel version, you don't even > need to specify it. I actually write my own initramfs because neither dracut not genkernel end up with a convenient boot system. I have 2 disks, both encrypted. I prefer only to enter the decryption password once. Both Dracut and Genkernel insist on asking for the password/key for every single disk. The ONLY reason why I feel an initramfs is warranted is because of the encryption. Without that, it should not be necessary. -- Joost signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
Hi Philip, On Sat, Apr 09, 2016 at 06:50:49PM -0400, Philip Webb wrote: > Can you or anyone else answer my other question re the origin of the thread ? > -- ie is this a revival of not putting /usr on its own partition > or is it a new proposal to alter the file system in some other way ? The original discussion was about the usr merge [1], which is taking the binary parts of / and putting them in /usr, then inserting symlinks in / to preserve backward compatibility. Yes, I'm pointing to a document on fdo, but the systemd guys have nothing to do with the /usr merge; it originally happened in Solaris. I never supported the reverse merge that has been discussed, it was just brought up I guess as an example of a Gentoo user being able to do his own setup. Reverse merge meaning moving everything from /usr to /. The thread has definitely gotten more out of hand than I anticipated. It is very hard at this point to separate the pros/cons, bikeshedding and personal preferences. That's why I requested that someone assist with a summary. :-) William https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/TheCaseForTheUsrMerge/ signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On 09/04/16 23:50, Philip Webb wrote: > 160409 Canek Peláez Valdés wrote: >> On Sat, Apr 9, 2016 at 2:49 PM, Philip Webb wrote: >>> I've always used Lilo, which is simple + reliable : >>> I never see questions re it here, but there are many re Grub. >>> I do use recent hardware, a cutting-edge machine I built 6 mth ago . >>> When setting it up, I suppressed UEFI in the BIOS settings : >>> isn't that what anyone not running M$ would do ? >> I just disabled secure boot, although it's possible to use it with Linux. >> However, it would require to manually sign everything from boot loader >> to kernel modules, since Gentoo has no infrastructure to do that. >> I don't "supress" UEFI, since it's *obviously* so much better than BIOS >> and since bootctl (the program formerly known as gummiboot) >> it's incredible easy to use. You don't even notice it's there. > Sorry, I meant "suppress secure boot". My mobo doesn't have UEFI. > >> I believe there are motherboards where you don't have the option >> to "supress" UEFI, since they simply don't have BIOS anymore. >> Seriously, UEFI is s much better. > Thanks for the enlightment (smile). > > Can you or anyone else answer my other question re the origin of the thread ? > -- ie is this a revival of not putting /usr on its own partition > or is it a new proposal to alter the file system in some other way ? > Philip, the discussion was prompted from this original message by WilliamH: https://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-dev/message/df3c1494ea49191d4e3d442e37eb8ca2 Basically there is a desire to either (1) move /bin, /sbin to /usr/bin, /usr/sbin or (2) the reverse (ie. eliminate /usr) for a variety of reasons, but predominately to offer "more users more choice", and uphold the principle of Gentoo being a distro of flexibility. Whilst there is some good pros/cons being aired, there is also the usual amount of gentoo bike-shedding, and personal preference distorting the discussion :) . signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
160409 Canek Peláez Valdés wrote: > On Sat, Apr 9, 2016 at 2:49 PM, Philip Webb wrote: >> I've always used Lilo, which is simple + reliable : >> I never see questions re it here, but there are many re Grub. >> I do use recent hardware, a cutting-edge machine I built 6 mth ago . >> When setting it up, I suppressed UEFI in the BIOS settings : >> isn't that what anyone not running M$ would do ? > I just disabled secure boot, although it's possible to use it with Linux. > However, it would require to manually sign everything from boot loader > to kernel modules, since Gentoo has no infrastructure to do that. > I don't "supress" UEFI, since it's *obviously* so much better than BIOS > and since bootctl (the program formerly known as gummiboot) > it's incredible easy to use. You don't even notice it's there. Sorry, I meant "suppress secure boot". My mobo doesn't have UEFI. > I believe there are motherboards where you don't have the option > to "supress" UEFI, since they simply don't have BIOS anymore. > Seriously, UEFI is s much better. Thanks for the enlightment (smile). Can you or anyone else answer my other question re the origin of the thread ? -- ie is this a revival of not putting /usr on its own partition or is it a new proposal to alter the file system in some other way ? -- ,, SUPPORT ___//___, Philip Webb ELECTRIC /] [] [] [] [] []| Cities Centre, University of Toronto TRANSIT`-O--O---' purslowatchassdotutorontodotca
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Sat, Apr 9, 2016 at 2:49 PM, Philip Webb wrote: > 160409 Canek Peláez Valdés wrote: >> You use LILO : that means, you don't use UEFI : >> that means, almost certainly, you don't use recent hardware. > > I've always used Lilo, which is simple + reliable : > I never see questions re it here, but there are many re Grub. > I do use recent hardware, a cutting-edge machine I built 6 mth ago . > When setting it up, I suppressed UEFI in the BIOS settings : > isn't that what anyone not running M$ would do ? I just disabled secure boot, although it's possible to use it with Linux. However it would require to manually sign everything from boot loader to kernel modules, since Gentoo has no infrastructure to do that. Maybe a future project. I don't "supress" UEFI, since it's *obviously* so much better than BIOS, and since bootctl (the program formerly known as gummiboot) it's incredible easy to use. You don't even notice it's there. Also, I'm not sure, but I believe there are motherboards where you don't have the option to "supress" UEFI, since they simply don't have BIOS anymore. I could be wrong; but even if that's the case, I'm pretty sure in the future BIOS will get relegated to a niche market, if it doesn't completely disappear. Seriously, UEFI is s much better. Regards. -- Dr. Canek Peláez Valdés Profesor de Carrera Asociado C Departamento de Matemáticas Facultad de Ciencias Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On 09/04/16 20:53, Rich Freeman wrote: > On Sat, Apr 9, 2016 at 3:49 PM, Philip Webb wrote: >> I've always used Lilo, which is simple + reliable : >> I never see questions re it here, but there are many re Grub. >> I do use recent hardware, a cutting-edge machine I built 6 mth ago . >> When setting it up, I suppressed UEFI in the BIOS settings : >> isn't that what anyone not running M$ would do ? > That depends on how much you care about rootkits... :) > Rootkits in linux ... why?! signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Sat, Apr 9, 2016 at 3:49 PM, Philip Webb wrote: > I've always used Lilo, which is simple + reliable : > I never see questions re it here, but there are many re Grub. > I do use recent hardware, a cutting-edge machine I built 6 mth ago . > When setting it up, I suppressed UEFI in the BIOS settings : > isn't that what anyone not running M$ would do ? That depends on how much you care about rootkits... :) -- Rich
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
160409 Canek Peláez Valdés wrote: > You use LILO : that means, you don't use UEFI : > that means, almost certainly, you don't use recent hardware. I've always used Lilo, which is simple + reliable : I never see questions re it here, but there are many re Grub. I do use recent hardware, a cutting-edge machine I built 6 mth ago . When setting it up, I suppressed UEFI in the BIOS settings : isn't that what anyone not running M$ would do ? > Gentoo devs only are saying that if by having separated /usr > without an initramfs, you risk screwing your system. I haven't been reading this long thread -- merely skimming some of it -- , & I missed or didn't understand what is being proposed or imposed. There was an issue earlier re not having /use on a separate partition & both my machines have it on the same partition as / . Is this thread re that earlier matter or is it a new item ? -- ,, SUPPORT ___//___, Philip Webb ELECTRIC /] [] [] [] [] []| Cities Centre, University of Toronto TRANSIT`-O--O---' purslowatchassdotutorontodotca
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Sat, Apr 9, 2016 at 11:09 AM, wrote: > On Sat, Apr 09, 2016 at 07:11:31AM -0400, Rich Freeman wrote > >> It was simply a recognition that we were already in a state where >> booting a system without /usr mounted early can cause problems. > > For certain edge cases... yes. Edge cases? According to whom? > But they were already using initramfs > or merging /usr into /. I'm talking about the 95% who don't really need > it. Do you have *ANY* source for that 95%? > >> I never really got the mentality that using an initramfs is a burden. > > One more piece of software that can go wrong. You have to > maintain+configure it; e.g. sync software and library versions with > what's on the rest of the system. Everything can go wrong; an initramfs is actually a really easy piece of software to automatize and debug if it goes wrong. >> An initramfs is just a secondary bootloader for userspace. I almost >> always use them even if I'm just booting a VM with a single partition >> on it. If something goes wrong you can fall back to a shell in the >> initramfs and it is like having a rescue disk built into your system >> disk. > > There is single-user mode for rescue. Which could fail if, for some reason, you need *something* from /usr and it hasn't been mounted. And *something* is becoming *anything*, whether you like it or not. >> For a more complex setup it is much more robust than relying on >> the kernel to find your root, and it also lets you build with a more >> module-based kernel, which has some benefits as well even if you build >> kernels tailored to each host. > > I have "Production" and "Experimental" entries in my LILO menu. A new > kernel is always set up as the "Experimental" entry. After running > several days without problems, I run a script which copies the data from > the "Experimental" portion to "Production". You use LILO. That means, you don't use UEFI. That means, almost certainly you don't use recent hardware. Walter, *YOU* are the 5% edge case. Many people are running UEFI only hardware, and the number will only increase, since BIOS *is* dead. > The only time my system had problems "finding root" was years ago when > the switch from /dev/hd* to /dev/sd* took place. The "Experimental" > boot with the new kernel died. I booted "Production", read the mailing > list, changed "hd" to "sd" for the "Experimental" entry, and rebooted. > After several days without problems, I made the same change to the > "Production" entry, and copied the "Experimental" portion to > "Production". That was the only time *FOR YOU*. But, as I stated above, you are the 5% edge case; the Gentoo devs need to think about the general case, starting with their own systems so they can do their jobs. I bet most of them are on UEFI. Nobody anywhere is telling you what to do with your systems (nor would they in the future). The Gentoo devs only are saying that if by having separated /usr without an initramfs, you risk screwing your system, and if that happens, you are on you own. Regards. -- Dr. Canek Peláez Valdés Profesor de Carrera Asociado C Departamento de Matemáticas Facultad de Ciencias Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Sat, Apr 09, 2016 at 07:11:31AM -0400, Rich Freeman wrote > > An initramfs is just a secondary bootloader for userspace. I almost > always use them even if I'm just booting a VM with a single partition > on it. If something goes wrong you can fall back to a shell in the > initramfs and it is like having a rescue disk built into your system > disk. For a more complex setup it is much more robust than relying on > the kernel to find your root, and it also lets you build with a more > module-based kernel, which has some benefits as well even if you build > kernels tailored to each host. Another point that just occurred to me... - get a machine with 128 gigs of RAM - put *ALL* software on the initramfs - when initramfs comes up, it won't have to hand off control to the "real init", because everything will be running off initramfs. A hard drive will only be used for storing data, and config files. What worries me is a future where only initramfs images will boot on UEFI machines. Make that *SIGNED* initramfs images. I'm sure Microsoft would love that. initramfs images with annual licence fees, hard-coded telemetry to the mothership, and forced "upgrades" every so often. -- Walter Dnes I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
James Le Cuirot wrote: > On Sat, 9 Apr 2016 12:09:38 -0400 > waltd...@waltdnes.org wrote: > >>> I never really got the mentality that using an initramfs is a >>> burden. >> One more piece of software that can go wrong. You have to >> maintain+configure it; e.g. sync software and library versions with >> what's on the rest of the system. > Errm, have you ever actually used dracut? > > dracut --kver 4.5 > > Wow, that was hard! It requires zero configuration and that's true even > if you've got LVM on top of LUKS on top of RAID or something equally > complex. If you're already running that kernel version, you don't even > need to specify it. > FYI. I've had those to fail too. As Walt said, just one more thing to fail. Dale :-) :-)
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
Le 09/04/16 à 17:15, James Le Cuirot a tapoté : > Errm, have you ever actually used dracut? > > dracut --kver 4.5 > > Wow, that was hard! It requires zero configuration [...] Sorry. Not true. > $ emerge -pv dracut > > [...] > > The following keyword changes are necessary to proceed: > (see "package.accept_keywords" in the portage(5) man page for more > details) # required by dracut (argument) > =sys-kernel/dracut-044 ~amd64
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Saturday, April 9, 2016 5:11:30 PM CEST, William Hubbs wrote: ... if we don't make it optional we're going to cause some serious headaches for people who are invested in the current status quo. ... gen_usr_ldscript is only needed if you are using separate /usr without an initramfs. This is unsupported and orthogonal to the usr merge. just one addition: for having self-contained / with /usr on another partition, you just need to move libfoo.so* to /lib; the ldscript is only useful because the linker searches /usr/lib first then /lib, and if libfoo.a is in /usr/lib, it picks that one. IOW: gen_usr_ldscript is not needed without static libs, even for the case you describe
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On 17:15 Sat 09 Apr, James Le Cuirot wrote: > On Sat, 9 Apr 2016 12:09:38 -0400 > waltd...@waltdnes.org wrote: > > > > I never really got the mentality that using an initramfs is a > > > burden. > > > > One more piece of software that can go wrong. You have to > > maintain+configure it; e.g. sync software and library versions with > > what's on the rest of the system. > > Errm, have you ever actually used dracut? > > dracut --kver 4.5 > > Wow, that was hard! It requires zero configuration and that's true even > if you've got LVM on top of LUKS on top of RAID or something equally > complex. If you're already running that kernel version, you don't even > need to specify it. In 2014 I switched from dracut to genkernel because after *every* dracut's update I was writing to it's devs about a new shiny bug. Like infinite loops in the pidof() implementation.
