Re: Which Distro for learning linux and server
On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 5:48 PM, Ross Drummond r...@ashburton.co.nz wrote: On Friday 14 August 2009, Daniel Hill wrote: Kent Fredric wrote: For minimal pain, don't unmask the ~ ( testing ) versions of things during stage 1. You'll find if you do you'll find a fun gcc cyclic dependency :) ( that is, don't set ACCEPT_KEYWORDS= to ~amd64 or ~x86 leave them at amd64 or x86 ) Once you get to stage 3 of the build /then/ you /might/ want to switch on that, but don't do it earlier. I have a friend advise me to do this * start with stage 3, updating all the settings then going emerge world gets you the same result as starting * from stage 1 Also if you are new to Gentoo and kernel compilation build your 1st kernel with genkernel. From the man page; Genkernel is designed to allow users who are not previously used to compiling a kernel to use a similar setup to that one that is used on the Gentoo LiveCDs which auto-detects your hardware. Cheers Ross Drummond I myself haven't seen a good reason to stop using genkernel. I get the its only good for newbies line all the time, but I fail to see how. I disable the override-my-kernel-configs and always-do-cleaning-things options and still do make menuconfig or make oldconfig myself ( after doing zcat /proc/config.gz .config ), but genkernel makes the build-everything, do all the other fun stuff, put it in the right place, update grub fun things for me. Most Relevant lines from my /etc/genkernel.conf #OLDCONFIG=no MENUCONFIG=no CLEAN=no MRPROPER=no #ARCH_OVERRIDE=x86_64 MOUNTBOOT=yes # SYMLINK=no SAVE_CONFIG=yes USECOLOR=yes BOOTLOADER=grub # CLEAR_CACHE_DIR=yes MAKEOPTS=-j3 # LVM=no # EVMS=no # DMRAID=no BUSYBOX=yes # MDADM=no # MULTIPATH=no # FIRMWARE=no DISKLABEL=yes LOGLEVEL=5 then all I do after tuning my kernel every update is genkernel --kernname=MyCurrentMood all It updates grub.conf for me. ( Warning: there are a few glitches that have occured from time to time with the awk-based grub.conf updater, it can be picky, so back it up, once you've gotten it to work once though, it tends to work well every successive time. default=0 timeout=10 splashimage=(hd0,4)/grub/splash.xpm.gz title=Gentoo Linux (2.6.30-gentoo-r4) root (hd0,4) kernel /kernel-CHT-x86_64-2.6.30-gentoo-r4 root=/dev/sda7 vga=868 video=uvesafb:mtrr=3,ywrap,1440x900...@60 softlevel=offline the above should be a good starting template. Note the important = in the title segment, and the absense of the = in subsequent sections. This is a little known gotcha about grubs configuration, and the awk script is far stricter than grub itself in this case, dying and emitting a blank file if you do it wrong ) Also I managed to tweak my kernel lots so I didn't need an initrd anymore, it was just plain annoying, if you are not so fortunate, use the following pattern ( alternative sets of kernel flags for example only, they all used to be required and I got rid of them recently by selective elimination. Also, the below way to do things will run the genkernel loader which does a lot of magical loading stuff before jumping into init, I did away with that too recently for speed reasons, now genkernel is just a kernel builder for me and doesn't really affect by boot sequence like it does by default ) title=Gentoo Linux root (hd0,4) kernel /kernel-pizzaz-x86_64-2.6.30-gentoo-r1 root=/dev/ram0 init=/linuxrc ramdisk=8192 real_root=/dev/sda7 vga=868 video=uvesafb:mtrr=3,ywrap,1440x900...@60 initrd /initramfs-pizzaz-x86_64-2.6.30-gentoo-r1 ) -- Kent perl -e print substr( \edrgmaM SPA nocomil.i...@tfrken\, \$_ * 3, 3 ) for ( 9,8,0,7,1,6,5,4,3,2 );
Re: Which Distro for learning linux and server
On Fri, 2009-08-14 at 16:49 +1200, Daniel Hill wrote: Kent Fredric wrote: For minimal pain, don't unmask the ~ ( testing ) versions of things during stage 1. You'll find if you do you'll find a fun gcc cyclic dependency :) ( that is, don't set ACCEPT_KEYWORDS= to ~amd64 or ~x86 leave them at amd64 or x86 ) Once you get to stage 3 of the build /then/ you /might/ want to switch on that, but don't do it earlier. I have a friend advise me to do this * start with stage 3, updating all the settings then going emerge world gets you the same result as starting * from stage 1 Daniel, What are you wanting to learn from all of this? Whilst it is possible that you may conceivably need to roll your own kernel, maintaining that system from then on is going to be needlessly difficult. I agree that there's far more of a case for being able to build your own applications from scratch ( especially internet facing ones ), it does take an extreme use to require a specific kernel - ultra-high performance databases and embedded hardware are the