Dear Everyone, An often cited benefit of the /usr merge is the ability to put everything but /etc on NFS and for that reason, we need to force an initramfs on people happily using /usr without it.
Interestingly, the /usr merge changes made to genkernel permit us to mount /etc from a genkernel-built initramfs by putting /etc on a separate mount point in fstab and then doing `echo /etc >> /etc/initramfs.mounts`. Some people claim that the current approach is somehow broken by citing Bluetooth keyboards. However, what makes that work is adopting an initramfs and that does *not* require moving files into /usr. If people do not want an initramfs, they can simply not have a separate /usr. The /usr merge gives nothing to people using bluetooth while the /usr merge will break systems of non-bluetooth users. I have been told that moving everything into /usr would be easy for us because Arch Linux did it and they are a rolling distribution too. Arch Linux does all-or-nothing upgrades. They do not offer the ability for their users to choose to use older versions of software and we will not be able to move everything into /usr without breaking existing systems that boot without issues now. 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. As far ass I know, systemd does not work on GNU HURD and it would be incapable of functioning if the GNU project made this change. Hell will freeze long before that happens. The only thing that might require a merge is systemd and it is not in @system. If we offered users the ability to choose rc systems, we would still be supporting baselayout-1's rc system. If we start now, we should bring that back. With that said, there is a great deal of FUD being spread by the systemd developers and I see no reason for us to accept it. We would be breaking users' systems for no gain other than to make the systemd developers happy. Their refusal to permit udev to be built separately from systemd demonstrated complete disdain for Gentoo Linux. Why should we let them dictate how we design our distribution at our users' expense? Lastly, don't tell me to read systemd's case for why we should break people's systems. I have read it and I find it flawed. There is absolutely no need for us to make this change. Yours truly, Richard Yao
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