Re: Installing with read-only /usr

[Ian Jackson <ian@chiark.chu.cam.ac.uk>]

Brian C. White writes ("Installing with read-only /usr"):
> Since /usr is supposed to be able to be mounted read-only, how does dpkg
> handle installing new packages?
> 
> Here is a possible problem, I think:
> 
>  - I export my /usr filesystem read-only to my network.
>  - Others mount this as their /usr since they have tiny disks
>  - I install a new package on my system that also installes files in /etc
>  - Others can't install because they can't write to their /usr directories
>  - Others don't have a complete set-up because of missing files in /etc
> 
> Can dpkg be set up so if it detects a read-only /usr partition then, instead
> of trying to put files in there, just verifies that those files aleady
> exist before continuing with the rest of the installation?

In principle I could add code to do this.  A request for a similar
feature is on the wishlist.

Ian.