merged /usr

alexkemp · 2024-01-29 20:23:33

rolfie wrote:

Looked at the linked FAQ:

Oh wow.

linked FAQ wrote:

(link)
Q: Does dpkg support merged-/usr-via-aliased-dirs?
A: No. This approach is considered broken by design and breaks many common expectations.
If you have a system that has been installed recently (since Debian buster) or switched via the usrmerge hack, you might want to consider … reinstalling. For further information see Teams/Dpkg/MergedUsr
Debian officially only supports merged-/usr-via-aliased-dirs systems. Converting to an unmerged-/usr setup might break the system in unexpected ways in the future, including data loss or failure to boot.

Teams/Dpkg/MergedUsr wiki wrote:

(link)
Description
The main goal of the merged-/usr proposal is to merge the contents of several top root directories (/bin, /sbin, /lib*) into their counterparts in /usr.
merged-/usr-via-aliased-dirs
This approach goes behind dpkg's back, and has caused and do now cause problems due to the aliased directories …
This approach is considered broken by design and is unsupported by dpkg. dpkg-buildinfo marks packages built on these systems as tainted in the .buildinfo file.

Debian truly has lost it's way.

soren · 2024-01-30 09:50:38

Sounds like team usrmerge vs team dpkg. From what i have read the dpkg maintainers are not going to provide a patch or any kind of fix. I think team usrmerge to rethink their goals, dpkg is a core debian component and this usrmerge is breaking user space.

golinux · 2024-01-30 16:41:30

Never fear! pkgd may be on the horizon!!

Sorry couldn't resist . . .

aluma · 2024-01-30 17:24:27

Never fear! pkgd may be on the horizon!!

You know how to inspire optimism!

golinux · 2024-01-30 17:37:08

Optimism and pessimism are a fool's pastime. It is beneficial action in the present that can move mountains . . ..

aluma · 2024-01-30 18:15:03

Optimism and pessimism are a fool's pastime.

But what about the episode in the sinking boat from the famous book - “Where is your faith?”

But seriously, the UNIX file system was logical, they have been breaking it for a long time and obviously they will break it.
There are two options: either don’t care, or switch to another distribution, fortunately there are still such ones.

golinux · 2024-01-30 18:34:24

Sinking boat? Famous book? You lost me . . .

There are actually 3 options. You forgot about actually DOING SOMETHING besides talking about it.

aluma · 2024-01-30 18:58:34

Book-Bible.
What can the user do?
Just “vote with your feet".

P.S. An extremely subjective opinion, if I may.
To the thesis “DO SOMETHING other than talk about it.”
It can only be destroyed spontaneously.
The creation process must be organized; there is even such a profession.
Therefore, in addition to calls, there must be some other organizational movements and, of course, not on the part of users.

Last edited by aluma (2024-01-30 19:34:58)

soren · 2024-01-30 21:51:41

golinux wrote:

Never fear! systemd-dpkgd may be on the horizon!!

fixed that for you!

mirrortokyo · 2024-02-12 00:40:36

Package kmod 31+20240202-1 broke kernel builds for me, downgrading to kmod / libkmod2 to 31-1 fixed things.

mirrortokyo · 2024-02-14 00:14:12

Reverted in the latest update:

Format: 1.8
Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2024 17:33:24 +0100
Source: kmod
Architecture: source
Version: 31+20240202-2
Distribution: unstable
Urgency: medium
Maintainer: Marco d'Itri <md@linux.it>
Changed-By: Marco d'Itri <md@linux.it>
Closes: 1063749
Changes:
kmod (31+20240202-2) unstable; urgency=medium
.
* Stop using /usr/lib/modules/ because it requires coordination with other
packages. (Closes: #1063749)

Fruchtenstein · 2024-02-14 10:31:21

I just had to create `build` and `source` symlinks in `/lib/modules/6.6.13-amd64` to build VirtualBox modules.

