Rainer Weikusat wrote:
> Clarke Sideroad <clarke.sideroad@???> writes:
> > So I've been thinking more about this as to why?
> >
> > It is quite obvious that it is driven by Redhat to be the same as Oracle
> > Solaris, they say as much.
>
> That's "quite obviously" an after-the-fact justification and the
> corresponding freedesktop.org text,
>
> http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/separate-usr-is-broken/
>
> (still) quite plainly states that udev (it names no other examples) is
> developed based on the assumption that / and /usr reside on the same
> device and that any bug reports regarding this are WONTFIXes. IOW,
> that's a policy decision certain people originally made for "their
> systems" which is now forced on everybody else.

Reading the above link, and also this discussion

http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/TheCaseForTheUsrMerge/

it appears there are two aspects considered:

1. Merging the longstanding directories for executables: /bin /sbin /usr/bin /usr/sbin
2. Making libraries in /usr/lib and friends available at boot time.

Gobo Linux, to take one example, has been doing the first
since its inception. Executables are left in the original
build directory, and symlinked to /bin. The same approach
with libraries, so that packages can be uninstalled by
simply removing the directory, and cleaning the symlinks.

With it easy to have a rescue system on disk or CD, or
thumbdrive, having statically linked executables may not
as important as it used to be.

Regarding the second, having more stuff available at boot is
obviously convenient, and the young guys coding are not
beholden to the old Unix/Debian ways, don't feel obligated
to support the old ways.

I, for one, prefer to avoid the churn of a continuous stream
of changes. Today it is funny to look for help on a subject,
see top responses that are systemd-specific.

cheers,

Joel

--
Joel Roth