Re: [gentoo-user] thin-provisioning-tools - but I don't provision anything!!!!!

[Andrew Lowe]

On 16/09/17 06:57, Marc Joliet wrote:
> Am Freitag, 15. September 2017, 19:56:54 CEST schrieb Andrew Lowe:
>> Hi all,
>>  I posted about a nasty infection my machine had with three versions of
>> Ruby a few days ago. In the process of trying to fix that I noticed a
>> thingy called "thin-provisioning-tools". I don't have anything thin and
>> I don't provision anything so why I ask?
>>
>>  From what I've been able to understand, it's something to do with
>> Device Mapper, snapshots and "many virtual devices to be stored on the
>> same data volume". This is all just jibberish to me and I have no idea
>> as to why this has suddenly appeared in my world update. I haven't asked
>> for it. I don't use any of the "more advanced" thingies such as lvm2 etc
>> so does anyone have any idea as to why I've now go this to install?
>>
>>  Back to Ruby killing now,
>>  Andrew
> 
> Based on what I've researched for the other sub-thread, since you don't 
> actually use LVM, then -- unless you set the wrong USE flags -- you probably 
> have udisks:0 installed (it has an unconditional dependency on lvm2).  Use 
> "emerge --depclean -pv lvm2" to find out for sure.
> 
> If it is udisks:0, then AFAICT you can get rid of it with appropriate USE 
> flag 
> settings ("equery depends" is your friend here).
> 
> HTH
> 

I think I eventually tracked the problem down to installing
sys-fs/cryptsetup ages ago and subsequently doing nothing with it, hence
out of sight, out of mind. It brought in lvm2, which once again I don't
use, but out of sight, out of mind, which brought in
thin-provisioning-tools.

Just at the moment with my 3 versions of Ruby and KDE doing a large
upgrade, I was swamped with "info" so it took a bit to find my way
around this stuff and find the appropriate flags to set/unset.

Thanks to those who provided thoughts,

Andrew

Re: [gentoo-user] thin-provisioning-tools - but I don't provision anything!!!!!

[Stroller]

> On 16 Sep 2017, at 17:16, Peter Humphrey  wrote:
> On Saturday, 16 September 2017 15:35:44 BST Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> 
>> What really got up my nose, as mentioned above, was doing an emerge -s on
>> thing-provisioning-tools and getting told it was "tools for thin
>> provisioning".
> 
> I raised a bug report about that once, against use.desc. There was a flurry 
> of activity as devs looked around their own bailiwicks and fixed them, then 
> everything went quiet again.

Really? 

I started threads at least twice on gentoo-dev (now years ago), and it seemed 
to have no effect.

I've given up expecting USE descriptions to be useful.

> It's an example of no designer or coder enjoying any of the still important 
> bits left over when the acceptance test is passed.

+1

Stroller.

Re: [gentoo-user] thin-provisioning-tools - but I don't provision anything!!!!!

[Peter Humphrey]

On Saturday, 16 September 2017 15:35:44 BST Alan Mackenzie wrote:

> What really got up my nose, as mentioned above, was doing an emerge -s on
> thing-provisioning-tools and getting told it was "tools for thin
> provisioning".

I raised a bug report about that once, against use.desc. There was a flurry 
of activity as devs looked around their own bailiwicks and fixed them, then 
everything went quiet again.

It's an example of no designer or coder enjoying any of the still important 
bits left over when the acceptance test is passed.

> What really takes up time maintaining a computer, or
> programming for that matter, is continually having to look somewhere else
> for something.  Even though I doubt it was deliberately designed to
> annoy, that emerge -s entry could hardly have been more annoying if
> somebody had tried to make it so.

Quite so.

-- 
Regards,
Peter.

Speak severely to your boy
And beat him when he sneezes.
He only does it to annoy
Because he knows it teases.

Re: [gentoo-user] thin-provisioning-tools - but I don't provision anything!!!!!

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hello, Alan.

On Sat, Sep 16, 2017 at 00:15:35 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On 15/09/2017 23:43, Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> > On Fri, Sep 15, 2017 at 23:38:21 +0200, Marc Joliet wrote:
> >> Am Freitag, 15. September 2017, 23:15:05 CEST schrieb Alan Mackenzie:
> >>> Yes, but do I want it to go away?  What is it, what does it do?

> >>> OK, let's try emerge -s thin-provisioning-tools.  We get back only
> >>> patronising garbage, namely "A suite of tools for thin provisioning on
> >>> Linux" - well, duh!  Who write's this stuff?

