Re: [gentoo-user] systemd installation location
On 2013-10-01 08:16, Alan McKinnon wrote: There are many examples in /usr you could have used to illustrate your point, such as many fuse modules. And yet you chose an imaginary space invader game. Let's rather stick within the bounds of what is feasible, OK? What can I say, I like to exaggerate... :-) But it seems you got my point. Although I would not rule out Space Invaders as either imaginary (it came out in 1978) nor infeasible (at boot). But it's not just you. You are not running LFS, you are running Gentoo. It has ebuilds and ebuilds put the generated files somewhere, and that destination is the same for every user of that ebuild. Which is why I said what I said further down in the mail you replied to... Unix, by design and unlike a traditional mainframe OS, does not distinguish between different types of files and does limit where you can put files. This has two consequences - you can do virtually anything you like with it as everything is a file, and filesystem files and structure have been moved out to human space in the hands of the sysadmin/packager/maintainer/user or whatever. Some sanity must prevail. Yes, sanity is what I'm after but it seems I'm in the minority... The Linux boot process can conceivably run any arbitrary code it needs to run to get userspace into a runnable state. This can easily be code that we haven't conceived of yet and becuase it is Unix, it could reside anywhere. Also because it's Unix and because sysadmins have learned over the years we constrain ourselves to putting the code in the bin, sbin and lib directories in / and in /usr. Clearly, there is a massive distinction between code there and in say /opt or /var/lib, that is why you won't find boot-critical code there. But there is no such clear distinction between / and /usr. What *you* think is not boot critical may be criticial for someone else. I couldn't agree more. However, since some devs (and I don't mean anyone in particular) have started to expect /usr to always be available for boot-critical software then what is to say that the next one *will* require /opt and/or /var/lib at boot time? And where do we make a distinction between a boot-critical thing and a non-boot-critical thing. For all I know there may actually be someone out there seriously considering adding Space Invaders as a boot thing for, say sysops that want to reboot a really big server and want to play while booting... I'm only kidding of course and hope noone takes this seriously!? ;-) And here's the kicker: You don't get to decide for the other guy. But the packager gets to support him, and has to edit ebuilds to install all the necessary code not in /usr but in /. And they have to do this over and over and over, and while they are doing that they have to answer users like you who are complinaing about unneccessary rebuilds just to change the desitnation of a few files. This is a no-win-ever situation for devs and they have decided they are not doing it anymore and have made a decision to not support separate /usr without initramfs. that is their right as you do not pay them a salary. This is the correct decision for Gentoo to have made, as the problem is open ended and is never completed, plus there is no clear distinction between what is boot critical in the general case and what is not. if you can't see or understand that, then we have nothing more to discuss. If you don't like what Gentoo has done then I recommend you take it like a man and fork. Assume the maintenanceburden yourself. I've already come to that conclusion myself (as, again, I mentioned in my mail further down). Bye, so long and thanks for the f*sh! Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] systemd installation location
On 2013-09-30 04:05, Mark David Dumlao wrote: It's true that it's nice to have a semblance of order where different parts go. But all libraries and binaries in /usr is also a semblance of order. You don't separate stuff for the sake of separating stuff. You separate them because you have a good reason to separate them. It turns out that there isn't a good reason to separate them, and that there's no way to predictably separate them. Mushing them together isn't just a stop-gap or good-enough solution. The idea of keeping system-critical separate from non-critical was not maintainable in the long run to begin with. So what you're saying is that everything in /usr is system-critical? I have gimp installed in /usr... I don't see a need to start gimp at boot time. Maybe we should classify frozen-bubble as system-critical as well (it's also in /usr)? Seriously, boot-critical would be something that the system cannot *boot without*, which belongs in /. Everything else should be in /usr, i.e. non-boot-critical. How hard is it to start *non-boot* (system) critical *after* boot (things like sshd)? I do that today... are the same. Distro packagers, however, have to decide for 100% of the cases. So they're going to end up making weird decisions that are easy for you to second-guess but are actually tough. That's only true for binary distros. If you want to solve the hard problem, you want to create a tool that will automate / and /usr migrations. Portage has to be aware of the tool What's wrong with using autotools? I really don't see why you need it to be dynamic. In Gentoo you install stuff once for every version (or if you change use flag). Why invent stuff/complicate matters when you don't need to? Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Flexibility and robustness in the Linux organisim
On 2013-09-30 00:04, Alan McKinnon wrote: It's the general idea that you can leave /usr unmounted until some random arb time later in the startup sequence and just expect things to work out fine that is broken. It just happened to work OK for years because nothing happened to use the code in /usr at that point in the sequence. More and more we are seeing that this is no longer the case. So basically it wasn't broke before stuff started to use the code in /usr. How isn't that breaking? So no-one broke it with a specific commit. It has always been broken by design becuase it's a damn stupid idea that just happened to work by fluke. IT and computing is rife with this kind of error. If what you are saying is true then *everything* is broken by design if something isn't available at boot time (may be /usr, may be /var or whatever). Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Flexibility and robustness in the Linux organisim
On 2013-09-30 09:32, Alan McKinnon wrote: I never mentioned /var at all. Go back and read again what I did write. I'm quite aware what you wrote. If you only read what I wrote... English is not my native language but the word *may* surely cannot be misunderstood? Ok, I'll make it simple: If *something1* at boot time requires access to *something2* at boot time that isn't available then I would say that *something1* is broken by design not the *something2*. So I would argue that devs relying on /usr always being there have broken the system. Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] systemd installation location
On 2013-09-30 08:45, Alan McKinnon wrote: That is over-simplifying the problem and trivializing it. No-one ever said the *everythign* in /usr is criticial for boot. Is it really over-simplyfying it? How am I supposed to know whatever comes next? Someone (upstream) *may* find it boot-critical to have 'Space Invaders' operational during boot. Yes, I say that somewhat *tounge-in-cheek* but the way things are going I'm not so sure anymore... This is the problem: a. There exists code used at boot and early-user space time. It is critical that this code is available when needed. I fully understand this and *if* I ever were to install code that I *knew* had this dependency I would take a serious look if I really *need* it and only then install it. But it would be up to me to make that decision and take the necessary steps. b. One cannot predict with absolute certainty 100% of the time what exactly that critical code is. In a general manner, no, you are correct... Also, see above (Invaders)... (And if you don't understand what I'm trying to say, I'm saying this is as *arbitrary* as it gets - which you, like me, seem to be opposed to[arbitrariness]) c. many reasonable setups turn out to have such critical code in /usr, and this cannot be reliably predicted in advance So I avoid things like Gnome, pulseaudio, systemd and similar stuff like the plague but I *still* shall be forced to use whatever is dictated by these things[1]? Don't get me wrong, if anyone wants to install Gnome or whatever then they should have the restrictions required by it. Your second paragraph reveals that you beleive you already know everything you need to have to boot your system. Now do the same for every possible Gentoo user out there and have it work 100% of the time in ALL valid cases. I *do* know everything I need to have to boot my system. I carefully select my hardware and I take particular care of how I set up my system thank you very much. But apparently my system is no longer deemed a valid case... so I'm obviously not a possible Gentoo user anymore. Do you now see the problem and the fulls cope and impact of it? I've seen it since *long* before this thread started. The main problem is lack of resources (because of stupid decisions upstream which puts a burden on Gentoo devs) and I can't (currently) help much with that other than through monetary means (donations) but since Gentoo seems to go the way of the dodo for me (or assimilated if you will) then I will take my leave. For a while now it has only been inertia keeping me here. Or maybe a hope that things will get better... [1] And no, I'm not blaming systemd, Gnome or any of the other pests in particular for this... Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: separate / and /usr to require initramfs 2013-11-01
On 2013-09-29 08:06, Walter Dnes wrote: What kind of insane udev maintainership do we have? And can we fix it? By starting from scratch and putting it in the kernel (which will stop people from being too creative as well, since Linus will not allow things to break so easily). The BSDs, MacOS and Plan 9 kernels can do it[1], why not Linux? Well, one can wish at least... :-) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devfs#Implementations Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: separate / and /usr to require initramfs 2013-11-01
On 2013-09-29 12:59, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: look at history, think and retry. That's just what I did. Read and retry. Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: separate / and /usr to require initramfs 2013-11-01
On 2013-09-29 18:36, Dale wrote: That could be the problem then couldn't it? Indeed. :-) Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: separate / and /usr to require initramfs 2013-11-01
On 2013-09-29 01:23, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: the correct and simple solution would be to deprecate /usr and move everything into / . Install Windows and be done with it, I say. Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: separate / and /usr to require initramfs 2013-11-01
On 2013-09-29 02:01, Dale wrote: Next, we'll have to have C: even tho we never had to have one before. ROFLMBO I would hesitate to laugh because that's where Linux is heading... And Alan and other's are right in that it's not udevs problem per se; it's all the half-desktop services[1]/applications that requires access to the libs in /usr for some unknown reason. This will (eventually) affect any operating system (even FreeBSD) that want to run things like, say, Gnome. This is feature creep on steroids. I just wish there was this simple system that would look like this: boot loader - operating system - applications ...with a clear separation/well defined interfaces between them. Used to think Linux was a good compromise but not anymore... What you have now is something monstrous where application libs are part of the operating system. Hence the requirement of no separate /usr. At least if you run any of those things (like PAM - if some module require access to PKCS#11, Kerberos, Consolekit etc.). Personally I wouldn't touch them... In my opinion, this has gone way beyond what used to be called spaghetti code and into what I would like to call spaghetti system. [1] Used to be called daemons but now people have adopted the Windows name for it. Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Optional /usr merge in Gentoo
On 2013-08-19 00:49, Dale wrote: Picking random message sort of. Isn't eudev still going to support a separate /usr? That is my understanding. If eudev is not then I may have to reconsider some things myself here. Yes, that is my understanding as well. But the decision to not support a separate /usr lies higher up in the system hierarchy (as I understand it). Gentoo as a system will not support a separate /usr if we are to believe the conversation (I haven't seen any official notice of this though). That is the sad part. The problem I have, as an engineer, is that everybody says that a separate /usr is broken, that sysvinit is broken without explaining why. In order to fix a problem you need to know what is broken... The people who claims the brokenness are, imo, hand waving and they've managed to convince higher uppers in the Gentoo infrastructure (as it seems). I guess if you repeat something often enough it becomes a truth or said person(s) just agrees to stop the nagging. Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Optional /usr merge in Gentoo
