[gentoo-user] Annoying structure of /var/db/pkg/category/package-name database

[Thomas Mueller]

Having package data in /var/db/pkg/category/package-name carries the 
nuisance factor that finding a package involves a fishing expedition through 
many possible categories.

I am spoiled by having /var/db/pkg/package-name in NetBSD pkgsrc and FreeBSD 
ports, though FreeBSD is wsitching to a different structure nkwon as pkgng.

Is there any way to configure so as to avoid this annoyance in Gentoo?  Like 
maybe making /var/db/pkg/package-name?

One can do
ls /var/db/pkg/*/package-name but this is still an annoyance.

I have some limited experience with Gentoo Linux on my older computer.  
Compiling the kernel took 130 minutes, and then the kernel failed to boot.

Tom

[gentoo-user] Annoying structure of /var/db/pkg/category/package-name database

[Thomas Mueller]

Having package data in /var/db/pkg/category/package-name carries the 
nuisance factor that finding a package involves a fishing expedition through 
many possible categories.

I am spoiled by having /var/db/pkg/package-name in NetBSD pkgsrc and FreeBSD 
ports, though FreeBSD is wsitching to a different structure nkwon as pkgng.

Is there any way to configure so as to avoid this annoyance in Gentoo?  Like 
maybe making /var/db/pkg/package-name?

One can do
ls /var/db/pkg/*/package-name but this is still an annoyance.

I have some limited experience with Gentoo Linux on my older computer.  
Compiling the kernel took 130 minutes, and then the kernel failed to boot.

Tom

[gentoo-user] Re: Annoying structure of /var/db/pkg/category/package-name database

[Thomas Mueller]

Thanks to those who responded for the suggestions. 

I didn't think I sent this same message a second time.  If I did, it was 
accidental.

Using equery and other portage commands may be better than looking directly at 
/var/db/pkg/category/package-name, sort of like the new pkgng in FreeBSD 
which is taking over from the older format.


I come from a Linux distribution (Slackware) whose package management knows 
nothing about dependencies.

Tom

Re: [gentoo-user] Who/what names hard drives /dev/sda, /dev/sdb, etc

[Thomas Mueller]

 Who or what decides to name a hard drive /dev/sda vs /dev/sdb?

 How does it decide what order to enumerate the drives on my computer?

 When in the boot process does is a disk given a name like /dev/sda?

 Thank you,

 Chris

I believe it depends on how the drives are connected. 

/dev/sda would be the default boot drive, though modern computers can be 
configured to boot from any drive recognized by the BIOS or UEFI.

Older versions of the Linux kernel named IDE/ATA hard drives, and CD/DVD drives 
too, as /dev/hda, /dev/hdb and so on.

Tom

Re: [gentoo-user] Any way of tracing kernel freezes?

[Thomas Mueller]

Excerpt from Frank Steinmetzger:

 I found my old USB Gentoo which has memtest installed (and which I used
 for my first test also). I let it run for two passes, both successful.
 So the RAM seems fine.

  Temperature? - check for dust puppies clogging the heatsinks, cooling etc.

 It's a netbook with a 6.5 Watt CPU. I'm going through the big emerge
 again right now (3.5 hours in), and it never goes above 66°. Besides, the
 freezes also happened when I didn't do anything heavy. Just surfing
 (though Firefox can also be heave for an Atom ^^).

 Anyhoo, I'm running 3.8.13 again now. I didn't have my config anymore,
 so I oldconfig'ed it from 3.9. Let's see whether it's more stable. If
 yes, hm... I can't really report this to the kernel devs: My netbook
 freezes since 3.9, that's all I know. Here, have my configs. :-I

Is your temperature of 66° F or C? 

System temperature or surrounding room temperature?

I have an old computer whose fan has quit as happened once before.

CPUs generate considerable heat, I see system temperature and realize the fan 
is much more critical than whether the room temperature is a chilly 20 C or 
sweaty (for humans) 35 C.

I don't use that old 2001 computer much, am getting ready to put together a new 
computer from parts to run FreeBSD and Linux, likely Gentoo; otherwise I'd 
order a Socket A fan.

When I do use that old computer, I open the case and prop a hair dryer to run 
at low, ambient-temperature air pointed at the CPU.  This keeps the CPU down to 
47 C according to the BIOS/CMOS screen.  This is cool for the CPU if not for us 
humans.


Tom

Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo installation, network adapter not supported

[Thomas Mueller]

Excerpt from Stroller:

 My experience has been the opposite, that even the cheapest USB network 
 adaptors have worked.

