From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from lists.gentoo.org (pigeon.gentoo.org [208.92.234.80]) by finch.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 39E1C59CAF for ; Sat, 9 Apr 2016 11:11:40 +0000 (UTC) Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 61C9C21C124; Sat, 9 Apr 2016 11:11:33 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-io0-f181.google.com (mail-io0-f181.google.com [209.85.223.181]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 69A3C21C10F for ; Sat, 9 Apr 2016 11:11:32 +0000 (UTC) Received: by mail-io0-f181.google.com with SMTP id g185so159340268ioa.2 for ; Sat, 09 Apr 2016 04:11:32 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=mime-version:sender:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject :from:to; bh=WcyBfDewZTZNbJMfSUaqwtZ4Yh1H6HDeZvLButAdsoA=; b=UBFZ70A+Zgw1Tqujoo6oVNe415dynrv0wYJ7RHOi3+fFfpp9vykL01BL2sCMFRD8fv e3EOZEDHowTDB22cTM/O2fj5uKg2YGOiffYtx3t5wTt55tc/H9CQFt1M213mTPa3CR2S AztNCL4zbyHodKGzGJ1aG7sYWaf/Hyd9JP0yNHI+D0XZ+jkwKdYjQmb3TKJaJl+zbk/D H2y0KcoD5lrStrU2htdIGNxLjORqOEAZanxLdXpCgdWnBTbQTp94CPzzxwnnGGgaj9oF /A55gbN/R1E76dUZlX6IEXsoORLFTVgApcX4LQPKZOsHPasEXB5KUxEPOEMhWkpo//jW WfVA== X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20130820; h=x-gm-message-state:mime-version:sender:in-reply-to:references:date :message-id:subject:from:to; bh=WcyBfDewZTZNbJMfSUaqwtZ4Yh1H6HDeZvLButAdsoA=; b=gcfiNoTxiKixCV/NLhiRwYbeoT988WLh7vXP6Hss6jKZVFnH8+At2GncrNzzGcBs+o Ole5Ny9rycXKuh8G6Z/Io+irqEF+DuVGpUjYUxC/oTZcMa8Ux6cTCsj8ltreF73HqbG9 UI2IKAhmTpRjQ5lpIoaaAjBs0ZlGEwUtI/R7ChXYaCsH9yH8bCb1zS/sJ480r/hiyl9Q iAJuYcI5uXoqwHlUYVdYgHVDwTiuEODp/j8pod1kaIgPp6eQPlNiKSICpzQf5d9uTN2H Rrcu1qbLjMZhRz3l1Ptvp6izorl7RonJVaOei5Glxiqbyo9Ob69iI0kdMImGzj2YP3NM MCyg== X-Gm-Message-State: AD7BkJKWGIHc4WdCiIL+nDMmP5lKcHb4X7RAAn5RfcQviJEqPSA5H9JR7qNuACM6Oq4mqpYdsPBUIB6abu9+MQ== Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Received: by 10.107.186.137 with SMTP id k131mr14087786iof.136.1460200291595; Sat, 09 Apr 2016 04:11:31 -0700 (PDT) Sender: freemanrich@gmail.com Received: by 10.64.52.72 with HTTP; Sat, 9 Apr 2016 04:11:31 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <20160409053230.GA16529@waltdnes.org> References: <57087E0D.3090502@gmail.com> <20160409053230.GA16529@waltdnes.org> Date: Sat, 9 Apr 2016 07:11:31 -0400 X-Google-Sender-Auth: 97xAtmTf-dApcXYNzqpwVNsFEdI Message-ID: Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] usr merge From: Rich Freeman To: gentoo-dev Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 X-Archives-Salt: 5943e2d1-8250-4bd3-9733-717504fa23c1 X-Archives-Hash: d9992211516fe9e9be643d8561a85290 On Sat, Apr 9, 2016 at 1:32 AM, wrote: > > now - an arbitrary decree comes down that *EVERYBODY* who wants a > separate /usr needs to have initramfs. > The "decree" wasn't some kind of law that the Gentoo police will come out to your house and arrest you for violating. It was simply a recognition that we were already in a state where booting a system without /usr mounted early can cause problems. There isn't really any solution to these problems (other than moving most of /usr into /, which I doubt is the desire of anybody who puts /usr on a separate filesystem), and it probably will only get worse. The intent of the resolution was to not burden package maintainers to have to cater to a use case that was already failing. And the wording of the resolution doesn't mention the word "initramfs" at all, precisely because we recognized that there were many ways to work around the problem. If you have concerns about the decision being arbitrary you might want to read the original summary: https://projects.gentoo.org/council/meeting-logs/20130813-summary.txt and log: https://projects.gentoo.org/council/meeting-logs/20130813.txt And of course you can read the list archives from the time where the issue was extensively discussed. > * IT DOES NOT MAKE THINGS ANY EASIER FOR THE ORIGINAL 5% EDGE CASES *. > But the other 95% who could run separate /usr are now being told they > must run initramfs "just because". What does it accomplish? I never really got the mentality that using an initramfs is a burden. You can boot a kernel as an EFI program, but the reality is that many if not most users of linux on EFI use a secondary bootloader. Heck, back in the old days you could actually boot linux directly from the BIOS without any secondary bootloader, but this was so impractical that even Linus now tells people to: bugger_off_msg: .ascii "Use a boot loader.\r\n" .ascii "\n" .ascii "Remove disk and press any key to reboot...\r\n" .byte 0 (and I must say that I admire the man with the guts to not insert a carriage return when the carriage is already on the first column) An initramfs is just a secondary bootloader for userspace. I almost always use them even if I'm just booting a VM with a single partition on it. If something goes wrong you can fall back to a shell in the initramfs and it is like having a rescue disk built into your system disk. For a more complex setup it is much more robust than relying on the kernel to find your root, and it also lets you build with a more module-based kernel, which has some benefits as well even if you build kernels tailored to each host. -- Rich