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 9F6D31381F3 for ; Sun, 18 Aug 2013 09:20:00 +0000 (UTC) Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id CD8C9E09DB; Sun, 18 Aug 2013 09:19:54 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-wg0-f53.google.com (mail-wg0-f53.google.com [74.125.82.53]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-RC4-SHA (128/128 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 30AB5E08A6 for ; Sun, 18 Aug 2013 09:19:52 +0000 (UTC) Received: by mail-wg0-f53.google.com with SMTP id c11so1129047wgh.8 for ; Sun, 18 Aug 2013 02:19:51 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=message-id:date:from:user-agent:mime-version:to:subject:references :in-reply-to:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=dFFO36XMHUL5AH4dK5ln5KFRlFJR+jkOrjAC8jfQlLo=; b=nKm1hSmXuSXi0t9ORgz+xHvprH3fDPihNXma7evebHlL/rh4TMmIZDyVDTNmaIJn4M wTgdKkSwBgDV+a1T4TTXzy14tUwHALm+dPZ1nRkQts56cCUgd6+fQMz26fiCcc/2GmPu hQ9fqJ17pab+l/D3NSyaqOPMXM+WHSpFhJpi8MWdQURc44Nv3BvHPBKtgKEgnKEHpgy0 4kOrzK1+wiiQCAfp5k3BubKCjTGs03uv6EC6PAu34Uz2nSH7Yl+9KXoUkeKYZDLCh/p8 /HecOEfG0/JfaJJs82qK5qmMHxosaK0NzDFIK0AOBwv84rjhk4lEuXQ40f4jv38hLOks R+Mg== X-Received: by 10.180.184.84 with SMTP id es20mr4993316wic.37.1376817591792; Sun, 18 Aug 2013 02:19:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [172.20.0.41] (196-210-127-140.dynamic.isadsl.co.za. [196.210.127.140]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPSA id v9sm8265987wiw.8.1969.12.31.16.00.00 (version=TLSv1 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-RC4-SHA bits=128/128); Sun, 18 Aug 2013 02:19:51 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <521090F5.4090305@gmail.com> Date: Sun, 18 Aug 2013 11:16:37 +0200 From: Alan McKinnon User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:17.0) Gecko/20130809 Thunderbird/17.0.8 Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Optional /usr merge in Gentoo References: <520A5446.1050001@mail.ru> <520DA782.4050803@sporkbox.us> <520F6333.70301@dmj.nu> <9716EEEB-144F-47AA-A828-FC9A508CE9FA@stellar.eclipse.co.uk> In-Reply-To: <9716EEEB-144F-47AA-A828-FC9A508CE9FA@stellar.eclipse.co.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Archives-Salt: d8ed6230-55d2-4d70-8764-d337428e67a8 X-Archives-Hash: 565eb7c6c084dd97337869eb0e91b473 On 18/08/2013 08:40, Stroller wrote: > > On 17 August 2013, at 12:49, Dan Johansson wrote: >> ... >>>>> The usr-merge will be a slow, gradual change; it will probably take >>>>> years. The systemd package entered the tree in June 2011, after more >>>>> than a year in an overlay, and then it took more than two years to >>>>> make it an official alternative to OpenRC. The /usr merge will take a >>>>> similar amount of time, if not longer. >>>>> >> >> And when we are at it, why not rename '/' to 'C:\' ? > > Well, seriously, why not? > > You haven't made any arguments against putting everything on a single partition, just made a cheap "lolz, micro$oft windoze" analogy. > > I can understand wanting to put /home on a separate partition or /var/spool/mail or /var/www/sites but I don't understand this obsession with several different partitions for system files which are always going to be managed by portage and which I'm never going to move or mess with manually. > > Having /usr on a separate partition dates back to an era in which 10MB and 40MB harddisks were prohibitively expensive - they cost $1000s. > > Now we can host a complete Gentoo system on a $5 or $10 SDcard, I'm struggling to see the value. I agree. You've read that post to an embedded list that lays out clearly why this /usr thing happened, right? I see computer files falling in two large categories - the system and data. Portage manages the system, I only need to ensure there's enough space. The data is mine and I may well have very different needs for different parts - the fs settings for the portage tree definitely don't work well for my media store with 4G BluRay rips! While we're on the topic, what's the obsession with having different bits of the file hierarchy as different *mount points*? That harks back to the days when the only way to have a chunk of fs space be different was to have it as a separate physical thing and mount it. Nowadays we have something better - ZFS. To me this makes so much more sense. I have a large amount of storage called a pool, and set size limits and characteristics for various directories without having to deal with fixed size volumes. There's LVM of course which makes things far easier than not having LVM, but by $DEITY, it forces me to think of my storage in terms of 4 distinctly different layers = far too complex (even though the clever design appeals to my inner nerd). I can think of only one modern use case where a separate /usr is desirable - as a read-only NFS mount for terminal servers. But that is already a large complex setup, very stable and not changing much, usually with an admin, so a boot environment with an initramfs shouldn't be any real burden at all. -- Alan McKinnon alan.mckinnon@gmail.com