Gentoo Archives: gentoo-user

From: Mark David Dumlao <madumlao@×××××.com>
To: gentoo-user@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] systemd installation location
Date: Mon, 30 Sep 2013 05:08:58
Message-Id: CAG2nJkP_fwMam7NCuUuJjOKbP08oSLGGwwE6r5GK0d_V4xVbdw@mail.gmail.com
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-user] systemd installation location by Pandu Poluan
1 On Mon, Sep 30, 2013 at 12:13 PM, Pandu Poluan <pandu@××××××.info> wrote:
2 >
3 > On Sep 30, 2013 9:31 AM, "Daniel Campbell" <lists@××××××××.us> wrote:
4 >>
5 >
6 > --- le snip ---
7 >
8 >> If the proposed solution is all binaries and libraries in the same
9 >> root/prefix directory, then why call it /usr?
10 >
11 > My question exactly.
12 >
13 > Why install to /usr at all, leaving /bin and /sbin a practically empty
14 > directory containing symlinks only?
15 >
16 > I mean, I have no quarrel with / and /usr separation, having had them in the
17 > same partition for ages... but why not do it the other way around, i.e., put
18 > everything in / and have /usr be a container for symlinks?
19 >
20
21 If the binaries and libraries are kept together, /usr can actually be made
22 reliably sharable, independent of local settings in /etc. It can also be made
23 properly readonly, or otherwise use different mount options than /.
24
25 Most of the things in /usr have the same read-write characteristics.
26 They're mostly chunks of 1-20mb in size that are read very often and
27 written very rarely. You can pick a filesystem with options that
28 optimized for that. They're also non-data, so the root of that tree
29 has an entirely different backup priority than /etc or /home.
30
31 And then there are directories in /usr that don't exist in /. Are you
32 gonna link them too? So we have /share now? Or /src?
33
34 Seems to me that it makes less mess to move / to /usr than vice versa.
35 --
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