Re: [gentoo-dev] rfc: locations of binaries and separate /usr

[Alex Alexander]

On Thu, Jan 05, 2012 at 08:08:44PM +0000, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> On Thu, 5 Jan 2012 13:30:24 -0600
> William Hubbs <williamh@g.o> wrote:
> > > Or will /etc move to /usr too?
> >
> > No, /etc isn't going anywhere.
>
> Are you sure? I heard a rumour that systemd will soon require you to
> put /etc inside your initrd (since / can't be mounted without it).
> Obviously, you'd have to reboot if you made any changes to your config
> files, but that's OK since you can't safely restart daemons anyway.

Although this is a bit frightening to think about, because people are
crazy enough to actually implement it, this is one of the funniest
things I've read lately, thanks for the laugh xD

On a serious note though, it seems to me that the /bin | /usr/bin line
is too blurry, creating confusion. Migrating everything to a single
folder is the simplest solution of all. Combine that with redhat's
update approach and it is easy to see why they've taken this route.

If people are really interested in keeping a tight, self contained root,
we need to:

- establish a [tight] list of software we consider critical for /
- fix/patch software in that list so it can run without /usr there
- create /bin => /usr/bin/ symlinks for above software (simplifies
  things if packages start hardcoding /usr/bin here and there)
- move everything else in /usr/bin/

Do this and I'm sure other people/distros will follow/help and
upstreams will accept our patches. I'm sure there are other people who
don't like this "one bin folder to rule them all" logic.

If no one is really interested in doing all this... well, whoever
actually implements something in open source usually wins the race -
it's the same in Gentoo too, no? ;)

Only difference here is, one team has the advantage of being paid
to do it.
-- 
Alex Alexander | wired
+ Gentoo Linux Developer
++ www.linuxized.com