> >>> So, WTF is thin provisioning?

> >> I'm tempted to ask whether google is down or something, but I'm tired and 
> >> waiting for 7z to finish so here you go anyway:

> > For me, google is permanently down.

> >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_provisioning

> > Yes, I've read it, thanks.  My question above was somewhat rhetorical.

> >> I would say you probably don't need to care about it.

> > I do.  I need to spend time and effort removing it.  It sounds like
> > something only useful in servers, yet I have a desktop profile installed.

> > There's something not quite right, here.


> Reign in the paranoia there friend. This is Gentoo and you have choices.
> You are getting lvm because you elected to get it, it's set somewhere in
> your USE.

No, I actually use LVM to massage partition sizes, (but not for anything
else).

> What is LVM? A tool for managing disk volumes. If you don't know what it
> is, you probably don't need it.

On my last machine, I only used it once or twice (to increase partition
sizes), but without it I would have spent a lot of time creating
partitions, copying stuff across, and so on.  I might need it more on my
new machine, which has only 500Gb of SSD (as compared with 1Tb of HDD).

> What is thin-provisioning? A way to allocate space on your disks without
> actually using it until you put real data in. So a say 50G volume that
> is empty will consume no disk space (or maybe a few K in overhead). Sort
> of like sparse files for entire volumes.

Thanks.  It sounds like something which, if you don't know what it is,
you don't need.  And reading the Gentoo wiki article, it seems that there
are some gotchas associated with it.  I don't think the USE flag `thin'
should have been enabled by default.  I'm going to disable it, now I know
what it is.

What really got up my nose, as mentioned above, was doing an emerge -s on
thing-provisioning-tools and getting told it was "tools for thin
provisioning".  What really takes up time maintaining a computer, or
programming for that matter, is continually having to look somewhere else
for something.  Even though I doubt it was deliberately designed to
annoy, that emerge -s entry could hardly have been more annoying if
somebody had tried to make it so.

> -- 
> Alan McKinnon
> alan.mckin...@gmail.com

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).

Re: [gentoo-user] thin-provisioning-tools - but I don't provision anything!!!!!

[Peter Humphrey]

On Friday, 15 September 2017 23:30:07 BST Daniel Campbell wrote:

> If you have app-portage/gentoolkit (I highly recommend it) you can run
> `equery d sys-block/thin-provisioning-tools` to find what's pulling it
> in. It's probably lvm2, which is expected if you use LVM for anything.
> If you don't have any need for it:
> 
> * Add `USE="-lvm"` to make.conf to ensure you don't get LVM through IUSE
> * Add `sys-fs/lvm2` to package.mask, but realize you may lose partial
> functionality with some things, like net-fs/nfs-utils NFS v4.1 support.
> * emerge --changed-use --ask @world
> * emerge --ask --depclean
> 
> or
> 
> * Put `sys-fs/lvm2 -thin` in package.use, run `emerge --changed-use
> --ask @world`, and go about your day.

I just have -thin in make.conf. It's still there because I haven't got round 
to removing it since building this box 18 months ago. The old box had LVM on 
twin disks and I didn't want thin provisioning, whereas this one just has a 
single SSD.

-- 
Regards,
Peter.

Re: [gentoo-user] thin-provisioning-tools - but I don't provision anything!!!!!

[Marc Joliet]

Am Freitag, 15. September 2017, 19:56:54 CEST schrieb Andrew Lowe:
> Hi all,
>   I posted about a nasty infection my machine had with three versions of
> Ruby a few days ago. In the process of trying to fix that I noticed a
> thingy called "thin-provisioning-tools". I don't have anything thin and
> I don't provision anything so why I ask?
> 
>   From what I've been able to understand, it's something to do with
> Device Mapper, snapshots and "many virtual devices to be stored on the
> same data volume". This is all just jibberish to me and I have no idea
> as to why this has suddenly appeared in my world update. I haven't asked
> for it. I don't use any of the "more advanced" thingies such as lvm2 etc
> so does anyone have any idea as to why I've now go this to install?
> 
>   Back to Ruby killing now,
>   Andrew

Based on what I've researched for the other sub-thread, since you don't 
actually use LVM, then -- unless you set the wrong USE flags -- you probably 
have udisks:0 installed (it has an unconditional dependency on lvm2).  Use 
"emerge --depclean -pv lvm2" to find out for sure.

