Re: [gentoo-dev] newsitem: initramfs required on Linux systems with separate /usr

[Rich Freeman]

On Wed, Sep 25, 2013 at 4:35 AM, Michał Górny <mgorny@g.o> wrote:
>
>>
>> What about busybox[sep-usr]? Is that still supported or is everyone with
>> separate /usr forced to use an initramfs?
>
> I'd say it's supported as long as it gives a compatible end result.
> I suspect that the number of cases supported by that is less than those
> supported by a complete initramfs.
>
> However, I'd say the support is mostly the maintainer's discretion.
> As long as busybox maintainers want to support that, it should work.
> But don't expect Gentoo developers to check whether that work or
> encourage users to use that.
>
> I think we used to call that 'early boot mechanism' in the past, but I
> guess just 'initramfs' is easier for users.

If Gentoo actually offered some kind of formal support I'd be more
concerned about exactly what is and isn't supported, but for the most
part what is and isn't supported is a gray area that varies by
developer, with perhaps some hard boundaries at the extremes.

We had the conversation of whether mixing keywords was "supported" and
ended up basically where we seem to be with early boot mechanisms.

If somebody wanted to run with a separate /usr I would recommend they
use an initramfs.  That doesn't mean that there aren't other ways of
solving the problem.  However, an initramfs is what would end up in
the handbook/etc as it is probably the most straightforward solution.

I guess the questions is whether we really need to advertise the
alternatives.  95% of users are probably going to use an initramfs
anyway.  If some prefer an alternative solution they're likely to
already be reading -dev and so on and probably are already using
busybox.

If the maintainers of the busybox-based solution want to plug their
option (and deal with the questions/issues when they arise) I have no
objection as long as it doesn't add much to the news item.

Rich