 Maybe I've just been lucky and this is not the norm, but from what I've seen 
 USB network adapters don't work with Linux is the sort of thing that might 
 have been true 10 years ago.

Are you talking about an adapter that plugs into a USB port at one end and has 
an Ethernet port at the other end?

Or are you talking about a cable or DSL router with a USB connection?

I have a cable modem and router, the router can connect by either Ethernet or 
USB; I always used the Ethernet and never used the USB.

But I had a DSL modem/router before the switch to cable, had both USB and 
Ethernet connectors.  I failed to get the USB network connection to work, 
though the Ethernet worked OK. 

Tom

Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration - caveat

[Thomas Mueller]

from luis jure l...@internet.com.uy:

 on 2013-07-20 at 09:51 William Kenworthy wrote:

 You have to map the drive so grub can find it:

 no, i don't think that's the problem.

 the problem is that with GPT disks you need a BIOS Boot Partition since
 they don't have a MBR. is that correct?
 
 https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GRUB#Install_to_GPT_BIOS_boot_partition
 http://www.anchor.com.au/blog/2012/10/the-difference-between-booting-mbr-and-gpt-with-grub/

I think to boot directly from a hard drive, you would need a BIOS Boot 
Partition or EFI System Partition, depending on whether the motherboard has 
legacy BIOS or UEFI.  I still boot from a USB stick or System Rescue CD with 
Syslinux or isolinux and the GRUB2 giant-floppy image (not intended to be 
written to any actual floppy disk).

I have also made FreeBSD and NetBSD installations on GPT-partitioned USB sticks 
without any GRUB, using a boot partition (FreeBSD) or installboot in the root 
partition (NetBSD), not sure how to do this with Linux.  But this only works 
when one OS is installed on the drive, quite OK for a USB stick in most cases.


Tom

Re: [gentoo-user] startx with multiple window managers

[Thomas Mueller]

 I've also created aliase for kde  awesome (.bashrc):

 alias kde=startx kde
 alias awesome=startx awesome

 Means whenever i want to start kde or awesome i only have to execute
 kde or awesome. By default (startx) it would start kde.

I've wondered how to run X simultaneously or concurrently with more than one 
window manager or with sessions for multiple users, root and nonroot.

But to choose between window managers, I have multiple xinitrc files, like
startx /usr/local/lib/X11/xinit/xinitrc.icewm

That is for FreeBSD; actual path will vary by OS and distro.

Tom

Re: [gentoo-user] evince / firefox will not print to a specific directory

[Thomas Mueller]

 That is interesting. I have the exact same problem. Tried to save it to the
 desktop and it saved to my home directory.On the second try I typed in the
 directory that I wanted to save the file. Instead of output.pdf, I put
 /home/ill/Desktop/output.pdf.

 It's not a fix but it works.

I think you can use ~ for your home directory.

Thus, if your login name is ill,
~/Desktop/output.pdf

I do that with Firefox and Seamonkey, since I have many subdirectories for 
different purposes.

I never or hardly ever use ~/Desktop .

I think this works generally in Linux and BSD.


Tom

Re: [gentoo-user] Optional /usr merge in Gentoo

[Thomas Mueller]

On the issue of whether ZFS can be shipped with the Linux kernel, FreeBSD 
includes ZFS with the kernel, binary and source.

So does that mean it would be OK for Linux too?

FreeBSD has a different license (BSD) than Linux (GPL 2 or 3).

I am not a lawyer!

Tom

Re: [gentoo-user] HP officejet pro 8600 printer (all-in-one)

[Thomas Mueller]

 I will be buying a new printer and am considering three members of the
 HP 8600 class

 HP officejet pro 8600 (N911a)

 HP officejet pro 8600 plus (N911g)

 HP officejet pro 8600 premium (N911n)

 The first two are listed on the hplip site as having full support and
 recommended.  The third is not listed, which I found surprising.

 Any recommendations/suggestions/experiences would be appreciated.

 thanks,
 allan

Given my ill luck with HP LaserJet M1212nf MFP, I don't want to buy anything 
more from HP, unless I get this printer working, and then I'd need toner.

My ill luck was with FreeBSD and NetBSD, and hplip makes assumptions on Linux 
file structure that are different in the BSDs.

I do intend to try with Linux, and also try the MS-Windows drivers on FreeBSD 
with wine.

I might try Brother.


Tom

Re: [gentoo-user] HP officejet pro 8600 printer (all-in-one)

[Thomas Mueller]

from Walt:

 On 09/02/2013 08:17 PM, Thomas Mueller wrote:
  Given my ill luck with HP LaserJet M1212nf MFP, I don't want to buy
  anything more from HP, unless I get this printer working, and then
  I'd need toner.

