Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge

On Sat, Apr 09, 2016 at 07:11:31AM -0400, Rich Freeman wrote

> It was simply a recognition that we were already in a state where
> booting a system without /usr mounted early can cause problems.

  For certain edge cases... yes.  But they were already using initramfs
or merging /usr into /.  I'm talking about the 95% who don't really need
it.

> I never really got the mentality that using an initramfs is a burden.

  One more piece of software that can go wrong.  You have to
maintain+configure it; e.g. sync software and library versions with
what's on the rest of the system.

> An initramfs is just a secondary bootloader for userspace.  I almost
> always use them even if I'm just booting a VM with a single partition
> on it.  If something goes wrong you can fall back to a shell in the
> initramfs and it is like having a rescue disk built into your system
> disk.

  There is single-user mode for rescue.

> For a more complex setup it is much more robust than relying on
> the kernel to find your root, and it also lets you build with a more
> module-based kernel, which has some benefits as well even if you build
> kernels tailored to each host.

  I have "Production" and "Experimental" entries in my LILO menu.  A new
kernel is always set up as the "Experimental" entry.  After running
several days without problems, I run a script which copies the data from
the "Experimental" portion to "Production".

  The only time my system had problems "finding root" was years ago when
the switch from /dev/hd* to /dev/sd* took place.  The "Experimental"
boot with the new kernel died.  I booted "Production", read the mailing
list, changed "hd" to "sd" for the "Experimental" entry, and rebooted.
After several days without problems, I made the same change to the
"Production" entry, and copied the "Experimental" portion to
"Production".

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@××××××××.org>
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications