Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Flexibility and robustness in the Linux organisim

[Dale]

Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> Am 29.09.2013 17:12, schrieb Greg Woodbury:
>> On 09/29/2013 07:58 AM, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
>>
>>> things were broken way before that. As much as I hate systemd, it is not
>>> the root cause of the problem.
>>>
>>> The problems were caused by people saying that seperate /usr was a good
>>> idea, so / would not fill up and similar idiocies. The problems were
>>> caused by people saying that lvm is a good idea - for desktops. Those
>>> people who are fighting against the kernel auto assembling raids are to
>>> blame too.
>>>
>>> Systemd is just another point in a very long list.
>>>
>> The usr filesystem was separate from root from the very early days of
>> UNIX.  Disks were *tiny* (compared to today) and spreading certain
>> things across separate spindles provided major benefits. Certainly,
>> the original need to require a separate usr went away fairly quickly,
>> but other benefits continued to encourage a seperation between root
>> and usr.
>>
> in the very early days /usr did not exist in the first space and was
> only created because someone added a harddisk.
>
> Not really a good reason to keep it around.

Nope, new reasons now.  Good ones for me and quite a few others as well. 

>
>> The var filesystem was for variable system data, and was never
>> terribly big and its inclusion on the root volume happened.  The home
>> filesystem  became traditionally separate because data expands to fill
>> all availab;e space, and users collect *things*
> and a seperate /home does not create any problems.
> /var is much more prone to accidentally fill up then /usr ever was.

Happened to me twice since I started using LVM.  I might add, it was one
reason I started using LVM in the first place.  I needed to be able to
increase the size of file systems without redoing everything.  LVM does
that pretty well and has saved my bacon more than once. 


>
> <<<SNIP>>>
>> As a result, the GNOME Alliance has shattered.  The main GNOME army
>> marches on its unfathomable path, and various large chunks have broke
>> off in their own directions (e.g. Cinnamon and Mate) seeking to remain
>> flexible and not incompatible with the KDE and other lesser DE folks.
>>
>> It is truly layable at the feet of the GNOME folks, the breakage of
>> the root and usr filesystem separability is all derived from the GNOME
>> camp.
>> These changes may not, in fact, be deliberate or intended to "defeat"
>> Microsoft, but Ockham's Razor cuts and intentionality is the simpler
>> explanation.
> that gnome is very hostile when it comes to KDE or choice is not news.
> And their dependency on systemd is just the usual madness. But they are
> not to blame for seperate /usr and the breakage it causes.

If not, then what was it?  You seem to know what it was that started it
so why not share?

>
>>
>> To come back to the thesis: robustness and flexibility are required
>> for good "health" and we are witnessing a dangerous challenge.
>>
> what? that you need an initrd? That is so bad?
>
> Are you kidding me?

For me, nope, I ain't kidding one dang bit.  For me, I have used one
before and it was a mess.  It failed more times than I would care to
think about so pardon me for NOT wanting to use one again. 

>> [PS} If anybody cares, I was trained in both Computer Science and
>> Biological Science.  and I can expand on the parallels if so desired.
>>
> no thank you. But if I might add one: you are making an elephant out of
> a gnat.
>
>

Maybe that gnat didn't bite you and give you some serious reason not to
let it happen again.  You worry about the elephant tho.  :-D

Dale

:-)  :-) 

-- 
I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how you interpreted my words!