[arch-general] /usr is not mounted. This is not supported.

[Mantas Mikulėnas]

On 2011-10-24 17:42, Dwight Schauer wrote:
> This morning I saw "/usr is not mounted. This is not supported." in my
> boot up after a recent rc.sysinit update.
>
> What is this, bait and switch? I've been running Linux and BSD systems
> since 1996 and typically always have /usr in a separate partition (as
> well as /var, /home/ and /tmp, but lately been using a ram /tmp).

See 
<http://freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/separate-usr-is-broken> 
for an explanation on why booting without a separate /usr does not 
really work, as well as this thread 
<http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.sysutils.systemd.devel/1337>.

Note I said "booting". If /usr is mounted by your initramfs, it's 
perfectly fine.

> Why does /usr even exist if it can't be on a separate partition? Why
> not just combine /usr/lib and /lib? And /usr/bin and /bin? And
> /usr/sbin and /sbin? Why have the distinction at all if it can't be on
> separate partition?

I remember reading a few mailing list posts about this, but can't find 
them right now. 
<http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.sysutils.systemd.devel/3480> appears 
to be relevant -- it's easier to snapshot a single /usr than 
/bin+/lib+/sbin+...:

| The point is not to have 6-10 top-level dirs for the system to manage,
| but only a single one. We need a single point to snapshot or share.

-- 
Mantas M.