Control: severity -1 serious Control: tags = confirmed CCing the release team, and CTTE because I don't know who else is tracking issues related to the usrmerge effort. I've consciously chosen not to pour gasoline on the flame war by CCing anyone else (nor will I contact anyone else about the existence of this bug).
Steps I used to try to reproduce:
1. Downloaded debian-testing-amd64-netinst.iso 2021-12-03 16:21 408M
2. Installed to EFI-enabled qemu eg:
kvm -bios /usr/share/ovmf/bios.bin -m 2G \
-hda debian-separate-usr-sda.raw \
-cdrom debian-testing-amd64-netinst.iso
3. Guided partitioning with separate /home, then changed the mount point
to /usr. Partition layout is:
sda1: ESP fat32
sda2: / ext4
sda3: swap swap
sda4: /usr ext4
4. Selected only "Standard System Utilities"
5. Rebooted
Result: SUCCESS
Then, to test the rescue functionality:
1. I discovered qemu+OVMF boot order is broken without changing the
command to: kvm -L /usr/share/ovmf/ -m 2G -boot menu=on \
-hda /scratch/debian-separate-usr-sda.raw \
-cdrom /scratch/debian-testing-amd64-netinst.iso
2. Selected sda2
3. Yes, mount /boot/efi
4. Execute a shell in /dev/sda2
5. No usable shell was found on your root file system (/dev/sda2)
6. Changed virtual terminal
7. cd /target && ls bin
ls: bin: No such file or directory
Result: FAILED
Conclusion: This is a usrmerged system, and the rescue system does not
support usermerged systems.
The options are, as I see them, ranked from least to most work-hours:
1. Debian isn't yet ready for usrmerge. Revert to normal system installation.
2. Reassign to src:rescue, and fix the rescue system.
a) before chrooting, test for the presence of /target/bin/sh
b) if /bin/sh is not found, either emit error to the user and present a
dialogue for selecting /usr partition, or
c) parse /target/etc/fstab, and attempt to mount other partitions
d) b & c will be difficult to implement when attempting to accommodate
the heterogeneity of possible MD, LUKS, and LVM layouts, not to mention
the complications introduced by the possibility of a user-configured
btrfs subvolume name "@usr" on any valid device. Fstab parsing might
make the btrfs case easier with:
i) Display a dialogue selector if a btrfs partition is detected
The dialogue will list all detected subvolumes
ii) If the user cannot find a subvolume for "@usr", then
iii) Allow the user to escape to the partition selection screen, and
iv) Unmount the partition
3. Disallow configuring of a mount for "/usr", and *Prominently* declare that
Debian no longer supports separating /usr from /, declare this in *many
places*, and reply to bugs on this topic for many years. I put this one
last because I believe the cost to work-hours is unbounded, and
because I believe there may be a negative social cost associated with
this action. Also, if Fedora/RHEL/SUSE/Ubuntu support a separate /usr
partition, then this action could make Debian look inferior.
Regards,
Nicholas
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