On Tue, 27 Aug 2002, Noriyuki Soda wrote:

> >>>>> On Mon, 26 Aug 2002 21:45:43 +0200 (CEST),
> 	Johnny Billquist <bqt@update.uu.se> said:
> 
> > But if so, then I have another suggestion.
> > Duplicate /bin and /sbin in /usr/bin and /usr/sbin, and have them
> > dynamically linked there. That would also mean that users paths could skip
> > /bin, which in itself is a boon, since the path variable cannot be
> > arbitrarily long.
> 
> That's more problematic than luke's proposal.

Hmmm...

> - if a user sets "PATH=/bin:/usr/bin", stuff which needs dlopen(3)
>   doesn't work with the duplicated programs.

Yes, but we cannot, and *should not* try to protect against users who want
to circumvent things.

> - even if the user set "PATH=/usr/bin:/bin", some stuff which
>   needs dlopen(3) doesn't work with the duplicated programs.
>   e.g. think about programs which calls /bin/sh directly.
>   (And /bin/sh is one of such programs which need locale.)

True, and problematic. Needs to be figured out.

> - it consumes more disk space than what we have currently.
>  (c.f. the diskspace will decrease with the luke's proposal.)

This is really nonsensical, I think. If we really were concerned about
size, I can probably think of a 1000 things we shouldn't do.
Unless you can really show me some case where size really matters, I would
appreciate if that argument was dropped (I've even worked at a place where
we flashed the whole NetBSD system, and had plenty of space left. Even
flash memory is cheap).

> - if there is another way for booting on a system (e.g. booting from
>   cdrom), /rescue directory can be removed on the system with luke's
>   proposal. but the duplicated binary in your proposal cannot be removed.

I'm *not* concerned that much with a few extra megabytes of space in
root. I *am* concerned that my root will be non-functional, which is
definitely a rather probable event, given time.

I still (and always will) think that dynamically linking /bin and /sbin is
a very lousy idea. If people want locale support I don't object to
that. What I object to is dynamic linking in the root. It plainly
stinks.

The bottom line is: find a better solution, and wait until that is
implemented.
You're taking the easy (and lousy) way out right now.

My $.02.

	Johnny

Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                  ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt@update.uu.se           ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol