Re: why are there /bin and /usr/bin...
On Mon, Aug 16, 2010 at 09:01:42PM +0200, Bernhard R. Link wrote:
> * Perry E. Metzger <perry@piermont.com> [100816 20:21]:
> > The most reasonable argument against altering such things is that
> > after decades, people are used to the whole /usr thing and the fight
> > to change it isn't worthwhile. That I will agree with -- see the
> > emotional reactions people get when you suggest their preferred layout
> > is an "onion".
>
> Accusion people of irrational behaviour almost always results in
> irrational behviour. Either they were irrational already before or
> making false insulting accusations. So I should better not tell you
> that accusing people of irrational behaviour is quite irrational...
There is a rational reason for doing this at least for servers.
Having a small root partition can be a huge advantage because it
minimizes the chances that it will get corrupted. Making the root
read-only is even better from that perspective (but generally requires
more work). What I like to do for servers that absolutely, positively
can't go down, and for which I don't have redudant servers (mainly
because I'm too poor :-) is to have a root partition which is small
(say, half a gig) and then mirror it onto another partition on a
separate spindle, and set up grub so I can boot off of either root
partition. (If the BIOS has a way for me to specify via a serial
console booting off of the 2nd hard drive, even better; then I can
have a duplicate grub setup on the 2nd hard drive as well.)
I used to do this for desktops as well, but these days, a rescue CD is
easy enough to use.
- Ted
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