  My ill luck was with FreeBSD and NetBSD, and hplip makes assumptions
  on Linux file structure that are different in the BSDs.

  I do intend to try with Linux, and also try the MS-Windows drivers on
  FreeBSD with wine.

 I've found that the postscript-printer-definition (ppd) files included
 in net-print/gutenprint work much better for me than the ones included
 in net-print/hplip, which is published by HP.

 I've also heard other people grumble about the quality of HP printer
 drivers not being as good as HP printers, but that's just hearsay :)

I see I don't have guenprint installed, maybe I ought to.

Bigger problem may be that HP LaserJet M1212nf MFP requires a proprietary 
plugin download.


Tom

Re: [gentoo-user] new printer : any thoughts ?

[Thomas Mueller]

from Philip Webb:

 My ancient printer's ink cartridge has finally dried up
 the mobo in my regular computer accepts only USB.
I don't do much printing, but occasionally need a few pages.

The local store has an HP Deskjet 2510 on sale this week.

Does anyone have thoughts or suggestions ?

I lean toward Brother from what I hear and from my long-ago experience with 
Brother AX-26 word-processing daisywheel typewriter.

My experience with HP LaserJet M1212nf MFP and their technical support is 
unfavorable.

Their tech support was offshored to India, and there was much difficulty in 
being understood, both ways, over the telephone.

I still haven't succeeded in setting it up.

Maybe the assumptions about file system structure are Linux-based and cause 
failure in NetBSD and FreeBSD.

Or maybe the printer is a turkey.

This caused me strong aversion to buying anything in the future from HP.

What other printer brands require a special package such as hplip for Linux and 
BSD?

Tom

[gentoo-user] Re: out of disk space to compile webkit-gtk

[Thomas Mueller]

 Joseph syscon780 at gmail.com writes:

  I'm upgrading the system and running out of disk space to compile webkit-gtk

 I'm not sure you have usb3, but if you do and you have a usb3 stick,
 it's useful for this temporary expanded space need and so much more. Sure
 it probably will not run as fast as your native HD, but, it's
 a very handy device for this and many other needs. Or you can move
 something big from the partition where you compile, on a temporary
 basis.
 
 just a thought,
 hth,
 James

Even better might be a USB 3.0 hard drive: cheaper per GB than USB sticks, and 
not having the problem of write exhaustion that I've heard about for flash 
media.

If there is sufficient hard-disk space in the same or other partition, it might 
be helpful to redirect the work dir.

I might want to make a USB-stick installation of Gentoo to be able to carry 
from one computer to another.

Tom

Re: [gentoo-user] Grub2 and softlevels

[Thomas Mueller]

 I do. Why, does it have its own info reader? Personally I've never had to bite
 the bullet and had to learn how to use info.

 Regards
 Peter

I tried to learn info and never did well, always lost my place and had to hit q 
to get out.

Reading the info file as plain text worked better.

When I had Slackware with KDE 3.x, Konqueror had a good info reader, but I 
couldn't find my way in KDE after it went to 4.1.

Best I can think of in the absence of KDE is pinfo.

Why can't they get rid of info in favor of HTML, or even straight ASCII text?

Tom

[gentoo-user] Re: [OT] LiveCDs for Uni students

[Thomas Mueller]

  systemrescuecd?

 Too complicated. What I mean by this is that the user upon booting
 has options!!! Do you kick into a graphical environment, do you copy
 everything to memory, do you. you get the idea. The problem is
 that these are first year students in a common first year, they have
 not yet decided upon their stream, could be Civil, Chem, Mech etc and
 don't see any benefit in doing programming but have to pass the
 subject.

 My requirement is that it boots into a GUI, preferably straight
 into the environment, no username/password, has dhcp, a decent editor,
 a browser and gcc or clang.
 
 Andrew

System Rescue CD fulfils the above requirements.  You can go straight to XFCE, 
be root with no user/password, by default automatically configures network with 
DHCP.  Editor is vim (I believe), browser is Midori, and gcc is present; I 
didn't think of looking for clang.

Tom

[gentoo-user] Allow delay for booting from USB device?

[Thomas Mueller]

Is there a way to make Gentoo or other Linux allow extra time when root is on a 
USB device?  Any way to say just a second or more like 15 seconds before 
aborting with the message that root partition does not exist?

In this case it's an IDE hard drive in a USB enclosure.

FreeBSD seems to handle this situation better.  I would get a 
mountroot
prompt, to which I would respond 
ufs:/dev/ada0p3
and be good.

