On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 03:15:35AM -0600, Bruce Sass wrote: > /sbin and /usr/sbin, /lib and /usr/lib directories? > > AFAICT, the reason is so that a minimal but functional system is > guaranteed to exist so long as a local HDD with a root filesystem is > available (which doesn't necessarily include /usr); and that is a good > thing to have because it gives developers a core set of software tools > they can count on to always exist and facilitates troubleshooting or > repairs if something breaks (e.g., bug# 592361, where I've worked > around the problem by using /bin/nano to reconfigure the box with a > static IP address).
Not just to repair. First of all, / must have enough tools to bring the system up to the point where the other file systems can be mounted (i.g., over the network). > If that is a good reason, perhaps even The reason, for having both /bin > and /usr/bin, etc., then doesn't it follow that all files required by > executables residing in /bin and /sbin should also be available so long > as a local HDD with a root filesystem is available (otherwise those > executables are either broken or crippled)? All files that a tool requires to operate must be there, for sure. > I suppose there could be cases where the broken or crippled > functionality is not useful or required when a properly populated /usr > doesn't exist, but I expect those would be "special" cases, because, > generally, crippled or broken programs are a bad thing. ya? Can you give examples of such special cases? > I'm trying to understand the logic behind it not being an automatic bug > (i.e., something which is a good candidate to check for at build-time) > for stuff in /bin and /sbin to require stuff in /usr; and I've gotten > onto this because of bugs like #592361 and #589123, and the observation > that over the last couple/few years I seem to be running up against > problems related to this issue more and more frequently. This is an unfortunate consequence of the fact that less and less developers separate /, /usr, /var, etc. partitions on their machines. In the past I always did it on my workstations, however, stopped doing it around the time of lenny's release. > With bugs in scripts (e.g., #589123) it should be good enough that a > text editor is available, but with broken binaries (e.g., #592361) the > potential to be put in a not-so-easy-to-fix situation is pretty high > (remember, dpkg is not around when /usr is missing and the fix is going > to arrive in a .deb)--so maybe that one should generate a warning of > some sort. Well, just the other day I was helping a user on #debian to repare his Debian installation, using mostly sed to edit the config files. Nano was not functional without /usr and it seemed he did not have any other editor. -- Stanislav -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100810101810.ga11...@kaiba.homelan