On 2013-08-19 08:35, Alan McKinnon wrote: sysvinit, like X11, needs a massive overhaul and a sprint clean. Yes, an overhaul is always welcome. But most people criticising these systems (and other systems) just say that they are bad without pointing out what is bad. How can you fix something without knowing what's bad? To me the problem with sysvinit (and X11) seems mostly to be a philosophical one. Some people say: this doesn't work the way I want it to - therefore it's crap!. While others (like me) say: I have no problem with this - it works fine!. From a technical standpoint, does sysvinit fulfill the technical requirements (i.e. the specification)? I honestly don't know, I just think/assume it does since we've been using it for, what, 30 years or so (SVR1 was released in January 1983 acc. to [1]) and I've never had any problems with it. Does the specification need to be updated? I'm sure it does but to throw out everything and start from scratch is not the way I would go (unless it's technically required because of some fundamental issue - and I disagree with people thinking there's a fundamental issue here). Now, some people who thinks the computer should sing and dance to them (seems to me mostly the Gnome crowd) while booting, I can understand that sysvinit may not fit their philosophy. I am not one of them. Basically I want the computer to do as little as possible, i.e. not waste one cycle unless _absolutely_ necessary; _all_ compute power should be available to me and me only for whatever purpose I see fit. The computer is a tool, a hammer if you will and I don't want a hammer with built-in radio, a fan to cool you down, a radiator to warm you up or a tv screen (or whatever). Of course, computers being so complex these days (I started out with a Commodore PET in the late 70ies), there has to be compromises. And I think that sysvinit with it's init scripts (i.e. OpenRC) is a good compromise because I don't care about boot time (as mentioned in another mail most of the time is spent in BIOS/UEFI anyway). Having said that I wouldn't mind if we refined sysvinit/OpenRC carefully, getting rid of bugs (even though I've never encountered any), refining the blueprints/specification so that it fits the customers wishes (within reason). Basically what I'm trying to say is: The technical arguments that have been brought forward pro/con sysvinit(+OpenRC)/systemd I think is bogus. It is just a philosophical disagreement between parties having different goals, which I'm not sure can be fully satisfied by either side. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIX_System_V Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Optional /usr merge in Gentoo
On 2013-08-19 04:55, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote: Probably for exactly the same reason you or anyone else uses Gentoo; USE flags, portage, you can customize at your hearts content... USE flags, in my mind, are there for minimising dependencies so that I don't need to install all the crap that binary distros install. That is why I use Gentoo, in order to avoid all the crap that things like Gnome wants to install (for instance, I have -gnome, -dbus, -gconf in my make.conf in order to avoid a heart attack[1]). Customisation are only possible if you allow to minimise dependencies; and it's also dependent on a flexible base system (if you put restrictions on it, say, if /usr can be separate or not[without an initrd], then flexibility decreases). I've never used Fedora. I used RedHay back in the day of RedHat 4.2 (it was my very first use of Linux in 1996), then moved to Mandrake (remember Mandrake?), then Gentoo in 2003. I haven't used any other distro since then. This is rather pointless, but I started using a Linux based OS (don't remember the name, but it came on 9 floppy disks with kernel 0.93) on my Amiga 4000 in the early nineties. I've used Redhat, Mandrake, Debian, Slackware and others, landing with LFS in 2000 which I was happy with but it was too much work so I settled with Gentoo in the early 2000 which is the best compromise I have found. Haven't used any other distro since then either... I want Gentoo to keep being the best possible Linux (I *really* don't care if it works in *BSD, Solaris, or Windows). Believe it or not, I'm I want Gentoo to be the best *OS* for me. To me that is achieved by having the widest possible selection of applications and following standards as closely as possible (POSIX, FHS). I don't really care if it's Linux or not but I'm most comfortable in a UNIX like environment. That said, I think what you are advocating is going in a opposite direction to what I want... to me the changes you seek are making Gentoo going from best to bad; reducing choice/flexibility. pretty sure that for Gentoo to keep being the best possible Linux, it has to use systemd. I fully believe you think that systemd is the best choice for init systems out there, but then again you are a Gnome user (as I understand it) and to me that is quite the opposite from what I want (I abhor the whole Gnome eco system and Lennart is an old Gnome dev so I can see where the influences comes from). I happen to think that many small tools with clearly defined interfaces (i.e. a standard) works so much better and are so much more flexible than ... the one system to rule them all You don't have to agree with that, of course. But please understand that I only support systemd in Gentoo, because I love Gentoo. I understand that. The thing is, as I see it, you support (advocate would perhaps be a better choice of words) systemd and _only_ systemd, thereby forcing it down our throats. And, putting aside systemd and getting back on topic to the council's decision of (eventually) not supporting separated /usr without an initramfs; have you ever stopped to consider that, perhaps, that's the best *technical* decision? (*gasp*) I fail to see why I should waste time and resources by having a duplicate set of tools (one in the initramfs and one in /). How is that a *technical* solution? I would call it bandaid. There is no difference from having static binaries in / (it's just a matter of locality). So, yes, I have thought about it and I don't consider it the best *decision* (*gasp*). When you have almost all distributions converging on that, and even You said ... customize at your hearts content To me that assumes flexibility. If you take away choice, you take away flexibility. To me that's a contradiction. That almost all distributions are converging is a non-argument; it says nothing about technical excellence (whatever that means). It may merely mean that the devs in said distros have given up and just eat whatever crap they're served because of lack of manpower or whatever. [1] Yes, I hate Gnome with a passion ever since using it on those distros mentioned above. Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Optional /usr merge in Gentoo
On 2013-08-19 11:21, Stroller wrote: Blimey! You must have a slow BIOS cycle. Yes, I bought the motherboard specifically for a slow BIOS cycle... ;-) Joke aside, I have a SAS raid card in the machine which probes the harddrives (four mechanical ones) which takes maybe half that time. I've been toying with the idea of replacing BIOS/UEFI with coreboot/seabios but time is lacking... :-( For the record, I've always felt BIOS have been slow... (OTOH, going from grub to login in 5 seconds - that suggests to me that you're using an SSD and not a hard-drive). I recently bought 4 SSDs (Intel 520 60GB) and have them installed as /usr, /var and /tmp with one spare. However / is still on the SAS raid card and boot time has not improved by much with the SSD. It's matter of what crap you load at boot that will affect your boot time. Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Optional /usr merge in Gentoo
On 2013-08-19 12:04, Alan McKinnon wrote: It's not that separate /usr is broken - it's not. I know. The issue is a separate /usr without an initramfs. And the issue ONLY occurs at early-boot time. It is broken for *some* systems. The problem is that with modern hardware much code that was traditionally stored in /usr may be needed early in the boot sequence, before /usr is mounted. The obvious case is firmware and drivers, and the usual example cited is bluetooth keyboards. If you need keyboard input at this time, you need to have the bluetooth daemon running, which is on /usr, which is not mounted. Yes, bluetooth... the very thing that should not have come to pass. It is broken by design. Wireless is fine but the way bluetooth works... Back to the drawing board, please! The solution is to use an initramfs, and on a technical level it's not any different to needing a way to get the ext4 module off disk so you can mount /. Yes, that is one way of solving it... But I question the sanity by having ext4 as a module if you know you are going to use it on your system; it's not as if you are going to use ext4 one day and reiserfs the next day and XFS the day after that, or? The only ones that benefits from that kind of setup is binary distros that can compile everything as module and probe as they load. I do however have some things compiled as modules (that I only load when needed) but those things are not needed at boot. So for my case it's not needed. Some may argue that bluetooth keyboards are a rarity and that's tough. Well, there's Macbook hardware, and phones which have soft keyboards. But many scenarios could exist, all due to the fact that hot-pluggable hardware can in theory run any arbitrary code to get itself up and running, and if that code is on a volume that is not mounted... The solution is obvious - all that code should be on / somewhere, or should be mountable using an initramfs. Yes, *should* be. Quite optional. As it has always been. Just because people are using bluetooth devices and/or want the computer to sing and dance while booting should not impose restrictions to those who don't want that, which is why I'm protesting. Do you see that although you and I can deal with this with relative ease, Aunt Tillie probably couldn't and the junior sysadmins I have to deal with certainly can't? Yes. But have Gentoo ever been a distro for Aunt Tillie or junior sysadmins? I don't want to discourage them to try it out of course but I don't want to put restrictions on myself (or others) either... Flexibility is the keyword here. Personally, I think that splitting / and /usr is a daft idea: That's fine. I, respectfully, disagree. If I could break the system down into bits and put each bit on a separate harddrive with a massive I/O connection I would (yes, I exaggerate but I'm sure you get the idea). a. I have multi-TB hard disks, completely unlike the 5M monsters that Thomson had to deal with in the 70s Haven't you heard? Size does not matter... ;-) b. I haven't had /usr break on me during boot requiring busybox in maintenance mode for at least 5 years. Every startup failure in that time required a rescue cd anyway, and I always have one of those handy I haven't had /usr break either for at least that time even though I've always had it separate. To me, I like to keep things organised in different compartments using, perhaps somewhat arbitrary, rules. Therefore keeping system administration tools in /sbin, user accessible tools in /usr/bin etc. makes perfect sense (I know you think it's arbitrary and I agree but it works, for me at least). There is no *real* need to keep /usr separate for normal users it's just that I think it's flexible and I want it that way. There is no right or wrong here, merely philosophical differences. How you solve the different problems are technical however. I do have a rescue USB stick handy as well though but since I rarely use it I tend to forget to update it... c. it IS useful for terminal servers, but those tend to have experienced sysadmins, and they really should be OK with an initramfs (or their vendor should ship one) Using an initramfs means you duplicate parts of your OS and copy them into the kernel or using a tool (like dracut or genkernel). If you need it from a technical point of view (bluetooth keyboard), that's fine but if I don't have any hardware that requires it then why use an initramfs? I guess it's a matter of taste (or philosophy if you will)... An initramfs seems like bandaid to me (and it is). I'm often at the front of the Lennart-bashing parade, and what he says often makes sense but only in his narrow view of the world, but in *this* case, I can't help but admit he does have a point. I don't really see it... I don't really care what Lennart does as long as it doesn't affect me (and he may be the greatest person that ever lived) but here we are... I choose to run Gentoo because it suits me best
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Optional /usr merge in Gentoo
On 2013-08-19 19:05, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote: snipped a whole lot of bollocks I'm beginning to think you are a troll since you consistently misinterpret what I'm trying to say. This is the last thing I will say in this matter: Your technical arguments are bogus. Yes, I agree that my point is moot since I don't have the time or resources to steer Gentoo/Linux in a direction that I would like to see so I guess put up or shut up is appropriate... But if I remember correctly someone else (i.e. you) on this list a while ago was whining about systemd is not supported... So I reserve the right to whine about it as well. A hint for the future: Try to get off your high horse! /PK
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Optional /usr merge in Gentoo
