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On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 10:02:02AM -0400, Mike Edenfield wrote: |
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> > From: Alan Mackenzie [mailto:acm@×××.de] |
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> > Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2012 9:37 AM |
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> > My question: what, technically, prevents me from copying the booting |
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> > software instead to /sbin and booting the system that way? |
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> Nothing; in fact, this was the general solution to the problem of "something |
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> else in /usr/{sbin,bin,lib} is needed at boot" for a long time. More and |
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> more software was getting moved into /{s,}bin, and in particular into /lib, |
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> to make it available in the early boot stages. |
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> There's nothing wrong with that, as long as you can ensure that any |
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> hard-coded paths to those binaries are updated properly. |
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Surely this is the same, whether one copies the booting software to |
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initramfs or /sbin, isn't it? |
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> As you move more and more software off of /usr into / you start to realize |
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> that the idea of "tiny partition that contains just what I need to boot and |
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> mount /usr" is becoming "not so tiny" anymore. The distinction between what |
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> is "boot" software versus "user" software gets less clear. |
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Again, isn't this the same for an initramfs? |
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> Then it's just question of how far you take this process before you |
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> reach your personal threshold of questioning why you have two |
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> partitions at all. Whether you reach that point or not depends on how |
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> complex your boot process is, what you actually need running to boot, |
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> and how personally invested in a split /usr you happen to be :) |
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I've decided that, if push comes to shove, I'm going to go for /usr on / |
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rather than a fragile initramfs system. I've got everything bar / on |
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RAID 1/LVM at the moment, but I don't really use LVM, so I could |
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dismantle that too, losing all the baggage that brings with it. |
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Having said that, my system (including Gnome) is working perfectly well |
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with mdev, and see no reason why that shouldn't continue. |
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> --Mike |
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-- |
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Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany). |
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