Re: deprecating /usr as a standalone filesystem?
On Wed, May 06, 2009 at 03:31:23PM +0200, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote:
> Anyhow, *you* don't understand the problem and you are probably the
> only one thinking I'm selling vapor. From other people's replies I
> conclude that the problem is quite clear and my vapor was so concrete
> that others hinted at technical solutions. But let me spell the
> problem out for you, as you are raising the tone of the discussion
> with exclamation marks (which was not my intention).
>
> The problem is that our package manager (dpkg) assumes it is in charge
> of files which reside on different top-level FHS directories: /usr,
> /var, /boot, /bin, /sbin, /lib, /lib64, ...
>
> In a scenario where /usr is remotely exported for NFS mounting, if you
> use dpkg on the exporting machine, client machines will get out of
> sync. Some files need to be copied over statically and, more
> interestingly, maintainer scripts will need to be re-run on client
> machines to deliver their side effects to all machines. Also the
> status of the dpkg database need to be synced with clients.
>
>
> My argument is mainly that we should not ask our user to do the above
> sync by hand, still claiming we "support" it.
But _NOBODY_ said to support the sync part in Debian. Just leave things
as-is, i.e. let it possible to have /usr as a separate filesystem. We
can do the rest, thank you very much. The fact that clients can get out
of sync is perfectly understood and handled when needed. There is
nothing new here; mounting /usr over NFS on Solaris boxes a decade ago
had exactly the same basic issues.
Don't ask users to do the sync by hand. Just _let_ them do it if they
wish.
Mounting /usr over NFS is an old technique. I wouldn't recommend it
to anyone today but it exists and deliberately breaking it just because
you do not like it is stupid.
Gabor
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MTA SZTAKI Computer and Automation Research Institute
Hungarian Academy of Sciences
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