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It seems that

  1. some systems have a symlinks like this

     /bin -> usr/bin
 /lib -> usr/lib
 /sbin -> usr/sbin

  2. Some systems have single file-symlinks of executables in these directories like this:

    /bin/some_exe -> usr/bin/some_exe

    (this is what usrmerge seems to accomplish as well)

  3. And some systems have some symlinks and some executables (including duplicates).

Questions

  1. Which state is the one that's meant to be?
  2. How do I get into the state that's meant to be from the other states?
muru
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DarkTrick
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  • @user535733 except Ubuntu is typically more opinionated than Debian, so it seems fair to ask what "should be" the configuration. Debian has decided that Debian 12 and beyond will all be merged-/usr and Ubuntu will presumably be the same in a future release. DarkTrick had some problems that looked like they were caused by a usrmerge failure; I don't know what the 'default state' should look like, to suggest a course of action. – sarnold Dec 08 '21 at 03:27
  • Not quite sure why folks would be using usrmerge for anything other than testing and filing bugs on Debian (not Ubuntu) packages...usually done in a container or VM and wiped instead of repaired. Perhaps that could be clarified in the question. – user535733 Dec 08 '21 at 03:41
  • "Some systems have single file-symlinks of executables" ... can you give an example of a usrmerge system that's supposed to be like this? I don't remember seeing any distro discussing a layout like that for usrmerge – muru Dec 08 '21 at 03:46
  • @muru that was an approach openSUSE took back in 2012. I understand it did not go well. Here's a historical wiki page describing the effort: https://en.opensuse.org/index.php?title=openSUSE:Usr_merge&oldid=53591 – sarnold Dec 08 '21 at 03:55
  • This usrmerge modern glossy method creates serious problems for debugging with dpkg -S and ldd. So on my systems I prevent its installation by installing 18.04 LTS and then upgrading it. See https://askubuntu.com/a/1358790/66509 for details. – N0rbert Dec 08 '21 at 08:14
  • @muru This is the state that usrmerge would create (and did create on my system) from your comment I also infer, that the link should be /bin -> /usr/bin (?) – DarkTrick Dec 09 '21 at 01:04
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    @DarkTrick I don't have a VM on hand to test, but installing it on an 18.04 Docker container, the message I get is "the /{bin,sbin,lib}/ directories are symlinked to their counterparts in /usr/" which would match (1), not (2). – muru Dec 09 '21 at 01:10

1 Answers1

0

The eventual state is/will be 1. The three dirs symlinked to their /usr counterpart. Maybe sbin will be lumped in with bin as well. The only systems I have encountered where the executables are individually linked are BusyBox systems.

Dennis
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