On 2013-08-18 11:44, Daniel Campbell wrote: Systemd has a monolithic design, is headed by an egotist with no respect for other developers, and cannibalizes other projects. The projects it can't cannibalize will be strongarmed into irrelevance. Couple this with Red Hat employees working on both systemd and GNOME, with a very clear agenda to vertically integrate them, and you have a recipe for a closed and/or heavily limited operating system. This is becoming clear with the way GTK+ 3.x is handled, too. Seems to me everything Gnome related is becoming the proverbial metric ton gorilla (on steroids, in a china shop)... Systemd follows that pattern. And Lennarts track record with avahi and pulseaudio does not inspire confidence, imho... I'm sure, given time, systemd will pull in Gnome as a building dependency... I joke of course, but then again nothing really surprises me anymore when it comes to the above mentioned projects... The supposedly advantages that systemd[1] has over other init systems are, supposedly: 1. To allow parallel boot of system services 2. cgroup integration 3. Re-start of services In my opinion: 1. Most of the time spent when cold booting is spent in the BIOS/UEFI cycle (around 30 seconds), the time from grub display to login (I'm using slim) is 5 seconds (max). Ergo, parallel boot will do nothing for me. The parallel boot and the starting of services is also the thing that breaks the separate /usr philosophy (without static binaries). 2. cgroup can be handled by OpenRC as well. Not that I see much improvement, if any, over pre-cgroup kernels... So no advantage there either, for me. 3. Re-start of services (a.k.a. daemons in the UNIX world). Why would anyone want an automatic re-start of a daemon is beyond me. If a daemon crashes/doesn't start properly then it will not work by automatic re-start; I would like to believe that starting a daemon is not a stochastic process... I, however, would like to be told that it doesn't start so I can fix it. OpenRC does the latter well. Systemd also replaces the following services[1]: sysvinit, initscripts, pm-utils, inetd, acpid, syslog, watchdog, cgrulesd, cron, atd ...which obviously makes the code more complex, which goes against the KISS rule[2]. On a personal note, I like this quote best (from [2]): It seems that perfection is reached not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away For the record... size comparisons (from [3]): OpenRC (0.9.3): sysvinit + 300 files, ~30k lines, 3.3k posix sh, ~12k C (sysvinit: 560kB, 75 files, ~15k lines) systemd (v44+): dbus + glib + 900 files, 224k lines, 125k C (D-Bus: 11MB, ~500 files. 300k lines, 120k C) (glib: 72MB, ~2500 files, ~1.7M lines, ~430k C) Also, integrating the services into one tool (systemd) makes a more fragile system (again, imho)... I don't approve of an init system (or any other software) becoming everything-and-the-kitchen-sink. UNIX philosophy is being forgotten by these developers, and they openly condemn it while benefiting from it at the same time. While the job of init could be argued as complex or multifaceted, an init system can still do one thing, and do it well: Bring the system to an initial state. At the core, it means populate sysfs (or an equivalent), start the specified daemons, load the relevant modules, and standby until an event signals it to shutdown or restart. No splash screens needed, no need to swallow a device management system, no need to replace logging mechanisms, and so on. From [4]: Those who don't understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly. :-) Coupling systemd with udev was a political move, not a technical one. It was a deliberate effort to force their software on the FOSS world, with the false pretense of standardization, which is a buzzword among developers that's effective at garnering support. The sad part is people bought it. They will regret this move. Standardization per se is not a bad thing, i.e. protocols, APIs etc. (like POSIX)... I agree that Lennart and Kay motives are political though. Also, Lennart says this ([5]): So, get yourself a copy of The Linux Programming Interface, ignore everything it says about POSIX compatibility and hack away your amazing Linux software. It's quite relieving! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemd [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_It_Simple_Stupid [3] http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Talk:Comparison_of_init_systems [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy [5] https://archive.fosdem.org/2011/interview/lennart-poettering At the end of the day I want the compute power in my computers/devices not to spend *one* cycle unnecessarily and it is very hard for a kitchen-and-sink system to do that, imho. I would very much like to see a LEGO approach (i.e. small individual tools with well defined interfaces that can work together) which imo is the UNIX philosophy. Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Optional /usr merge in Gentoo
On 2013-08-18 23:08, Mick wrote: I honestly cannot understand why we/Gentoo are allowing the RHL monolithic development philosophy to break what we have. Is Poettering the only developer available to the Linux world? Are RHL dictating what path Debian and its cousin distros should follow? Problem is that Linux is dependent on udev and udev is in the hands of Kay Sievers which also develops systemd together with Lennart Poettering which in turn used to be a Gnome developer... With that said, what I cannot understand is why people advocating systemd (and the kitchen-and-sink model) are using Gentoo in the first place. Are they just trying to make the rest of the Linux distro landscape as miserable as Fedora? Why don't they stay with Fedora instead of trying to turn Gentoo into Fedora? Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Optional /usr merge in Gentoo
On 2013-08-13 16:05, Alessio Ababilov wrote: /usr merge is the process of making /bin, /sbin, and /lib to be symlinks to corresponding directories in /usr. It is done in Fedora and several other distros now, and also in Solaris 15 years ago. Benefits from /usr merge are described here: http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/TheCaseForTheUsrMerge/ Technical details are here: http://aababilov.wordpress.com/2013/07/17/usr-merge-in-gentoo/ In few words, the script is run once to merge /usr on a running system. Also, the script is installed in post_src_install hook to perform /usr merge during package updates or installations. So, how would this work for me who have /usr on a separate harddrive? And what would be the benefit? To me, mentioning Fedora, makes the alarm bells go off... Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo is so AWESOME
On 2013-08-03 14:28, Nicolas Sebrecht wrote: On Fri, Aug 02, 2013 at 08:34:11PM +0100, Steven J. Long wrote: While I (and others BTW) was trying to provide an external POV with points to make outside contributions and rectruitement more efficient, you guys @gentoo.org turned this thread into plain bullshits. Please note that the one you replied to (Steven J. Long) does not have a @gentoo.org email address... I haven't followed this thread closely but I think the gentoo devs (and others) deserves respect for their hard work, mostly(?) without pay. I may not like the direction where some things are going (udev, systemd) but it's the best thing we got for now (portage, openrc), imho. Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On 2013-07-20 01:23, luis jure wrote: hehe... i guess neil meant that in average for each Tb you have in your disk, only 125Mb is really important or useful. the rest is crap that just piles up... No, 1Tb = 125GB (note the difference between Tb = Tbit and TB=TByte)... Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On 2013-07-20 13:59, luis jure wrote: the average home user has lots of useless crap. i know *i* do... Yes, I do too... So the answer is smaller disks in order not to accumulate so much crap! ;-) Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Intel SRT + SSD + SATA
On 2013-06-26 10:17, Alan McKinnon wrote: ATI display to get away from nVidia, I think that was a mistake and next time will be going back to nVidia whose power management actually works. Just a small note: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_itempx=MTM5NjE Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] jabref
On 2013-06-15 00:23, luis jure wrote: hello list. any ideas how to install a recent version of jabref? the latest ebuild is for 2.6 (current stable is 2.9, even ubuntu has a newer version...), and that doesn't even compile because it needs a recent version of pdfbox (the one in portage seems to be old, and for some reason i couldn't even compile it). is there an overlay with the necessary ebuilds to build jabref? Not sure about the dependencies but the science overlay has 2.9.2 (+ an -r1) and a 2.10 beta... I assume the science overlay can fullfill the dependencies as well (but haven't tried emerging it). HTH Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] fdisk warnings during install; questions
On 2013-05-10 03:11, Walter Dnes wrote: WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on '/dev/sda'! The util fdisk doesn't support GPT. Use GNU Parted. I've repartitioned it 3 or 4 times, but it still comes up with that error when I fire up fdisk. Is it a problem, and if so, can I dd a few sectors to remove whatever it's complaining about? I would suggest using a tool that understands both MBR and GPT. One of the the tools suggested by others in this list should suffice. I would not recommend using dd. 2) The device presents a logical sector size that is smaller than the physical sector size. Aligning to a physical sector (or optimal I/O) size boundary is recommended, or performance may be impacted. I think most (if not all tools) that understands GPT should be able to align the disk properly so using such a tool will/should take care of alignment as well... The fdisk default seems to be to start partition 1 at sector 2048. I don't know the hardware side of disks. Is that OK. No idea. All I know is that you cannot trust the firmware of modern disks to tell you the layout of the disk since it can move sectors around to get around damaged sectors (or do whatever the firmware developers thinks is best)... Here's some reading for (perhaps) greater understanding (some) of the issues: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Advanced_Format https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_boot_record https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table Also this seems relevant: http://superuser.com/questions/352572/why-does-the-partition-start-on-sector-2048-instead-of-63 Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gigabyte wont boot
On 2013-01-11 22:28, James wrote: Newegg said it was new Ok. What I was trying to say was that I've had a motherboard shipped as new to me but when it arrived I noticed it was used. Ram is as spec'd: G.skill Ares F-1866C10D-16BAB. 4 modules all slots full summing to 32G. Try one module at a time... I think the mobo is BORKED Maybe... I've got the parts to build 3 systems, so I'll move on to the second one. Get it to work and verify the compoents, one system at a time. If all else fails, it's the mobo or the CPU. Which of the 2 will be hard to pinpoint without a hassle. Good luck! Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Gigabyte wont boot
On 2013-01-11 19:48, James wrote: Is there a listing of jumpers or other install tips that I can find somewhere for this mobo? I meticulously connected everything, as this is not my first RODEO. I've never had a new mobo in the box without the little install guide book.bummer . Are you sure it's a new mobo and not a replacement that someone had problems with and RMA'd it (and you got it instead)? I've had one of those... I've never seen a mobo without the install manual. It may of course also be brand new and still be D.O.A. Or some other parts may be faulty/incompatible (memory modules would be my first guess)... Btw, there seems to be two revisions of the mobo in question. At Gigabytes homepage you can find manuals for both. Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Anyone switched to eudev yet? - what was wron with SysVInit?
On 2012-12-28 00:24, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote: Well, yeah, that's the point. I want to install Gentoo in my mother's PC, and never have to go to her house because someting broke. I really don't have the time nor the inclination to continue this but... Why would you in that case install Gentoo and not Fedora? They (Fedora) do the kitchen-and-sink-installation with systemd, which begs the question: Why are you using Gentoo in the first place? I'm asking because I honestly don't see why you would want to use it if you just don't want to care about how the system works... Also, all your technical arguments are not really technical at all; It's merely a differing (from mine) philosophical view on how you think a operating system should work (the details on how to solve that is technical on the other hand). Which is what I was trying to show you with my first reply... although a bit convoluted perhaps. And on another note: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanboy#Fanboy.2Ffangirl I don't really care about what init system I use but I do know what I don't want and that's systemd. But I am a fanboy of Unix philosophy[1]: keep it simple, programs do one thing and do it well, clean interfaces, portability etc... (see how systemd doesn't fit that?). So you can call me a fanboy too if you like, I don't care. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Anyone switched to eudev yet? - what was wron with SysVInit?
On 2012-12-28 20:01, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote: Because I prefer Gentoo? That's what I really don't understand! You say you don't want to care about the system which implies Fedora or any other install-and-forget distro. I care about the system which is why I run Gentoo. Do you have USE=* in make.conf too? That last part is not to be taken seriously but that's (basically) what the masses are running (and from what I can interpret your emails that's what you want). I'm done, thanks for listening. Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Anyone switched to eudev yet? - what was wron with SysVInit?
