On Sat, Nov 08, 2025 at 01:40:12PM -0600, o1bigtenor via Dng wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 8, 2025 at 7:30 AM Ralph Ronnquist via Dng
> <dng@???> wrote:
> >
> > On Sat, Nov 08, 2025 at 07:04:24AM -0600, o1bigtenor via Dng wrote:
> > > Greetings
> > >
> > > So as it is necessary to run usrmerge before one can upgrade to
> > > excalibur I did just that on my 'testbed' system and have some
> > > questions.
> > >

> > > Before:
> > > system set up with partitions for /, swap, /usr, /usr/local, /var, and /home
> > > /      with 8.5G used out of 23.3G available
> > > /usr with 17.8G used out of 24.3G available

> > >

> > > using gparted (from a systemrescue disk)
> > > moved and resized
> > > /    to 70G

> > >
> > > ran usrmerge with the result
> > >

> > > /      with 3.1G used out of 69G available
> > > /usr with 23G used out of 25G available

> > >
> > > (above numbers found using df -h or lsblock)
> > >
> > > So - - - questions
> > >
> > > My expectation was that / usage would increase - - - was I ever wrong
> > > rather / usage decreased dramatically (less than 1/2 the size of previous)
> > > /usr seems to acquired most if not all of what is no longer in / .
> > >
> > > Is this 'normal' ?
> > >
> > > (If it is then I need to shrink / down and increase /usr significantly.)
> > >
> > > Please advise so that I can proceed with my upgrade to excalibur.
> >
> > The end result of usrmerge is that a) everyting in /bin, /sbin, /lib*
> > get moved to /usr/bin, /usr/sbin, and /usr/lib* (correspondingly), and
> > the previous directories /bin, /sbin and /lib* become symbolic links
> > to /usr/bin, /usr/sbin and /usr/lib* (correspondingly).
> >
> > Partition usages change accordingly.
> >
> Thank you for confirmation!!
>
> So to changing the size of / and of /usr./
>
> Is usrmerge a step on the way to having only two partitions
> (ie / and /home)?

Well, I'm sure the originator(s) and supporter(s) of the idea have
several different word sequences purporting to make arguments for it's
necessity and problem solving finesse.

Personally I believe it basically was a change forced on debian
decision group by people needing to express their clout; a change
motivated by external reasons outside of technical need and good
governance. Kind of similar to the recent idea of porting apt software
to be coded in rust.

Ralph.