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Author: Alessandro Selli
Date:  
To: dng
Subject: Re: [DNG] /usr to merge or not to merge... that is the question
On 23/11/18 at 06:26, KatolaZ wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 22, 2018 at 11:24:05PM +0100, Alessandro Selli wrote:
>> On 22/11/18 at 19:21, Roger Leigh wrote:
>>> On 21/11/2018 16:11, Alessandro Selli wrote:
>>>> On 21/11/18 at 13:17, Roger Leigh wrote:
>>>>> Hi folks,
>>>>>
>>>>> I've been following the discussion with interest.
>>>>
>>>>    No, you definitely have not followed it.  In fact you are
>>>> disregarding
>>>> all the points that were expressed against the merge.
>>> Let me begin by stating that I found your reply (and others) to be
>>> rude, unnecessarily aggressive, and lacking in well-reasoned objective
>>> argument.
>>
>>   Oh poor show flake, did I hurt your tender feelings when I state facts?
>>
>>
> Alessandro, you are not funny at all.



  I admit I did not intend to be.


> Roger is one of the DDs who
> stood the systemd avalanche in Debian, and the first one to publicly
> support Devuan (please read https://devuan.org/os/debian-fork/ to see
> what I mean).



  All right, thanks be to him for this.


> Roger took the time and effort to provide a first-hand explanation
> about the whats and whys behind early boot incantations.



  I do get the reasons the merge proponents prefer this filesystem
layout.  What I rant against is their choices being imposed on me.


> And his
> insight in this respect is precious and fundamental. I appreciate that
> not everybody might be interested in these details, but this thread is
> *exactly* about that, not about your own personal experience with this
> or that setup.
>
> On a related point: no, Alessandro, Devuan is not a Desktop-oriented
> distribution.



  While I did not state this claim, I thought desktop use was one of the
targets Devuan would try to accomodate.  If this is not the case then I
think I'd better go search some desktop-friendly distribution.


> Devuan strives to remain as a universal operating system
> as Debian claims to be.



  This is my precisely my point: trumping desktop users' needs (or just
freedom of customization and choice)  because of cluster ease-of-use
considerations make the distribution *not* universal.  If Devuan is
going to ignore the former users, if Devuan too is going to be a
datacenter distribution like Red Hat is and Debian is becoming, fine,
you have a right to do so.  I'll move on.


  i state one more:

    I'm not trying to impose my views, considerations and preferences on
others, I'm trying to protect the freedom I've had so far to customize
*my* GNU/Linux installations the way I deem fit, that they are to be
primarilly used as servers, workstations, routers or emergency/rescue
systems.  I want the freedom to customize the install to the most
radical way, not to prevent others from doing what they want to *their*
systems.  For this reason it's useless that people keep listing the
benefits of a merged / -> /usr for datacenter clusters to justify the
Technical Committee's decisions, I don't care what the datacenter guys
do to their systems, I'm fine with them merging / -> /usr, as well as
splitting /etc from / ro whatever.  I don't care so solng as *their*
choices and customizations do not turn out to adversely affect *my*
customizations and alternative (though decades-long proven) layouts. 
Because preventing me from dong what I have been doing since the late
'90s, and what has been done in many Unixes since the '70s is *not*
providing a Universal OS.


  Is this clear enough?


  In fewer words:


  Dear Debian TC, merge or split what the hell you want in the
datacenter, but keep you hands off *my* desktop/server installations.


> Devuan is currently used in a mutlitude of
> environments that include server farms, corporate and personal
> servers, embedded systems, personal devices, and desktops. So any
> choice Devuan will make has to take into account *all* the different
> uses of Devuan.
>
> We are going to provide the users with the choice of having or not
> having a merged-usr.



  Yes, we are.  Debian apparently is no longer going to be.  And again I
was listed the many good reasons the merge is good for the datacenter as
an answer to my question: "Why must I be denied the possibility to do
otherwise?".

  Plus the many-times repeated BS of: "The / - /usr split is silly",
"it's a leftover of a distant and bad past", "there's no reason to do
it", "storage devices today are big, so why bother?", "you do not gain
anything setting /usr ro" while they keep ignoring whatever I write: ro
is just one of the many mount options that I set different from the /usr
and / filesystems, ro does add security, a merged / -> /usr does make my
non-clustered, non-datacenter installs more difficult to manage and
rescue and backup and less flexible.


  So, regardless from what's best to the datacenter, can I be allowed to
follow the 40 years long path and keep having a /usr split from /?



  Yes && I stay || I leave.



--
Alessandro Selli <alessandroselli@???>
VOIP SIP: dhatarattha@???
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