If it is udisks:0, then AFAICT you can get rid of it with appropriate USE flag 
settings ("equery depends" is your friend here).

HTH
-- 
Marc Joliet
--
"People who think they know everything really annoy those of us who know we
don't" - Bjarne Stroustrup


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Re: [gentoo-user] thin-provisioning-tools - but I don't provision anything!!!!!

[Marc Joliet]

Am Freitag, 15. September 2017, 23:43:15 CEST schrieb Alan Mackenzie:
> On Fri, Sep 15, 2017 at 23:38:21 +0200, Marc Joliet wrote:
> > Am Freitag, 15. September 2017, 23:15:05 CEST schrieb Alan Mackenzie:
> > > Yes, but do I want it to go away?  What is it, what does it do?
> > > 
> > > OK, let's try emerge -s thin-provisioning-tools.  We get back only
> > > patronising garbage, namely "A suite of tools for thin provisioning on
> > > Linux" - well, duh!  Who write's this stuff?
> > > 
> > > So, WTF is thin provisioning?
> > 
> > I'm tempted to ask whether google is down or something, but I'm tired and
> 
> > waiting for 7z to finish so here you go anyway:
> For me, google is permanently down.

I use Duckduckgo, myself.

> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_provisioning
> 
> Yes, I've read it, thanks.  My question above was somewhat rhetorical.

OK

> > I would say you probably don't need to care about it.
> 
> I do.  I need to spend time and effort removing it.  It sounds like
> something only useful in servers, yet I have a desktop profile installed.
> 
> There's something not quite right, here.

As Alan and Neil already mentioned, it's set by default in the ebuild (i.e., 
"+thin" somewhere in IUSE, which you can also see in the output of eix).  
You'd have to ask the maintainer why that is, though.

HTH
-- 
Marc Joliet
--
"People who think they know everything really annoy those of us who know we
don't" - Bjarne Stroustrup


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Re: [gentoo-user] thin-provisioning-tools - but I don't provision anything!!!!!

[Daniel Campbell]

On 09/15/2017 02:43 PM, Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 15, 2017 at 23:38:21 +0200, Marc Joliet wrote:
>> Am Freitag, 15. September 2017, 23:15:05 CEST schrieb Alan Mackenzie:
>>> Yes, but do I want it to go away?  What is it, what does it do?
> 
>>> OK, let's try emerge -s thin-provisioning-tools.  We get back only
>>> patronising garbage, namely "A suite of tools for thin provisioning on
>>> Linux" - well, duh!  Who write's this stuff?
> 
>>> So, WTF is thin provisioning?
> 
>> I'm tempted to ask whether google is down or something, but I'm tired and 
>> waiting for 7z to finish so here you go anyway:
> 
> For me, google is permanently down.
> 
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_provisioning
> 
> Yes, I've read it, thanks.  My question above was somewhat rhetorical.
> 
>> I would say you probably don't need to care about it.
> 
> I do.  I need to spend time and effort removing it.  It sounds like
> something only useful in servers, yet I have a desktop profile installed.
> 
> There's something not quite right, here.
> 
>> HTH
>> -- 
>> Marc Joliet
>> --
>> "People who think they know everything really annoy those of us who know we
>> don't" - Bjarne Stroustrup
> 
The USE flag is likely enabled by default so users won't have to rebuild
all of lvm2 in order to get one small feature that may be useful in
self-hosting or experimental/learning scenarios. That is, the feature
seems useful enough to add as a default. But the default is in
sys-fs/lvm2, not in a profile:

'''
# Assume gentoolkit is present
$ grep "+thin" $(equery w sys-fs/lvm2)
IUSE="readline static static-libs systemd clvm cman corosync lvm1
lvm2create_initrd openais sanlock selinux +udev +thin device-mapper-only"
'''

If you have app-portage/gentoolkit (I highly recommend it) you can run
`equery d sys-block/thin-provisioning-tools` to find what's pulling it
in. It's probably lvm2, which is expected if you use LVM for anything.
If you don't have any need for it:

* Add `USE="-lvm"` to make.conf to ensure you don't get LVM through IUSE
* Add `sys-fs/lvm2` to package.mask, but realize you may lose partial
functionality with some things, like net-fs/nfs-utils NFS v4.1 support.
* emerge --changed-use --ask @world
* emerge --ask --depclean

or

* Put `sys-fs/lvm2 -thin` in package.use, run `emerge --changed-use
--ask @world`, and go about your day.

