Re: sysinst(8), `Installing from an unmounted filesystem'

[Robert Elz <kre%munnari.OZ.AU@localhost>]

    Date:        Thu, 11 Oct 2018 15:20:59 -0700
    From:        Don NetBSD <netbsd-embedded%gmx.com@localhost>
    Message-ID:  <47c50561-6061-87e1-112a-2cb7a985c7e3%gmx.com@localhost>

  | Mounting /Sources and symlinking /Sources/src at /usr/src, /Sources/pkgsrc at
  | /usr/pkgsrc, /Sources/xsrc at /usr/xsrc, etc. covers all the bases.  Where
  | would you put xsrc if you mount a partition at /usr/src?  Ditto pkgsrc?

/usr/xsrc and /usr/pkgsrc both work, those are the standard places (they can 
be separate partitions) though I use /usr/src/xsrc (and it remains part of
/usr/src) and /usr/src/pkgsrc (and is mounted separately).   Distfiles (and 
packages) are (for me) separate partitions, mounted on /local (not with symlinks, but
using pkgsrc var settings to alter their locations) but they could also be 
mounted under /usr/src/pkgsrc.   "mysources" go in ~kre/src  but there's also
a /local/$hostname (mounted) which can have a src subdir  if a host has a need
for sources all of its own, and if there was going to be a lot of that, it would be a
separate partition as well.

You might gather that I like separating data into multiple partitions - lots 
of them,.,,   Unloike some, I do not regard partitions as mereley a mechanism
to get around issues with drives not being big enough, but as first class 
objects with a whole set of properties of their own, which should be used
more, not less.

  | [Note that the device mounted at /Sources may be an external drive that may or
  | may not be present at all times]

That's fine, any of this can be "noauto" in fstab.

  | It lets me keep sources off of systems that don't need them while keeping the
  | file hierarchy basically consistent -- the "basic" partitions are always the
  | same size and have the same content.

That's reasonable, I was not suggesting loading everything into /usr ...  just 
not mounting anything (long term. /mnt, or /cdrom are OK for short term use)
(except /usr /var and /tmp ... all of which are more or less critical, and so
matter less ... that is, if the drive holding /usr dies, you're screwed, 
wherever it is mounted, whereas if /usr/src dies, the system should normally
never notice, you don;t wantthings to hang because they're scanning /)

That, and that everyone has their own setup - proclaiming any as being
the way anyone else should do things is rarely a good idea.

kre