mirrortokyo · 2024-02-19 18:23:10

login 1:4.13+dfsg1-4 moved to /usr/bin

from /usr/share/doc/login/changelog.Debian.gz:

shadow (1:4.13+dfsg1-4) unstable; urgency=medium
[ Helmut Grohne ]
* DEP17: Move login and shadowconfig to /usr. (Closes: #1059915)

After the upgrade, I needed to do:

cd /bin
ln -s /usr/bin/login login

otherwise login via console/virtual terminal/telnet with ssl failed

Thankfully, desktop login still worked after the upgrade and before adding the symbolic link.

mirrortokyo · 2024-02-20 14:36:17

now package base-files in Devuan unstable (13devuan4) requires package usrmerge.

czeekaj · 2024-02-20 22:37:45

Sinking boat? Famous book? You lost me . . .
There are actually 3 options. You forgot about actually DOING SOMETHING besides talking about it.

Book-Bible.
What can the user do?

golinux is right
idle worship is not much better than idol worship.
Good work on the usrmerge guys
May Devuan live long and prosper!

aluma · 2024-02-21 08:15:04

Good work on the usrmerge guys smile

What are you happy about?
Another success in trying to break the logical perfection of the Unix file system?

After all, there was order, settings only in the /etc folder, the /mnt folder for mounted disk drives, the executable files of the system itself in /bin and /sbin, the graphics subsystem, which could be on a completely different machine in a different location, etc.

Now all this is “smeared” across the entire disk and dumped into one heap.
I do not want and will not “test” merged /usr, but I also do not have the opportunity to prevent it.

Programmers have nothing better to do? Are there any other problems for users?
We still tune the sound by dancing with a tambourine...

Thank God not everyone is delighted with this and there are sensible people who ignore systemd.

I really thank them.

stopAI · 2024-02-21 12:45:03

Another success in trying to break the logical perfection of the Unix file system?

How good that we have a choice and we can always choose FreeBSD. And this is not my sarcasm.

boughtonp · 2024-02-21 15:33:00

alume wrote:
> Another success in trying to break the logical perfection of the Unix file system?

It was "broken" back in the 1970s, by Ken and Dennis themselves; long before Linus or Ian even touched a computer, or Richard got annoyed with Xerox.

Even though I agree that moving bin, lib and sbin into /usr is not the right solution, it is a minor issue compared to so many other problems.

-
In any case it's good that the Devuan team have made a clear announcement to follow Debian's lead on this and focus efforts on the Devuan project's stated aims.

swanson · 2024-02-21 15:56:19

Found this on the interwebs and it sounds logical to me:

There's a link there to a ten-year-old post about why they were separate in the first place, which is what I was wondering. Briefly, it dated from when hard drives were 1.5 Mbytes, and everything couldn't fit on a single drive, so they had to split it between what was needed immediately while booting, and what could wait until a second drive was mounted.

On Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxmint/comm … necessary/
The mentioned link:
http://lists.busybox.net/pipermail/busy … 74114.html

If all this is true, I don't feel so grumpy anymore.

(a long time ago I bought a 105 megabyte SCSI HD for like 350 USD - and that was cheap)

GlennW · 2024-02-21 16:34:26

I remember the computers at work were similar in how they worked,

first I had to start the machine, go and get a coffee (because it would take so long), login to the network and then proceed to load the programs I would need for the day.

This was long before I had any interest in computing, it was just work (selling spare parts for transport (people) air conditioning in the 80's)

I'm not sure what brand they were. But I loved getting the office girl to help me create macros to simplify my job.

I see your point, swanson. And I feel the same way, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. It's getting more and more like M$ file systems.

What I'd like to see is a selection box in the installer program for stand-alone PC's, no extra networking or accessibility fluff doing nothing.

I see the usr-merge as another step towards breaking older systems. "You'll need to pay a tech to fix that!" remember y2k?

Last edited by GlennW (2024-02-21 16:35:37)

stargate-sg1-cheyenne-mtn · 2024-02-21 17:40:29

remember Y2K

rofl
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2000_problem

mohr rofl
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem

GlennW · 2024-02-22 00:46:31

I'll be 75 If I live that long to make it to 2038. I hope I/we figure out a solution before that.

