Re: [gentoo-user] systemd installation location

[pk <peterk2@coolmail.se>]

On 2013-10-01 08:16, Alan McKinnon wrote:

> There are many examples in /usr you could have used to illustrate your
> point, such as many fuse modules. And yet you chose an imaginary space
> invader game.
> 
> Let's rather stick within the bounds of what is feasible, OK?

What can I say, I like to exaggerate... :-)
But it seems you got my point. Although I would not rule out "Space
Invaders" as either imaginary (it came out in 1978) nor infeasible (at
boot).

> But it's not just you. You are not running LFS, you are running Gentoo.
> It has ebuilds and ebuilds put the generated files somewhere, and that
> destination is the same for every user of that ebuild.

Which is why I said what I said further down in the mail you replied to...

> Unix, by design and unlike a traditional mainframe OS, does not
> distinguish between different types of files and does limit where you
> can put files. This has two consequences - you can do virtually anything
> you like with it as everything is a file, and filesystem files and
> structure have been moved out to human space in the hands of the
> sysadmin/packager/maintainer/user or whatever. Some sanity must prevail.

Yes, sanity is what I'm after but it seems I'm in the minority...

> The Linux boot process can conceivably run any arbitrary code it needs
> to run to get userspace into a runnable state. This can easily be code
> that we haven't conceived of yet and becuase it is Unix, it could reside
> anywhere. Also because it's Unix and because sysadmins have learned over
> the years we constrain ourselves to putting the code in the bin, sbin
> and lib directories in / and in /usr.
> 
> Clearly, there is a massive distinction between code there and in say
> /opt or /var/lib, that is why you won't find boot-critical code there.
> But there is no such clear distinction between / and /usr. What *you*
> think is not boot critical may be criticial for someone else.

I couldn't agree more. However, since some devs (and I don't mean anyone
in particular) have started to expect /usr to always be available for
"boot-critical" software then what is to say that the next one *will*
require /opt and/or /var/lib at boot time? And where do we make a
distinction between a boot-critical thing and a non-boot-critical thing.
For all I know there may actually be someone out there seriously
considering adding "Space Invaders" as a boot thing for, say sysops that
want to reboot a really big server and want to play while booting... I'm
only kidding of course and hope noone takes this seriously!? ;-)

> And here's the kicker:
> 
> You don't get to decide for the other guy. But the packager gets to
> support him, and has to edit ebuilds to install all the necessary code
> not in /usr but in /. And they have to do this over and over and over,
> and while they are doing that they have to answer users like you who are
> complinaing about unneccessary rebuilds just to change the desitnation
> of a few files.
> 
> This is a no-win-ever situation for devs and they have decided they are
> not doing it anymore and have made a decision to not support separate
> /usr without initramfs. that is their right as you do not pay them a salary.
> 
> This is the correct decision for Gentoo to have made, as the problem is
> open ended and is never completed, plus there is no clear distinction
> between what is boot critical in the general case and what is not. if
> you can't see or understand that, then we have nothing more to discuss.
> 
> If you don't like what Gentoo has done then I recommend you take it like
> a man and fork. Assume the maintenanceburden yourself.

I've already come to that conclusion myself (as, again, I mentioned in
my mail further down).

Bye, so long and thanks for the f*sh!

Best regards

Peter K