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Sat, 9 Apr 2016 12:09:38 -0400 waltd...@waltdnes.org wrote: > > I never really got the mentality that using an initramfs is a > > burden. > > One more piece of software that can go wrong. You have to > maintain+configure it; e.g. sync software and library versions with > what's on the rest of the system. Errm, have you ever actually used dracut? dracut --kver 4.5 Wow, that was hard! It requires zero configuration and that's true even if you've got LVM on top of LUKS on top of RAID or something equally complex. If you're already running that kernel version, you don't even need to specify it. -- James Le Cuirot (chewi) Gentoo Linux Developer pgpyPYehoZmgo.pgp Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Sat, Apr 09, 2016 at 07:11:31AM -0400, Rich Freeman wrote > It was simply a recognition that we were already in a state where > booting a system without /usr mounted early can cause problems. For certain edge cases... yes. But they were already using initramfs or merging /usr into /. I'm talking about the 95% who don't really need it. > I never really got the mentality that using an initramfs is a burden. One more piece of software that can go wrong. You have to maintain+configure it; e.g. sync software and library versions with what's on the rest of the system. > An initramfs is just a secondary bootloader for userspace. I almost > always use them even if I'm just booting a VM with a single partition > on it. If something goes wrong you can fall back to a shell in the > initramfs and it is like having a rescue disk built into your system > disk. There is single-user mode for rescue. > For a more complex setup it is much more robust than relying on > the kernel to find your root, and it also lets you build with a more > module-based kernel, which has some benefits as well even if you build > kernels tailored to each host. I have "Production" and "Experimental" entries in my LILO menu. A new kernel is always set up as the "Experimental" entry. After running several days without problems, I run a script which copies the data from the "Experimental" portion to "Production". The only time my system had problems "finding root" was years ago when the switch from /dev/hd* to /dev/sd* took place. The "Experimental" boot with the new kernel died. I booted "Production", read the mailing list, changed "hd" to "sd" for the "Experimental" entry, and rebooted. After several days without problems, I made the same change to the "Production" entry, and copied the "Experimental" portion to "Production". -- Walter Dnes I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Sat, Apr 09, 2016 at 12:06:47AM -0400, Anthony G. Basile wrote: > On 4/8/16 11:03 PM, Rich Freeman wrote: > > On Fri, Apr 8, 2016 at 9:51 PM, Anthony G. Basile > > wrote: > >> > >> Alternatively, this may introduce problems. So it seems like we're > >> fixing something that isn't broken. > >> > > > > What problems are you anticipating, especially in light of the fact > > that many distros actually do it this way already? > > RBAC policy files for one. You'll probably break every single hardened > gentoo server out there. Tell me more about this; I don't know a lot about what would break. Also, are you sure it would break, or are you just thinking that it would? > scripts and programs that assume different executables with the same > name at different points along the path, eg I know a company where > they've set up an ssh wrapper at /usr/local/bin/ssh which wrap /usr/bin/ssh. This won't break, because /usr/bin/ssh would still exist as it does and /usr/local is not touched. File colissions between the directories that are being merged would definitely be an issue that needs to be worked out before this could happen, and I understand that. I know of at least one, and we would need to find out if there are others. Forgetting about /usr/local since we don't control that, this type of file name collision across the bin directories is not good whether or not you merge /usr. It would cause issues in path name resolution. > security measures where you don't dereference sym links along $PATH > because sym links can be used in various types of exploits. Every amd64 gentoo system already has one of these, the "lib" symlink, both in / and /usr, so if you aren't dereferencing symlinks, aren't you already broken? > > > > I don't really have a problem with making it optional or the default. > > if we don't make it optional we're going to cause some serious headaches > for people who are invested in the current status quo. > > > > > It can also be left up to the maintainers, and of course somebody > > could even fork baselayout/etc if they wish and virtualize it in > > @system. Most things in Gentoo don't actually require a consensus to > > move forward, especially if they aren't defaults. > > if we deprecate the linker scripts in /usr/lib by stubbing out >gen_usr_ldscript, then its not as simple as "maintainer's choice". gen_usr_ldscript is only needed if you are using separate /usr without an initramfs. This is unsupported and orthogonal to the usr merge. > > > > In any case, what is the point of this thread? If somebody wants to > > implement a merged /usr what exactly is stopping them from doing so? > > i'm against something that doesn't maintain backwards compat. If there are ways that merging / into /usr does not maintain backward compatibility, I want to know what they are. This is not directed at anyone specifically, it is just a general comment. I've seen a lot of speculation on this thread about what might break, and a lot of comments about a perceived removal of choice. Can someone help get a summary together? let's get a single message summarizing everything. Thanks, William signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
> On Apr 8, 2016, at 8:42 PM, William Hubbs wrote: > >> On Fri, Apr 08, 2016 at 03:20:24PM -0700, Daniel Campbell wrote: >> Based on what I've read here in the thread, merging /bin and /sbin >> into /usr/{sbin,bin} is a matter of convenience by putting most of the >> static parts of a running system into a single path. As mentioned by >> some people, however, that's not enough to make deployment across >> multiple machines super simple. The distros that focus on that aren't >> rolling release like we are, and thus don't face the same difficulties >> that we do. In addition, Gentoo supports a broad number of choices for >> users and some are advocating for an option. > > It is true that we offer a high degree of choice to users, but one of > those choices is not which paths to install binaries and libraries > into. > Sure we do. Users can do pretty much whatever convoluted file system hierarchy layout they want prior to unpacking the stage3 -- multiple volumes, symlinks or bind-mounts to combine dirs, etc etc. IMO support for this usr-merge should be left to that level of system configuration, as long as portage/other PMs support installing packages in such a way that the contents of /bin and /usr/bin don't collide with each other at merge time. In other words, we should not drop any form of support at all for non-usr-merged systems. Which means all of that ebuild cleanup WilliamH wants to do cannot happen. Which, IMO, makes the whole thing moot.