only ones that readily spring to mind. Managing a server really isn't about being able to build it from scratch. That's great if you want to learn about linux, internals and philosophy, but not really relevant for day-to-day server use, where it's all about minimising risk, ensuring availability and understanding system load. Oh, and monitoring it. With risk in mind, it's best to use software certified* for a specific os, and to do that most simply, it's best to stay in the mainline, which really is RH/CentOS 5.3 or debian lenny. You'll be shocked at the versions used... for example, kernel 2.6.18, PHP 5.1.6, MySQL 5.0.45, etc ( lenny is newer, but only because it's just been released, but don't go for RH 4 unless you want real heartache! ). Understanding why this is the case and working with it, then developing your own stuff in the same manner ( and testing to death before releasing! ) is what it's all about. Deciding whether it's better to keep a stable platform or to patch it to the hilt, whighing the risks again. That, and use of the command line, and scripting ( because you've got to have the record of what went wrong to put it right ) becomes far more important than at the desktop. Personally I stand by my recommendations. You'll learn plenty of linux just by throwing X away (: Oh, and most importantly, you've got to become a BOFH like me (: Cheers, Steve *This is a very loose definition of the word, where package releases are considered certified. Often the source release from the author is better, but then you've got the extra headache of completely testing it yourself. At least if debian/RH release a package, it's been pretty thoroughly tested. I know it's the wrong word, but I couldn't think of the right one (: -- Steve Holdoway st...@greengecko.co.nz http://www.greengecko.co.nz MSN: st...@greengecko.co.nz GPG Fingerprint = B337 828D 03E1 4F11 CB90 853C C8AB AF04 EF68 52E0 signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Which Distro for learning linux and server
Greets CLUGgers, 2009/8/14 Daniel Hill daniel.h...@orcon.net.nz: I'm about to acquire a old computer from my friend (AMD 1.6GHz 80GB HDD) and want to eventually set it up as a webserver, game server, wireless router and any other servers that I mite want to play with I also want to learn linux properly (currently running ubuntu on my desktop) so I'm wondering which distro would be a good learning experience and in the end be stable for a server a couple of distros come to mind: (please correct me if I'm wrong) * Gentoo , Pros: Configurable; Cons: Huge comiple/install time * Slackware Pros: Configurable; Cons: Doesn't have a automated update system * Debian Pros: Stable; Cons: pre-configured? * LFS Pros: Configureable; Cons: same as Gentoo and Slackware? * rPath Pros: Conary Package managment Cons: New unproven technology * Any other suggestions ? the other option would be to just setup the server with ubuntu server or debian, and use a VM on my desktop to learn linux with maybe slackware I was an avid Gentoo user until about a year to 18 months ago. I got sick of the huge amount of effort needed to keep the thing up to date, and the number of times the update process borked. A very polite, responsive and helpful set of IRC channels on freenode. ( For someone just starting out with Gentoo this is probably the most important feature. ) PROs: I like the idea of an open source distribution being distributed as source code. The use-flags give you a huge amount of flexibility. It's definitely faster than many other distros. ( Not as much now-a-days as it was 5 years ago when I started out with Gentoo ) I like the principles behind the Portage package management system which has 99.999% solved the dependency hell which has in the past plagued other PMSs. They don't have cock-ups very often. There is a differences system which substantially reduces the volume of your downloads needed to keep you up to date, The documentation is some of the best I have ever seen in the industry. e.g. the installation manual is a real work of literature. CONs: You have to know what you are doing with a Linux distro to be able to use it Gentoo to best effect. The use-flags are a huge labyrinthine maze of interdependences which are sometimes incorrect. When they have a cock-up it is of monumental proportions. You have to compile any _new_ software you might want to install. It takes them far too long to get new and updated packages from the ~ ( unstable / testing ) classification into the mainline archive of the distro. If you like Gentoo, but want to avoid the horrors of a source code distribution then you might care to consider the Sabayon variant. http://www.sabayonlinux.org/ -- Sincerely etc. Christopher Sawtell