On 2012-12-27 02:14, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote: I really think that's the crux of the matter Pandou: udev/systemd serves to the wants of the many. The eudev fork serves to the wants of systemd+udev serves the large mass (users of mainly Fedora and other distros using systemd) that doesn't care/know computers. a very few which really don't want an initramfs, when it has a lot of technical advantages. It has some problems, of course, but we can solve those, and solve the problem *in the general case*. Which is the one that it's important ant interesting. It's unimportant and uninteresting on the terms that Poettering/Sievers/Greg KH put forward, for us that wants control and does not want an all singing and dancing system (incl. kitchen sink). In my opinion the init system should be completely independent of the kernel with a well defined, generic, interface so that the user can choose and pick whatever pieces he/she wishes to run his system. Think Lego (as in small, well defined pieces that fit together in any way the user sees fit)... my wishing luck to the eudev fork (which, BTW, Greg also did). The few The way I read Greg's good luck was that it had quite a bit of a sarcastic tone... Was there really any need for him to say anything at all? I've previously had a lot of respect for Greg but this made me think quite a lot less of him... of us who *dare* to praise udev/systemd get an incredible amount of crap for it. We are nothing but fanbois or, in your words, udev has become like the cosmos: everything there is, and ever shall be. Really? I didn't knew that. You really sound like a fanboy... And I don't mean that in a derogatory way; it's just how I see your writing... Maybe we are doing it wrong. But as far as i can see, we are only expressing our opinion on technical grounds. We are not calling names Your opinions (technical or not) doesn't matter to me since (it seems) you have a very different goal than me with your system. I want you to enjoy whatever system you use but you shouldn't try to force that same system on to me. In that regard I see the eudev fork as a saviour. These are the technical grounds that I've seen you state: * fast boot time Irrelevant, BIOS/UEFI/card firmware takes longer time than booting to XDM for me. The few seconds that it takes to boot from grub to login is of no matter (to me). * parallel service startup Nice to have but still irrelevant, see above. Sequential is also preferred from a trouble shooting perspective. Furthermore I like having the ability to stop a particular daemon if there something that needs fixing (pushing I when booting). * simple service unit files Simplicity is fine but to accomplish the same in your simple service file as in the example you brought forward (sshd) you need to hide a lot of stuff elsewhere. Not for me thanks, I'm a control freak. * good documentation I haven't read it so I won't touch this. Not a technical point though, more of an opinion. Although I agree that good documentation is very nice to have. * Really good in-site customization If I choose to upgrade a daemon, I should be interested in what changes, if any, that brings in configuration in order to not have any surprises later. If you think that's a good thing, that really sounds like you would be doing the OpenRC equivalent of: 'etc-update --automode -5' * control groups As I understand it, this depends on someone writing config files for the individual daemons. Noone is stopping Gentoo devs or anyone else from writing such. And I would, again, prefer to go through a good manual or a howto and do it myself so that I can understand the consequences, if I would want it. * unification I've tried quite a few distros over the years (starting with Redhat in the late 90'ies) and Gentoos OpenRC is by far the most sane system I've come across. Never going back to Redhat hell thank you! Standardizing the interfaces is fine but it's not ok to force a whole kitchen and sink solution in order to satisfy as many as possible. This is not the Gentoo way, as I understand it. Gentoo is all about choice. * you tell the daemon *what* to do, not *how* to do it It's good if you don't want to learn about what things you install and understand what the consequences are of different choices, in the config files. I run very few daemons on my desktop machine so it's not so time consuming to read up on/fix things etc. If I ever were to run a full blown server (esp. connected to the net) with lots of daemons I would be very hesitant to use any pre-configurations, seems suicidal to me. The only usage I see here of declarative scripts are when you don't care about what the machine is doing. Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Anyone switched to eudev yet?
On 2012-12-26 12:55, Neil Bothwick wrote: That all makes sense, although it may well be harder to implement than to suggest. To be fair to the udev developers, we owe them nothing and they are free to take their project in whichever direction they like and spend their time on whatever features they choose to. If we don't like it we can fork it. If eudev works and provides a valid alternative to udev it will simply prove that the open source ecosystem works in a way that all those trying to avoid upgrading from Windows 7 to 8 can't even dream about. There is really no place for the insults and name calling, udev provided us with a great tool that we were happy to use for years, now it is moving in a direction we don't like we can either live with the change or do something about it. Walt chose the latter route and now the eudev guys are following suit - eudev may not be ready for use yet but the devs have already achieved a lot more that all the list complaint and insults ever will. Very well said! +1 Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] xorg.conf tweaks for HTPC machine?
On 2012-12-17 17:23, Walter Dnes wrote: snipped a whole lot... 1) Despite the TV being native 1366x768, it defaults to 1280x720, which is the first mode listed in the EDID. Fixed-pixel displays show best at their native resolution So I ran Xorg -configure and created an xorg.conf file, and forced 1366x768 resolution. And got no picture. I tried X again at 128x720. Then I used xrandr to change to 1920x1080, and it worked. Used xrandr to change to 1366x768, and it hung. From Xorg.0.log ... Any ideas? You can perhaps try to find out what the tv is telling X: x11-misc/read-edid ... if you haven't already tried it (you can also use startx -- -logverbose 6). You can also set your preferred resolution in xorg.conf as such: In Section Screen: Subsection Display ... Modes 1366x768 1280x720 ... EndSubSection X will automatically try the leftmost alternative first... Regarding the crash, I don't know enough about debugging, unfortunately. Have you tried rebuilding X and all it's libs? Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone switched to eudev yet?
On 2012-12-14 17:53, Mark Knecht wrote: I guess the other question that's lurking here for me is why do you have /usr on a separate partition? What's the usage model that drives a person to do that? The most I've ever done is move /usr/portage and /usr/src to other places. My /usr never has all that much in it beyond those two directories, along with maybe /usr/share. Would it not be easier for you in the long run to move /usr back to / and not have to deal with this question at all? I don't want easy to supplant flexibility[1]. It really is that simple. And this is my firm _opinion_ in the matter, I'm not interested in another flame war, please. [1] I'm actually planning to get rid of partitions (/, /boot, /usr, /home, /var, /tmp) alltogether and replacing them with separate, smaller, ssds. Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Fwd: [gentoo-project] With regard to udev stabilization
On 2012-11-13 04:20, Dale wrote: Well, it appears we have someone willing to fork udev. Yeppie !! Me, I'm looking forward to seeing how this works and giving it a test run when it gets ready. Since it is a fork, shouldn't be to long, I hope. Beautiful news indeed! Thanks for the heads up Dale! I wonder what they will name it tho. They could name it whatever they want, I don't really care, as long as it works as it should... :-) Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: [ANNOUNCE] I like systemd now :)
On 2012-11-11 08:33, 微蔡 wrote: byebye haters . Comunitiy doesn't need people like you. Ah, instead of a rational explanation of what kind of problem systemd solves for me you conclude: I'm a hater?... Well, I do hate solutions looking for problems to solve, especially where there are none to solve, and especially being forced into using them. So, I conclude: The community doesn't need people like YOU! Then find something to boost the BIOS. Yeah , UEFI goes out, and you say: BIOS is fine with me , I don't need UEFI. I'm running UEFI here (which runs on top of BIOS) on two motherboards. If you think UEFI replaces BIOS, research it[1][2]. Yes, it's intended to replace BIOS sometime (most likely very far) in the future. [1]:http://www.extremetech.com/computing/96985-demystifying-uefi-the-long-overdue-bios-replacement [2]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFI For the record, I have bought equipment that can be made compatible with coreboot, which I intend to install when I can find the time. coreboot is a true BIOS replacement (basically it focuses on just initialising the hardware and let payloads setup whatever services are needed). Solving the BIOS problem permanently and with technical elegance. So yes, I will replace UEFI/BIOS sometime in the future... You maybe paid by some Linux hate company to express like this. Hm... maybe you're paid by some Linux hate company to destroy it from within (also known as astroturfer)? I see you have a fedora mail address so why are you here on a Gentoo-list? Trying to push an agenda/preach? PS. I used to think Redhat was a really good open source citizen (I even used their distro in the late 90'ies), and they still are in some respects, but forcing, in my eyes, inferior technology onto the Linux world is not ok, IMO. Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: [ANNOUNCE] I like systemd now :)
On 2012-11-11 13:24, Jorge Almeida wrote: or later, but isn't it a nice coincidence that this perl is a product of the same totalitarian mindset that is determined to poison Linux? Can't we just calm down and try to be reasonably nice? I really didn't intend to start a flame war here... I just reacted without thinking and for that I apologise. Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: [ANNOUNCE] I like systemd now :)
On 2012-11-11 13:52, 微蔡 wrote: ok , then why hate systemd ? you seems to hate systemd with no reason. This is my last reply to this thread. I dislike systemd, for the reasons I've already stated. Please re-read my responses if you want to know why I dislike systemd. What I do _hate_ is being forced into using something I don't want so I will look for solutions elsewhere, if need be. Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: [ANNOUNCE] I like systemd now :)
On 2012-11-10 03:03, walt wrote: :) systemd is coming whether you or I like it or not so I'm trying to stay a bit ahead of the tsunami, that's all. Yes, systemd may be coming and may even become mandatory for the Linux kernel (given it's marriage with udev). when that comes, I'd rather go *BSD or even Windows for that matter. The current plan is going mdev, following Walter Dnes fine example, when I can find the time (perhaps during xmas). The emotions started running high when Lennart pushed pulseaudio on us awhile ago, and he's doing it again now with systemd. I didn't see the purpose for pulse until I (finally) bought a new computer with audio hardware I'd never seen before, and then I finally understood why he invented this silly pulse nonsense. I don't use pulseaudio and never will. Alsa is working fine, using hardware mixer. I really don't understand why you would want to use a second layer on top of the hardware driver, I thought we gave that up years ago, abandoning the ESD and aRts. I still don't quite understand the entire motivation behind systemd but I'll bet it will become obvious to me in the future. I'm sure... A speedy reboot is very nice for those of use who compile and test a new kernel from Linus every morning and file kernel bug reports when appropriate. If I do find a kernel bug I may need to recompile/reboot many times as quickly as my machine can do it, so saving 15-20 seconds per reboot cycle just feels less painful :) Ok. For me, when booting, the most time spent is in the bios cycle. Booting from grub takes maybe 5-10 seconds... I didn't intend to preach, I intended to brag that I got it working :p Ok, I just read it as preaching but I guess you can see it that way too. I was just a bit tired I guess, sorry! Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] OT: new system hardware
On 2012-11-09 20:00, James wrote: passively cooled AMD/ATI video card (vendor-model?) If you wish to use kms and mesa drivers, you can compare the current status of various AMD chips here: http://www.x.org/wiki/RadeonFeature#Feature_Matrix_for_Free_Radeon_Drivers I got a Sapphire HD6670 Ultimate edition (passively cooled) which works beautifully in all things that I use it for (desktop, games, video). I picked the radeon 6670 (Northern Islands chip, Turks to be specific) because it's the latest chip with the best mesa support (Southern Islands chips 3D support is work-in-progress at the moment) and I'm happy with it. Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] [ANNOUNCE] I like systemd now :)
