Hi!

Two recent encounters:

1) An update to kmod broke make bindeb-pkg to compile a kernel from
upstream¹. Notably: With applied usrmerge! Fortunately Marco reverted the
change for now. I saved a copy of a working kmod version for later use,
just in case.

2) I am thankful for Lorenzo warning about things starting to break
without usrmerge with a runit update. However once I updated a more rarely
updated Devuan system, a ThinkPad X1 Gen 1 tablet, I did not think of it
anymore. Yet that system was not converted into compliance with usrmerge
yet. Things broke. Badly so. No kmod in path, no nothing in path, building
initramfs failed and connecting to WLAN was broken, too. So I did what
needed to be done. I download usrmerge package and three of its Perl
dependencies to an USB stick and installed them on the tablet. The tablet
does not have an Ethernet port so unless finding a USB to Ethernet thing
USB stick was the way to go.

Granted, the second thing would not have happened on Debian, cause it
would have enforced usrmerge already. Or at least so I bet.

However I still wonder: Is it really worth it comparing the possible and/
or alleged benefit to the work that needs to be done and the breakage that
happens during doing that work? I know its a theoretical question. The
answer does not matter. Some Debian developers spend their time on it and
that is their choice. But it still appears to be like an gigantic waste of
time for little, if at all, benefit.

Anyway, it is what they do and no need to really discuss it here, I would
have to bring this up in Debian communication channels. But it would be a
waste of my time. I bet I just wanted to express my wonder and in a way
disappointment about it in a place that is friendly enough to do so. I
have faced attacks on German Debian user mailing list for just expressing
my dissatisfaction with the first issue already, cause I dared to challenge
Debian's approach to usrmerge. Debian communication channels often enough
only appear to be safe in case you agree with anything and everything.
There is a serious lack in the soft skills related to "agree to disagree".
I really enjoy the community here. People express their opinions.
Sometimes strongly. But still agree to disagree is working much better
here.

I still think with usrmerge it will be better for Devuan to go with it.
The amount of work to deviate from it would put a considerable burden on
the Devuan developers. It is important to carefully pick your fight. I know
some of you do not agree and that is fine with me.


[1] FTBFS: depmod: FATAL: could not search modules: No such file or
directory

https://bugs.debian.org/1063804

Ciao,
--
Martin