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Debian still having trouble with merged /usr

lwn.net

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Re: Debian still having trouble with merged /usr

#91

Post by [deleted] »

ssl232 wrote: post #43
pabs3 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a comment on the LWN article about that: https://lwn.net/Articles/890306/ > First, technical challenges: HURD tried to move from /usr to / and had quite a bit more trouble with it, and that trouble warned against trying it on a larger scale. It's much easier to move from / to /usr than from /usr to / ; fewer things break. > Second, consolidation: moving into /usr gives us a single directory containing all fi…

The A/B system upgrade idea is intriguing. And kinda painfully obvious, in hindsight. Why don't the distros that have merged /usr do that already?

[deleted]

Re: Debian still having trouble with merged /usr

#92

Post by dotancohen »

mwcampbell wrote: post #45
agumonkey wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> tyranny of the minority this is a trendy thing too, very often minorities who felt ignored, are now pushing to get more because of the tiranny of the majority had flaws (but to me is mostly unavoidable due to the natural economies of scale it grants). I don't know how one can design a social system where you balance both in the right way.

> the tiranny of the majority had flaws (but to me is mostly unavoidable due to the natural economies of scale it grants). In a different context, this is a source of frustration for me as a (partially) blind person advocating accessibility for blind people. The world is designed around the assumption, correct for most people, that people have the high-bandwidth, low-latency sense of sight. And that does lead to the…

My first experience with someone in your position was Geordi LaForge. I found it so inspiring how he overcame - though technology - his blindness and how his innovation became central to fulfilling his craft's mission and often securing the safety of its crew. I often wondered what would have become of him had he been born in an earlier age, without the technology to provide him with an alternative high-bandwidth, low-latency sense.

I am blessed that I have all my senses and so do my children, but I absolutely believe that the 9999 other traits that you have to share should not be lost just because of a single non-optimal trait.

Re: Debian still having trouble with merged /usr

#94

Post by hanselot »

sph wrote: post #48
ssl232 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much of Python's success is down to the BDFL(-delegate) approach of governance? It seems a lot of projects have adopted it and Python's PEP system for managing new features. I wonder if Debian could use a similar sort of elected presidential system.

I am of the opinion that BDFL style governance is best in software. In the real world the problem is a bit more hairy, but if you have an issue with a tyrant in open source, you can just fork the project. A BDFL solves the bureaucracy problem (they mandate, everybody implements) and the big ego problem (the biggest ego is at the top by definition). Also BDFL can have vision, something a committee will never have. In…

No post body was provided.

Re: Debian still having trouble with merged /usr

#95

Post by dbrgn »

chx wrote: post #90

Quoted post unavailable.

If you'd actually read the article, you'd see that the problem isn't merged /usr. Other distros moved to merged /usr just fine.

Also, the decision to move Debian to merged /usr wasn't done by Poettering, it was done by the Debian technical committee. So please stop spreading such ad-hominem nonsense.

Re: Debian still having trouble with merged /usr

#96

Post by andrepd »

mwcampbell wrote: post #45
agumonkey wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> tyranny of the minority this is a trendy thing too, very often minorities who felt ignored, are now pushing to get more because of the tiranny of the majority had flaws (but to me is mostly unavoidable due to the natural economies of scale it grants). I don't know how one can design a social system where you balance both in the right way.

> the tiranny of the majority had flaws (but to me is mostly unavoidable due to the natural economies of scale it grants). In a different context, this is a source of frustration for me as a (partially) blind person advocating accessibility for blind people. The world is designed around the assumption, correct for most people, that people have the high-bandwidth, low-latency sense of sight. And that does lead to the…

Not only is that impractical (how can you reliably filter blindness before birth? I suppose you could test babies eyesight at birth and kill them if they're blind?), but what about the people who get blind during their lives? They are the vast majority of cases of blindness!

It seems very odd to propose that the solution to a problem is to liquidate all people who suffer from that problem.

Re: Debian still having trouble with merged /usr

#97

Post by makomk »

sph wrote: post #7
LeoPanthera wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Debian put the idea through a committee, of course a minority wanted to keep the old behaviour That is specifically not what happened, and the article is quite clear about it. The Technical Committee voted unanimously for merged usr: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=978636#178 The problem is that dpkg, an essential component of Debian, has specific issues with symlinks: https://wiki.debian.org/Team…

I'm quoting the article: "Debian took a more incremental approach, in part because it strives not to make wholesale changes to users' systems like those required by a flag-day upgrade to a merged /usr. In 2016, the ability to voluntarily switch to that scheme was added, then some attempts were made for newer versions of the distribution to be installed with a merged /usr by default. [...] The location of some files w…

Linux development in the present era is very heavily driven by Red Hat's needs and desires, and I don't think they have this problem because they don't support upgrading from one release to the next using the package manager - you have to reboot into the installer and do a kind of reinstall in place. So they can just require that all packages only have files in the non-symlinked directories after the flag day. Debian is different - you have to use the package manager to upgrade, which means you're going to be running with a mix of new and old packages at least for a while.

Re: Debian still having trouble with merged /usr

#98

Post by andrepd »

mwcampbell wrote: post #72
scandox wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think parent poster is actually only partially blind

Correct. Legally blind, meaning, for example, that I can't drive, but with enough sight to read text up close if it's large enough. Edit to add: I do increasingly depend on a screen reader, though not yet for my actual programming work. ETA 2: Sorry for the confusion in the original comment. I've become wary of terms like "visually impaired", because they wreak of over-sensitivity and political correctness. But there…

"Visually impaired" is a WHO technical term that encompasses visual acuity worse than 6/18.

Re: Debian still having trouble with merged /usr

#99

Post by hanselot »

forgotmypw17 wrote: post #34
agumonkey wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> tyranny of the minority this is a trendy thing too, very often minorities who felt ignored, are now pushing to get more because of the tiranny of the majority had flaws (but to me is mostly unavoidable due to the natural economies of scale it grants). I don't know how one can design a social system where you balance both in the right way.

I think one possible solution is to create systems which are designed to fragment and split up from the beginning.

No post body was provided.

Re: Debian still having trouble with merged /usr

#100

Post by andrepd »

mwcampbell wrote: post #87
scandox wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all I think Eugenics would/will quickly lead to something akin to runaway selection: people will make increasingly absurd decisions mainly driven by status markers / perceptual drift and the human race will breed itself into some mad corner. So I don't believe Eugenics is ever going to do what even its most ardent supporters imagine. Second of all the human race does not have some over-arching goals we need…

> Second of all the human race does not have some over-arching goals we need to meet like a business. It is or should be like a club run for the benefit of the members: let's create good conditions for people. We can tolerate a bit of complexity and diversity. Individuals and groups (including businesses) do have goals though, and it seems natural that some of them feel that they're being thwarted in their pursuit of…

"Poor businesses forced to build ramps and make their websites screenreader-accessible" seems a distinctly weird take to me.

If we're no longer taking even the slightest bit of care towards looking after our fellow Man then it's not a world worth living to me.

EDIT: It's also not just a "tiny minority", about 13% of the world's population have serious vision impairment. Making streets, businesses, services, products accessible is the very least we can do. It's scary that someone who suffers from this himself would chalk it off as inefficiency and waste.

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