XPost: linux.debian.policy   
   From: smcv@debian.org   
      
   On Fri, 20 Feb 2026 at 13:53:41 +0100, Santiago Vila wrote:   
   >I was actually thinking about actively encouraging everybody to do the   
   >switch by dropping /var/run in unstable to see what breaks   
      
   Please don't. I expect that the damage done in terms of programs not   
   starting or not working correctly would be completely disproportionate   
   to the cost of one symlink:   
   https://codesearch.debian.net/search?q=%2Fvar%2Frun&literal=1 currently   
   has 21291 results.   
      
   With upstream hat on, /var/run is mandated by the FHS, the interoperable   
   distro-independent location of the D-Bus system bus socket is   
   unix:path=/var/run/dbus/system_bus_socket, and the wording in the D-Bus   
   specification is carefully-chosen to allow (or even encourage) using   
   /run/dbus/system_bus_socket on systems like Debian where we know that   
   the two paths are equivalent. Making the two paths non-equivalent would   
   be a backward step, and I would prefer not to have to tell upstream   
   projects "sorry, yes, that's a weird Debianism and you'll have to work   
   around it" more than is strictly necessary.   
      
   Removing the symlink from base-files would also not have any effect on   
   systems that have systemd installed (because   
   /usr/lib/tmpfiles.d/var.conf creates it if necessary), so removing it   
   from base-files would be creating divergence between chroot/container   
   environments (schroot, podman, docker) and full-system environments with   
   systemd as init (lxc, systemd-nspawn, virtual machines, real hardware).   
      
   Similarly, it would not at all surprise me if there are chroot/container   
   managers that create /var/run -> ../run, if not already present, as part   
   of chroot/container startup, the same way we expect chroot/container   
   managers to be responsible for populating /dev, /proc and /sys. That   
   would partially mask the effect of dropping it from base-files.   
      
        smcv   
      
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