I could avoid this situation with /boot/loader.conf

legal.realtek.license_ack=1
rsu-rtl8712fw_load=YES
kern.cam.scsi_delay=13000 # Delay (in ms) before probing SCSI
kern.cam.boot_delay=16000# Delay (in ms) of root mount for CAM bus
hint.re.0.disabled=1

but don't know if Linux has anything like this.

Only lines 3 and 4 are relevant to this issue; other lines are for different 
issues.

Tom

[gentoo-user] Re: Allow delay for booting from USB device?

[Thomas Mueller]

Thanks to Joost Roeleveld and Brian Hesdorfer for helpful answers.

Even before getting the new email, I googled on linux boot root delay and found 
the answer where previous Google search failed to yield results.

That was an old Linux, Slackware 13.0 with kernel 2.6.29.6 where I remember 
trying to get started with Gentoo but the kernel I built, compile time 130 
minutes, failed to boot.  It still took many attempts before I was successful 
with the boot.  No Internet access because the kernel is too old and the 
Ethernet too new.

Tom

Re: [gentoo-user] ceph on gentoo?

[Thomas Mueller]

 from Bruce Hill: 

 To whoever controls this list...

 I just arrived home to find my mailbox spammed with hundreds of messages from
 this luser Andrew Savchenko birc...@gentoo.org

 What is the explanation for this please?

I didn't get these spams.  Are you sure they are from Andrew Savchenko?

Check the headers: spammers are known to fake their email address.

Tom

Re: [gentoo-user] portage alternatives

[Thomas Mueller]

 from Michael Vetter:

 just for fun I am reading about alternatives to portage. So far the most
 interesting I found are: paludis and pkgsrc.

 paludis mostly because it seems to come from some gentoo-like enviroment
 and pkgsrc because of the nice thought to have the same pkg files for
 multiple OSes.

 Is anybody of you using one of them and can tell me about pros and cons?

I've read a bit about paludis, the package manager in Exherbo, forked from 
Gentoo, but haven't got to try it yet.

I am familiar with pkgsrc, use only in NetBSD where it is native.

For FreeBSD, I use the FreeBSD ports, notice that pkgsrc seems to have nothing 
to compare to portmaster and portupgrade.

In pkgsrc, you can update all packages with pkg_rolling-replace, but not so 
easy to update just one package/port and its dependencies.

pkgsrc seems directed at BSD, where there is a distinction between packages and 
base system.

In Linux, I get the impression that everything is a package, including what 
would be part of a BSD base system and not well-covered in pkgsrc.

I've fallen behind on following this list, too many emails elsewhere, which is 
why I'm late in responding here.

Tom

Re: [gentoo-user] necessary use flags

[Thomas Mueller]

 Best way I ever found to learn how things really work under the hood is
 to build a Linux From Scratch and pay close attention to every single step.

 Not that you'd ever actually *use* that system - there's no sane package
 management for a start - but after building an LFS, the content of
 ebuilds in @system starts to make a lot more sense; you can see why some
 of the decisions in the profiles were made; and make.conf now appears in
 a whole new light.

 Then take the valuable lessons from LFS and apply them appropriately to
 using Gentoo. These things are tools and the best workmen are always
 very familiar with their tools as a co-ordinated whole (as opposed to a
 bunch of mish-mash stuff cluttering up a toolbox)

 Alan McKinnon

One could build a system with LFS or CLFS and then adopt one or more package 
managemant systems such as Gentoo portage, pacman with Arch Build System, 
voidlinux, etc.

Different package management systems would go to separate installations, 
separate partitions, of course.

Lack of package management, or actually package management that had no 
recognition of dependencies, was a large part of what made me not continue with 
Slackware beyond now-outdated 13.0.

I was spoiled by FreeBSD ports, NetBSD pkgsrc, and Linux distros with package 
management that recognized dependencies.

Tom

Re: [gentoo-user] gru2-mkconfig tries to read the extended partition ??

[Thomas Mueller]

 N one is forcing you (unless you have a UEFI board), and more than anyone
 is telling you not to use a 2.4 series kernel.

 Neil Bothwick

This brings a question to mind: Does anybody know what Linux kernel was the 
first to support GPT?

Slackware 13.0, released in 2009 with kernel 2.6.29.6, did not support GPT, 
could not read the SATA hard drive on the rare occasions when it booted from 
its new home, IDE hard drive inside USB 2.0 enclosure.

NetBSD (3.0) and FreeBSD (7.0) got GPT support long before 2009.

Regarding problems dealing with Dell as discussed in this thread, I prefer to 
buy parts and build my computer.  That way I get more choice, more up-to-date 
hardware, and more intimate knowledge of what's inside.

