Steve Litt wrote on 16.11.18 18:35:
> On Fri, 16 Nov 2018 12:08:34 +0100
> Irrwahn <irrwahn@???> wrote:
>
>
>> And bringing anything related to systemd into the picture just
>> because its proponents also happen to support merged /usr is a red
>> herring.
>
> That's just not true.

Yes   it   is.      (Thanks for making me feel >40 years younger! :-)

If you are under the impression the merged /usr concept was invented
by Redhat, or the freedesktop and/or the systemd people, you are
demonstrably wrong.

On System V Release 4 and later /bin has already been a symlink to
/usr/bin, and Solaris implemented the /usr merge about a decade ago.
Effectively, only some Unices and some Linux based distributions are
the odd ones out in that respect.

>
> We have a half a decade's history of seeing systemd stick its nose in
> the tent, and then keep pushing until the DIY human must leave the
> tent. I made very clear in my first post it's not a case of "just
> because its proponents also happen to support merged /usr". It's
> because eliminating /sbin (and also some others that Rick enumerated)
> forces use of an initramfs, and the systemd forces can easily acquire,
> monopolize and decompatablize the tools to create initramfs. After 5
> years systemd observation, this is not paranoia, this is an educated
> guess based on past behavior.

In my reply to your other post I explain why the notion of a merged /usr
allegedly forcing the use of an iniramfs is a myth, I won't repeat it
here for the sake of brevity.

The part about "acquire, monopolize and decompatablize the tools to
create initramfs" is ridiculous, as an initrd is nothing more than an
(optionally compressed) cpio archive, loaded by the Linux kernel itself.
Put some statically linked executable (e.g. a shell) inside, renamed to
/sbin/init, and you have the most bare-bone of Linux systems imaginable,
without even the need for a "real" root file system. (Where I used to work
we regularly built entire embedded Linux systems that consisted of
nothing more than a boot loader, a kernel and an initrd - go figure.)

Sorry, but no matter how educated, in this case your guess simply failed.

Regards,
Urban

--
Sapere aude!