Gentoo Archives: gentoo-dev

From: "Michał Górny" <mgorny@g.o>
To: gentoo-dev@l.g.o
Cc: williamh@g.o, robbat2@g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] rfc: locations of binaries and separate /usr
Date: Sun, 01 Jan 2012 17:54:13
Message-Id: 20120101185434.3d019941@pomiocik.lan
In Reply to: [gentoo-dev] rfc: locations of binaries and separate /usr by William Hubbs
1 On Sat, 31 Dec 2011 19:59:47 -0600
2 William Hubbs <williamh@g.o> wrote:
3
4 > I see three options:
5 >
6 > 1) Start migrating packages along with upstream and have everyone who
7 > has a separate /usr (including me by the way) start using an initramfs
8 > of some kind, either dracut or one that we generate specifically for
9 > gentoo. The reason I suggest the initramfs, is, unfortunately if we
10 > migrate everything, nothing else would work.
11 >
12 > 2) Combine the sbin and bin directories both on the root
13 > filesystem and in /usr by moving things from /sbin to /bin
14 > and /usr/sbin to /usr/bin.
15 >
16 > 3) Try to maintain things the way they are as long as possible.
17
18 We should *at least* start doing some preparations, like ensuring that
19 random things don't unnecessarily hardcode /sbin or /bin paths. Most
20 importantly, if a particular tool runs in a complete environment (which
21 is true for most of the cases), there is no need to hardcode paths to
22 tools.
23
24 As I see it, 2) seems achievable within a reasonable time now. It
25 shouldn't require any specific changes from users (except for fixing
26 their own broken scripts) yet some tree-wide action of fixing hardcoded
27 paths.
28
29 We could create /sbin and /usr/sbin symlinks as well but that shouldn't
30 be really necessary, especially if we prepare packages well beforehand.
31 Introducing such symlinks would be hard to perform and getting rid of
32 them later would be even harder; mostly due to PMS-enforced limitations.
33
34 For a long-term view, 1) is the only way to go. Splitting packages
35 randomly between rootfs and /usr was never really correct, and we
36 especially shouldn't force users to junk their systems with shattered
37 packages and cheap glue to keep it all working.
38
39 I'd suggest going the other way than I did with kmod. Temporary IUSE
40 like 'install-to-usr', disabled by default for now. Packages having
41 that IUSE should have correct USE-dependencies, and users who need not
42 to use that could just enable 'install-to-usr' globally (we'd probably
43 want to mask it first).
44
45 Of course, that way will require removing hardcoded paths as well, or
46 supporting switching them on IUSE. For the latter, it may be simpler to
47 use '[install-to-usr=]' kind of dependencies.
48
49 --
50 Best regards,
51 Michał Górny

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Re: [gentoo-dev] rfc: locations of binaries and separate /usr William Hubbs <williamh@g.o>