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On 09/04/16 14:37, Rich Freeman wrote: > I've certainly haven't had many problems with dracut. When it fails > it is usually because I'm doing something ELSE that is off-the-wall > and it just doesn't have a plugin for it yet. (And in those cases it > isn't like the kernel tends to get it right without an initramfs.) > > I'd certainly want to test it on a merged /usr, but I'd be surprised > if it doesn't work, since it was designed to run on distros that are > using a merged /usr. I think that should be the first thing to do not the last one =) > In an ideal world, you might argue that / should just be a tmpfs or > something almost as ephemeral. It is just a place you hang everything > else off of. That would be the core concept, but then you can just not have /bin /sbin /lib . > The thing I like about the merge is that it basically puts all your > distro-supplied stuff in one place. /usr basically becomes the OS > minus state. If things started out that way and you just had a short > stub loader that gets things initialized, and I were arguing that > instead of that little initialization stub you should break up /usr so > that the root count mount /usr, would that sound all that compelling? > I think having it all in one mountpoint seems a lot more compelling. you cannot ever have everything in 1 mount point, you just move the problem somewhere else you notice less (initramfs), but the problem remains and either is solved or not. having everything in /usr and then copy it over ${somewhere} is there, it can be debated if /bin or initramfs is the best place to put it. lu
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On 08/04/16 14:55, Rich Freeman wrote: > The purpose of a /usr merge is to get all the stateless stuff into one place. beside what you have in /etc ... usr-merge, in practice just moves early-boot/core tools where the rest of the userspace lives. > Some of the ultimate goals include: > 1. A read-only /usr And mixing early-boot tools with post-boot userspace would help how? > 2. Having /usr signature-verified at boot Because /etc is totally unimportant. > 3. Having everything that runs signature-checked before it is run Because obviously you do not need to signature-check per executable. > 4. Having /usr shared across many containers/etc. Because obviously it is the early-boot userspace spoiling this. > 5. Stateless systems - boot with a /usr and it creates the rest > dynamically, and they're lost when the container is shut down. Sounds backwards in many different ways. > Put it this way, if you were designing a new OS from scratch today, > would it make more sense to put all the distro-supplied > binaries/libraries under a single path off the root, or off of many > paths from the root? You mean /usr/local ? The whole thing ceases to be important once you have bind-mount and PATH imho. There is the specific need to have all the tools needed to boot in a single place that can be accessed with ease. It being /bin or initramfs or /boot/bin is completely cosmetic. But you need a easy and reliable way to get it. The idea of having / just holding the mount points and then have all the other paths mounted by the early boot is fun only on paper I'm afraid. (and we aren't even getting there since I bet /etc will stay in the root partition for ages). lu
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On 4/9/16 7:16 AM, Anthony G. Basile wrote: > On 4/9/16 6:56 AM, Rich Freeman wrote: >> Personally, I think our users would be better-served by making it a >> choice. > > Rich, we can bike shed for days. It would just be nice to hear from > base-layout people whether it will be a choice or not. We need to know > that so we can plan accordingly. > @williamh Is there a plan here that I can read? -- Anthony G. Basile, Ph.D. Gentoo Linux Developer [Hardened] E-Mail: bluen...@gentoo.org GnuPG FP : 1FED FAD9 D82C 52A5 3BAB DC79 9384 FA6E F52D 4BBA GnuPG ID : F52D4BBA
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Sat, Apr 9, 2016 at 8:27 AM, Luca Barbato wrote: > On 09/04/16 13:53, Rich Freeman wrote: >> Put the very same stuff in the initramfs? Most initramfs creation >> scripts should already do this automatically, and with compat symlinks >> even those that don't probably will still end up doing it anyway.. > > The question is different: do they work reliably? > I've certainly haven't had many problems with dracut. When it fails it is usually because I'm doing something ELSE that is off-the-wall and it just doesn't have a plugin for it yet. (And in those cases it isn't like the kernel tends to get it right without an initramfs.) I'd certainly want to test it on a merged /usr, but I'd be surprised if it doesn't work, since it was designed to run on distros that are using a merged /usr. > usr-merge does not solve any problem in itself (and it is totally > backwards, if somebody wants to simplify would do /usr -> /) I don't really have any devotion to the particular design, but half the point of the merge is to allow /usr to be read-only, on a filesystem remotely mounted, and so on. In an ideal world, you might argue that / should just be a tmpfs or something almost as ephemeral. It is just a place you hang everything else off of. But, of course moving all of /usr to / solves the early boot issue. But, if you're going to do that you might as well just put /usr on your root filesystem and have the same thing. The thing I like about the merge is that it basically puts all your distro-supplied stuff in one place. /usr basically becomes the OS minus state. If things started out that way and you just had a short stub loader that gets things initialized, and I were arguing that instead of that little initialization stub you should break up /usr so that the root count mount /usr, would that sound all that compelling? I think having it all in one mountpoint seems a lot more compelling. -- Rich
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On 09/04/16 13:53, Rich Freeman wrote: > On Sat, Apr 9, 2016 at 7:41 AM, Luca Barbato wrote: >> On 05/04/16 03:19, William Hubbs wrote: >>> Thoughts on any of this? >> >> The whole usr-merge moves the problem of putting stuff in / to putting >> the very same stuff in the initrd when something different from busybox >> (or equivalent) is needed to get the early boot mounting. >> >> Do we have a reliable way to address this now? >> > > Put the very same stuff in the initramfs? Most initramfs creation > scripts should already do this automatically, and with compat symlinks > even those that don't probably will still end up doing it anyway.. The question is different: do they work reliably? usr-merge does not solve any problem in itself (and it is totally backwards, if somebody wants to simplify would do /usr -> /), but makes more evident that you might need lots of the userspace to successfully complete your early boot. lu
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Sat, Apr 9, 2016 at 7:41 AM, Luca Barbato wrote: > On 05/04/16 03:19, William Hubbs wrote: >> Thoughts on any of this? > > The whole usr-merge moves the problem of putting stuff in / to putting > the very same stuff in the initrd when something different from busybox > (or equivalent) is needed to get the early boot mounting. > > Do we have a reliable way to address this now? > Put the very same stuff in the initramfs? Most initramfs creation scripts should already do this automatically, and with compat symlinks even those that don't probably will still end up doing it anyway.. Apologies if I missed the point of your question. Are you looking for a solution OTHER than an initramfs? I imagine somebody could stick some kind of wrapper on /, but in general if you want /usr not on the root filesystem with a /usr merge you're going to have to jump through hoops if you're not using an initramfs. If you want a more traditional configuration where / is used to mount /usr then a merged /usr probably isn't for you. -- Rich
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On 05/04/16 03:19, William Hubbs wrote: > Thoughts on any of this? The whole usr-merge moves the problem of putting stuff in / to putting the very same stuff in the initrd when something different from busybox (or equivalent) is needed to get the early boot mounting. Do we have a reliable way to address this now? If the answer is no, maybe we should focus on solving it first and then think how to move stuff around. lu
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On 4/9/16 6:56 AM, Rich Freeman wrote: > Personally, I think our users would be better-served by making it a > choice. Rich, we can bike shed for days. It would just be nice to hear from base-layout people whether it will be a choice or not. We need to know that so we can plan accordingly. -- Anthony G. Basile, Ph.D. Gentoo Linux Developer [Hardened] E-Mail: bluen...@gentoo.org GnuPG FP : 1FED FAD9 D82C 52A5 3BAB DC79 9384 FA6E F52D 4BBA GnuPG ID : F52D4BBA
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Sat, Apr 9, 2016 at 1:32 AM, wrote: > > now - an arbitrary decree comes down that *EVERYBODY* who wants a > separate /usr needs to have initramfs. > The "decree" wasn't some kind of law that the Gentoo police will come out to your house and arrest you for violating. It was simply a recognition that we were already in a state where booting a system without /usr mounted early can cause problems. There isn't really any solution to these problems (other than moving most of /usr into /, which I doubt is the desire of anybody who puts /usr on a separate filesystem), and it probably will only get worse. The intent of the resolution was to not burden package maintainers to have to cater to a use case that was already failing. And the wording of the resolution doesn't mention the word "initramfs" at all, precisely because we recognized that there were many ways to work around the problem. If you have concerns about the decision being arbitrary you might want to read the original summary: https://projects.gentoo.org/council/meeting-logs/20130813-summary.txt and log: https://projects.gentoo.org/council/meeting-logs/20130813.txt And of course you can read the list archives from the time where the issue was extensively discussed. > * IT DOES NOT MAKE THINGS ANY EASIER FOR THE ORIGINAL 5% EDGE CASES *. > But the other 95% who could run separate /usr are now being told they > must run initramfs "just because". What does it accomplish? I never really got the mentality that using an initramfs is a burden. You can boot a kernel as an EFI program, but the reality is that many if not most users of linux on EFI use a secondary bootloader. Heck, back in the old days you could actually boot linux directly from the BIOS without any secondary bootloader, but this was so impractical that even Linus now tells people to: bugger_off_msg: .ascii "Use a boot loader.\r\n" .ascii "\n" .ascii "Remove disk and press any key to reboot...\r\n" .byte 0 (and I must say that I admire the man with the guts to not insert a carriage return when the carriage is already on the first column) An initramfs is just a secondary bootloader for userspace. I almost always use them even if I'm just booting a VM with a single partition on it. If something goes wrong you can fall back to a shell in the initramfs and it is like having a rescue disk built into your system disk. For a more complex setup it is much more robust than relying on the kernel to find your root, and it also lets you build with a more module-based kernel, which has some benefits as well even if you build kernels tailored to each host. -- Rich
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Sat, Apr 9, 2016 at 12:06 AM, Anthony G. Basile wrote: > On 4/8/16 11:03 PM, Rich Freeman wrote: >> >> What problems are you anticipating, especially in light of the fact >> that many distros actually do it this way already? > > RBAC policy files for one. You'll probably break every single hardened > gentoo server out there. I wasn't suggesting that some adjustments to packages wouldn't be needed to accommodate the change. I was talking about the long-term, after any necessary changes are made? > > scripts and programs that assume different executables with the same > name at different points along the path, eg I know a company where > they've set up an ssh wrapper at /usr/local/bin/ssh which wrap /usr/bin/ssh. I get your point, but the actual case you cited wouldn't be affected by a /usr merge. I appreciate that there are cases where something might be affected (though users shouldn't be sticking wrappers in /usr/bin anyway without packaging them). >> >> I don't really have a problem with making it optional or the default. > > if we don't make it optional we're going to cause some serious headaches > for people who are invested in the current status quo. If you want to use a distro where you can heavily invest in the status quo and not expect it to change I think you'd be better off with a distro like RHEL, which targets this niche almost explicitly. But, as I've said, I see no reason not to make it optional. A big part of why we CAN get stuff like this done is that we let people migrate themselves at their own pace. >> >> It can also be left up to the maintainers, and of course somebody >> could even fork baselayout/etc if they wish and virtualize it in >> @system. Most things in Gentoo don't actually require a consensus to >> move forward, especially if they aren't defaults. > > if we deprecate the linker scripts in /usr/lib by stubbing out > gen_usr_ldscript, then its not as simple as "maintainer's choice". Well, I don't hear toolchain asking to retire that function. If it is their desire to stop maintaining it, then somebody else could of course take over for them and preserve a choice. > >> >> In any case, what is the point of this thread? If somebody wants to >> implement a merged /usr what exactly is stopping them from doing so? > > i'm against something that doesn't maintain backwards compat. > Well, we all have the freedom to fork baselayout if it isn't maintained the way we want it to be. Currently, no policy exists that says the baselayout maintainers can't just maintain the package however they want to (other than the general QA practice of announcing/coordinating changes in advance with trackers/etc). I suppose if somebody wants to propose a policy that says otherwise it is their freedom to do so. Personally, I think our users would be better-served by making it a choice. That might be a choice that comes with some pros/cons, just like the choice to use an initramfs, or the choice to run systemd, or any other choice that we trust our users to make. -- Rich
