On Mon, 30 Sep 2013 17:05:39 -0400, Walter Dnes wrote:

> > If *something1* at boot time requires access to *something2* at boot
> > time that isn't available then I would say that *something1* is broken
> > by design not the *something2*.  
> 
>   What about the case where *something2* *USED TO BE AVAILABLE, BUT HAS
> BEEN MOVED TO /USR* ?

What about the case where something1 wasn't required at boot time but
changed circumstances mean it now is?
 
> > So I would argue that devs relying on /usr always being there have
> > broken the "system".  
> 
>   So I would argue that unnecessarily moving stuff into /usr is
> deliberate sabotage, designed to break *something1*.

Define unnecessarily in that context? You can't, not for all use cases.
There are many files that clearly need to be available early on, and many
more that clearly do not. Between them is a huge grey area, files that
some need and some don't, that may be needed now or at some indeterminate
point in the future. If you put everything that may conceivably be needed
at early boot into /, you shift a large chunk of /usr/*bin/ and /usr/lib*
into /, effectively negating the point of a small, lean /. That puts us
right back where we started, try to define a point of separation that
cannot be defined.

initramfs is the new /, for varying values of new since most distros have
been doing it that way for well over a decade.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

"He's dead, Jim.  You get his phaser, I'll grab his wallet."