> From: Alan Mackenzie [mailto:acm@...]
> Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2012 9:37 AM

> My question: what, technically, prevents me from copying the booting
> software instead to /sbin and booting the system that way?

Nothing; in fact, this was the general solution to the problem of "something
else in /usr/{sbin,bin,lib} is needed at boot" for a long time. More and
more software was getting moved into /{s,}bin, and in particular into /lib,
to make it available in the early boot stages.

There's nothing wrong with that, as long as you can ensure that any
hard-coded paths to those binaries are updated properly. 

As you move more and more software off of /usr into / you start to realize
that the idea of "tiny partition that contains just what I need to boot and
mount /usr" is becoming "not so tiny" anymore. The distinction between what
is "boot" software versus "user" software gets less clear. Then it's just
question of how far you take this process before you reach your personal
threshold of questioning why you have two partitions at all. Whether you
reach that point or not depends on how complex your boot process is, what
you actually need running to boot, and how personally invested in a split
/usr you happen to be :)

--Mike