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Fri, Apr 08, 2016 at 11:59:09PM -0400, Damien Levac wrote > > > Seriously... how many people run Bluetooth keyboards on Gentoo > > anyways? > > That you ask such a question is concerning to me. Are we > discriminating against normal desktop users now? Here's the item that really bugs me... before - many people successfully used separate /usr, without initramfs. A few edge cases, e.g. people with bluetooth keyboards, had to use initramfs if they wanted a separate /usr. The poor darlings felt left out because they had to do extra setup work, versus the other 95%. now - an arbitrary decree comes down that *EVERYBODY* who wants a separate /usr needs to have initramfs. * IT DOES NOT MAKE THINGS ANY EASIER FOR THE ORIGINAL 5% EDGE CASES *. But the other 95% who could run separate /usr are now being told they must run initramfs "just because". What does it accomplish? BTW, I'm still running a separate /usr without initramfs, and no related problems; thank you. If I decided to go to an edge-case setup (e.g. Bluetooth keyboard, or ell partitions encrypted) then I could understand being asked to run initramfs. This is reminiscent of the "Mozilla Mentality", where everybody is forced to the lowest common denominator. Yes, a desktop GUI sucks on a tablet/smartphone; I get it. So Firefox was saddled with the smartphone-oriented Atrocious^H^H^H^H^H^H Australis GUI, which sucks on a desktop. That was the last straw that drove me to Pale Moon. -- Walter Dnes I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On 4/8/16 11:54 PM, Damien Levac wrote: >> I personally think sharing /usr over a network and deploying it to >> multiple machines could be a recipe for disaster. > > Uh... it is a nice opinion, but when you are managing 1000+ machines, > scripting is not cutting it anymore. Obviously we are network > distributing it. Not that we aren't already successful with it without > the merge though. > it can also be a recipe for success if you do it right. i did it for years on a 20 machine classroom where i didn't feel like installing the same thing 20 times. -- Anthony G. Basile, Ph.D. Gentoo Linux Developer [Hardened] E-Mail: bluen...@gentoo.org GnuPG FP : 1FED FAD9 D82C 52A5 3BAB DC79 9384 FA6E F52D 4BBA GnuPG ID : F52D4BBA
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On 4/8/16 11:03 PM, Rich Freeman wrote: > On Fri, Apr 8, 2016 at 9:51 PM, Anthony G. Basile wrote: >> >> Alternatively, this may introduce problems. So it seems like we're >> fixing something that isn't broken. >> > > What problems are you anticipating, especially in light of the fact > that many distros actually do it this way already? RBAC policy files for one. You'll probably break every single hardened gentoo server out there. scripts and programs that assume different executables with the same name at different points along the path, eg I know a company where they've set up an ssh wrapper at /usr/local/bin/ssh which wrap /usr/bin/ssh. security measures where you don't dereference sym links along $PATH because sym links can be used in various types of exploits. really, it doesn't take much imagination to come up with scenarios where you'll break people systems. > > I don't really have a problem with making it optional or the default. if we don't make it optional we're going to cause some serious headaches for people who are invested in the current status quo. > > It can also be left up to the maintainers, and of course somebody > could even fork baselayout/etc if they wish and virtualize it in > @system. Most things in Gentoo don't actually require a consensus to > move forward, especially if they aren't defaults. if we deprecate the linker scripts in /usr/lib by stubbing out gen_usr_ldscript, then its not as simple as "maintainer's choice". > > In any case, what is the point of this thread? If somebody wants to > implement a merged /usr what exactly is stopping them from doing so? i'm against something that doesn't maintain backwards compat. -- Anthony G. Basile, Ph.D. Gentoo Linux Developer [Hardened] E-Mail: bluen...@gentoo.org GnuPG FP : 1FED FAD9 D82C 52A5 3BAB DC79 9384 FA6E F52D 4BBA GnuPG ID : F52D4BBA
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
> Seriously... how many people run Bluetooth keyboards on Gentoo >anyways? That you ask such a question is concerning to me. Are we discriminating against normal desktop users now? -- Damien Levac
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
>I personally think sharing /usr over a network and deploying it to >multiple machines could be a recipe for disaster. Uh... it is a nice opinion, but when you are managing 1000+ machines, scripting is not cutting it anymore. Obviously we are network distributing it. Not that we aren't already successful with it without the merge though. -- Damien Levac
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Fri, Apr 8, 2016 at 9:51 PM, Anthony G. Basile wrote: > > Alternatively, this may introduce problems. So it seems like we're > fixing something that isn't broken. > What problems are you anticipating, especially in light of the fact that many distros actually do it this way already? I don't really have a problem with making it optional or the default. It can also be left up to the maintainers, and of course somebody could even fork baselayout/etc if they wish and virtualize it in @system. Most things in Gentoo don't actually require a consensus to move forward, especially if they aren't defaults. In any case, what is the point of this thread? If somebody wants to implement a merged /usr what exactly is stopping them from doing so? -- Rich
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On 4/8/16 9:36 PM, William Hubbs wrote: > On Fri, Apr 08, 2016 at 09:11:48PM -0400, Anthony G. Basile wrote: >> On 4/8/16 8:42 PM, William Hubbs wrote: >> >>> >>> It is true that we offer a high degree of choice to users, but one of >>> those choices is not which paths to install binaries and libraries >>> into. >> >> I thought vapier was introducing a switch USE=usr-sep which allowed us >> to keep an unmerged /usr, or are we completely eliminating this choice? > > This use flag, sep-usr, has nothing to do with the /usr merge. It was > added as a way to allow a few more people to use separate /usr > configurations (this means/ and /usr on separate > filesystems) without initramfs, before the council decided that all who > have separate /usr should be using an initramfs. > > Separate /usr does not preclude merging / into /usr. > > William > So I'm still not seeing a great gain from this merger. It seems like you think the linker scripts are something bad. Why? And you don't seem to like that we move some things around between / and /usr for pkgs like coreutils. But other than coreutils, I don't know many pkgs where we do that. Alternatively, this may introduce problems. So it seems like we're fixing something that isn't broken. -- Anthony G. Basile, Ph.D. Gentoo Linux Developer [Hardened] E-Mail: bluen...@gentoo.org GnuPG FP : 1FED FAD9 D82C 52A5 3BAB DC79 9384 FA6E F52D 4BBA GnuPG ID : F52D4BBA
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Fri, Apr 08, 2016 at 09:11:48PM -0400, Anthony G. Basile wrote: > On 4/8/16 8:42 PM, William Hubbs wrote: > > > > > It is true that we offer a high degree of choice to users, but one of > > those choices is not which paths to install binaries and libraries > > into. > > I thought vapier was introducing a switch USE=usr-sep which allowed us > to keep an unmerged /usr, or are we completely eliminating this choice? This use flag, sep-usr, has nothing to do with the /usr merge. It was added as a way to allow a few more people to use separate /usr configurations (this means/ and /usr on separate filesystems) without initramfs, before the council decided that all who have separate /usr should be using an initramfs. Separate /usr does not preclude merging / into /usr. William signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On 04/08/2016 08:18 PM, waltd...@waltdnes.org wrote: > On Fri, Apr 08, 2016 at 04:30:04PM -0400, Rich Freeman wrote > >> Half the reason we don't officially support running without /usr >> mounted during early boot is that if we actually put everything in / >> that could conceivably be needed during early boot we'd end up with >> everything there. Bluetooth keyboards is a common example. The >> console should work during early boot, right? > Seriously... how many people run Bluetooth keyboards on Gentoo anyways? > I know at least one person (not myself).
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Fri, Apr 08, 2016 at 04:30:04PM -0400, Rich Freeman wrote > Half the reason we don't officially support running without /usr > mounted during early boot is that if we actually put everything in / > that could conceivably be needed during early boot we'd end up with > everything there. Bluetooth keyboards is a common example. The > console should work during early boot, right? Seriously... how many people run Bluetooth keyboards on Gentoo anyways? -- Walter Dnes I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Fri, Apr 08, 2016 at 04:18:58PM -0400, Joseph Booker wrote > > From my own experience, it is useful to run "ifconfig" or "mount" > as a regular user, same as the gimp or firefox commands. Given that > all the commands you listed are in /usr/bin or /bin, I think I'm > not the only one. The difference between "system software" and > "regular applications" isn't clear-cut. Let me rephrase that... instead of calling it "system software", let's call it "software that the system needs for its own purposes". Whether end users run them later is beside the point. Systems will boot, mount disks, and set TCP/IP connections fine without GIMP or Firefox. Not so much without mount and ifconfig/ifcfg. -- Walter Dnes I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On 4/8/16 8:42 PM, William Hubbs wrote: > > It is true that we offer a high degree of choice to users, but one of > those choices is not which paths to install binaries and libraries > into. I thought vapier was introducing a switch USE=usr-sep which allowed us to keep an unmerged /usr, or are we completely eliminating this choice? -- Anthony G. Basile, Ph.D. Gentoo Linux Developer [Hardened] E-Mail: bluen...@gentoo.org GnuPG FP : 1FED FAD9 D82C 52A5 3BAB DC79 9384 FA6E F52D 4BBA GnuPG ID : F52D4BBA
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Fri, Apr 08, 2016 at 03:20:24PM -0700, Daniel Campbell wrote: > Based on what I've read here in the thread, merging /bin and /sbin > into /usr/{sbin,bin} is a matter of convenience by putting most of the > static parts of a running system into a single path. As mentioned by > some people, however, that's not enough to make deployment across > multiple machines super simple. The distros that focus on that aren't > rolling release like we are, and thus don't face the same difficulties > that we do. In addition, Gentoo supports a broad number of choices for > users and some are advocating for an option. It is true that we offer a high degree of choice to users, but one of those choices is not which paths to install binaries and libraries into. We install some binaries/libraries in /{bin,sbin,lib*} and others in /usr/{bin,sbin,lib*}; the users don't get to choose which binaries and libraries go where. > At a higher level, I'm not really sure why we're discussing it. > Perhaps I missed it, but I didn't see an actual problem that someone > was having mentioned anywhere. The /usr merge seems to me as a partial > "solution" for a different type of environment; one that, arguably, is > better suited for a distro that's designed for such deployments. It would, for us, eliminate a lot of customization in the base-system ebuilds, for example, all of the rearrangement of binaries in coreutils, splitting of the binaries between / and /usr in procps, all calls to gen_usr_ldscript in any ebuilds, among other things. In short, it would make packaging simpler, and maintain backward compatibility at the same time since the symlinks in / would exist. > I personally think sharing /usr over a network and deploying it to > multiple machines could be a recipe for disaster. It seems like a > business case scenario that would involve multiple other system > changes. It sounds like a great case for adding another profile or > something rather than changing things tree-wide. Maybe it's a case for > making profiles more powerful and flexible. Regardless, I'd hate to > see choice diminished here for the sake of a single set of rather > narrow use-cases. Based on what I said above, I don't see what choice is being diminished by the /usr merge, since we do not give users a choice about how their file system is laid out, or where packages are installed. If I'm honestly missing something, enlighten me. :-) William signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA256 On 04/08/2016 04:31 AM, Anthony G. Basile wrote: > On 4/8/16 6:14 AM, Rich Freeman wrote: >> On Thu, Apr 7, 2016 at 9:42 PM, William Hubbs >> wrote: >>> >>> There was a bypo here. "the ebuild" should be upstream. The >>> default installation location of all coreutils binaries is >>> /usr/bin, then we move everything around in the ebuild. We are >>> deviating from upstream in this example. >>> >> >> Keep in mind that following upstream and the /usr merge are >> somewhat orthogonal. You can just install those binaries in /usr >> without merging everything over. >> >> The only issue is that without the merge anybody embedding a path >> to these binaries would have to fix their packages. Presumably >> to aid the transition a symlink (at the file level) would be >> needed for some period of time. >> > > > @anyone, can you list the reasons we're doing this (I'm sure > there's more than