• Bits from the release team: on merged-/usr and the bookworm release

    From Paul Gevers@21:1/5 to All on Sat Jul 16 10:50:01 2022
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    Dear all,

    Although we don't particularly like the need to make a statement, the
    Release Team feels obliged to make the following statements about
    merged-/usr.

    * When we're talking in this mail about the merged-/usr transition or
    forced migration we are talking about the (automatic, opt-out)
    mechanism that during upgrades from bullseye to bookworm will
    migrate the system to a merged-/usr filesystem layout as defined in
    [1].

    * The Release Team is of the opinion that Debian's merged-/usr project
    is only finished when dpkg supports it. We prefer dpkg to be fixed
    before the bookworm freeze starts, however this does not block the
    forced migration.

    * We recommend coordinating the upgrade migration mechanism sooner
    rather than later. I.e. inform and agree on timing between the
    upload to unstable and infrastructure maintainers that need to
    ensure that their infrastructure opts-out of the merge.

    * We will not delay the release of bookworm for the absence of an
    implementation of the forced migration upon upgrades. We consider
    the forced migration a special transition. The migration to testing
    needs to happen before the Transition and Toolchain freeze or it
    will not be part of bookworm.

    * The TC resolution #994388[1] recommended a moratorium on moving
    files' canonical location from / into /usr. Until there's support in
    dpkg for merged /usr, we want this moratorium to remain in place,
    even after the bookworm release. Files moving their canonical
    location between / and /usr (details in [1]) *and* from one binary
    package to another binary package within one release cycle remain an
    RC issue unless dpkg supports it.

    * If the forced migration makes it into bookworm in time, then
    non-merged-/usr root filesystems are officially not supported after
    the release of bookworm, except during the upgrade. If the forced
    migration implementation misses the freeze deadline, bookworm
    officially supports non-merged-/usr root filesystems.

    * For the bookworm release, time is running short.

    On behalf of the Release Team
    Paul

    [1] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=994388#110


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