I see that we're debating the merits of merged-usr vs non-merged-usr, while expending lots of effort and filing bugs (requiring further urgent action of unrelated maintainers), for little gain.
In the above, note that the debate vs effort touch different problems: 1. is usrmerge good? vs 2. how to support both? I say that 1. is a relatively small issue. After dropping support for booting from split /-vs-/usr without initrd, the difference doesn't really matter. I'm against pointless moves, but it's not worth an endless debate. My objection is: repainting the house is a lot of work, paint fumes are bad for health, the old color was fine and the old paint isn't noticeably flaky. On the other hand, 2. is madness. It's taking down load-bearing walls just so you can have visible sides of both colours. All the bugs you folks just filed are completely moot if we go all-in, all-out or step-back-then-in. So please at least stop filing extra bugs before the TC decides on the course. So, let's enumerate possible outcomes: 1. no usrmerge 1a. no moves at all (no effort needed!) 1b. moves via some dh_usrmove tool, until /bin is empty 2. supporting both merged-usr and unmerged-usr 3. mandatory usrmerge 3a. by Bullseye 3b. by Buster Unless the TC decides for 2., all this work will be a pure waste of yours and maintainers' time. With 1a, 1b, 3a the result will be "revert the change in debootstrap" (in 3a "for now"). With 3b you need some way to make sure existing systems are converted (also with 3a except for far more time for testing). And any effort spent doing one of the numbered choices is wasted if we end up with a choice with a different number. Meow! -- ⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀ ⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ Ivan was a wordly man: born in St. Petersburg, raised in ⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋⠀ Petrograd, lived most of his life in Leningrad, then returned ⠈⠳⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀ to the city of his birth to die.