Re: [gentoo-dev] Opinion against /usr merge

[Rich Freeman]

On Tue, Jul 17, 2012 at 5:20 PM, Richard Yao <ryao@g.o> wrote:
> I have also been told that the /usr merge is necessary because upstream
> will force it on us. Interestingly, most of @system on Gentoo Linux is
> GNU software, which would need to stop supporting things in / in order
> for that to happen.

I don't think anybody in Gentoo is advocating a full /usr merge.  I
think that the only thing that has been happening is that there will
not be any heroic measures to keep a system with a separate /usr
booting without the use of an initramfs or some early-running script.

It doesn't matter that the majority of @system software is GNU.  For a
separate /usr to not work does not require ALL of the software to not
support it, but only for a few pieces of software to not support it -
a chain is as strong as its weakest link.

In any case, it sounds like for now some devs are continuing to adjust
ebuilds to keep a separate /usr working as well as possible, though it
apparently breaks in some edge cases right now without an initramfs,
as you've already noted in your email.

I don't think anybody in Gentoo is really pushing for a /usr merge -
there are just lots of devs saying that they aren't going to spend a
lot of time stopping it either.  If upstream sticks files needed to
boot in /usr then it is basically up to somebody who cares to do
something to move them.  Right now that isn't a lot of work, but the
reason people are concerned is that this is likely to change.

If somebody really is pushing for an all-out /usr move by all means
speak up, but I think that basically what everybody is advocating is
trying to follow upstream for individual packages.

Rich