On Tue, Aug 27, 2002 at 10:29:26PM -0400, Greg A. Woods wrote:

 > [ On Tuesday, August 27, 2002 at 01:29:56 (+0200), Johnny Billquist wrote: ]
 > > Subject: Re: HEADS UP: migration to fully dynamic linked "base" system
 > >
 > > Oh, I don't argue that a (hopefully) working /rescue will do the
 > > trick. I'm just very opposed to having /rescue, since it will do exactly
 > > what /bin was for, as opposed to /usr/bin.
 > 
 > Very good point!

No not a very good point, and here's why...

The fact that we have a static /bin and /sbin *now* is nothing more than
an historical accident.

4.4BSD didn't have shared libraries, and thus didn't have to solve this
problem, and when NetBSD first existed, it didn't either.  And people
had separate / and /usr partitions (there was no /lib in 4.4BSD).

When NetBSD's shared libraries came along originally, they were not always
that stable, and because of the tendency to have separate / and /usr, it
turned out to simply be more convenient *at the time* to do with a static
/bin and /sbin and dynamic /usr/...

I wouldn't exactly say there was any purposefulness in the current scheme,
and certainly wouldn't make the assertion that /bin and /sbin are "for"
single-user system recovery.

-- 
        -- Jason R. Thorpe <thorpej@wasabisystems.com>