On Tue, Jul 17, 2012 at 5:20 PM, Richard Yao <r...@gentoo.org> wrote: > I have also been told that the /usr merge is necessary because upstream > will force it on us. Interestingly, most of @system on Gentoo Linux is > GNU software, which would need to stop supporting things in / in order > for that to happen.
I don't think anybody in Gentoo is advocating a full /usr merge. I think that the only thing that has been happening is that there will not be any heroic measures to keep a system with a separate /usr booting without the use of an initramfs or some early-running script. It doesn't matter that the majority of @system software is GNU. For a separate /usr to not work does not require ALL of the software to not support it, but only for a few pieces of software to not support it - a chain is as strong as its weakest link. In any case, it sounds like for now some devs are continuing to adjust ebuilds to keep a separate /usr working as well as possible, though it apparently breaks in some edge cases right now without an initramfs, as you've already noted in your email. I don't think anybody in Gentoo is really pushing for a /usr merge - there are just lots of devs saying that they aren't going to spend a lot of time stopping it either. If upstream sticks files needed to boot in /usr then it is basically up to somebody who cares to do something to move them. Right now that isn't a lot of work, but the reason people are concerned is that this is likely to change. If somebody really is pushing for an all-out /usr move by all means speak up, but I think that basically what everybody is advocating is trying to follow upstream for individual packages. Rich
