Re: /usr/etc

[jake@capecodvacation.com (Jacob Kuntz)]

from the secret journal of cfm@maine.com (cfm@maine.com):
> The worst part though, is that upgrading just a dozen 
> machines must be done in a certain sequence; we find it best to
> do the server last.  Upgrading more than one machine at a time
> creates race conditions in /usr/share and lots of small files
> work the NFS hard.  Maybe we are too ambitious: /usr/share/man
> and /usr/share/doc might do the trick for us.
> 

that's why the FHS allows for a read-only /usr. i haven't tried running a
debian system in that situation, but i'm curious to see how the package
tools deal with it. i believe someone posted here about mouning /usr
read-only on a server to save fsck time (ie, only his live data areas would
need to be checked). one could just mount -o remount,rw /usr before running
apt. nfs is a whole 'nother issue, since you can have a situation where
/etc/xyzzy.conf is in a different format than /usr/sbin/xyzzy expects. if
anyone has a good solution to that problem, i'd love to hear it.

-- 
jacob kuntz
jpk@cape.com
underworld.net/~jake