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Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2011 01:05:34 +0200
From: Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com>
To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org
Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot
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On Thu, 8 Sep 2011 22:31:15 +0000
Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 08, 2011 at 11:44:41PM +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:
>
> > > Would it not be possible to have a minimal /usr tree in the root
> > > partition for udev's use at boot time, and to later mount a more
> > > robust /usr partition over this? What am I missing here?
>
> > A big problem will be that the package manager cannot easily
> > maintain that "phase 1" code as it's under another mount point.
> > Doing so would require the package manager to bind-mount /
> > somewhere and copy updated binaries of essential packages there as
> > well as into the real /usr. Not an insurmountable problem, it just
> > requires changes to all affected packages, and well within the
> > capabilities of distros.
>
> > As a workaround, it's certainly a fine example. But I suspect it
> > will annoy a lot of users and support people due to this "hidden"
> > code being on the filesystem. If I were a package maintainer, I
> > know I'd feel a little annoyed with having to track yet another
> > trait in my packages.
>
> I'm trying to think of some solution that won't annoy lots of people.
> What on earth were the developers thinking when they swept away the
> fundamentals assumptions of booting?
FWIW, I definitely expect at least some distros to consider your idea
seriously (or something similar to it).
It's hacky, no denying it, but no less hacky than the entire concept of
an initramfs itself (think it through for a few minutes, the parallels
are so exact it's amazing).
--
Alan McKinnnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com