one). If systemd if one of them, then I'm > confused because debian has switched to systemd and yet has not > merged usr. > Based on what I've read here in the thread, merging /bin and /sbin into /usr/{sbin,bin} is a matter of convenience by putting most of the static parts of a running system into a single path. As mentioned by some people, however, that's not enough to make deployment across multiple machines super simple. The distros that focus on that aren't rolling release like we are, and thus don't face the same difficulties that we do. In addition, Gentoo supports a broad number of choices for users and some are advocating for an option. At a higher level, I'm not really sure why we're discussing it. Perhaps I missed it, but I didn't see an actual problem that someone was having mentioned anywhere. The /usr merge seems to me as a partial "solution" for a different type of environment; one that, arguably, is better suited for a distro that's designed for such deployments. I personally think sharing /usr over a network and deploying it to multiple machines could be a recipe for disaster. It seems like a business case scenario that would involve multiple other system changes. It sounds like a great case for adding another profile or something rather than changing things tree-wide. Maybe it's a case for making profiles more powerful and flexible. Regardless, I'd hate to see choice diminished here for the sake of a single set of rather narrow use-cases. Just my 2¢. - -- Daniel Campbell - Gentoo Developer OpenPGP Key: 0x1EA055D6 @ hkp://keys.gnupg.net fpr: AE03 9064 AE00 053C 270C 1DE4 6F7A 9091 1EA0 55D6 -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v2 iQIcBAEBCAAGBQJXCC6jAAoJEAEkDpRQOeFwD+kP/j1EYtnbgh/s4i4lTn14vuoY Fj57eCsCBLNbHlEEGesLEU3EEExtJgVeSC9emuI80/nynOM8dhqUUKjtoZwwBW5R 9P5QmMQdT+ScJHPQ6CL5IKh9UeAF4IgDbrJI9rdHnrRLtlE40xWDRp8NcB5fPAc2 EfLMFRZs3HpJpVMirIVIMTHEckDlMRmYzO9aqKCnmSCx3M/nKR/SWSSQ94Acet9C DPN6nLH42vosJv1+syNUHGqf4DLn6xTREx7DEP8fBUJuQi/wDpHbbRn8PON3WkCo FkDqjxd3AhahUpa2LaD4t/sRmvs+tjIXfgFJ8iYzJwjRQKKZvSHRlQzUwQNnI6mS fkunumIhcJdeWCBXegaSxouAtaua7pk+AXDLx+2ZjhxDmv/BbmC6RSPWkHo3wsMl TVbZSB4IrDrp8l3kYd+baBEtZicNgoma4jak1MFn1COFWR2/ZqtGaOVDErW92aX2 jVQkTGTUGrFNx24ZPcvPB0OVNleoOfhh97O3EFjeOl0TnbAziGX9Z75HPegLFlLR 5dXewskG6iACR2FATlhhOgscfIVwE2LxEWw/N6lm0NbZHKTOObzP39fdu0CisAck pXtd1WBYX349Z0ympl9PCdLd68SobBROsFHKE6rwkSLkCBadzOCxgjpEGIQOPKHu qpXF8Z8y/Hssr4SAsxb0 =4UKO -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Fri, Apr 8, 2016 at 4:18 PM, Joseph Booker wrote: > The difference between "system software" and "regular applications" isn't > clear-cut. > This. Half the reason we don't officially support running without /usr mounted during early boot is that if we actually put everything in / that could conceivably be needed during early boot we'd end up with everything there. Bluetooth keyboards is a common example. The console should work during early boot, right? -- Rich
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Fri, Apr 8, 2016 at 4:07 PM, wrote: > On Fri, Apr 08, 2016 at 09:20:19AM -0500, William Hubbs wrote > > > > Here is more info about the split and why it exists. It turns out it hs > > nothing to do with system admininistration or permissions. > > > > http://lists.busybox.net/pipermail/busybox/2010-December/074114.html > > > http://www.osnews.com/story/25556/Understanding_the_bin_sbin_usr_bin_usr_sbin_Split/ > > https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3519952 > > > > In short, this is all a historical artifact with justifications thought > > up after the fact. > > The historical reasons may or may not exist any longer. The question > is "what is the current situation?". The current situation is that > there are 3 classes of software... > 1) system software that is required for bootup (mount, init, etcetera) > 2) system software that is usually used by root for admin purposes > 3) regular applications that users use > > Question... do we really want "GIMP", "Firefox", etcetera, in the same > directory as "mount", "chroot", "login", "passwd", "ifconfig", etcetera? > >From my own experience, it is useful to run "ifconfig" or "mount" as a regular user, same as the gimp or firefox commands. Given that all the commands you listed are in /usr/bin or /bin, I think I'm not the only one. The difference between "system software" and "regular applications" isn't clear-cut. > I don't think so. I want separate "system progs" versus "user progs" > directories. There may be an argument for merging /bin and /sbin > directories (items 1 and 2 above), but user applications should be > separate. If we move /bin and /sbin into /usr/bin, I suggest moving all > user programs to /usr/local/binuser applications should be separate. If > we move /bin and /sbin into /usr/bin, I suggest moving all user programs > to /usr/local/bin. > > -- > Walter Dnes > I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications > >
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Fri, Apr 08, 2016 at 09:20:19AM -0500, William Hubbs wrote > > Here is more info about the split and why it exists. It turns out it hs > nothing to do with system admininistration or permissions. > > http://lists.busybox.net/pipermail/busybox/2010-December/074114.html > http://www.osnews.com/story/25556/Understanding_the_bin_sbin_usr_bin_usr_sbin_Split/ > https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3519952 > > In short, this is all a historical artifact with justifications thought > up after the fact. The historical reasons may or may not exist any longer. The question is "what is the current situation?". The current situation is that there are 3 classes of software... 1) system software that is required for bootup (mount, init, etcetera) 2) system software that is usually used by root for admin purposes 3) regular applications that users use Question... do we really want "GIMP", "Firefox", etcetera, in the same directory as "mount", "chroot", "login", "passwd", "ifconfig", etcetera? I don't think so. I want separate "system progs" versus "user progs" directories. There may be an argument for merging /bin and /sbin directories (items 1 and 2 above), but user applications should be separate. If we move /bin and /sbin into /usr/bin, I suggest moving all user programs to /usr/local/binuser applications should be separate. If we move /bin and /sbin into /usr/bin, I suggest moving all user programs to /usr/local/bin. -- Walter Dnes I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Fri, Apr 8, 2016 at 11:14 AM, M. J. Everitt wrote: > Being serious though, and playing Devil's Advocate of course, assuming > you have no use for a desktop manager, etc, hence no need for dbus or > it's 'friends' and policykit or it's pals, and you're not a "systemd > fan" etc .. how are we granting the correct permissions for binaries .. > just relying now on the owner and execute bits being set perfectly for > each binary, assuming everything is arbitrarily moved to /xbin ... If you're relying on file permissions on binaries (other than the suid bit) you're doing it wrong. There is no harm in a non-privileged user executing /sbin/shutdown in the non-systemd world, because init isn't going to listen to an unprivileged user. In a systemd world the shutdown command will talk to systemd via dbus and dbus will use policykit to determine whether the message should be allowed to go through (at least, I think it is dbus that does this, and not the message recipient, but either way it is getting checked). Most security is provided by the kernel and posix capabilities. If a process has a capability, then the kernel lets it do something. Without that capability, simply making some system calls won't do anything. Policykit is an extension of this into userspace, since userspace governs a lot of important functions. You could view policykit as a sort of posix capability set for userspace. The traditional suid way of doing things blurs the lines a bit, but in general most suid-root binaries don't rely on whether you can execute them as a form of policy. Usually they have some kind of internal policy management which is more flexible. Sure, you might be able to keep somebody from changing their password by playing with the permissions on /bin/passwd. However, you're probably better off tweaking the configuration of PAM/etc. -- Rich
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Friday, April 8, 2016 5:14:42 PM CEST, M. J. Everitt wrote: On 08/04/16 16:02, Rich Freeman wrote: The only mandatory component in a linux system, by definition, is the Linux kernel. A linux system could consist of nothing but a kernel with init=/usr/local/bin/hello-world. Most traditional linux distros are going to run policykit though. Of ... Being serious though, and playing Devil's Advocate of course, assuming you have no use for a desktop manager, etc, hence no need for dbus or it's 'friends' and policykit or it's pals, and you're not a "systemd fan" etc .. how are we granting the correct permissions for binaries .. just relying now on the owner and execute bits being set perfectly for each binary, assuming everything is arbitrarily moved to /xbin ... owner and x bit is not a security measure at all: if you need +x, you just compile your own in ~ that you'll own. what is a security measure is kernel refusing to give you access to ressources so that your binary does what it is supposed to (either standard kernel or more complex things like grsec)
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On 08/04/16 16:02, Rich Freeman wrote: > > The only mandatory component in a linux system, by definition, is the > Linux kernel. > > A linux system could consist of nothing but a kernel with > init=/usr/local/bin/hello-world. > > Most traditional linux distros are going to run policykit though. Of > course you can have a mostly-traditional distro that doesn't, at least > until everything wants to use dbus or whatever ends up replacing it > once son-of-kdbus comes along and gets accepted. > Being serious though, and playing Devil's Advocate of course, assuming you have no use for a desktop manager, etc, hence no need for dbus or it's 'friends' and policykit or it's pals, and you're not a "systemd fan" etc .. how are we granting the correct permissions for binaries .. just relying now on the owner and execute bits being set perfectly for each binary, assuming everything is arbitrarily moved to /xbin ...
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On 08/04/16 16:02, Rich Freeman wrote: > On Fri, Apr 8, 2016 at 10:33 AM, M. J. Everitt wrote: >> I'll come back to the links a bit later, but is policykit and its >> predecessor/derivatives now a mandatory part of a linux system? >> > The only mandatory component in a linux system, by definition, is the > Linux kernel. > > A linux system could consist of nothing but a kernel with > init=/usr/local/bin/hello-world. > > Most traditional linux distros are going to run policykit though. Of > course you can have a mostly-traditional distro that doesn't, at least > until everything wants to use dbus or whatever ends up replacing it > once son-of-kdbus comes along and gets accepted. > Surely, Rich, you mean init=/bin/hello-world ... ;]
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Fri, Apr 8, 2016 at 10:33 AM, M. J. Everitt wrote: > I'll come back to the links a bit later, but is policykit and its > predecessor/derivatives now a mandatory part of a linux system? > The only mandatory component in a linux system, by definition, is the Linux kernel. A linux system could consist of nothing but a kernel with init=/usr/local/bin/hello-world. Most traditional linux distros are going to run policykit though. Of course you can have a mostly-traditional distro that doesn't, at least until everything wants to use dbus or whatever ends up replacing it once son-of-kdbus comes along and gets accepted. -- Rich
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On 08/04/16 15:20, William Hubbs wrote: > On Fri, Apr 08, 2016 at 03:44:06AM +0100, M. J. Everitt wrote: >> 3) I still believe there is merit in distinguishing between binaries >> that can/should be run as root, and those that can/should not. Those >> that run as root 100% of the time, or use VMs, don't really 'use' linux >> in the original sense of the OS .. > Here is more info about the split and why it exists. It turns out it hs > nothing to do with system admininistration or permissions. > > http://lists.busybox.net/pipermail/busybox/2010-December/074114.html > http://www.osnews.com/story/25556/Understanding_the_bin_sbin_usr_bin_usr_sbin_Split/ > https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3519952 > > In short, this is all a historical artifact with justifications thought > up after the fact. > > William I'll come back to the links a bit later, but is policykit and its predecessor/derivatives now a mandatory part of a linux system? Possibly crossing posts here, so apologies in advance .. ! :] signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Fri, Apr 08, 2016 at 03:44:06AM +0100, M. J. Everitt wrote: > 3) I still believe there is merit in distinguishing between binaries > that can/should be run as root, and those that can/should not. Those > that run as root 100% of the time, or use VMs, don't really 'use' linux > in the original sense of the OS .. Here is more info about the split and why it exists. It turns out it hs nothing to do with system admininistration or permissions. http://lists.busybox.net/pipermail/busybox/2010-December/074114.html http://www.osnews.com/story/25556/Understanding_the_bin_sbin_usr_bin_usr_sbin_Split/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3519952 In short, this is all a historical artifact with justifications thought up after the fact. William signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Fri, Apr 8, 2016 at 7:54 AM, Anthony G. Basile wrote: > > As I'm getting into this thread, I'm looking at debian, fedora and I'll > add openSUSE. I just don't get why a usr merge is as good as that > fedora page says. > Keep in mind Fedora's purposes here: 1. It is a feeder where experimental technologies are previewed/developed. 2. It is feeding into RHEL, which is targeted at infrequently-updating users who run in a release-based atmosphere. The purpose of a /usr merge is to get all the stateless stuff into one place. Some of the ultimate goals include: 1. A read-only /usr 2. Having /usr signature-verified at boot 3. Having everything that runs signature-checked before it is run 4. Having /usr shared across many containers/etc. 5. Stateless systems - boot with a /usr and it creates the rest dynamically, and they're lost when the container is shut down. Any of these COULD be implemented on Gentoo, though whether it will happen is questionable. Some of these like #5 would require more invasive changes to how we do things. However, the principle of having everything that is static in one place does make sense. Put it this way, if you were designing a new OS from scratch today, would it make more sense to put all the distro-supplied binaries/libraries under a single path off the root, or off of many paths from the root? The main driver for having a split /usr is legacy, IMO. Apparently even the unix authors said that they originally did it only because of the size of one of their disks and they wanted root to be a secondary bootloader. -- Rich
