Re: [gentoo-dev] Warn users not to do separate /usr partition without proper initramfs in the handbook?

[Rich Freeman]

On Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 7:49 AM, Dale <rdalek1967@×××××.com> wrote:
> From a users perspective.  Could it not be possible to have some USE flag,
> or other setting, that would tell portage that a separate /usr partition is
> being used then have the needed files placed elsewhere on / ?  I'm not a dev
> and I don't play one on TV but I do like options and being able to customize
> some things.  It is one of the things Gentoo is about.
>

I don't see what a USE flag gets us:

1.  If you have a separate /usr then either booting without an
initramfs will work or it won't work - largely depending on how
complex your environment is.  Booting with an initramfs will work
reliably (well, if we sort out the initramfs situation - having done
some more tests I have one virtual machine which was pretty easy to
get running, and one physical box that for whatever reason wouldn't
detect/start the RAID).

2.  If you don't have a separate /usr than booting will always work
regardless of where the files are, since the system will always find
them.

Unless what is being proposed is to actually do the Fedora thing and
make /bin, /lib, etc a symlink into /usr/bin, /usr/lib, etc than there
isn't anything at package-install time for the flag to affect.  If we
do want to do the Fedora thing would a flag even work, since those
directories get created from the stage3?  It seems to me that if you
want the symlinks you just need to set them up when doing the install
(or from a rescue disk), and then the package manager should follow
the links when doing subsequent installs.  Oh, and not all package
managers like the top-level directories to be symlinks.

I think that as was the case with the use of bash vs sh we may need to
have a policy decision made here.  Right now the general policy has
been to conform to FHS, and the Fedora/etc proposal does not do this
(and apparently we are already a bit out of compliance).  I think that
moving in a different direction is a big decision.

And, if we do decide to move in that direction, I agree with Samuli
that we need a transition plan.  Packages can't just start breaking
initrd-less setups left and right overnight.  To start, we need to get
dracut/etc configurable to mount any necessary directories (I checked
- it is fairly smart (though not 100% effective) at finding root, but
does not try to mount anything else).  Then we need to update our
documentation.  Then we need to communicate the change to users, and
give them time to migrate.  Only then can packages have the freedom to
require usr to be available at boot.

I don't propose that if we move in this direction that we "fix"
anything that isn't currently FHS-compliant - the damage is already
done.  We just should avoid propagating the situation until users are
ready.

Rich