If you want to learn what thin provisioning is, you'll have to do
research on it. Manpages, project pages, fora, tutorials, etc. A good
way to find detailed information is to look up support threads and see
what difficulties other people are having, so you can go straight to
useful advice. (search terms like "problem lvm thin provision") If the
software's remotely popular, you'll get some good results. Since we've
already established lvm2 uses it, you can consult its documentation
(usually found from HOMEPAGE) and get an idea for what it is. Some
terminology is understood differently in specialized scenarios, so the
only way to learn it is to read it.

A Web search for 'lvm thin provisioning' turned up results from Red Hat,
tech blogs, and other sources. This information is easily available, if
you're willing to seek it.
-- 
Daniel Campbell - Gentoo Developer, Trustee, Treasurer
OpenPGP Key: 0x1EA055D6 @ hkp://keys.gnupg.net
fpr: AE03 9064 AE00 053C 270C  1DE4 6F7A 9091 1EA0 55D6



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Re: [gentoo-user] thin-provisioning-tools - but I don't provision anything!!!!!

[Alan McKinnon]

On 15/09/2017 23:43, Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 15, 2017 at 23:38:21 +0200, Marc Joliet wrote:
>> Am Freitag, 15. September 2017, 23:15:05 CEST schrieb Alan Mackenzie:
>>> Yes, but do I want it to go away?  What is it, what does it do?
> 
>>> OK, let's try emerge -s thin-provisioning-tools.  We get back only
>>> patronising garbage, namely "A suite of tools for thin provisioning on
>>> Linux" - well, duh!  Who write's this stuff?
> 
>>> So, WTF is thin provisioning?
> 
>> I'm tempted to ask whether google is down or something, but I'm tired and 
>> waiting for 7z to finish so here you go anyway:
> 
> For me, google is permanently down.
> 
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_provisioning
> 
> Yes, I've read it, thanks.  My question above was somewhat rhetorical.
> 
>> I would say you probably don't need to care about it.
> 
> I do.  I need to spend time and effort removing it.  It sounds like
> something only useful in servers, yet I have a desktop profile installed.
> 
> There's something not quite right, here.


Reign in the paranoia there friend. This is Gentoo and you have choices.
You are getting lvm because you elected to get it, it's set somewhere in
your USE.

What is LVM? A tool for managing disk volumes. If you don't know what it
is, you probably don't need it.

What is thin-provisioning? A way to allocate space on your disks without
actually using it until you put real data in. So a say 50G volume that
is empty will consume no disk space (or maybe a few K in overhead). Sort
of like sparse files for entire volumes.




-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckin...@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] thin-provisioning-tools - but I don't provision anything!!!!!

[Neil Bothwick]

Tbe time and effort is minimal, one line in package.use. Profiles have nothing 
to with it, the flag is turned on in the ebuild. It's not a server vs. desktop 
issue either. 

On 15 September 2017 22:43:15 BST, Alan Mackenzie  wrote:
>On Fri, Sep 15, 2017 at 23:38:21 +0200, Marc Joliet wrote:
>> Am Freitag, 15. September 2017, 23:15:05 CEST schrieb Alan Mackenzie:
>> > Yes, but do I want it to go away?  What is it, what does it do?
>
>> > OK, let's try emerge -s thin-provisioning-tools.  We get back only
>> > patronising garbage, namely "A suite of tools for thin provisioning
>on
>> > Linux" - well, duh!  Who write's this stuff?
>
>> > So, WTF is thin provisioning?
>
>> I'm tempted to ask whether google is down or something, but I'm tired
>and 
>> waiting for 7z to finish so here you go anyway:
>
>For me, google is permanently down.
>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_provisioning
>
>Yes, I've read it, thanks.  My question above was somewhat rhetorical.
>
>> I would say you probably don't need to care about it.
>
>I do.  I need to spend time and effort removing it.  It sounds like
>something only useful in servers, yet I have a desktop profile
>installed.
>
>There's something not quite right, here.
>
>> HTH
>> -- 
>> Marc Joliet
>> --
>> "People who think they know everything really annoy those of us who
>know we
>> don't" - Bjarne Stroustrup

-- 
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

Re: [gentoo-user] thin-provisioning-tools - but I don't provision anything!!!!!