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On 4/8/16 7:41 AM, James Le Cuirot wrote: > On Fri, 8 Apr 2016 07:31:03 -0400 > "Anthony G. Basile" wrote: > >> On 4/8/16 6:14 AM, Rich Freeman wrote: >>> On Thu, Apr 7, 2016 at 9:42 PM, William Hubbs >>> wrote: There was a bypo here. "the ebuild" should be upstream. The default installation location of all coreutils binaries is /usr/bin, then we move everything around in the ebuild. We are deviating from upstream in this example. >>> >>> Keep in mind that following upstream and the /usr merge are somewhat >>> orthogonal. You can just install those binaries in /usr without >>> merging everything over. >>> >>> The only issue is that without the merge anybody embedding a path to >>> these binaries would have to fix their packages. Presumably to aid >>> the transition a symlink (at the file level) would be needed for >>> some period of time. >> >> @anyone, can you list the reasons we're doing this (I'm sure there's >> more than one). If systemd if one of them, then I'm confused because >> debian has switched to systemd and yet has not merged usr. > > Not that I'm for or against the merge but note that openSUSE, which has > also switched to systemd, hasn't done the merge either. > As I'm getting into this thread, I'm looking at debian, fedora and I'll add openSUSE. I just don't get why a usr merge is as good as that fedora page says. -- Anthony G. Basile, Ph.D. Gentoo Linux Developer [Hardened] E-Mail: bluen...@gentoo.org GnuPG FP : 1FED FAD9 D82C 52A5 3BAB DC79 9384 FA6E F52D 4BBA GnuPG ID : F52D4BBA
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Fri, Apr 8, 2016 at 7:41 AM, James Le Cuirot wrote: > On Fri, 8 Apr 2016 07:31:03 -0400 > "Anthony G. Basile" wrote: >> >> @anyone, can you list the reasons we're doing this (I'm sure there's >> more than one). If systemd if one of them, then I'm confused because >> debian has switched to systemd and yet has not merged usr. > > Not that I'm for or against the merge but note that openSUSE, which has > also switched to systemd, hasn't done the merge either. > systemd and /usr merge are also fairly orthogonal. There are many reasons for a /usr merge, but most tend to revolve around getting all the relatively static distro-supplied content into a single place. That makes it easier to make a separate filesystem, or read-only, or signature-checked, or atomically updated, or shared, and so on. Some of those derivative benefits may be harder to realize on Gentoo, but I think the principle is worth considering. -- Rich
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Fri, 8 Apr 2016 07:31:03 -0400 "Anthony G. Basile" wrote: > On 4/8/16 6:14 AM, Rich Freeman wrote: > > On Thu, Apr 7, 2016 at 9:42 PM, William Hubbs > > wrote: > >> > >> There was a bypo here. "the ebuild" should be upstream. The default > >> installation location of all coreutils binaries is /usr/bin, then > >> we move everything around in the ebuild. > >> We are deviating from upstream in this example. > >> > > > > Keep in mind that following upstream and the /usr merge are somewhat > > orthogonal. You can just install those binaries in /usr without > > merging everything over. > > > > The only issue is that without the merge anybody embedding a path to > > these binaries would have to fix their packages. Presumably to aid > > the transition a symlink (at the file level) would be needed for > > some period of time. > > @anyone, can you list the reasons we're doing this (I'm sure there's > more than one). If systemd if one of them, then I'm confused because > debian has switched to systemd and yet has not merged usr. Not that I'm for or against the merge but note that openSUSE, which has also switched to systemd, hasn't done the merge either. -- James Le Cuirot (chewi) Gentoo Linux Developer
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On 4/8/16 6:14 AM, Rich Freeman wrote: > On Thu, Apr 7, 2016 at 9:42 PM, William Hubbs wrote: >> >> There was a bypo here. "the ebuild" should be upstream. The default >> installation location of all coreutils binaries is /usr/bin, then we >> move everything around in the ebuild. >> We are deviating from upstream in this example. >> > > Keep in mind that following upstream and the /usr merge are somewhat > orthogonal. You can just install those binaries in /usr without > merging everything over. > > The only issue is that without the merge anybody embedding a path to > these binaries would have to fix their packages. Presumably to aid > the transition a symlink (at the file level) would be needed for some > period of time. > @anyone, can you list the reasons we're doing this (I'm sure there's more than one). If systemd if one of them, then I'm confused because debian has switched to systemd and yet has not merged usr. -- Anthony G. Basile, Ph.D. Gentoo Linux Developer [Hardened] E-Mail: bluen...@gentoo.org GnuPG FP : 1FED FAD9 D82C 52A5 3BAB DC79 9384 FA6E F52D 4BBA GnuPG ID : F52D4BBA
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Thu, Apr 7, 2016 at 10:44 PM, M. J. Everitt wrote: > 2) "Today, a separate /usr partition already must be mounted by the > initramfs during early boot, thus making the justification for a > split-off moot." - no, not all gentoo users have an initramfs and > need/want one .. so this is a false assumption. You only need an initramfs (or some other mechanism to mount /usr during early boot) if /usr is on a different filesystem than /. If /usr is a separate filesystem, then Gentoo does require that it be mounted during early boot, at least as a supported configuration. While it is true today that with some configurations you can probably get away with not mounting it during early boot, there is no requirement that package maintainers support this. That includes system packages. So, #2 applies to Gentoo as much as to any other distro. That was a topic of some debate a few years ago now. > 3) I still believe there is merit in distinguishing between binaries > that can/should be run as root, and those that can/should not. Those > that run as root 100% of the time, or use VMs, don't really 'use' linux > in the original sense of the OS .. Duncan already explained much of this, but if you're relying on a user's PATH setting to prevent security issues you're doing it wrong. There are a number of binaries in /sbin which are completely appropriate for a non-privileged user to execute. Besides non-privileged operations of binaries like btrfs or rpcinfo, there are a bunch of misc binaries in there like usleep or zdump. Really though the main point of merging these paths into /usr is to get all the static content of a distro into a single path, which can then be maintained as a read-only filesystem, mounted across multiple systems, protected using tripwire or signature checking, and so on. As has been pointed out the rolling release nature of Gentoo reduces some of these benefits somewhat. To truly get these benefits we would also need to rethink how post-install configuration gets managed as was already pointed out. However, the principle is still a potentially useful one even if we never follow-up with some of the things Fedora/etc are doing. After a merge the package manager has free rein over /usr, full config management is the policy in /etc, and /var is a place for persistent state that generally belongs to the applications themselves (but management of this is a bit of a mix still with stuff like /var/www and /var/bind alongside mail spools and mysql database files). -- Rich
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Thu, Apr 7, 2016 at 9:42 PM, William Hubbs wrote: > > There was a bypo here. "the ebuild" should be upstream. The default > installation location of all coreutils binaries is /usr/bin, then we > move everything around in the ebuild. > We are deviating from upstream in this example. > Keep in mind that following upstream and the /usr merge are somewhat orthogonal. You can just install those binaries in /usr without merging everything over. The only issue is that without the merge anybody embedding a path to these binaries would have to fix their packages. Presumably to aid the transition a symlink (at the file level) would be needed for some period of time. -- Rich
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
My personal opinion: Unless we have a good reason to do otherwise, don't fuck with upstream. On Thu, Apr 7, 2016 at 8:12 PM, Damien Levac wrote: > > > Three points :- > > 1) systemd - not all gentoo users subscribe to this 'philosophy' .. >but > >no, I don't want get drawn into debates of yes/no of systemd .. > > The article start by saying the points are not just for systemd, even > though the latter might find the merge more 'needed'... > > >2) "Today, a separate /usr partition already must be mounted by the > >initramfs during early boot, thus making the justification for a > >split-off moot." - no, not all gentoo users have an initramfs and > >need/want one .. so this is a false assumption. > > Agreed, this does not apply to Gentoo. > > >3) I still believe there is merit in distinguishing between binaries > >that can/should be run as root, and those that can/should not. Those > >that run as root 100% of the time, or use VMs, don't really 'use' linux > >in the original sense of the OS .. > > /usr/sbin still exists in a merged usr, so I don't get that point... > > >*hides in his bike-shed, awaiting the flaming torches* > > Don't worry: no troll here. > > -- > Damien Levac > >
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
> Three points :- > 1) systemd - not all gentoo users subscribe to this 'philosophy' .. >but >no, I don't want get drawn into debates of yes/no of systemd .. The article start by saying the points are not just for systemd, even though the latter might find the merge more 'needed'... >2) "Today, a separate /usr partition already must be mounted by the >initramfs during early boot, thus making the justification for a >split-off moot." - no, not all gentoo users have an initramfs and >need/want one .. so this is a false assumption. Agreed, this does not apply to Gentoo. >3) I still believe there is merit in distinguishing between binaries >that can/should be run as root, and those that can/should not. Those >that run as root 100% of the time, or use VMs, don't really 'use' linux >in the original sense of the OS .. /usr/sbin still exists in a merged usr, so I don't get that point... >*hides in his bike-shed, awaiting the flaming torches* Don't worry: no troll here. -- Damien Levac
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On 08/04/16 03:36, Damien Levac wrote: > Anybody who have this kind of misconception about 'usr merge' should > read this: > > https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/TheCaseForTheUsrMerge/ > > Signed, > > a user who got scared by this thread and documented myself before > freaking out too much... > >>> Personally I think that merging things into /usr is a major policy >> > decision that is likely to contravene upstream installation >>> locations. I wouldn't do it lightly, if at all. > Three points :- 1) systemd - not all gentoo users subscribe to this 'philosophy' .. but no, I don't want get drawn into debates of yes/no of systemd .. 2) "Today, a separate /usr partition already must be mounted by the initramfs during early boot, thus making the justification for a split-off moot." - no, not all gentoo users have an initramfs and need/want one .. so this is a false assumption. 3) I still believe there is merit in distinguishing between binaries that can/should be run as root, and those that can/should not. Those that run as root 100% of the time, or use VMs, don't really 'use' linux in the original sense of the OS .. *hides in his bike-shed, awaiting the flaming torches*
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
Anybody who have this kind of misconception about 'usr merge' should read this: https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/TheCaseForTheUsrMerge/ Signed, a user who got scared by this thread and documented myself before freaking out too much... >> Personally I think that merging things into /usr is a major policy >> decision that is likely to contravene upstream installation >> locations. I wouldn't do it lightly, if at all. -- Damien Levac
