Bug#994388: dpkg currently warning about merged-usr systems
Luca Boccassi <bluca@debian.org> writes:
> If it was possible to do it, it would have already happened, and we
> wouldn't be discussing it at all, it would have just been done.
Has someone written a patch against dpkg that causes it to do the right
thing?
> In the end, at the very least this is a _workable_ proposal. It might
> not be ideal, but we know it can work. What's your counter-proposal?
Someone who believes strongly in merged-/usr should write a patch against
dpkg that causes it to work properly with merged-/usr, including edge
cases like files moving out of /bin and /lib between packages and dpkg -S
working properly.
I understand that you don't think that patch will be accepted. But we
don't actually know that since so far as I know it doesn't exist. We're
arguing in the abstract about a future problem that hasn't happened yet
because we don't have working code to argue about.
> Sitting back and just saying "someone better get a fix into dpkg",
> without neither doing it nor explaining _how_ that could ever be
> possible is not a workable proposal, it's just doing nothing while
> letting the clock run.
I do not have the resources (time and energy) to write the patch for dpkg
myself, indeed. However, I also have not been advocating moving to
merged-/usr. This feels like part of that work to me.
I have been doing some work short of writing the patch, such as laying out
what I think the missing pieces are and trying to propose an
implementation design that could get some consensus, and flush out the
remaining problems. (To be clear, others have been doing more of that
than I have, but I think it's a bit inaccurate to say that I've only been
complaining and not trying to help arrive at a proper fix.)
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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