why keep /usr

Posted Oct 6, 2025 18:50 UTC (Mon) by quotemstr (subscriber, #45331)
In reply to: why keep /usr by NYKevin
Parent article: Alpine Linux plans /usr merge

/usr/local and /opt get used differently. On one hand, /usr/local is a miniature FS of its own, with include/, lib/, bin/, and so on. On the other hand, /opt is usually used by making a top-level program-specific directory, e.g. /opt/inicorp/, and then putting whatever under that. It'd be weird to merge them.

why keep /usr

Posted Oct 6, 2025 21:41 UTC (Mon) by NekkoDroid (guest, #176638) [Link] (1 responses)

I think the current plan for the next version (or at least what is currently being discussed) is to have `/usr/local` be a symlink to `/opt/local/`. Mostly so that `/usr/` can actually be RO and you can still have your selfcontained local installs, just in `/opt/`, which somewhat makes a bit more sense IMO.

why keep /usr

Posted Oct 7, 2025 13:57 UTC (Tue) by smcv (subscriber, #53363) [Link]

That makes sense. I believe Fedora's image-based variants use a symlink /usr/local -> /var/usrlocal, which is the same general idea.