Gentoo Archives: gentoo-user

From: Mike Edenfield <kutulu@××××××.org>
To: gentoo-user@l.g.o
Subject: RE: [gentoo-user] After /usr conflation: why not copy booting software to /sbin rather than initramfs?
Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2012 14:03:20
Message-Id: 01c301cd0c22$2fac1300$8f043900$@kutulu.org
In Reply to: [gentoo-user] After /usr conflation: why not copy booting software to /sbin rather than initramfs? by Alan Mackenzie
1 > From: Alan Mackenzie [mailto:acm@×××.de]
2 > Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2012 9:37 AM
3
4 > My question: what, technically, prevents me from copying the booting
5 > software instead to /sbin and booting the system that way?
6
7 Nothing; in fact, this was the general solution to the problem of "something
8 else in /usr/{sbin,bin,lib} is needed at boot" for a long time. More and
9 more software was getting moved into /{s,}bin, and in particular into /lib,
10 to make it available in the early boot stages.
11
12 There's nothing wrong with that, as long as you can ensure that any
13 hard-coded paths to those binaries are updated properly.
14
15 As you move more and more software off of /usr into / you start to realize
16 that the idea of "tiny partition that contains just what I need to boot and
17 mount /usr" is becoming "not so tiny" anymore. The distinction between what
18 is "boot" software versus "user" software gets less clear. Then it's just
19 question of how far you take this process before you reach your personal
20 threshold of questioning why you have two partitions at all. Whether you
21 reach that point or not depends on how complex your boot process is, what
22 you actually need running to boot, and how personally invested in a split
23 /usr you happen to be :)
24
25 --Mike

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