On 2012-11-09 23:53, walt wrote: You Lennart haters out there (and I was one of you not so long ago ;) now I think he's not so bad after all. He just doesn't know yet how to explain things properly to old farts. Good for you. I really don't see the point in preaching systemd's greatness (or Lennart's). I'm not going to try it anyway. Also, I really don't see a point in booting fast (and I don't see anything wrong with openrc). So why do you feel the need to preach? Just curious... Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Spacenav use test
On 2012-01-05 21:44, Anthoine Bourgeois wrote: Hello Peter, 2012/1/5 pk pete...@coolmail.se: On 2012-01-04 22:28, Anthoine Bourgeois wrote: I write on this list and hope someone can test these devices on Gentoo. My overlay : http://git.overlays.gentoo.org/gitweb/?p=user/aluco.git;a=summary contains a blender ebuild with useflag 3dmouse. This useflag depends on libspnav and spacenavd daemon that provides free alternative of the proprietary driver. The ideal would be to test each product. I plan on buying a space navigator (and I have a lot experience in using them as a design engineer [NX/Catia]) and will test as soon as I'm able. Unfortunately it will not happen before summer though... Best regards Peter K No problem. Thank you for this return. I will be very happy to help as soon as you get on. Please call me. (especially if the driver does work the first time of course :-) Anthoine, I don't know if you're still on this list or not so I'm cc:ing you. Finally, I've bought myself an spacenavigator. The spnavd/libspnav is in official portage now (masked) so I've tried out that one. Works fine in Blender-2.63a-R2 (well, except the awkward way of panning but that's Blenders fault)! Will try to find some time to test it properly. Just wanted to let you (and perhaps other interested parties on this list) know... Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] OT triple display
On 2012-11-02 19:42, James wrote: snip all over... I want it to be AMD-Gigabyte system. I've settled on the new FX8350 processor. I ran across this mobo: Triple Display Support – AMD Eyefinity GIGABYTE FM2 series motherboards are the first to take advantage http://www.gigabyte.us/press-center/news-page.aspx?nid=1160 Any feedback on the triple head AMD FX8350 system would be appreciated. The FX8350 is a AM3+ platform cpu, it will not fit a FM2 motherboard. You need an FM2 cpu for an FM2 motherboard or you get an AM3+ motherboard with the FX8350. The FX8350 does not contain a GPU like the FM2 cpu (or APU as AMD like to call them). HTH Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] [PATCH] Linus breaks nvidia-drivers again
On 2012-10-15 20:10, Walter Dnes wrote: Which kernel version does the breakage start at, so I know not to rush into it when it goes mainstream? Also, is there a walkthrough for switching from Nvidia to Nouveau drivers? I couldn't get Nouveau working when I first tried, which is why I'm using the Nvidia driver right now. lspci shows... 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GT218 [GeForce 210] (rev a2) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller]) Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device 83c7 Stupid question perhaps but... ...have you tried http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Nouveau ? There's also a link to a nvidia-to-noveau at the bottom of this link... Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] new machine : proposed design
On 2012-08-02 18:25, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: If you want quality: buy something else. If you are concerned about the prize: seriously, buy something else. Hm, your experience with Kingston seems different than mine; I've had nothing but problems with other brands _but_ Kingston and I've been using them for years in various computers/motherboards. All three current motherboards run Kingston stable (two of them since quite a few years now, one is the Gigabyte M57SLI-S4 motherboard which have an extra flashrom soldered onto the motherboard for easy switching between proprietary firmware[a.k.a. BIOS] and coreboot). And here's a couple of pc's (not mine) running coreboot (which relies on the SPD rom information in order to set up the memory): http://www.coreboot.org/HP_DL145_G3 http://www.coreboot.org/ASUS_M4A78-EM I'm sure you can dig up some dirt on Kingston but I'm quite confident that you can dig up the same on other brands as well... but again, I've had no problems with Kingston so I'm sticking to them. Although, I perhaps should mention I don't do any overclocking of any kind since I value stability over all... Best regards / MfG Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Getting around ancient SATA disk size limitations
On 2012-06-18 08:16, fe...@crowfix.com wrote: I plugged two 4TB SATA drives in and the BIOS hangs trying to display the disk size. Whether it is the size itself, or from using 4K blocks, I do not know. This is a bit confusing. Do you mean to say that these are 4TB internal drives (3.5)? I can't find any manufacturer that manufactures this size (yet)... Or is it 2x 2TB harddrives in a USB3 enclosure? There are plenty of those it seems from Seagate, Western digital etc... I bought a USB 3.0 disk enclosure and the system refused to even acknowledge its presence. USB 3.0 may be advertised as backwards compatible, but not on my system. If possible try a BIOS upgrade... if not you can always try this (no guarantees though): http://www.addonics.com/products/ad2u3pci.php I put one of the drives into an old USB 2.0 enclosure, and while it was found and useable, it saw the size as 1.6TB. For a 2TB a usable size of 1.6TB sounds about right... I can't get a USB 3.0 PCI card; there are PCI-e cards, but my system is PCI and PCI-X. See above... Maybe more questions than answers but hopefully they will give you a clue or two for the correct answer(s)... Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Getting around ancient SATA disk size limitations
On 2012-06-18 16:24, Michael Mol wrote: http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Barracuda-3-5-Inch-Internal-ST4000DX000/dp/B005WX3NEU/ Seagate Barracuda 7200 4 TB 7200RPM SATA 6 Gb/s NCQ 128MB Cache 3.5-Inch Internal Bare Drive Hm... then Seagate needs to update their product page: http://www.seagate.com/gb/en/internal-hard-drives/desktop-hard-drives/barracuda/# No 4TB in sight... oh, well. Or maybe it's one of those magical drives I've read about[1]... ;-) It does bring to mind a question...when I went to put SATAII drives in a SATA box, I needed to flip a jumper on the drive so that it would operate at 1.5Gb/s instead of 3Gb/s. Felix, did you follow any analogous steps for the 4TB drives? That would be a possibility of course... but if that fails he also have this option: http://www.areca.com.tw/products/pcix.htm (I'm sure there are similar options from other manufacturers)... [1] http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/11/04/08/170235/magical-chinese-hard-drive Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Getting around ancient SATA disk size limitations
On 2012-06-18 16:57, Michael Mol wrote: I only posted the link to the Seagate drive, since that was the first one that popped up in my search. Point is, the 4TB drives do exist. Hm, now that you mentioned it I think I've read something about this a while ago (long enough time has gone for me to forget it though... :-). And yes, I knew they were in the works but I didn't know they were selling them... Hitachi (GST owned by Western digital) apparently sells 4TB internal drives (without enclosures)... %-} Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Getting around ancient SATA disk size limitations
On 2012-06-18 16:34, fe...@crowfix.com wrote: Hitachi, I think. Fry's had two choies differing in size of cache (64M vs 32M) and some 3TB drives too. I could get the model numbers when I get back to that system (not near it for a few days). Ah, the deskstar 7K4000 is readily available on Hitachi Global Storage (which is owned by Western digital) home page... Funny, I first looked at Hitachis homepage and they refered to Toshibas home page... :-s Will you be using these (huge!) drives as boot drives or merely as storage? If the latter and you're really desperate (haven't tried this myself) there should be an option to turn off the automatic discovery of drives in the BIOS and (possibly) let the kernel discover them (again haven't tried it but I don't see why you can't hotswap the drives without BIOS aid)... Also, this is an advanced format drive that emulates 512-byte sectors so there may be some fiddling before getting it right: https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-4kb-sector-disks/ Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Lockdown: free/open OS maker pays Microsoft ransom for the right to boot on users' computers
On 2012-06-04 14:48, Mick wrote: Can I please join you if you have a spare hat? Sure, got lots of (virtual) hats... here's one: ^ (may be a bit small) ;-) On a 3 year old Dell laptop manufactured by the famous and well known Winbond Electronics /sarcasm I see this under lshw: *-remoteaccess UNCLAIMED vendor: Intel physical id: 2 capabilities: outbound but have not found a way of interrogating it or in anyway accessing it to understand what it is or does ... Note, this is not a UEFI machine: capabilities: smbios-2.6 dmi-2.6 vsyscall32 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Management_BIOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desktop_Management_Interface SMBIOS does support out-of-band management, which may or may not be scary, depending on who's in control of it... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-of-band_management If you have an Intel processor in that laptop that supports vPro, I would assume it's a professional laptop, and as such it might make sense (assuming the IT department in your company is in control). Here's an interesting link that describes some of the problems with modern computers (it's an approx 1 hour long video from Google Tech talks, regarding coreboot): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X72LgcMpM9k Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Lockdown: free/open OS maker pays Microsoft ransom for the right to boot on users' computers
On 2012-06-02 09:43, Florian Philipp wrote: You don't have to be blessed. You could call your distribution BallmerSucks and still get a certificate. You just have to register, authenticate and pay the fee. Anything else would earn them an antitrust law suite they wouldn't forget. ... or one could simply replace the bios/UEFI with coreboot[1] and get on with life... albeit, (at least currently) it will severely limit your choice of motherboards (AMD is supporting coreboot, which is why I've chosen AMD ones but it also requires the support of the motherboard makers). [1]: www.coreboot.org Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Lockdown: free/open OS maker pays Microsoft ransom for the right to boot on users' computers
On 2012-06-02 15:12, Florian Philipp wrote: According to [1] it is SHA-256 and RSA-2048. If I understand it correctly, there are means to blacklist compromised keys. That's why Just curious, how is a compromised key supposed to be blacklisted? Does the bios contact Microsoft, or is it through some other mean (via OS which means it needs to have some sort of service to check for this blacklist)? Smells like trouble to me... :-/ Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Lockdown: free/open OS maker pays Microsoft ransom for the right to boot on users' computers
On 2012-06-02 22:10, Michael Mol wrote: I expect the chief mechanism is at the manufacturer's end; blacklisted keys get included on shipment. Makes sense. It's also probable that the OS kernel can tell the UEFI BIOS about new keys to blacklist. I expect that'll be a recurring thing in the Monthly batch of security updates Microsoft puts out. (Makes sense, really; if malware is using a key, blacklist that key.) Yes, would expect something like this. Secure boot supposedly prevents unauthorized firmware, operating systems or UEFI drivers at boot time. So if I interpret this correctly it would mean that if I have, say, an old graphics card with an old firmware (vga bios) I can't use it with secure boot. More interestingly, how is an operating system defined? Does it mean only the kernel itself or does it mean a full-blown OS with init and other supporting software? What does that mean to a source based distro? Also, I would assume a legitimate key would be able to sign pretty much any binary so a key that Fedora uses could be used to sign malware for Windows, which then would be blacklisted by Microsoft... and how is malware defined? Anything that would be detrimental to Microsoft? Someone linked to some absolutely terrible stuff being built into Intel's Ivy Bridge...it's plausible it will be possible to deploy You mean: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_insider#Intel_Insider_and_remote-control ? blacklist key updates over the network within a couple years. Well, UEFI already implements remote management: http://www.uefi.org/news/UEFI_Overview.pdf (page 13) ... so implementing an automatic update over the network, preferably via SMM/SMI so that the operating system cannot intervene would be possible already today... and you've lost control of your computer. I'm putting on my tinfoil hat now and I'm going to pretend it's raining... :-/ Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] How can I control size of /run (tmpfs)?
