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

[Steven J Long]

Michał Górny wrote:

> On Tue, 10 Jan 2012 12:56:11 -0600
> Dale <rdalek1967@×××××.com> wrote:
>> How much time does it take when the initramfs fails?
>
> The same when rootfs fails? Only the fact that initramfs is less likely
> to break than rootfs,
Seems to me for the average desktop user (who all this is aimed at, a 
narrowing of scope which smacks of poor design) both partitions will be on 
the same drive, so I don't know what you base that assertion on.

> and you have a pretty good opportunity now to
> experiment with it
Except we only have the tools we thought to include on the initramfs, not 
everything our nice distro system packagers, who have experience and 
feedback over a much broader spectrum than one user, provide for us on root.

>> I keep hoping that all the smart people involved in this will see the
>> mess it is creating. I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed but I'm
>> sharp enough to see the mess this is going to create and I'm just a
>> desktop user.  I feel sorry for people with more complicated systems
>> or remote ones.
>
> The mess was created by people shouting 'hey, real men use
> separate /usr for no good reason! Be awesome like us'.
>
No, it was created by coders not really grokking why people used /usr, 
finding it made integration tricky with dependent projects and then saying 
"oh well no-one has a good reason for a separate /usr, let's just ban it."
Now the stance has changed to "a separate /usr can be cool for snapshots, 
let's move *everything* there."

The shifting nature of the arguments and the solutions makes me more 
uncomfortable that this hasn't been thought through even with the amount of 
feedback, and more importantly proper consideration to that feedback, 
required for a GLEP, let alone a change to base Linux filesystem 
specifications.

Blanket dismissals of any conflicting opinion only worsens that feeling.
-- 
#friendly-coders -- We're friendly, but we're not /that/ friendly ;-)