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On 08/04/16 02:42, William Hubbs wrote: > On Thu, Apr 07, 2016 at 08:39:07PM -0500, William Hubbs wrote: >> On Thu, Apr 07, 2016 at 01:18:01PM -0700, Raymond Jennings wrote: >>> Personally I think that merging things into /usr is a major policy decision >>> that is likely to contravene upstream installation locations. I wouldn't >>> do it lightly, if at all. >> Actually, there are upstreams that already do this, and we are the ones >> that move things around. >> >> Specifically, one example is coreutils. The ebuild installs everything >> in /usr/bin, then we move all of the binaries around. > There was a bypo here. "the ebuild" should be upstream. The default > installation location of all coreutils binaries is /usr/bin, then we > move everything around in the ebuild. > We are deviating from upstream in this example. > > William > I would expect this isn't the only example of this in Gentoo .. we customise the packages to make sense to the Gentoo distro, not conform to a multitude of random "standards" applied by many developers. So, whilst I accept that its desirable to match 'upstream' - this isn't always going to be possible. I would also re-iterate, as I'm sure you're aware .. there ARE differences between sbin and bin .. unless of course you spend all your time in a Rooted VM where it doesn't matter if you accidentally trash your system. Some of us maintain a sensible user/superuser distinction for a variety of reasons, and simplifying your filesystem to suit some particular package style doesn't really sound like good reasoning for causing a lot of headaches for maintainers and a distro overall. *puts the paint can down* signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Thu, Apr 07, 2016 at 08:39:07PM -0500, William Hubbs wrote: > On Thu, Apr 07, 2016 at 01:18:01PM -0700, Raymond Jennings wrote: > > Personally I think that merging things into /usr is a major policy decision > > that is likely to contravene upstream installation locations. I wouldn't > > do it lightly, if at all. > > Actually, there are upstreams that already do this, and we are the ones > that move things around. > > Specifically, one example is coreutils. The ebuild installs everything > in /usr/bin, then we move all of the binaries around. There was a bypo here. "the ebuild" should be upstream. The default installation location of all coreutils binaries is /usr/bin, then we move everything around in the ebuild. We are deviating from upstream in this example. William signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Thu, Apr 07, 2016 at 01:18:01PM -0700, Raymond Jennings wrote: > Personally I think that merging things into /usr is a major policy decision > that is likely to contravene upstream installation locations. I wouldn't > do it lightly, if at all. Actually, there are upstreams that already do this, and we are the ones that move things around. Specifically, one example is coreutils. The ebuild installs everything in /usr/bin, then we move all of the binaries around. Also, any time we run gen_usr_ldscript in an ebuild this is going against upstream installation locations. William signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
Personally I think that merging things into /usr is a major policy decision that is likely to contravene upstream installation locations. I wouldn't do it lightly, if at all. On Thu, Apr 7, 2016 at 11:54 AM, Rich Freeman wrote: > On Thu, Apr 7, 2016 at 2:32 PM, M. J. Everitt wrote: > > In the spirit of hearing arguments for/against .. could someone with the > > appropriate 'fu' throw up a quick survey for those on this ML (and/or > > possibly the g-users?) to indicate a preference for a change to a > > flattened-/usr system? > > > > I did think re: the eudev "debate" that it was really hard to quantify > > the opinion for and against a change, and take it away from the vocal > > people that obviously feel passionately about their cause :) . > > > > By all means do so, but we can probably save the trouble and assume > that 95% of the respondents would prefer things remain as they are, > and probably 80% would suggest that Gentoo should fully support > systems without /usr mounted during early boot. > > Gentoo has become a fairly conservative distro, even more so when > everybody else dropped support for not running systemd. > > I personally think the /usr merge is a cleaner approach (and I'd go a > step further and merge sbin and bin), but it was rightly said that > many of the benefits of a merge only come when you do a lot of other > things as well. Of course, we could go ahead and do those things > later. > > I think the main immediate benefit of a usr merge is that it actually > reduces the risk of shebangs and such pointing to the wrong place (due > to compat links, and there only being one right place in general), and > it greatly consolidates the static stuff on the filesystem. > > -- > Rich > >
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Thu, Apr 7, 2016 at 2:32 PM, M. J. Everitt wrote: > In the spirit of hearing arguments for/against .. could someone with the > appropriate 'fu' throw up a quick survey for those on this ML (and/or > possibly the g-users?) to indicate a preference for a change to a > flattened-/usr system? > > I did think re: the eudev "debate" that it was really hard to quantify > the opinion for and against a change, and take it away from the vocal > people that obviously feel passionately about their cause :) . > By all means do so, but we can probably save the trouble and assume that 95% of the respondents would prefer things remain as they are, and probably 80% would suggest that Gentoo should fully support systems without /usr mounted during early boot. Gentoo has become a fairly conservative distro, even more so when everybody else dropped support for not running systemd. I personally think the /usr merge is a cleaner approach (and I'd go a step further and merge sbin and bin), but it was rightly said that many of the benefits of a merge only come when you do a lot of other things as well. Of course, we could go ahead and do those things later. I think the main immediate benefit of a usr merge is that it actually reduces the risk of shebangs and such pointing to the wrong place (due to compat links, and there only being one right place in general), and it greatly consolidates the static stuff on the filesystem. -- Rich
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On 07/04/16 17:36, Alexis Ballier wrote: > On Thursday, April 7, 2016 6:22:16 PM CEST, Rich Freeman wrote: >> Again, I don't see this as a reason not to make it optional, but I >> suspect that we will find bugs here from time to time which users who >> run with the split /usr will have to report/fix. > > > Considering the advantages of usr-merge are rather specific IMHO but > risks during the migration are high, I think you're optimistic on the > user base of usr-merged systems :) > > Heck, it hasn't happened yet because there hasn't been such a big need > for it. > In the spirit of hearing arguments for/against .. could someone with the appropriate 'fu' throw up a quick survey for those on this ML (and/or possibly the g-users?) to indicate a preference for a change to a flattened-/usr system? I did think re: the eudev "debate" that it was really hard to quantify the opinion for and against a change, and take it away from the vocal people that obviously feel passionately about their cause :) . signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
May I suggest first moving everything into /usr one at a time, and for each file moved out of /bin or /sbin or whatever, replace it with a symlink? This will allow the /bin and /sbin directories themselves to atomically be replaced with symlinks later. Doing it all at once will leave a gap. For each file: 1. Install it in the new location 2. Delete the old file and replace it with a symlink On Thu, Apr 7, 2016 at 9:36 AM, Alexis Ballier wrote: > On Thursday, April 7, 2016 6:22:16 PM CEST, Rich Freeman wrote: > >> Again, I don't see this as a reason not to make it optional, but I >> suspect that we will find bugs here from time to time which users who >> run with the split /usr will have to report/fix. >> > > > Considering the advantages of usr-merge are rather specific IMHO but risks > during the migration are high, I think you're optimistic on the user base > of usr-merged systems :) > > Heck, it hasn't happened yet because there hasn't been such a big need for > it. > >
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Thursday, April 7, 2016 6:22:16 PM CEST, Rich Freeman wrote: Again, I don't see this as a reason not to make it optional, but I suspect that we will find bugs here from time to time which users who run with the split /usr will have to report/fix. Considering the advantages of usr-merge are rather specific IMHO but risks during the migration are high, I think you're optimistic on the user base of usr-merged systems :) Heck, it hasn't happened yet because there hasn't been such a big need for it.
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Thu, Apr 07, 2016 at 11:12:13AM +0200, Alexis Ballier wrote: > On Wednesday, April 6, 2016 11:36:09 PM CEST, Richard Yao wrote: > > As for those benefits, they do little for {/usr,}/sbin vs > > {/usr,}/bin, which is where the incompatibilities tend to live. > > I encountered one of these in powertop the other day (patch > > pending). The benefits of being able to access things from both > > places are somewhat exaggerated given that compatibility among > > systems has long required searching $PATH and likely always > > will. > > PATH is a shell thing; some libc functions like execvp duplicate this > functionality but that's all; you dont have PATH in shebangs nor in execv. > > >> Note, we are not > >> talking about squashing /usr out of the equasion, but merging /bin, > >> /sbin and /lib* into their counterparts in /usr and creating symlinks in > >> the root directory pointing to the counterparts in /usr. > > > > While one guy did the reverse (and the reverse ought to be okay > > for those that want to do that), no one appears to think that > > adopting the reverse is what is being suggested. Having this > > sort of clarity on whether forcing this on everyone via > > baselayout update, just providing the option for those who want > > it or some combination of the two (e.g. a long transition period > > in which both are supported) is being discussed would be nice > > though. This is not a Boolean decision. > > I've been under the impression since the beginning of the thread that it is > what is being proposed: make it possible but support both. We can't force > usr-merge without battle testing the migration process anyway, which means > there needs to be such a long transition period. I do agree that we need a testing period to iron out the migration process. Like I said, I'm not quite comfortable even with running it here because I don't know if it will break my system, and once you do the migration, the only way to undo it is to wipe and re-install. I have thought about a way to roll back, but I don't see that as very feesable, so once you migrate to a /usr merged setup, there is no way to undo it. Also, the usr merge affects linux only; we aren't talking about messing with *bsd. After the testing period is over, I'm confused about why we should support both layouts. With separate usr without initramfs gone, the usr merge is transparent to end users because of the symbolic links in /, so there should be no reason to keep supporting both layouts once we are satisfied with the migration process. William signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Wed, Apr 6, 2016 at 4:04 PM, Richard Yao wrote: > On Apr 6, 2016, at 3:42 AM, Alexis Ballier wrote: >> On Wednesday, April 6, 2016 6:15:58 AM CEST, Richard Yao wrote: >>> >>> Here are the violations: >>> >>> http://refspecs.linuxfoundation.org/FHS_3.0/fhs-3.0.html#binEssentialUserCommandBinaries >>> >>> http://refspecs.linuxfoundation.org/FHS_3.0/fhs-3.0.html#sbinSystemBinaries >>> >>> http://refspecs.linuxfoundation.org/FHS_3.0/fhs-3.0.html#libEssentialSharedLibrariesAndKern >> >> well, those are not violations: fhs mandates a certain set of >> binaries in those paths; this is still the case with a usr-merged >> system. >> >> i thought the symlinks would be a problem, but fhs states: >>> >>> The following directories, or symbolic links to directories, are required >>> in /. >> >> so, really, i dont see any violation there > > Nice. They added that to fix it. More likely you missed it in the past because 2004's FHS 2.3 has "The following directories, or symbolic links to directories, are required in /." in http://refspecs.linuxfoundation.org/FHS_2.3/fhs-2.3.html#REQUIREMENTS
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Wednesday, April 6, 2016 11:36:09 PM CEST, Richard Yao wrote: As for those benefits, they do little for {/usr,}/sbin vs {/usr,}/bin, which is where the incompatibilities tend to live. I encountered one of these in powertop the other day (patch pending). The benefits of being able to access things from both places are somewhat exaggerated given that compatibility among systems has long required searching $PATH and likely always will. PATH is a shell thing; some libc functions like execvp duplicate this functionality but that's all; you dont have PATH in shebangs nor in execv. Note, we are not talking about squashing /usr out of the equasion, but merging /bin, /sbin and /lib* into their counterparts in /usr and creating symlinks in the root directory pointing to the counterparts in /usr. While one guy did the reverse (and the reverse ought to be okay for those that want to do that), no one appears to think that adopting the reverse is what is being suggested. Having this sort of clarity on whether forcing this on everyone via baselayout update, just providing the option for those who want it or some combination of the two (e.g. a long transition period in which both are supported) is being discussed would be nice though. This is not a Boolean decision. I've been under the impression since the beginning of the thread that it is what is being proposed: make it possible but support both. We can't force usr-merge without battle testing the migration process anyway, which means there needs to be such a long transition period. Alexis.
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Wednesday, April 6, 2016 5:52:52 PM CEST, Richard Yao wrote: The original purpose of the /usr merge in Solaris was to make managing updates easier. Redhat realized that and copied it. Copying it too without doing the enabling work necessary for a rolling distribution would be setting a trap for users who would think that they can manage deployments of Gentoo like they can manage deployments Solaris and/or RHEL. You're tying the whole thing too much to solaris/rh ways. The benefits for us are far less than for them and managing updates via everything in /usr is certainly out of scope of the current proposal.