One possibility for installing MS-Windows in this case is getting a low-price 
refurbished small SATA hard drive, and installing Linux, and FreeBSD, NetBSD, 
Haiku, if desired, on a bigger hard drive.

Today's UEFI permits selecting boot device, and no more slave and master issues 
such as plagued IDE hard drives.

Still, there might be the risk that the Windows installer might see the other 
hard drives and do some nasty things.

Tom

Re: [gentoo-user] Securely deletion of an HDD

[Thomas Mueller]

All that has been said on this thread supposes that the hard drive is still 
readable and writable.

But the original post stated this was a failed drive.

Then you might not be able to dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdx .. or whatever else.

You would be stopped by bad sectors.

Or a hard drive might not be accessible at all through the computer interface.

I heard something that sounded like a modem dialing, but had no such modem.  

Going around with my eyes and ears led me to determine that it was a hard drive 
whining in an external eSATA enclosure, no longer recognized or accessible from 
the computer.

That was a Western Digital Green 3 TB hard drive that replaced, under warranty, 
a WD Green 3 TB hard drive that developed bad sectors.

Fortunately I had no confidential data on that hard drive.

So everything in this thread says nothing about if the hard drive failed due to 
a mechanical problem.

Then the data could not be overwritten by ordinary means, but could still be 
read by techniques such as used by Drive Savers.

Tom

Re: [gentoo-user] ncurses: reductio ad absurdum

[Thomas Mueller]

 * Fernando Rodriguez frodriguez.develo...@outlook.com [150829 12:59]:
 On Friday, August 28, 2015 2:24:37 PM Rich Freeman wrote:
  Those who wish to use git can do so, and I'd encourage people to try.
  It really does have a lot of advantages.  Oh, and it makes it really
  easy to contribute patches/etc (just edit whatever you want in
  /usr/portage and type git diff).

 I wouldn't advise that on the portage tree because if you edit any files under
 version control git will refuse to pull new changes until you either commit
 the changes or undo them by checking out the file.

It will still pull but you'll potentially have conflicts to resolve.

A bad idea in any case.

Todd

Now many repositories use git, and I need to know how to make changes to some 
files, hopefully a small number, but still be able to update with git.

I keep the modifications somewhere for safekeeping, as well as the originals, 
but would want to see the updated files straight before remaking my 
modifications.

I looked through man pages, git pull --rebase didn't work; I got error 
messages.  Should I do git reset or should I git checkout each modified 
file one-by-one before git pull?

There is a lot in git, learning git all the way through looks like a tall order.

Tom

Re: [gentoo-user] Hard drive noise

[Thomas Mueller]

> I think USB 3.0 is cheaper and more common.
> Only seen the occasional eSATA port on laptops and afaik, eSATA requires a
> seperate powersupply. USB can supply the power for the drive as well.

> Joost

USB hard drives, in my experience, come with and require AC power adapter, are 
not powered by the USB itself.

USB sticks don't need or have their own power.

Tom

Re: [gentoo-user] Hard drive noise

[Thomas Mueller]

> I've got 16 3TB WD Reds running 24/7 for a little over 3 years.
> Only had 1 failure (Smart complaining) in that time.

> I find that decent odds.

> Joost

I bought a WD Green 3 TB hard drive in May 2011, warranty was then 3 years.  It 
went bad with errors after 34 months.

I was able to get a warranty replacement after much hassle, with the warranty 
on such drives down to 2 years.

That replacement hard drive went bad in about seven months, strange sounds 
reminiscent of a dialup modem, drive was no longer recognized by the computer.

At nearly the same time as the WD Green failure, a 3 TB My Book Essential 3 TB 
USB 3.0 hard drive, ordered at the same time as the WD Green drive, went 
somewhat bad with errors, but the warranty on that was 2 years.

Needing a hard drive for another computer (May 2013), and not trusting WD or 
"Green", I ordered a Seagate NAS 4 TB hard drive, figuring increased 
reliability compared to Barracuda or Desktop was worth the modest additional 
cost.

That drive is still good as far as I can tell.

Now I am considering an external hard drive with eSATA, more suitable for OS 
installation (Linux, NetBSD, FreeBSD, Haiku?) than USB 3.0.  Only brand I find 
is Micronet Fantom (GForce), or use Seagate NAS hard drive in an enclosure with 
eSATA.

I really can't see why USB 3.0 is so more widely available than eSATA when 
eSATA seems superior as far as I can tell.

Tom

Re: [gentoo-user] Adobe flash warning and tree

[Thomas Mueller]

> I keep getting a warning that Flash needs to be upgraded.  I went to
> packages.g.o and there doesn't seem to be a newer version than what I
> have.  What gives?  I'd upgrade if there was one available but there
> isn't or I can't find it one.  I found a bug report on the version I
> have installed so they know there is a issue but not sure what is going
> on in the background.

