[fhs-discuss] static sharable files

[Karl Goetz]

On Wed, 11 May 2011 11:06:08 +0930
Rusty Russell <rusty at rustcorp.com.au> wrote:

> On Tue, 10 May 2011 08:15:57 +0100, Roger Leigh
> <rleigh at codelibre.net> wrote:
> > On Tue, May 10, 2011 at 11:47:25AM +1000, Karl Goetz wrote:
> > > On Mon, 9 May 2011 10:38:42 +0100
> > > Roger Leigh <rleigh at codelibre.net> wrote:
> > > 
> > > > From the FHS POV, I would like to suggest these changes:
> > > > • Permit /usr to be a symlink to /.  This gives distributors the
> > > > option of unifying the / and /usr namespaces.  This is a logical
> > > > consequence of keeping / and /usr on the same filesystem.  In
> > > > the distant future it might be possible to eliminate /usr
> > > > entirely, but at this point it would be appropriate to have the
> > > > option of making it a symlink.
> > > 
> > > Sounds like a good step. would we note that /usr could/should be
> > > deprecated, or would we simply save it for a future release of
> > > the FHS?
> > 
> > It's probably a bit early for anything like deprecation.  At this
> > point, I think giving distributors the option of making it a
> > symlink would be sufficient.  My short term goal here is to allow
> > the debian-installer to provide the option of merging / and /usr
> > at install time by creating the symlink during initial bootstrap.
> > The actual packages will continue to use /usr to permit use of a
> > real /usr or a merged setup, so this should appear almost entirely
> > transparent to both users and distribution packaging.
> 
> Note that such symlinking doesn't require FHS changes; when FHS says a
> directory should contain something, that something may be a symlink to
> elsewhere.

Hi rusty,
Are you saying "If /usr is mandated by FHS, it can be a symlink to /",
or "If /usr is mandated by FHS, it must be a directory and can
optionally contain nothing but symlinks"?

General question (for all): Would it be worth us changing the /usr
section to say it may be a symlink to / under certain circumstances?
kk

> There may be other side-effects which require footnotes or
> modifications, however: someone will have to do a thorough scan
> looking for clashes.



-- 
Karl Goetz, (Kamping_Kaiser / VK5FOSS)
Debian contributor / gNewSense Maintainer
http://www.kgoetz.id.au
No, I won't join your social networking group
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