Subject: Re: major hier(7) overhauls?
To: NetBSD Userlevel Technical Discussion List <tech-userlevel@netbsd.org>
From: Jim Wise <jwise@unicast.com>
List: tech-userlevel
Date: 01/27/1999 13:08:42
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On Tue, 26 Jan 1999, Greg A. Woods wrote:

>And my 38MB slower-than-ethernet drive doesn't count?!?!?!?
>
>Note that even the 105MB drive does not constitute a "complete" system.
>I had to strip off the compiler and /usr/share, etc.
>
>If you want to scrimp and scrounge then you have to be prepared to
>"customize".

Sure.  And taking away the division into / and /usr makes this
customization a hell of a lot harder.

As far as I'm concerned, this division has at least one really important
advantage which has nothing to do with small disk sizes or system
stability: Easy network divisibility.  / is designed to have enough
tools/information for me to get up and on the network, and /usr has only
files which can be shared with 80 other machines on the network.  With
one notable exception (package databases in /var vs. packages in
/usr/{pkg,X11R6} -- and this is being worked on), this division holds.

If everything is collapsed into a single /{bin,lib,...}, then you place
the onus on the user to decide what can be mounted over the network vs.
what needs to be local -- _and_ you destroy the granularity that makes
such division possible.

Thus, FWIW, I am strongly against merging / and /usr.

- -- 
				Jim Wise
				jwise@unicast.com



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