[Mageia-dev] Please test: initscripts+systemd in updates_testing

Wed Nov 2 13:02:20 CET 2011

'Twas brillig, and Johnny A. Solbu at 02/11/11 02:49 did gyre and gimble:
+>>> Since you have read the reference, you didn't notice that the
+>>> option of separate partitions is _not_ precluded ?
+
+> Some of the answers I got here suggested otherwize. if /usr needs to
+> be mounted in order for the system to boot normally. Then have
+> systemd mount it.
+> I do see that there might be some problems involved in solving it.
+
+That's catch-22 problem. systemd uses various bits to detect this disk
+subsystems, including encryption, lvm, raid, etc. etc. layers. That
+means for systemd to deal gracefully with /usr being on a separate mount
+mount, it must ensure that all of those tools (and of course systemd
+itself) and are located outside of /usr and this is the whole point that
+is being made. For various setups etc. you need to move a whole bunch of
+stuff to / to cope with this. Rather than doing that, the suggest is
+instead to move that stuff to the initramfs.
+
+This has several advantages. It means that the vast bulk of the
+applications installed can live inside a single tree - /usr. This means
+that the /usr tree can be MUCH more useful than currently - it can be
+exported over NFS/SAN/whatever and shared on multiple machines, mounted
+read only. Much less hassle to administer one install than 5000. It also
+aids snapshotting (at the filesystem level). which also makes backups
+more robust etc. etc. The benefits just flow from here.
+
+So the argument is that it will not be systemd's job to do it because
+systemd very much *wants* to live inside /usr.
+
+So the job of mounting /usr is in the initramfs. After that, systemd
+does everything. It's a nice and clean separation.
+
+
+But this list really isn't the place for this discussion. We are not
+upstream systemd. If you want to discuss it further, please take it to
+the systemd list, and let's end this thread which has gone massively off
+topic.
+
+
+Col
+
+-- 
+
+Colin Guthrie
+colin(at)mageia.org
+http://colin.guthr.ie/
+
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+