On 2012-05-28 05:44, Pandu Poluan wrote: But my newer servers has /run (and its children) from the get go, because I think it kind of makes sense. Even though they're udev-free. Hm... what is using /run instead of /var/run? I thought it was (newish) udev itself and things like systemd that uses /run instead of /var/run... just curious. Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] udevd boot messages
On 2012-05-26 01:52, Peter Humphrey wrote: $ elogviewer --help File /usr/local/bin/elogviewer, line 11 ^ SyntaxError: invalid syntax Huh? Mine (latest stable 0.5.2-r2, official Gentoo portage - not some overlay) is installed in /usr/bin/... Have you changed the install path or installed it through some other means? Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] udevd boot messages
On 2012-05-25 13:17, Tanstaafl wrote: On 2012-05-24 7:24 PM, Michael Mol mike...@gmail.com wrote: I just now started going through /var/log/portage/messages, and was reminded of this thread. It is much easier if you set up portage to email you these individually... app-portage/elogviewer is also nice... :-) Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] [a bit OT] Re: USB sticks now mounting on /run/media instead of /media ?
On 2012-05-03 23:48, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote: And anyway, if you are using a desktop system you don't care where the drive mounts, it just appears in your filemanager. I have a desktop system but I don't have a filemanager installed and I don't run an automounter. You assume everyone uses what you do? I don't even have a /run directory so please don't assume that, at least some of us, doesn't care about where the drive mounts (since I mount manually)... If you are not using a desktop, then you should not have udisks2 installed, probably. I don't have udisks(n) installed either... see no need for it. :-) Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Using a USB printer in an mdev system.
On 2012-05-01 13:48, Alan Mackenzie wrote: In an mdev system, getting USB device nodes working well enough to support USB printers is tricky. I have just added a section to the mdev wiki page (http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Mdev) explaining how to do this. Apologies for any misuse of wiki markup (at which I'm a beginner). Cool! Thanks for doing this! Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] changed motherboard, no AHCI
On 2012-04-21 04:12, Philip Webb wrote: It's an Asus P5G41T-M LX the manual says : Hm... the chipset on that mobo is G41 (released in 2008) and it combines with ICH7 which unfortunately doesn't seem to support AHCI. Sorry... Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] About ready to move /usr, /var and /home to LVM.
On 2012-04-15 07:16, Dale wrote: I have changed the root line to hd1,0 and it still boots sda. Other settings result in a failure. It doesn't even try to boot. What does your 'device.map' file say the sdb drive is mapped to? You usually find the 'device.map' file in /boot/grub for both grub1 and grub2... not sure which one you use (haven't followed this thread, sorry). But the kernel I want to use is on sda1. The OS is on sdb tho. Hm... did you mean to write 'sdb1' (your /boot partition as mentioned earlier in the thread) or do you mean that you want to boot a kernel located in sda1 and still use sdb1 as your /boot partition? I don't see how the last part would work... You need to tell grub where your / (root) partition are named (by grub convention). You find out what hdX maps to what drive (sdX) through grub or the 'device.map' file that should have been created when you set up grub. HTH Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] About ready to move /usr, /var and /home to LVM.
On 2012-04-15 07:16, Dale wrote: Here's some linkies for you: Grub2: https://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/html_node/Device-map.html Grub1: https://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/legacy/Device-map.html Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] About ready to move /usr, /var and /home to LVM.
On 2012-04-15 12:42, Dale wrote: Uh oh Crap hits the fan, BIG TIME. That thing is still looking So the computer blew up? ;-) How's that for a head slapper? A good one I'd say? ;-) Glad you got it sorted. Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] seamonkey bookmarks file location
On 2012-04-13 22:06, James wrote: The seamonkey bookmarks.html (the current bookmark listing) use to kept in ~/.mozilla/seamonkey/###.default I cannot find a newer listing than 2011 in that location. Did it get moved to another location? Remaned yet again? What I'm after is manually coping the bookmarks for seamonkey to another (kde)workstation. Hm... seamonkey (as well as firefox) don't use the bookmarks.html file anymore; now it's using sqlite to store bookmarks instead. https://wiki.mozilla.org/SeaMonkey/FAQ#Bookmarks http://seamonkey.ilias.ca/profilefaq/#files Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Netbeans, java programming, swing gui-builder?
On 2012-04-01 13:19, pat wrote: I have experiences with Swing UI and I'll suggest NetBeans. I guess I'll go with that. It's just that it wants to pull in around 100 packages (with only apisupport, ide, java and nb modules)... :-/ Oh, well. Thanks! Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Netbeans, java programming, swing gui-builder?
On 2012-04-01 19:26, walt wrote: Yes, that's a bit of a pain. I install the binary package from here: http://netbeans.org/downloads/index.html Running the installer as an ordinary user installs the whole thing in ~/NetBeans and it even updates itself if you want it to. Ah, cool! Thanks! Best regards Peter K
[gentoo-user] Netbeans, java programming, swing gui-builder?
Hi, Does anyone on this list have experience with java (swing) gui-builders and what would you recommend, if so? It seems Netbeans is the only option in Portage that I can find, are there other options? I'm looking for an easy way to build a reasonably advanced gui. Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] InitRAMFS - boot expert sought
On 2012-03-29 01:20, Neil Bothwick wrote: I'm in favour of /bin and /lib, and I see the pros and cons of /sbin and am not too bothered about how that is done. But having two (or more) of each of these is an artificial mess that is a solution to a problem that As I said, it's a matter of taste. Red Hat employ devs working on many aspects of Linux, and we should be grateful for this (or do you prefer the Ubuntu approach of taking with little giving back?). One of the reasons Greg K-H left SUSE to work for I did say that my writing was speculative? And I never claimed Greg K-H is/was working for Redhat. Anyway, for the record I have always had a great respect and admiration for both Redhat and Greg K-H (which I see as a very good and knowledgeable kernel hacker) but this latest debacle has taken it down a few notches... On the other hand I would prefer Ubuntus approach to someone (anyone) pushing bad designs any day (speaking hypothetically and generally without pointing out anyone or any company). But this is quite pointless (my whining) since, as someone else mentioned, code talks Perhaps some day I can find the time to hack my own solution (which of course will be perfection ;-) ). :-) Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] InitRAMFS - boot expert sought
On 2012-03-29 20:06, Neil Bothwick wrote: I wait with bated breath. Even if less than perfect, it will be better than mine :) I'll be sure to let you know if I find perfection... Perhaps an AI system that takes care of it self and serves me drinks (with or without an umbrella) while I lay on my couch doing whatever I see fit (since the bots controlled by the AI have taken over the boring chores I have all this free time)? On the other hand such a solution would most likely malfunction and hit me on the head with the shaker, pour it's contents all over me and chase me around with something sharp... ;-) Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] InitRAMFS - boot expert sought
On 2012-03-29 22:58, Alan McKinnon wrote: Reminds me of Sigourney Weaver's character in Galaxy Quest - she was the bimbo who announced to the room whenever the computer went bing :-D An underrated movie which contains a lot of geek and Star Trek/SciFi in general parody... Thumbs up! :-D Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] InitRAMFS - boot expert sought
On 2012-03-28 20:29, Mike Edenfield wrote: I was particularly interested to find out that Solaris started merging / and /usr 15 years ago, so in reality, the true UNIX way that Linux is following has long since been abandoned by UNIX :) Yep, next up is transitioning to a more modern handling of device naming (starts with c:). I certainly hope they can persuade all the other UNIX vendors in this, one true way(tm)! And certainly the *BSD must be forced to follow suit... Come to think of it, why not scrap all operating systems except the one and only Lord of the OS? :-| The true UNIX way is that there is no true UNIX way... Solaris is no more UNIX than AIX or HP-UX or even BSD (which Solaris is based on). There's only a poor way of doing things and a good way of doing things (guess which way I think Linux is going). There's a lot of talk like so: I think this therefore it must be the best way. _Noone_ has rationalised _why_ this change has to happen except: Oh, my bluetooth keyboard doesn't work during boot, therefore everyone has to suffer or a modern desktop requires this (without explaining why a modern desktop requires could be considered hand waving - for the record, I consider my desktop quite modern with the exception of whistles and bells but I wouldn't want to force going without on anyone). All this talk about different directories is a matter of taste; there is no technical reason (shared libraries aside) that some tools should be in a directory (named after whatever); it's just a matter of organisation and I happen to be on the side which thinks the FHS rationalisation for /bin, /sbin, /lib is a neat one. Others thinks the neatest solution is to put everything into one directory (whatever that may be) and that's fine too, if there was a choice... As for what Neil Bothwick said: According to Greg K-H, who I tend to trust, this did not come from Red Hat. It's just that a couple of the devs are employed by them. Others are not. Redhat are in control (maintaining or main contributor) of a whole lot of core software: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Red_Hat_contributions#Upstream_Focus So maybe it's in their (Redhats) best interest to only support their way of doing things? Or it may be that the devs themselves are so tight that they are working in this direction on their own accord. Or maybe it's all coincidental... But the facts remain and that is that the Linux landscape are changing dramatically (for the worse from my point of view). This is only speculation of course but I see the software (systemd, udev, avahi, dbus, glib, gtk+, pulseaudio etc.) Redhat support/maintain interlinking with each other, creating ever growing dependencies (not very UNIXy in my opinion); I wouldn't be surprised if, in a few years, the (abomination) Gnome desktop system would be a hard dependency for running a Linux system... Or maybe Oracle (Solaris) is behind all this with their Gnome derived JDS? Oh, the gnomes are out to get me! ;-) A little bit more on topic perhaps: An initrd is a redundancy in my point of view; a hassle that is needed by binary distributions with modules for everything from the moon to the sun. It's yet another step that is needed to restore what once was without gaining _anything_ for it... (I don't use modules for devices that should be available during boot). Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Beta test Gentoo with mdev instead of udev; version 5
On 2012-03-20 20:49, cov...@ccs.covici.com wrote: OK, I am not seeing mdev in the portage tree -- I would like to learn more about this before I take the plunge. So where do I get it and does it create the appropriate device nodes, etc? mdev is part of sys-apps/busybox. See: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Mdev Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] KDE and permissions problems
On 2012-03-18 04:11, Bruce Hill, Jr. wrote: Am I eternally confused? I have no idea... besides, eternity is a long time... ;-) su - change user ID or become superuser It's not _only_ to become root (maybe theoretically if you only have one normal user). On a true multiuser system you can su (switch user) to any user. Yes, correct. Sorry if this was implied; I only talked about Dales specific problem... Since _every_ computer I own or have _ever_ built has -pam globally, pam is not a requirement to use su ... is it? Nope. Again, I was only trying to help Dale... If su is owned by 'root.root' (user.group) I assumed that it's execution was controlled by something else since it otherwise should be owned by 'root.wheel' (unless you're part of the 'root' group, which I don't think is recommended). If you're not running pam then I assume your 'su' is owned by 'root.wheel'? Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] KDE and permissions problems
On 2012-03-17 11:19, Dale wrote:
The program 'su' could not be found.
