Clarke Sideroad <clarke.sideroad@???> wrote:

> I see little choice but to make the merged bin option available, after
> all this is all about choice, but for gosh sakes it should not be the
> default.

The issue - as I see it - is much the same as with systemd. If the upstream stuff adopts it, then it becomes a lot more work to maintain something different. SO having an option of split /bin and /usr/bin is moot if all packages assume they are merged.
I noted from one of the links posted a comment in the FAQ that "/usr must be mounted early on by initramfs" - which really contradicts common sense in that initrd/initramfs should really only have the minimum required to get / mounted so that the rest can happen from there.

I have worked with Unix systems in the past with separate /usr filesystem (SCO OpenServer 5 - ahh, nostalgia). Back then we had to create a boot and root floppy (yes I know some youngsters have probably never seen one) and I can recall the problems I found making enough room on the root disk to include cpio (so I could read the backup tapes and restore /usr).
But given that (eg) USB drives are generally not smaller than GBs in size these days, it's hard to make an argument on disk space.




Didier Kryn <kryn@???> wrote:

> The simple fact of splitting executables between two different directories *is* a complication; merging them back would be a *simplification* :-). I've read, from a guy who followed the story, that it was originally split because the first disk was too small. Wether it has become later a usefull complication can be discussed of course :-)

It's still useful for some systems to have a small /[s]bin with just the bare minimum of tools - including those to repair and mount a separate /usr.
As I mentioned above, there seems to be a belief in the Freedeskop camp that /usr has to be mounted from initrd/initramfs - which perhaps explains a lot (it doesn't, only if you have a broken setup is that a natural dependency). Put another way, the argument seems to be "we've b**gered this up, fudged round it with initramfs, so that's a justification for completing the b**gering up process" - IMO anyway.

So I am still in favour of a system where /[s]bin contains only those tools which might be needed to work with other filesystems.

I rather suspect that the Freedesktop people have a narrow view of the world where the only systems they need to consider are desktops (or laptops) with lots of resources. Anything else is an SEP* they can ignore. If what they do makes life hard for (eg) embedded systems people then that's just tough.

* Someone Else's Problem