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Author: Rob Owens
Date:  
To: dng
New-Topics: [DNG] restarts
Subject: Re: [DNG] FW: support for merged /usr in Debian
----- Original Message -----
> From: "Didier Kryn" <kryn@???>
> Le 02/01/2016 03:44, Stephanie Daugherty a écrit :
>> Regardless of who proposed it, merged /usr is still a reckless change > that
>> needlessly complicates things.
>
>     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 :-)

>


I have also read that the split was done because they ran out of disk space.
However, many great inventions over the years were created/discovered by
accident. I wouldn't classify a separate /usr as a "great invention", but
it certainly has proved itself to be useful over the years.

The problem is that the people behind this merge are inexperienced as system
admins. Being a good programmer does not by itself qualify a person to
decide on the types of changes they are proposing. You need to be an
experienced system admin if you are going to make smart changes to the
underlying layers of an operating system.

This applies to what they are doing with systemd as well. And I can give a
simple example that illustrates the inexperience of the systemd architect(s):

If I want to stop a service, then do some operation (edit a config file,
perhaps), then start that service, I need to run the following commands:

systemctl stop someservice
vi someservice.cfg
systemctl start someservice

The systemctl syntax are in nice English language order. It sounds like a
sentence. But it is backwards if you consider the steps a sysadmin would
take to type them:

systemctl stop someservice
<up arrow for bash history>
<cursor back 12 spaces>
<backspace 4 spaces to erase "stop">
start
<enter>

Or just re-type the whole line -- it's probably quicker.

If they had done it right:

systemctl someservice stop
<up arrow for bash history>
<backspace 4 spaces>
start
<enter>

An experienced sysadmin who has to do this type of thing several times a
day would have designed this syntax for ease of use. The systemd
developers did not do this, presumably because they do not have to type
these commands several times a day.

Same goes for the /usr merge. They do not understand the usefulness of
this "historical mistake" because they are inexperienced.

-Rob