----- Original Message ---- > From: Paul Hartman <paul.hartman+gen...@gmail.com> > To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org > Some topics I'm thinking about (comments welcome): > - be aware of cylinder boundaries when partitioning (thanks to the > recent thread) > - utilizing device labels and/or volume labels instead of hoping > /dev/sda stays /dev/sda always
I've never had an issue with /dev/sda changing, but I don't change out hard drives a lot either. If you're doing hot-pluggable systems may be. But it typically does the right thing. I haven't gotten around to do doing it yet, but one thing I did think about was setting up udev to recognize certain external hard drives for use - e.g. always mapping a backup hard drive to a certain location for backups instead of the normal prompting. > - initrd - I've never used one, but maybe it's needed if root is on > software RAID? You only need initrd if you can't build a kernel with everything needed to boot up - namely, when you need to load specialized firmware to access the hard drive or if you are doing net-booting. > - grub/kernel parameter tips and tricks... i'm already using uvesafb, > and don't dual-boot with MSWin or anything, just Gentoo I typically make sure to alias or map a "default" that should always work. It's my standard boot up unless I"m testing out a new kernel build. When I do an update, I add the update to the list without modifying the default until I've verified that the updated kernel is working. Works better under LILO than grub if I recall. > - better partitioning scheme than my current root, boot, home (need > portage on its own, maybe /var as well?) I have taken to putting portage on its own partition to keep from filling up the root partition, which I've done on a few systems more than once. So yes, definately +5. > - best filesystem for portage? something compressed or with small > cluster size maybe. 1. Stay away from reiserfs. Yeah, I know there's a big fan base for it; but it's not so big in the recovery distro area. 2. Ext2/3 are now more than sufficient and supported out-of-the-box by nearly all recovery distros. I haven't tried Ext4 yet, but it seems very able as well. >From various things I've seen, XFS or JFS is about the only real FS to offer >benefits where it kind of makes sense. But for the most part, Ext2/3/4 will probably more than suffice for most everyone's need; and when it doesn't - you're typically doing something where you need to find the right one out of numerous for a specialized area of use, in which case, general recommendations don't cut it. (Why care about recovery disks: B/c you never know when you're going to need to access that partition.) > - SSD vs 10000rpm vs big-and-cheap hard drive for rootfs/system files. > I lean toward the latter since RAM caches it anyway. I lean towards just going the standard 10k hard drives with lots of cache; though I typically only buy the middle-line Western Digitals (upper-line being the server hard drives). > - omit/reduce number of reserved-for-root blocks on partitions where > it's not necessary. > - I have never used LVM and don't really know about it. Should I use > it? will it make life easier someday? or more difficult? I tried out LVM (LVM2) thinking it would kind of make sense. I still have one system using it; but I ended up abandoning it. Why? Recovery is a pita when something goes wrong. Not to say it isn't flexible, but for most people LVM is unnecessary, kind of like RAID. > - Is RAID5 still a good balance for disk cost vs usable space vs data > safety? I can't/don't want to pay for full mirroring of all disks. RAID is not really necessary for most people. Save it for sections on doing backups - e.g. setting up a drive to backup to that gets mirrored off - or server support, where RAID is necessary. But most users don't need RAID. > Or any other tips that apply to things which are difficult to change > once the system is in use. KISS. Ben
