Ansgar Burchardt wrote:
Making the feature default was discussed years ago which you are surely aware of. It's not mandatory.
Unfortunately I have to disagree here. Merged /usr is already, de-facto, mandatory for everyone who installs Debian Testing using the official netinst CD. The user is not even asked the question, there is nothing on the help screens. There is simply no opt-out except pressing Alt-F2 and replacing the "debootstrap" script with a wrapper that adds --no-merged-usr to the arguments.
In other words, non-merged /usr is currently achievable only by upgrading an old system, or running debootstrap directly, or running old debootstrap, or using major hacks during the install procedure.
-- Alexander E. Patrakov