[Alan Mackenzie]

On Fri, Sep 15, 2017 at 23:38:21 +0200, Marc Joliet wrote:
> Am Freitag, 15. September 2017, 23:15:05 CEST schrieb Alan Mackenzie:
> > Yes, but do I want it to go away?  What is it, what does it do?

> > OK, let's try emerge -s thin-provisioning-tools.  We get back only
> > patronising garbage, namely "A suite of tools for thin provisioning on
> > Linux" - well, duh!  Who write's this stuff?

> > So, WTF is thin provisioning?

> I'm tempted to ask whether google is down or something, but I'm tired and 
> waiting for 7z to finish so here you go anyway:

For me, google is permanently down.

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_provisioning

Yes, I've read it, thanks.  My question above was somewhat rhetorical.

> I would say you probably don't need to care about it.

I do.  I need to spend time and effort removing it.  It sounds like
something only useful in servers, yet I have a desktop profile installed.

There's something not quite right, here.

> HTH
> -- 
> Marc Joliet
> --
> "People who think they know everything really annoy those of us who know we
> don't" - Bjarne Stroustrup

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).

Re: [gentoo-user] thin-provisioning-tools - but I don't provision anything!!!!!

[Marc Joliet]

Am Freitag, 15. September 2017, 23:15:05 CEST schrieb Alan Mackenzie:
> Yes, but do I want it to go away?  What is it, what does it do?
> 
> OK, let's try emerge -s thin-provisioning-tools.  We get back only
> patronising garbage, namely "A suite of tools for thin provisioning on
> Linux" - well, duh!  Who write's this stuff?
> 
> So, WTF is thin provisioning?

I'm tempted to ask whether google is down or something, but I'm tired and 
waiting for 7z to finish so here you go anyway:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_provisioning

I would say you probably don't need to care about it.

HTH
-- 
Marc Joliet
--
"People who think they know everything really annoy those of us who know we
don't" - Bjarne Stroustrup


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Re: [gentoo-user] thin-provisioning-tools - but I don't provision anything!!!!!

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hello, Neil.

On Fri, Sep 15, 2017 at 21:47:01 +0100, Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Sat, 16 Sep 2017 01:56:54 +0800, Andrew Lowe wrote:

> > I posted about a nasty infection my machine had with three
> > versions of Ruby a few days ago. In the process of trying to fix that I
> > noticed a thingy called "thin-provisioning-tools". I don't have
> > anything thin and I don't provision anything so why I ask?
> > 
> > From what I've been able to understand, it's something to do
> > with Device Mapper, snapshots and "many virtual devices to be stored on
> > the same data volume". This is all just jibberish to me and I have no
> > idea as to why this has suddenly appeared in my world update. I haven't
> > asked for it. I don't use any of the "more advanced" thingies such as
> > lvm2 etc so does anyone have any idea as to why I've now go this to
> > install?

> If you add -t to emerge @world you will probably see that it is lvm2 that
> pulls this in, specifically the thin USE flag, which is on by default.

> Add ":sys-fs/lvm2 -thin" to /etc/portage/package.use and it will go away.

Yes, but do I want it to go away?  What is it, what does it do?

OK, let's try emerge -s thin-provisioning-tools.  We get back only
patronising garbage, namely "A suite of tools for thin provisioning on
Linux" - well, duh!  Who write's this stuff?

So, WTF is thin provisioning?

> -- 
> Neil Bothwick

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).

Re: [gentoo-user] thin-provisioning-tools - but I don't provision anything!!!!!

[Neil Bothwick]

On Sat, 16 Sep 2017 01:56:54 +0800, Andrew Lowe wrote:

>   I posted about a nasty infection my machine had with three
> versions of Ruby a few days ago. In the process of trying to fix that I
> noticed a thingy called "thin-provisioning-tools". I don't have
> anything thin and I don't provision anything so why I ask?
> 
>   From what I've been able to understand, it's something to do
> with Device Mapper, snapshots and "many virtual devices to be stored on
> the same data volume". This is all just jibberish to me and I have no
> idea as to why this has suddenly appeared in my world update. I haven't
> asked for it. I don't use any of the "more advanced" thingies such as
> lvm2 etc so does anyone have any idea as to why I've now go this to
> install?

If you add -t to emerge @world you will probably see that it is lvm2 that
pulls this in, specifically the thin USE flag, which is on by default.

Add ":sys-fs/lvm2 -thin" to /etc/portage/package.use and it will go away.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Too many clicks spoil the browse.


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