Re: [gentoo-dev] gen_usr_ldscript & --libdir=/lib

[Rich Freeman]

On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 2:55 AM, Tony "Chainsaw" Vroon
<chainsaw@g.o> wrote:
> On Wed, 2012-12-26 at 22:01 -0600, William Hubbs wrote:
>> Actually, since ulm pointed out in another thread that the
>> council has not mandated that we support separate /usr without an
>> initramfs, I am re-considering this.
>
> So now that the /usr-merge steamroller can not break systems through
> udev, because an alternative now exists... another way must be found?
> That seems rather immature.
> What must be forked next to keep this working? openrc?

Tend to agree, assuming it causes no additional work for package maintainers.

This all started out as udev maintainers wanting to keep things simple
and closer to upstream.  Systems with a separate /usr breaking was a
bit of a side-effect.  The general direction that was chosen was to
provide alternatives for those who don't want to use an initramfs and
allow udev to follow upstream.  Life for the udev team is easier as a
result.

There is no decided strategic direction at Gentoo to move everything
into /usr as there is with Fedora.  It just doesn't make sense to
start pushing packages there.  That potentially CREATES work for
maintainers (bug reports, dealing with change, etc), and there is no
real benefit unless we systematically apply it (moving EVERYTHING into
/usr as with Fedora).  Systematically moving everything isn't going to
happen by just changing an eclass.

If somebody can see a benefit to having things moving in the direction
of /usr then by all means stick a flag in the profiles and use it to
control this behavior, and then we give choice to the end-user.
However, I don't really see the point.  When you change the status quo
it should be because it either lowers cost or produces benefit.

Rich