Here we disagree, I consider /root very much a part of the base
system and it should be pretty much unused.  And I am a person
that logs in as root and su -'s out to user accounts, but I
still do not use /root as a normal home directory, everything
else is done and stored some other place.


Do you see /root as part of the base here https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/ ? ;-)

Also look here https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/jails-application.html

/root is treated as editable part of the read-only base system, the same way as /home


The fact that it is shipped with the base system, created by the
base system installer, and is pretty much a mandatory required directoy,
however does make it very much part of the base system.


We actually don't argue here if /root is part of a base system but if it's reasonable for the installer to assume that /root is on the same dataset as /.

Based on the links I mentioned above, and on your comment, my understanding is that /root is not part of the base system but it's created and populated by the installer when installing the base. Is the requirement that the /root dataset should be on the same dataset as / mentioned anywhere in the official documentation? I couldn't find it here <https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/bsdinstall-partitioning.html#bsdinstall-part-shell> but it's also hard to search for due to root being a very common word in various contexts. Certainly bsdinstall doesn't require /root to be on the same dataset as /.

If indeed there is no such existing requirement, then it would be something new that pkgbase is introducing. Which might be fine, but is it reasonable? I don't think so. Regardless if /root should be considered part of the base system or not, I don't see any reason for pkgbase or the FreeBSD's base system to require /root to be on the same dataset as / apart from those two hardlinks discussed earlier.


It's home directory for the /root user,
where I often have larger files that I either copy to install or just as
a backup of some parts of the system.
I would never store backup's in /root!


Backup may mean different things. I don't mean backups of the system. Consider a tarball of the kernel copied from another system that needs to be unpacked to / or temporary copies of some configs that are being edited, e.g. pf.conf or rc.conf. Where would you store those?


Versioning it per boot environment
wouldn't make sense.
Double edge sword.  The set of tweaks needed in .cshrc or .profile may
vary by version of FreeBSD installed.


Well, I would assume that an administrator is free to edit .cshrc and .profile for their own needs, e.g. add aliases or env variables. Once changed they would no longer be updated with the system but skipped. There are always reference versions in / which the administrator should consult and copy over any required changes after the system has been updated.

--
GrzegorzJ


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