Ensure your PATH is set correctly.
What does 'echo $PATH' give you? /bin should be in your path (that's
where 'su' is located, or should be)... My $PATH looks like this:
/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/opt/bin:/usr/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/gcc-bin/4.5.3:/usr/games/bin
I don't know if this is the case but maybe, you're using some of the
new-fangled screw up'ed tools like, dracut, systemd etc. that wants to
move everything into /usr (on the same partition as /) and as such
changes your $PATH accordingly (without checking perhaps - which would
be consistent with the arrogance of the coders).
-rws--x--x 1 root root 36680 Mar 16 23:36 su
-rws--x--x 1 root root 52416 Mar 16 23:19 umount
-rws--x--x 1 root root 42592 Mar 16 23:36 passwd
The 's' part is for the SetUID bit which gives the root-owned command in
question root privileges, in order to switch user... See:
http://blog.superuser.com/2011/04/22/linux-permissions-demystified/
(esp. the Getting sticky! chapter).
That's not all though...:
it, then what? I am in the wheel group. I'm also in the tty group.
Check your /etc/pam.d/su file... it should contain (at least) this line:
auth required pam_wheel.so use_uid
That's what gives you permission to use 'su' as a member of the 'wheel'
group ('su' is controlled by 'pam').
Best regards
Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] The End Is Near ... or, get the vaseline, they're on the way!
On 2012-03-17 19:38, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: you know, with that 'put everything into /usr' crap going on, I don't see any reason to have a seperate /usr at all. /root is completely empty. So what? Put everything on one partition and go on. Yes, let's do away with partitions altogether, who needs them? Let's also get rid of directories, and come to think of it, let's put everything into one binary file (kernel + userspace)! Perhaps we can call it initeverything? Nice and tidy! Oh, better yet, let's put it into the firmware (may need to expand current flash ROM though), that way we can do away with harddrives (saving stuff in the volatile memory instead)! W00t? I will not use an initramfs if I can get away with it. See above... PS. Keep this email away from Poettering and Sievert; don't want to give them any ideas! Best regards Peter K, sarcasm trainee
Re: [gentoo-user] The End Is Near ... or, get the vaseline, they're on the way!
On 2012-03-17 21:09, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: seriously, you have seemed to miss some news. There is a move by redhatco to move almost everything from / to /usr. With nothing left than some mountpoints - why put / on its own partition? There is nothing to contain apart from /etc. Nope, haven't missed a thing; I'm on the other side of the fence (of course the _right_ side :-) ), where we can keep all our /bin /sbin /usr directories separate and live happily everafter... ;-) Your sarcasm fails because you think that there is an intrinsic reason to keep / seperate. Well, with / filled with usefull binaries to bring a hosed system back from the garbage pile that was true for some peole. But with the current movement there isn't anything there at all. You're correct in a sense; if I choose to accept the New World Order (NWO) and put everything into /usr then you would be correct. As it stands now, I'm going in the other direction (putting /, /usr, /var, /home on separate harddrives)... :-D But I guess Gentoo itself will adapt to the NWO eventually, unless (by some miracle) some sanity is restored, so I'll have to find a new OS to use (probably FreeBSD)... Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Beta test Gentoo with mdev instead of udev; version 5 - failure :-(
On 2012-03-14 19:45, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote: BIOS is going the way of the dodo too, but that's besides the point. I'm actually quite happy with the Linux bluetooth stack (which, if I'm not mistaken, is used by Android). I have several bluetooth thingies, they all work great. Sorry, but you're gravely mistaken if you think firmware[1] is going anywhere. You can have all the bluetooth thingies you want but why should they be available at boot time, before you can use them? Excepting a bluetooth keyboard, which to me seems broken by design; you're replacing a keyboard with a cable that just works with something that needs a system up and running to function... [1] (U)EFI is only replacing the runtime interface of BIOS (BIOS will remain). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS#Changing_role_of_the_BIOS And if you want to ditch BIOS altogheter you need to replace it with something like coreboot or Open Firmware. Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Beta test Gentoo with mdev instead of udev; version 5 - failure :-(
On 2012-03-14 20:45, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote: Actually, a Lego brick is a good analogy for mdev (in its current state). It's a beautiful toy; but again, nobody has pointed out how to make it work with bluetooth devices, for example. From Walt's mail (his words, not mine): You're completely missing the point about lego. Lego in this context means small, well defined, interoperable parts with well defined interfaces (i.e. unix); small means easy to maintain (less complex). And if you wish to play it like that: Your system (systemd, pulseaudio, bluetooth, diverse gadgetry...) seems much more of a toy system to me... * XFCE Not sure why it would be a problem running Xfce without udev support: http://gezeiten.org/post/2011/01/Xfce-4.8-on-BSD-flavors ... maybe things will change though... Gnome and KDE *I* couldn't care less about; they're focused more on singing and dancing than productivity... * lvm2 Alan Mackenzie seems to be able to run it with mdev... I'm willing to bet yet another beer that udev will not have the fate HAL had. As complexity grows, bugs will too... which is why the unix concept have worked for so long (KISS = lego). Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: LVM, /usr and really really bad thoughts.
On 2012-03-13 08:13, Alan McKinnon wrote: I've also thought about this and I also want to ask why? Hm... me too? :-) I stopped using a separate /usr on my workstations a long time ago when I realized it was pointless. The days of 5M hard disks when the entire Ok, you realized it was pointless for *you*, right? It's not a universal fact, as far as I can see... Recall the previous discussion about this very same subject, where I compared unix to lego? Flexibility is the keyword here, I think, that some of us do not want to forego. For instance I can very well see myself indulging in some SSDs that I could put in my 'puter where one is dedicated for /usr, one for /var and one for the root file system, whereas I would keep a big normal HDD for /home... In my opinion there's a lot of hand waving that basically says something like on a modern desktop system, complex software is needed, therefore /usr needs to be on the root file system (or mounted via initrd)... and states this as a universal fact, without answering the question Why?. Isn't it those who wants to change that should answer why they want to change? And I trust Poetterings/Sievers answer why it needs to change as far as I can throw either of them (I'm quite weak)... it's all tied in neatly into their (IMO) overly complex software. Hm, if we want to be modern, perhaps we should abolish partitions altogether and put everything in the cloud? That would be modern, right? ;-) I'm running a decent desktop system (Xfce4) and I have /usr on a separate partition without any initrd... Why would I need to change this (except from being forced if I continue to use udev)? So far the only technical reason I've heard that somehow requires udev to have access to files in /usr is a bluetooth keyboard. Anything else that *needs* to be working during boot (before a separate /usr can be mounted)? And in my opinion, if a keyboard needs complex software to work then it's broken by design. But I digress, I really should start coding my own solutions, as Canek says... Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Beta test Gentoo with mdev instead of udev; version 5
On 2012-03-11 20:28, Walter Dnes wrote: which blob to load. But, if I leave only the correct blob for my GPU in the library folder (move/delete all the others), it loads properly without any help from udev. Why not compile the firmware into the kernel? http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Radeon#With_a_built-in_driver PS. Thanks for what you are doing! I'll try to find some time in the near future to try mdev out! Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Beta test Gentoo with mdev instead of udev; version 5
On 2012-03-11 15:17, Alan McKinnon wrote: As such, mdev is a good fit and we can add Walter to the long list of people before him who selflessly worked to make our software work better. Very well put, Alan! +1 Thanks Walter! Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Beta test Gentoo with mdev instead of udev; version 5 - failure :-(
On 2012-03-12 10:24, Alan Mackenzie wrote: #!/bin/busybox ash mount -t proc proc /proc mount -t sysfs sysfs /sys exec /sbin/init How do I know whether my /sbin/linuxrc actually ran? Maybe, I mean how can I be sure my append = init=/sbin/linuxrc actually worked? Well, you can always put in: echo linuxrc executing! sleep 5s #I put this here since I suspect it will flash by... before the 'exec /sbin/init' line (or the mount lines) in the linuxrc script above... HTH Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] LVM, /usr and really really bad thoughts.
On 2012-03-11 03:36, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote: This news item is to inform you that once you upgrade to a version of udev =181, if you have /usr on a separate partition, you must boot your system with an initramfs which pre-mounts /usr. Ok, I thank both you and Neil for this info. In hindsight I should have looked deeper before asking but now it's out there so other's wanting to know (on the gentoo-user list), knows... Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] LVM, /usr and really really bad thoughts.
On 2012-03-10 03:48, Dale wrote: Howdy, Howdy! this? I'm thinking about redoing my partition layout. I'm wanting to keep / (root) on a normal ext4 file system. I want to put /usr, /var, As long as you don't use the udev version that requires access to /usr at boot time (or mdev) then you can keep using a non-init boot (I do), as long as /bin /sbin is on root... Btw, does anyone know which version of udev requires access to /usr? I'm running latest stable here 171-r5 and I have separate partitions for /home /opt /usr /usr/local /tmp /var, all on LVM and /boot on a separate partition outside of LVM, and it works fine. Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] LVM, /usr and really really bad thoughts.
On 2012-03-10 16:35, Neil Bothwick wrote: I'm using the latest testing with a separate /usr and no problems. So udev-181 (masked) is ok to use without initrd and separate /usr then? Thanks for the info! Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Is my mobo incompatible with Linux?
On 2012-02-24 17:34, cov...@ccs.covici.com wrote: Hi. I have a Supermicro c7P67-o motherboard and I have another system using windows with no problems. However, when I am trying to use the board with gentoo -- various kernels -- including 3.2.6-gentoo -- I am having lots of problems with USB. The board has two usb3 connectors and most of the time when I plug a usb3 enclosure into one of those, I get lots of errors such as Feb 23 10:27:31 ccs kernel: xhci_hcd :04:00.0: Timeout while waiting for address device command Feb 23 10:27:31 ccs kernel: usb 3-1: device not accepting address 2, error -62 Hm... Just a hunch here since I don't know the exact details regarding your setup but you might experience something similar to what I had for a while before figuring out how to fix it... On my Asus Sabertooth 990FX motherboard I had similar problems with USB (don't remember the exact error messages but yours seems familiar). This was fixed by setting the IOMMU to OFF in BIOS (UEFI). Perhaps want to give it a try to see if it works for you? Of course you'll loose any benefit from IOMMU (if you are running VMs) but... Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: No more FLASH on Linux ?
On 2012-02-24 05:15, Nikos Chantziaras wrote: user can watch. Flash on the other hand guarantees web designers that a PC user can watch their videos. Having a guarantee that something works is a very powerful incentive; you do not abandon something that works. It's only guaranteed if flash is installed. HTML5 is pretty much guaranteed with current browsers. I know I may be in the minority here but flash is coming no where near my computers, nor the ones I support (my mother etc.). Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Somewhat OT: Any truth to this mess?
