Re: merged-/usr-via-symlinks vs a-different-layout

[Ansgar <ansgar@debian.org>]

Guillem Jover writes:
> 3) Switching packages to the merged-/usr layout could have been
>    accomplished automatically via debhelper for a coverage of around
>    99% (?) of the archive. With something along the lines of:
>
>      ,---
>      D=debian/tmp
>      for d in /bin /sbin /lib; do
>        for p in $(find $D/$d ! -type d); do
>          b="${p##$D/}"
>          m="$D/usr$b"
>          if [ ! -e "$m" ]; then
>            mkdir -p "$(dirname $m)"
>            mv "$p" "$m"
>            ln -s "${m##$D}" "$p"
>          fi
>        done
>      done
>      `---
>
>    With the property that it would handle gracefully all cases were the
>    maintainer has checked that no compat symlinks are required and has
>    then progressively moved the pathname installation to their final
>    destination under /usr.

That is not merged-/usr, but a different filesystem layout.

So, no, it is not possible to switch packages to merged-/usr this way.

> 4) Due to having to support the broken merged-/usr-via-symlinks
>    deployment, when we want to move the contents of the binary
>    packages to the merged-/usr layout, we require now to include tons
>    of logic in (probably new) maintainer scripts, when we have been
>    trying to remove them altogether. :( With even more files untracked
>    by dpkg itself, bypassing the packaging system even more, when the
>    compat symlinks could have been shipped in the binary packages.

As far as I know maintainer scripts are only required for moving files
from / to /usr when (a) a compat symlink is required, and (b) only when
both merged-/usr and non-merged-/usr is supported.

Ansgar