> Is there a alternative to flash?  Last I read on this there are but they
> have issues.  Are they any better today than they was a little while back?

> Also, is there a way to disable this warning?  I know about it but I
> can't do anything about it either.  It's just a annoyance right now.

> Thanks.

> Dale

>From news that I read online, Adobe no longer updates Flash player Linux 
>version beyond 11.x.

Many sites now, including YouTube, and many spammers, have gone over to HTML5, 
though some of those also work with Flash.

Under FreeBSD, I built gnash from ports, that worked with YouTube but not much 
else but can't be built for FreeBSD >=10.

I tried swfdec, but that didn't work on anything.

There is also lightspark; I am not familiar with its status. 

In some cases, it is possible to download a Flash video with youtube-dl or 
get-flash-videos.

Adobe Flash remains a bitter reality on mlb.com, nfl.com, wfpl.org, AT 
Uverse, among others.

Tom

Re: [gentoo-user] Need coaching with emerge failure logs (Understanting the problem)

[Thomas Mueller]

> On Sat, 25 Feb 2017 21:58:05 +0100, Miroslav Rovis wrote:

> > On 170225-09:19-0500, Harry Putnam wrote:
> > > Setup: VBox vm running gentoo(amd64) guest on a win-10 (64bit) host
> > >  Hardware: HP xw8600 - 2x Xeon  CPU X5450 @ 3.00GHz - 32 GB ram

> >  [ some cca. 80k text cut here ]

> > Go for the guides, in which you will find that sending 5.5M log in an
> > email is plain wrong.

> On this list, it is preferred to attach logs rather than post them
> elsewhere with a link. That way all the information stays together.

> However, as Stroller mentioned, the escape codes make a bit of a mess.
> Logs this large could be gzipped before attaching.

> > Read e.g. how to post bugs on Bugzilla. shouldn't be hard to find.

> This wasn't a bug report but a request for help.


> Neil Bothwick

A 5.5M log is too much for most people, myself included, to read.

Gzipping has two disadvantages: can not be read directly, one being that the 
attachment must be extracted to a separate file for reading outside the mail 
client.

Other downside is that a gzipped file must then be base64-encoded for email.  
Base64 encoding multiplies the attachment size by 4/3 (four-thirds), negating 
most of the reason for gzipping.

Tom

Re: [gentoo-user] Is this working correctly??

[Thomas Mueller]

You (Dale) seem to have corrected the multipart/alternative problem, except one 
message (Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Re: downgrading glibc) where 
multipart/alternative went through.

I would never design an email client to send multipart/alternative by default, 
and might design an email client to not support multipart/alternative at all in 
composed messages.

Tom

Re: [gentoo-user] Question on install

[Thomas Mueller]

> Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
> boundary="5A3B7F546928893D6B2B7B3A"
> X-Authority-Analysis: v=2.2 cv=HvEGIwbS c=1 sm=1 tr=0 
> a=ZNQZ+YIiQ1SmzuxDAKl+CA==:117 a=ZNQZ+YIiQ1SmzuxDAKl+CA==:17 
> a=x7bEGLp0ZPQA:10 a=ISoD08LcTzsA:10 a=xqWC_Br6kY4A:10 a=KeKAF7QvOSUA:10 
> a=r77TgQKjGQsHNAKrUKIA:9 a=mlNn8-T5:8
> a=pGLkceIS:8 a=3Tx8IGE4dgYU5_1tCPoA:9 a=QEXdDO2ut3YA:10 
> a=B-9MPiEJO1CQoaZW8noA:9 a=UUooY5TJg16SgZ0K:21 a=_W_S_7VecoQA:10 
> a=_4ER54FGBOWlvg8qisjz:22 a=6kGIvZw6iX1k4Y-7sg4_:22
> X-Cloudmark-Score: 0
> X-RR-Connecting-IP: 107.14.168.212:25

> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

> mad.scientist.at.la...@tutanota.com wrote:
> > precisely what happened, sorry i didn't realize that chainging the
> > "subject" line causes confusion.  now i know, now i can avoid that
> > mistake.
>
> --
> > Securely sent with Tutanota. Claim your encrypted mailbox today!
> > https://tutanota.com
>
> > 21. Aug 2017 09:37 by rdalek1...@gmail.com :


> No problem.  By the way, top posting is sort of frowned on.  However, we
> also realize some devices don't play well with bottom posting.  If
> possible, set it to bottom post.  If not possible, oh well.  ;-)

Multipart/alternative is much worse than top-posting!

