Re: merged /usr considered harmful (was Re: Bits from the Technical Committee)
On Mon, Jul 19, 2021 at 3:37 AM Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org> wrote:
> What I've also said multiple times, is that
> merged-usr-via-moves-and-symlink-farms could have been implemented in
> a fully automated way, by debhelper, w/o requiring any maintainer scripts,
> all with full cooperation and managed by dpkg, with .debs shipping
> actual tracked pathnames, if it had not been for the mess required
> by merged-usr-via-aliased-dirs. :/
Maybe I get this wrong, but I don't think this conflicts with the
decision from the TC.
Until Debian 12 gets released, we have a lot of time for a transition.
Maybe we should start discussing the transition and less whether or
not we do it, as this has been decided now anyway.
We could start with collecting the packages that install to /bin*
instead of /usr/bin, and adjust the packaging so that they don't do
that. Of course, we would need to add a maintainer script that detects
un-merged usr and creates a symlink. Actually, I think it would be
enough to just let debhelper detect if a package installs to /bin, and
adjust the package automatically. For packages not using debhelper,
lintian can add a warning if the package installs to /bin. After all
packages that installed to /bin have been rebuilt, nothing would
install to /bin except for symlinks. At this point, it shouldn't
matter if you run a merged usr system or not, or am I forgetting
something? IMHO it would make way more sense to discuss how to merge
usr once the packages are fixed.
Anyway, I think the discussion made clear that we shouldn't
immediately start with merging usr once bullseye is released, and I
wouldn't interpret the TC decision as such.
Regards,
Stephan
* using /bin as an example, same goes for /lib etc
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