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Wed, Apr 06, 2016 at 05:36:09PM -0400, Richard Yao wrote: > > > >> On Apr 6, 2016, at 4:43 PM, William Hubbs wrote: > >> > >>> On Wed, Apr 06, 2016 at 11:52:52AM -0400, Richard Yao wrote: > >>> On 04/06/2016 10:58 AM, M. J. Everitt wrote: > >>> What, if any, is the benefit of squashing /usr out of the equation? I > >>> happen to have a few workstations that load their /usr off an NFS share > >>> presently, with some bodgery-workarounds I did pre the udev notification > >>> about initramfs's which I have never got around to implementing > >>> (although I'm pretty sure I have the tools now to do, along with UUIDs > >>> for boot media). > >> > >> The idea in Solaris is to enable atomic updates via the /usr mount > >> without touching data files in /etc or temporary files in /var. Usually, > >> this would be done on reboot and could be propagated to many systems > >> either via /usr on NFS or ZFS send/recv. > >> > >> This works well on Solaris because both software versions are pegged > >> (such that file formats in /etc are stable) in favor of backported fixes > >> and the FHS does not change across major OS versions. The same goes for > >> RHEL. > > > > Also, there are other benefits to the /usr merge [1]. > > Are they worth breaking existing systems that are configured the one way we > all know things will break if this is forced? If not, a USE flag would work. Other than systems using separate /usr without initramfs (which we declared broken three years ago), I'm not following what "we all know" would break. > As for those benefits, they do little for {/usr,}/sbin vs {/usr,}/bin, which > is where the incompatibilities tend to live. I encountered one of these in > powertop the other day (patch pending). The benefits of being able to access > things from both places are somewhat exaggerated given that compatibility > among systems has long required searching $PATH and likely always will. > > > Note, we are not > > talking about squashing /usr out of the equasion, but merging /bin, > > /sbin and /lib* into their counterparts in /usr and creating symlinks in > > the root directory pointing to the counterparts in /usr. > > While one guy did the reverse (and the reverse ought to be okay for those > that want to do that), no one appears to think that adopting the reverse is > what is being suggested. Having this sort of clarity on whether forcing this > on everyone via baselayout update, just providing the option for those who > want it or some combination of the two (e.g. a long transition period in > which both are supported) is being discussed would be nice though. This is > not a Boolean decision. > > >> Gentoo systems managed this way will suffer from multiple problems: > >> > >> * Software updates that change the configuration file format without > >> supporting the older format will break. > >> > >> * Software updates that change the boot scripts will break. > >> > >> * Future baselayout updates will not be able to touch anything outside > >> of /usr and anything requiring such things be touched will break. > >> > >> * An update to /usr that adds new software will fail to include things > >> outside of /usr, like the boot scripts and configuration files. > >> > >> * The package database will fall out of sync with /usr (or be broken > >> period). Presumably, if you are updating this way, you should expect the > >> package database to be broken. > >> > >> These are likely to be mostly fixable, but I do not think we have a plan > >> in place to fix them right now. The general staleness of Solaris and > >> RHEL handle the first 3 issues for them for free. > >> > >> I have not looked at the specifics of how Solaris handles the 4th, but I > >> know that SMF in OpenSolaris descendents will update manifests on first > >> boot into a new boot environment. That suggests to me that the Solaris > >> boot scripts handle it by comparing /etc with /usr. > >> > >> As for the 5th, the package database is not broken in Solaris zones > >> where the /usr merge is leveraged to enable easy updates. However, I do > >> not know how updating all zones works when zones have independently > >> installed software. It might be that the software is installed in > >> /usr/local inside the zone and conflicts are the user's problem, but it > >> has been so long since I used an illumos distribution (which is > >> descended from OpenSolaris) that I do not remember. > > > > I don't think any of these issues are issues that Gentoo systems > > managed like this do not already have. > > That is my point. Then we agree that these issues are not regressions that the usr merge would cause. They are issues possibly, but imo not relevant to whether we go ahead with the /usr merge or not. William signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
>> On Apr 6, 2016, at 4:43 PM, William Hubbs wrote: >> >>> On Wed, Apr 06, 2016 at 11:52:52AM -0400, Richard Yao wrote: >>> On 04/06/2016 10:58 AM, M. J. Everitt wrote: >>> What, if any, is the benefit of squashing /usr out of the equation? I >>> happen to have a few workstations that load their /usr off an NFS share >>> presently, with some bodgery-workarounds I did pre the udev notification >>> about initramfs's which I have never got around to implementing >>> (although I'm pretty sure I have the tools now to do, along with UUIDs >>> for boot media). >> >> The idea in Solaris is to enable atomic updates via the /usr mount >> without touching data files in /etc or temporary files in /var. Usually, >> this would be done on reboot and could be propagated to many systems >> either via /usr on NFS or ZFS send/recv. >> >> This works well on Solaris because both software versions are pegged >> (such that file formats in /etc are stable) in favor of backported fixes >> and the FHS does not change across major OS versions. The same goes for >> RHEL. > > Also, there are other benefits to the /usr merge [1]. Are they worth breaking existing systems that are configured the one way we all know things will break if this is forced? If not, a USE flag would work. As for those benefits, they do little for {/usr,}/sbin vs {/usr,}/bin, which is where the incompatibilities tend to live. I encountered one of these in powertop the other day (patch pending). The benefits of being able to access things from both places are somewhat exaggerated given that compatibility among systems has long required searching $PATH and likely always will. > Note, we are not > talking about squashing /usr out of the equasion, but merging /bin, > /sbin and /lib* into their counterparts in /usr and creating symlinks in > the root directory pointing to the counterparts in /usr. While one guy did the reverse (and the reverse ought to be okay for those that want to do that), no one appears to think that adopting the reverse is what is being suggested. Having this sort of clarity on whether forcing this on everyone via baselayout update, just providing the option for those who want it or some combination of the two (e.g. a long transition period in which both are supported) is being discussed would be nice though. This is not a Boolean decision. >> Gentoo systems managed this way will suffer from multiple problems: >> >> * Software updates that change the configuration file format without >> supporting the older format will break. >> >> * Software updates that change the boot scripts will break. >> >> * Future baselayout updates will not be able to touch anything outside >> of /usr and anything requiring such things be touched will break. >> >> * An update to /usr that adds new software will fail to include things >> outside of /usr, like the boot scripts and configuration files. >> >> * The package database will fall out of sync with /usr (or be broken >> period). Presumably, if you are updating this way, you should expect the >> package database to be broken. >> >> These are likely to be mostly fixable, but I do not think we have a plan >> in place to fix them right now. The general staleness of Solaris and >> RHEL handle the first 3 issues for them for free. >> >> I have not looked at the specifics of how Solaris handles the 4th, but I >> know that SMF in OpenSolaris descendents will update manifests on first >> boot into a new boot environment. That suggests to me that the Solaris >> boot scripts handle it by comparing /etc with /usr. >> >> As for the 5th, the package database is not broken in Solaris zones >> where the /usr merge is leveraged to enable easy updates. However, I do >> not know how updating all zones works when zones have independently >> installed software. It might be that the software is installed in >> /usr/local inside the zone and conflicts are the user's problem, but it >> has been so long since I used an illumos distribution (which is >> descended from OpenSolaris) that I do not remember. > > I don't think any of these issues are issues that Gentoo systems > managed like this do not already have. That is my point. > If you are mounting /usr from nfs right now, for example, > things are worse, because you also have to worry about whether packages > split their installations between /usr/lib*->/lib* and > /usr/{,s}bin->/{s,}bin. Only a masochist would want to do this right now. There are saner ways of doing things with the legacy layout than the Solaris way that depends on the /usr merge. >>> Whilst these aren't currently scheduled for upgrade, I don't personally >>> see any merit, given discussions here about work needed to 'shore up' a >>> change to match some particular use case. I would therefore definitely >>> agree with those that have proposed that this is an Option and not a >>> standard gentoo install item unless there are some specific caveats that >>> this solves. >> >> The or
Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge
On Wed, Apr 06, 2016 at 11:52:52AM -0400, Richard Yao wrote: > On 04/06/2016 10:58 AM, M. J. Everitt wrote: > > What, if any, is the benefit of squashing /usr out of the equation? I > > happen to have a few workstations that load their /usr off an NFS share > > presently, with some bodgery-workarounds I did pre the udev notification > > about initramfs's which I have never got around to implementing > > (although I'm pretty sure I have the tools now to do, along with UUIDs > > for boot media). > > The idea in Solaris is to enable atomic updates via the /usr mount > without touching data files in /etc or temporary files in /var. Usually, > this would be done on reboot and could be propagated to many systems > either via /usr on NFS or ZFS send/recv. > > This works well on Solaris because both software versions are pegged > (such that file formats in /etc are stable) in favor of backported fixes > and the FHS does not change across major OS versions. The same goes for > RHEL. Also, there are other benefits to the /usr merge [1]. Note, we are not talking about squashing /usr out of the equasion, but merging /bin, /sbin and /lib* into their counterparts in /usr and creating symlinks in the root directory pointing to the counterparts in /usr. > > Gentoo systems managed this way will suffer from multiple problems: > > * Software updates that change the configuration file format without > supporting the older format will break. > > * Software updates that change the boot scripts will break. > > * Future baselayout updates will not be able to touch anything outside > of /usr and anything requiring such things be touched will break. > > * An update to /usr that adds new software will fail to include things > outside of /usr, like the boot scripts and configuration files. > > * The package database will fall out of sync with /usr (or be broken > period). Presumably, if you are updating this way, you should expect the > package database to be broken. > > These are likely to be mostly fixable, but I do not think we have a plan > in place to fix them right now. The general staleness of Solaris and > RHEL handle the first 3 issues for them for free. > > I have not looked at the specifics of how Solaris handles the 4th, but I > know that SMF in OpenSolaris descendents will update manifests on first > boot into a new boot environment. That suggests to me that the Solaris > boot scripts handle it by comparing /etc with /usr. > > As for the 5th, the package database is not broken in Solaris zones > where the /usr merge is leveraged to enable easy updates. However, I do > not know how updating all zones works when zones have independently > installed software. It might be that the software is installed in > /usr/local inside the zone and conflicts are the user's problem, but it > has been so long since I used an illumos distribution (which is > descended from OpenSolaris) that I do not remember. I don't think any of these issues are issues that Gentoo systems managed like this do not already have. If you are mounting /usr from nfs right now, for example, things are worse, because you also have to worry about whether packages split their installations between /usr/lib*->/lib* and /usr/{,s}bin->/{s,}bin. > > Whilst these aren't currently scheduled for upgrade, I don't personally > > see any merit, given discussions here about work needed to 'shore up' a > > change to match some particular use case. I would therefore definitely > > agree with those that have proposed that this is an Option and not a > > standard gentoo install item unless there are some specific caveats that > > this solves. > > The original purpose of the /usr merge in Solaris was to make managing > updates easier. Redhat realized that and copied it. Copying it too > without doing the enabling work necessary for a rolling distribution > would be setting a trap for users who would think that they can manage > deployments of Gentoo like they can manage deployments Solaris and/or RHEL. [1] https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/TheCaseForTheUsrMerge/ signature.asc Description: Digital signature