Dale

Re: [gentoo-user] FreeBSD migration, what to do with /usr/local

[Thomas Mueller]

from Ian Zimmerman:

> I think I have written here previously that I want to move my _server_
> to FreeBSD.  I am still thinking about that.  But now I hit an
> obstacle.  For a long time, I have put my local kiddie scripts in
> /usr/local.  For better or worse, they are written in my dense style
> where any code duplication is avoided, and so they call one another a
> lot.

> But as you know FreeBSD directory hierarchy is different: /usr/local is
> for Packages and Ports.  I must move my scripts somewhere else to not
> conflict with P & P.  So the first problem is to come up with a
> location.  What does a typical BSD admin do in this situation?  I don't
> want to put them in my home directory because they're general purpose;
> at the very least I use them both as root and as an unprivileged user.

> A more serious problem is how to find all the situations where
> /usr/local is baked in.  It's not as simple as grep because when I
> could, I relied on the implicit PATH which would be configured somewhere
> else, or it might not even be configured - it might be compiled in (I
> think this is the case for some programs in the shadow package, and
> perhaps PAM modules).

> I don't think I can expect a simple answer, but if you ever faced such
> transition yourself, how did you approach it?

/usr/local is the default LOCALBASE in FreeBSD, but I believe you can set 
LOCALBASE to something else in your environment, which could be set in 
/etc/make.conf .

You could possibly copy Gentoo scripts to /usr/local/gentoo-scripts, or would 
that not work with your scripts as set up?

You would have to be careful setting up your PATH in .profile and /etc/profile 
, to make sure it includes the proper LOCALBASE.

Tom

Re: [gentoo-user] Small (as in footprint) window manager

[Thomas Mueller]

> On 2018-12-03, Thomas Mueller  wrote:

> > I see also the suggestion
  
> >  $ ssh -Y 
 
> > but what would be the syntax for specifying  where 
> > is a different computer on the same local network?

> Does it have an IP address?
  
> Grant Edwards

I see where I missed changing the Subject from an old message: embarrassing on 
me.

Being on the same local network, the other machine would have an intranet IP 
address of 192.168.0.x, where x would be a number >= 2.

I have mounted file systems by NFS but have never accessed an X server by ssh.  
I don't think I ever used ssh command directly.

Tom

Re: [gentoo-user] Program for posting to a Newsgroup

[Thomas Mueller]

Daniel Frey wrote:
> I've been trying to clean up my machines (pruning world file, etc) and
> am making progress.
   
> I ran into one issue, that being on my server (mythtv, file, etc) I am
> normally in text/ssh mode but occasionally I need X for something.
   
> Does anyone have suggestions for a small-footprint window manager (I
> have no need for a full desktop environment) as twm is just fugly and
> sometimes not intuitive. I also don't need a file manager as I use
> Midnight Commander which works well for my needs. This all stems from
> occasionally needing a gui for configuring mythtv or the ability to
> have two shells open side by side.
   
> I am thinking others have most likely had this problem at some point
> and have found something that's lightweight for this type of purpose.
   
> Dan   

I use icewm 1.3.8, now feel stuck in a rut because I want to also try jwm, 
ratpoison and i3, and upgrade where possible to icewm 1.4.x .

I see also the suggestion 

 $ ssh -Y 

but what would be the syntax for specifying  where  is a 
different computer on the same local network?

Tom

Re: [gentoo-user] sysrescuecd gone rogue

[Thomas Mueller]

One thing I noticed with sysrescuecd switching from Gentoo to Arch was no more 
gcc, meaning you can't build any additional software.

But then the use of squashfs always was an annoyance.


Tom

[gentoo-user] setup.py question: platform.system()

[Thomas Mueller]

I was just looking through gentoo/setup.py and find something that arouses my 
curiosity.

I see

if platform.system() == 'Linux':
x_c_helpers.update({
'portage.util.file_copy.reflink_linux': [
'src/portage_util_file_copy_reflink_linux.c',
],
})

Question that comes up is, what if platform system is something other than 
Linux, such as FreeBSD, NetBSD or other.

How would setup.py handle that?  Would it attempt to set up portage-style 
package manager for FreeBSD, NetBSD or other, would it set up something for 
Linux portage, or would it just fail?

Tom

Re: [gentoo-user] Dolphin only allowing a single instance after update

[Thomas Mueller]

> You're missing the point!  As soon as something works as most users want, or
> becoming used to at any rate, the KDE devs will  /improve/ their 
> software by breaking its most desired functionality - sometimes irrepairably.
> LOL!

