On 2020-07-07 12:20, Steve Litt wrote: > You need certain executables, pre-mount, before a separate /usr can be > mounted. These went in /sbin, which is on the root and always > available. If you could mount the root partition, you could proceed. > > But now, if you mount /usr somewhere off the root, and simply have > /sbin symlink to it, those executables aren't available right away. > Imagine if you need the mount executable to mount /usr, but the mount > executable *is* on /usr. Buried shovel. The only way around it is to > do the mounts in initramfs.
Of course I know all of this. And I guess strictly speaking it *is* an answer to my question: if you had this setup and suddenly, without notice, you got switched to a "merged" world, you'd be hosed until you built an initramfs. But that is not how in fact it happens: you have plenty of notice, and plenty of time to change to a scheme with /usr within the root filesystem. And then you don't need an initramfs again, at least not for the above reason. So maybe the real question is, in the merged world, do you have a reason to insist on /usr being a mount point, other than tradition? I know that people used to do rescue tasks via a single-user boot with only the rootfs mounted, but for a long time now it is far easier to do such things by booting into some kind of "live" system on a USB stick. One can make the live system minimal if so inclined, and in fact the minimal Devuan live system is just about perfect for this purpose. -- Ian _______________________________________________ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
