Re: [gentoo-dev] udev and /usr

[Joshua Kinard <kumba@gentoo.org>]

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On 09/19/2011 20:29, Rich Freeman wrote:

> 
> See:
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/UsrMove
> 
> That is some of the rationale for Fedora.  It isn't a bad idea both
> for destop-oriented and server-oriented setups.  It especially makes
> sense for a more traditional distro with versioned releases (basicaly
> you just drop in a new /usr and you're done minus a few /etc updates -
> and if you make /etc nothing but overrides from defaults then it would
> itself be almost empty and not need updates much).
> 
> Sure, we're not really planning to do that with Gentoo, but that is
> the pressure upstream is under.  When you have big distros pushing all
> the major projects in a particular direction we need to be really
> selective about where we push back.
> 
> The sky isn't falling though - nobody is looking to go out of their
> way to break non-root /usr, and we are looking to have a minimal
> initramfs even for those cases where it breaks a little.
> 
> Rich

Good info, thanks!

It definitely seems like something RH is cooking up for future releases of
RHEL, where their primary customer base is going to be installing clusters
and a ton of VMs.  I understand this, but I still disagree with them pushing
for this to be the default in a way to influence major projects.  Regardless
if Gentoo goes in that direction or not, if enough core software adopts
this, we'll essentially have no choice but to adopt the same.

That's what I take issue with -- the whims of a commercial enterprise
ultimately deciding, at some possible, future point, what path we take.  In
other words, those of us not running cluster farms shouldn't have to change
things, even slightly (like using an initramfs if needed) for those that do.
 Linux's greatest asset is its extreme configurability -- a single source
tree can be compiled to run on super computers or cable boxes.

And I see yet another reference to MacOS's /System in that link, too...

-- 
Joshua Kinard
Gentoo/MIPS
kumba@gentoo.org
4096R/D25D95E3 2011-03-28

"The past tempts us, the present confuses us, the future frightens us.  And
our lives slip away, moment by moment, lost in that vast, terrible in-between."

--Emperor Turhan, Centauri Republic


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