On 2012-02-18 13:24, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: basically, yes. Take down the core routers and backbones and everything falls apart. Which is easier said than done, IMO... but on the other hand, five of the major tier 1's is in the good old USA so if you take those down you still have five more tier 1's, which may or may not comply with an american request... and if they did, how long before people start screaming because they can't access their facebook accounts? :-/ Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Slow not in sync movie playing with mplayer2, ffmpeg, x264 with intel core i5
On 2012-02-12 09:51, Kfir Lavi wrote: I'm trying to play a mkv movie that is encoded with x264 720p. The movie get out of sync very quickly. Is it just this particular video that gets out of sync or does other videos have the same symptoms? If it's only this video, then I would say it's the video file itself that is out of sync... Best regards Peter K
[gentoo-user] Question regarding recent poppler down-/upgrade...
Currently poppler-0.18.1 (keyworded since it was required by libreoffice) is installed on my system and when I sync'ed yesterday Portage wants to downgrade poppler to latest stable -0.16.7 which is not a problem per se (I run a mostly stable system). However looking at the version bump bug report[1] at b.g.o. the links in that report (comment #1) seems bogus (I may have missed something). Does anyone else see it too or have a rational explanation for it? 1: https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=399049 Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Question regarding recent poppler down-/upgrade...
On 2012-01-29 15:23, Alan McKinnon wrote: Yes indeed, someone screwed up. Either: The submitter pasted the wrong list of bugs into the report or Forgot to mention that the bug number are not from b.g.o, but from some other bugzilla The first one for example - 288045 - comes from bugs.kde.org meaning the links are wrong Ok, so I'm not going loco then... great! :-) Thanks for looking it over! Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Question regarding recent poppler down-/upgrade...
On 2012-01-29 17:12, Philip Webb wrote: 0.18.1 has been removed from the tree 0.18.3 is the latest Testing. I'm conservative re system + similar pkgs, so still use 0.16.7 . Yes, that's clear. It was the links in the bug report that made me wonder... Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: gnome-control-center any way to configure without pulseaudio?
On 2012-01-26 12:22, Alan McKinnon wrote: I'm not opening up a debate and preparing an argument, I really want to know what you think about this matter. I apologize for butting in... Here's what *I* think about it (well, this is not about Pulseaudio specifically but I'm sure you'll get the idea): https://groups.google.com/group/linux.gentoo.user/msg/6bbe9d07876c92f5 To be clear: If I ever need something then it should be *complementary* to what I already have. It can also be noted that Pulseaudio will not even utilise the hardware I own to it's fullest: https://tango.0pointer.de/pipermail/pulseaudio-discuss/2009-July/004519.html If I would ever need a sound router I would check out Jack but that requires a bit of fiddling as I understand it. Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Filesize error downloading eigen-3.0.3
On 2012-01-25 10:38, denis cohen wrote: I am trying to install freecad which pulls in dev-cpp/eigen-3.0.3. I get a filesize error which prevents installation of eigen. Any clues on how to solve this problem? ebuild manifest path-to-eigen.ebuild IIRC... try man ebuild. Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Beta test Gentoo with mdev instead of udev; version 3
On 2012-01-09 00:48, Walter Dnes wrote: Hm... if you didn't compile it in you would have needed an initrd; didn't think of that... :-( * with only one binary blob. it just works * multiple blobs should not be included in the kernel, otherwise it gets confused. If multiple blobs are included, there's a fallback mechanism that uses udev to figure out exactly which graphics chip the laptop has, and which of the built-in blobs to use. Well, if udev has the database that connects the blob to the chip then yes it does sounds likely but still a bit strange... I also have only one blob (I dislike waste so I only put the correct blob in there). :-) So my laptop is now entirely udev-free. Congratulations! :-D PS. I will dive into this and test mdev soon-ish (when I can find the time). Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Beta test Gentoo with mdev instead of udev; version 3
On 2012-01-09 10:47, Pandu Poluan wrote: Is it possible to load the firmware blob after booting, from the shell? I don't think so; KMS needs it to talk to the gpu so either it needs to be in an initrd (loaded with the KMS/framebuffer module) or compiled in. That's how I understand it anyway... Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Beta test Gentoo with mdev instead of udev; version 3
On 2012-01-07 02:17, Walter Dnes wrote:
I think I've found one item so far that requires udev. My laptop's
graphics chip needs a binary blob from radeon-ucode. That binary blob,
in turn, requires the presence of /usr/lib/libudev.so.0 which is a
symlink to /usr/lib/libudev.so.0.9.3 (which is also required). I can
emerge udev
move or copy the 2 files over to /root
unmerge udev
move or copy the 2 files from /root to /usr/lib/
and it still works. Note that /usr/lib/ is a symlink to /usr/lib64 on my
64-bit gentoo.
Hm... I also use a radeon (w/ KMS) and needs this binary blob but I
compile that into the kernel*.
*Device Drivers ---
Generic Driver Options ---
[*] Include in-kernel firmware blobs in kernel binary
If you don't have it compiled in I can see why you would need udev...
Disclaimer: I assume it's not needed in my case - haven't tested though
but fail to see any technical reason for calling libudev, in this case.
Also, this work around... I'm not so sure it's a good solution to
require a pseudo need for udev which is placed on / before mounting /usr
but then again we (can) have a static /dev before {u,m}dev takes over...
Best regards
Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Beta test Gentoo with mdev instead of udev; version 3
On 2012-01-05 08:43, Alan McKinnon wrote: I fiddle around a lot with the hardware on those and udev deals with that nicely considering udev is designed to deal with that nicely. I confess to being quite ignorant when it comes to what magic udev does behind the scenes but what makes it different to any other device manager (well, I don't know any other than mdev but...)? I.e. what technical problem(s) does udev solve that no other device manager can't? What is the technical need for something else than a device file under /dev that can be used to communicate with the kernel? What I mean is: If you say ... considering udev is designed to deal with that... you seem to indicate that you know what it does and why it does what it does... and henceforth the technical reason why the rearrangements of the file system hierarchy is necessary... Becoming rather lazy in my old age is getting to be a factor too Ho hum... so you lazy old fart is true then? ;-) Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Beta test Gentoo with mdev instead of udev; version 3
On 2012-01-05 12:46, Alan McKinnon wrote: I switch on a modern computer and it: - loads a feature rich OS (UEFI) from a fixed point in firmware which then - loads a feature rich OS (grub2) from a fixed point on a storage device which then This is a precise argument why coreboot (and filo for grub(n)) is needed... Unfortunately it's not widely available for consumers... :-( I do have a couple of motherboards with switchable flash roms that I intend to get coreboot on, when I can find the time... sigh... - loads a feature rich OS (initrd) from a variable location on a storage device which then Haven't used this since I got rid of Redhat 5.x (or maybe it was 6.x?)... and never will again even if that means going the non-linux route. - loads the real OS (the thing I actually wanted). So, let's see now. I need 4 OSes to get one. Wow. If a design engineer pulled that stunt in almost any other field of technology, he'd be laughed out of Dodge in a heartbeat. Couldn't agree more! Methinks someone (many someones) completely lost the plot a long time ago. Yes, and we're continuing along that path, it seems. Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Beta test Gentoo with mdev instead of udev; version 3
On 2012-01-05 13:08, Alan McKinnon wrote:
I don't claim any special deep knowledge of these things, but a
superficial glance over the packages tells you a lot. udev is designed
to deal with any realistic device needs on modern systems - it's the
kitchen sink.
Fully agree... :-/
mdev has a much narrower scope where things are considerably more
static.
Currently it does have a more narrow scope, yes, but that can change,
no? Although I'm not entirely convinced that a userspace dev manager is
needed (yes, devfs on Linux was an utter failure but Solaris, Mac OS X,
*BSDs use it[1] and done properly in Linux it should work just as fine)...
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devfs#devfs
As for re-arranging the fs layout, I think it was Canek in the last
thread that gave an excellent example of why this is needed. When
devices hotplug, or need to become active early on in the boot process,
they need to run code that can be located almost anywhere. It wouldn't
be fun trying to get a wireless keyboard going when it's start-up
script needs to get into /usr/lib/firmware and /usr isn't mounted yet.
Yes, I understand the need for this but... how does a wireless keyboard
work under bios/firmware (*efi)? Never tried one and never will... A
computer without ports should handle such connections in firmware
(analogy: You don't need software to drive a cable).
I do agree with collapsing the executable code in /usr into /, or
having /usr on the root partition. A separate /usr/{,s}bin is pretty
pointless and was never done for safety or maintenance reasons. It was
done way way way back when disks were small and a convenient hack was
to keep the OS on the boot device and user apps somewhere else on
bigger but slower storage (which often was remote).
Hm... I find it quite elegant and flexible with the separation of / and
it's various underlying directories. I guess we can agree on disagreeing
here... although, I'm a bit surprised to see you as an admin defending
the new way... Windows does have such a philosophy with putting
everything system related into a directory (\WINDOWS)... Ultimately one
can argue why use anything else besides Windows, it does the job
reasonably well.
If /usr is local, what really is the point of having it separate
from /? Have you ever found a Linux system in any condition that could
not start just because the stuff in /usr was available? I haven't.
Even the split between bin and sbin is arbitrary. It's only there so
that users can take sbin out of PATH and not have the screen cluttered
with endless junk when they tab-tab. It makes much more sense to me to
just have one single bin and lib location and shove everything into it.
I'm not an admin of a large organization so what do I know... but, I
still can appreciate the flexibility and tidyness it[2] gives you in a
multi-user system. I also can see this from a security point of view
(keep the cool toys from the children)... I personally like it for my
very local computer as well for the above reasons (flex./tidy).
2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem_Hierarchy_Standard
What you are basically saying is that everything we have learned about
computer systems should be abolished and we adapt the monolithic, black
box philosophy of newish systems like Windows. That's how I interpret
what you're saying (yes, I do know hardware has changed since the 60'ies
but not that radically, IMO)... I tend to think of Unix as Lego where
you have lots of little bits with clean(ish) interfaces with which you
can build whatever you want. With the new philosophy it's more like
buying an Audi A2 (for those who don't know it, basically all you can do
is fill it up with petrol, oil and window fluid; anything else you need
to take it to an Audi workshop). Maybe I suck at car analogies... :-P
Dunno about lazy old fart, but splog (snarky pedantic lazy old git)
definitely is. I think we decided that Neil is the lazy old fart :-)
:-D
Oh... I'm not that far behind unfortunately... so, I'm a lazy,
pedantic, oldish, ???. ;-)
Best regards
Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Beta test Gentoo with mdev instead of udev; version 3
On 2012-01-05 15:03, Dale wrote: I'll take the plain old fart title. lol Drs think my body is at least 70 anyway. I think my brain is old to but that's not what they test, YET. o_O Here's the condensed version of what's happening (laughing is good for you or so I hear): https://github.com/MrMEEE/bumblebee/commit/a047be85247755cdbe0acce6#diff-1 ;-) Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Beta test Gentoo with mdev instead of udev; version 3
On 2012-01-05 17:20, Dale wrote: rm -rf /usr /lib/nvidia-current/xorg/xorg ROFLMAO. That one space bar hit caused a bit of trouble. WOW. I would have been pretty pissed. lol Yes, buy it's the comments (and pictures) below that made me laugh... the link is a definite keeper... :-D Best regards Peter K