Seems like it's just part of the progression of Moore's law. We have 64bit for a lot of things already...

I guess it will depend if the Corps want to spend the money or not. Their investment will profit either way, imho.

mirrortokyo · 2024-02-22 01:51:42

update-initramfs broke when it couldn't find blkid

cd /sbin
ln -s /usr/sbin/blkid blkid

fixed things.

I also put package base-files on hold because in unstable it now depends on package usrmerge

I'll finally check /bin /lib /sbin for files other than symbolic links and see if I can finally manually make /bin /lib /sbin symbolic links to /usr/bin /usr/lib /usr/sbin

mirrortokyo · 2024-02-25 13:52:21

While I was in the middle of git-bisecting a mesa issue I foolishly upgraded several packages without checking what was changing.

Some packages including the one containing getty and possibly mount had finally moved to their new locations and I was late adding symbolic links from the old locations.

Finally it was time to move the few remaining binaries in /bin to /usr/bin and from /sbin to /usr/sbin then:

cd /
mv bin oldbin; ln -s /usr/bin bin
mv sbin oldsbin; ln -s /usr/sbin sbin

/lib on i386 had one more caveat:

in /usr/lib you must have the symbolic link:

ld-linux.so.2 -> i386-linux-gnu/ld-linux.so.2

otherwise you will get a kernel panic on boot as the kernel tries to load init.

There were no other non-symbolic-link files in /lib that I had to worry about by now.

Then I was able to do:

cd /
/usr/lib/klibc/bin/mv lib oldlib;/usr/lib/klibc/bin/ln -s /usr/lib lib

After that I could successfully update package base-files which depended on package usrmerge

TheLancashireman · 2024-02-26 06:21:47

An update at the weekend (unstable/ceres) forced a usrmerge. Since then the PC doesn't boot correctly. The error message says that if cannot find the root filesystem.

The immediate cause is that the kernel fails to load any modules. I forced that by adding a list of modules to /etc/initramfs-tools/modules - the list obtained from lsmod in the repair system. Now the PC boots. I get a gui login. Unfortunately X doesn't recognise the keyboard and mouse. I can log in by ssh from my laptop and see that there are no errors in Xorg.log.0, but also no information about loading X modules for HID.

My guess is that the problem is related to udev. Any ideas or comments?

The officially official Devuan Forum!

#51 2024-01-29 20:23:33

Re: merged /usr

Description

merged-/usr-via-aliased-dirs

#52 2024-01-30 09:50:38

Re: merged /usr

#53 2024-01-30 16:41:30

Re: merged /usr

#54 2024-01-30 17:24:27

Re: merged /usr

#55 2024-01-30 17:37:08

Re: merged /usr

#56 2024-01-30 18:15:03

Re: merged /usr

#57 2024-01-30 18:34:24

Re: merged /usr

#58 2024-01-30 18:58:34

Re: merged /usr

#59 2024-01-30 21:51:41

Re: merged /usr

#60 2024-02-12 00:40:36

Re: merged /usr

#61 2024-02-14 00:14:12

Re: merged /usr

#62 2024-02-14 10:31:21

Re: merged /usr

#63 2024-02-19 18:23:10

Re: merged /usr

#64 2024-02-20 14:36:17

Re: merged /usr

#65 2024-02-20 22:37:45

Re: merged /usr

#66 2024-02-21 08:15:04

Re: merged /usr

#67 2024-02-21 12:45:03

Re: merged /usr

#68 2024-02-21 15:33:00

Re: merged /usr

#69 2024-02-21 15:56:19

Re: merged /usr

#70 2024-02-21 16:34:26

Re: merged /usr

#71 2024-02-21 17:40:29

Re: merged /usr

#72 2024-02-22 00:46:31

Re: merged /usr

#73 2024-02-22 01:51:42

Re: merged /usr

#74 2024-02-25 13:52:21

Re: merged /usr

#75 2024-02-26 06:21:47

Re: merged /usr

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