On Wed, Nov 21, 2018 at 05:24:24PM +0100, Alessandro Selli wrote:
> On 21/11/18 at 16:59, KatolaZ wrote:
> > On Wed, Nov 21, 2018 at 07:32:22AM -0800, Rick Moen wrote:
> >> Quoting Roger Leigh (rleigh@???):
> >>
> >>> I've been following the discussion with interest.
> >> For values of 'following' that equates to noting that the matter has
> >> been discussed, but then ignoring its substance.
> >>
> > Dear Rick,
> >
> > you could have noticed that in essence Roger pointed to the merged-usr
> > solution as not only impractical, but also risky and of doubtful
> > usefulness.
>
>
>   So, you agree then that:
>
>
> 1. A separate /usr serves no practical purpose on a Debian/Devuan system;

I don't think this is true or false. It just depends on the specific
cases.

>  2. sharing /usr over NFS "is not practical" (no matter it's been done
>     for decades);

Again, neither true or false, depends on the applications. It is
defintely practical in some cases, totally useless in other cases.

>  3. "you can't split the package database between separate systems"
>     (whatever this means, who needs to split the package database and why?);
>  4. having / and /usr constitute a "managed whole" is the only sensible
>     way to go;

I don't see where Roger said that in his email.

> 5. "there is no practical purpose to the separation as in (1) above";

Having /usr as a copy of / is not something that any unix-like system
has done forever, or anything that belongs to "ye auld unix tradition"
for a solid reason (yeah I know, diskless workstations, but those are
not any more "the common way" a unix-like system is used, since at
least 15 or 20 years ago. The other reason was space constraints, and
this is not a solid reason any more...).

The KISS approach would be to keep all the binaries in the /
filesystem (this was actually what V7 did). In a sense, the merge
should have been probably done the other way round, if at all.

>  6. "the separate filesystems can be treated as a managed collection. 
>     It's still pointless though";
>  7. following another path other that the systemd/Free(lol!)desktop and
>     Debian one "It's simply impractical"?

>

He said quite the opposite. He said that it is impractical to manage a
transition from a non-merged-usr to a merged-usr system, since the
odds are high that something can go wrong.

>
>   Please let me know, because the answer would have deep practical
> effects to me.
>

This is totally inconsequential. I personally think that the move to
merged-usr is just useless and I can't see a proper reason for that to
happen. But I don't see any good technical reason to forbid it
completely. Hence, I think that allowing the user to choose is the
best way through.

Maintaining the option of choosing between the two is what Devuan is
trying to do, knowing that it might become harder to support it as
time passes. My guess is that there is no real reason for the basic
system (the stuff needed at boot time before you get to the point
where other filesystems are mounted) to be heavily affected by such a
change, since packagers are not going to hardcode /usr/bin/sh in their
scripts from tomorrow.

On average, nothing that anybody else can say or do could have deep
practical effects on me, and I strive to make sure that nothing that I
say or do has any practical bad effect on anybody else. I am convinced
that the world would be a slightly better place if we all tried a bit
of that thinking ;)

HND

KatolaZ

-- 
[ ~.,_  Enzo Nicosia aka KatolaZ - Devuan -- Freaknet Medialab  ]  
[     "+.  katolaz [at] freaknet.org --- katolaz [at] yahoo.it  ]
[       @)   http://kalos.mine.nu ---  Devuan GNU + Linux User  ]
[     @@)  http://maths.qmul.ac.uk/~vnicosia --  GPG: 0B5F062F  ] 
[ (@@@)  Twitter: @KatolaZ - skype: katolaz -- github: KatolaZ  ]