[gentoo-user] Re: Flexibility and robustness in the Linux organisim

[Volker Armin Hemmann <volkerarmin@googlemail.com>]

Am 29.09.2013 17:12, schrieb Greg Woodbury:
> On 09/29/2013 07:58 AM, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
>
>> things were broken way before that. As much as I hate systemd, it is not
>> the root cause of the problem.
>>
>> The problems were caused by people saying that seperate /usr was a good
>> idea, so / would not fill up and similar idiocies. The problems were
>> caused by people saying that lvm is a good idea - for desktops. Those
>> people who are fighting against the kernel auto assembling raids are to
>> blame too.
>>
>> Systemd is just another point in a very long list.
>>
> The usr filesystem was separate from root from the very early days of
> UNIX.  Disks were *tiny* (compared to today) and spreading certain
> things across separate spindles provided major benefits. Certainly,
> the original need to require a separate usr went away fairly quickly,
> but other benefits continued to encourage a seperation between root
> and usr.
>

in the very early days /usr did not exist in the first space and was
only created because someone added a harddisk.

Not really a good reason to keep it around.

> The var filesystem was for variable system data, and was never
> terribly big and its inclusion on the root volume happened.  The home
> filesystem  became traditionally separate because data expands to fill
> all availab;e space, and users collect *things*

and a seperate /home does not create any problems.
/var is much more prone to accidentally fill up then /usr ever was.

> Networking made it possible to have home entirely off system, and
> diskless worstations ruled for a while as well.
>
> By the time Linux came along, it had become common for boot volumes to
> not be mounted during normal system operation, but the three
> filesystem layout was common and workable.  As Linux continued to be
> like Topsy (she jest growed!) fragmentation started to occur as
> "distributions" arose.  The "balkanization" of Linux distributions
> became a real concern to some and standardization offorts were
> encouraged.
>
> The "File System Standard" (FSS) was renamed to the Filesystem
> Hierarch Standard (FHS) and it was strongly based on the UNIX System V
> definitions (which called for seperation of usr and root.) POSIX added
> more layers and attempted to bring in the various BSD flavors.
>
> THe LSB (Linux Standards Base) effort was conceived as supersceeding
> all the other efforts, and FHS was folded into the LSB definition. Yet
> even then a separate root and usr distinction survived.  Then things
> started falling apart again - POSIX rose like a phoenix and even the
> Windows/wintel environment could claim POSIX compliant behavior. The
> fall of the LSB effort really became evident when the FHS was gutted
> and certain major players decided to ignore the LSB recommendations.

too bad POSIX is much older than LSB or FHS.

>
> As a result, the GNOME Alliance has shattered.  The main GNOME army
> marches on its unfathomable path, and various large chunks have broke
> off in their own directions (e.g. Cinnamon and Mate) seeking to remain
> flexible and not incompatible with the KDE and other lesser DE folks.
>
> It is truly layable at the feet of the GNOME folks, the breakage of
> the root and usr filesystem separability is all derived from the GNOME
> camp.
> These changes may not, in fact, be deliberate or intended to "defeat"
> Microsoft, but Ockham's Razor cuts and intentionality is the simpler
> explanation.

that gnome is very hostile when it comes to KDE or choice is not news.
And their dependency on systemd is just the usual madness. But they are
not to blame for seperate /usr and the breakage it causes.

>
>
> To come back to the thesis: robustness and flexibility are required
> for good "health" and we are witnessing a dangerous challenge.
>

what? that you need an initrd? That is so bad?

Are you kidding me?
>
> [PS} If anybody cares, I was trained in both Computer Science and
> Biological Science.  and I can expand on the parallels if so desired.
>
no thank you. But if I might add one: you are making an elephant out of
a gnat.