> Konqueror was the best file manager ever, with multiple vertical and
> horizontal window split, with kio-slaves which would process or play anything
> and everything you threw at it, with browser integration, ftp/s and sftp/fish,
> etc.  Nope, evidently konqueror wasn't good enough, so here comes dolphin
> which can't do half of what konqueror was able to offer us.  I better not
> mention kmail2, because I don't want anyone to think this message was written
> by Edgar Allan Poe.  :-(

> Regards,

> Mick

I used Konqueror long ago, in the days of KDE 3.5.8, on Slackware, it was a 
great info viewer, much better than Emacs or info itself; also a good web 
browser.  At that time, I had never heard of Gentoo.  Now all I have to read 
info is pinfo.

When KDE went to 4.x, I had a much more difficult time finding my way, even 
icewm was much better.

Now it's been I-forget-how-many years since I last used KDE.

I am still not a fan of info, one of the downsides of GNU/Linux.

Tom

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: problem dropping Python 2.7

[Thomas Mueller]

from Philip Webb:

> I suspect Fetchmail is somewhat neglected : is there an alternative ?
   
> Otherwise, thanks for the various responses.
> I now understand what's going on & will defer Python 2.7 till year-end.

I use mpop and msmtp.

I tried to set up fetchmail many years ago.  One deficiency is that it didn't 
allow downloading email to a file (mbox).

I used getmail, which is a Python script, many years ago after giving up on 
fetchmail.

I believe hplip, used for some HP printers including multifunction, depends on 
Python 2.7, something that needs to be corrected/updated. Or is that already 
done?

Tom

Re: [gentoo-user] why is writing to an async-mounted USB disk so slow?

[Thomas Mueller]

> Mick has a good point.  I have two or three of the cheaper USB external
> enclosures and only one of them was somewhat fast, it is USB 2.0 after
> all.  The other two logged a lot of errors in messages file about
> resetting something.  It was resetting so often that moving data to or
> from the drive was very slow.  I pitched the two bad ones, saved the one
> that works but bought a known good one, it has a fan and a display with
> the temps and fan RPMs etc on it.  It is a eSATA or USB enclosure.  I
> use the eSATA port and it is as fast as my internal drives.  If
> interested, I can find a link for one so you can see what it looks
> like.  I can also find the one that doesn't work just in case you have
> it.  The good one is black and the iffy ones are a silver color.  Point
> is, not all external enclosures work well.  USB ports in my experience
> really complicate matters. 

> I like USB for my camera and my little card reader, that I use to get
> deer pics off my trail camera.  Other than that, I try to avoid USB. 
> Oh, printers tend to work too. 

> Dale

I am curious about your USB and eSATA enclosure.

I have two such Sabrent enclosures, USB 2.0 and eSATA.

USB 2.0 works with IDE or SATA hard drive, while eSATA works only with SATA 
hard drive.

I also have a Micronet Fantom G-Force hard drive with USB 3.0 and eSATA 
connections.

Tom

Re: [gentoo-user] Upgrading old kernel

[Thomas Mueller]

On 4/15/20 1:40 PM, Andreas Stiasny wrote:
> On 15.04.20 17:50, Rich Freeman wrote:
 
>> Jumping from
>> 3.18 you're somewhat more likely to run into issues - your biggest
>> headache though will be dealing with the 30,000 prompts you get from
>> make oldconfig and making sure you set all the new options correctly.
 
> That's why I use make olddefconfig in such a case. This takes all the 
> old config values and uses the default for the new ones. If you know 
> that you need one or more of the new config options you can fine tune 
> them afterwards with make menuconfig.
 
 
> Andreas

james responded:

> Ah. never used olddefconfig, I'll give it a spin.

That raises the question, what if you have no kernel config, as may be the case 
if you are going to Gentoo for the first time, or are cross-compiling from 
FreeBSD or NetBSD?

I have tried with OpenADK (www.openadk.org), which got as far as successfully 
building cross-gcc some of the time, but never succeeded at building the kernel.

Is defconfig the best starting point?  One would want to maximize the 
probability of success building the kernel while retaining a functional system 
that would support vital hardware including ethernet, wi-fi, hard drives and 
USB, and I would need to be able to read a NetBSD or FreeBSD file system 
(UFS/FFSv1 or 2).  I use GPT, so there are no traditional now-deprecated BSD 
disklabels that Linux would not recognize.

If I just start with menuconfig, I could miss some vital parts.

OpenADK started with a minimal kernel config, maybe it was too minimal?

I have successfully compiled kernels and userlands on FreeBSD and NetBSD (no 
menuconfig, defconfig, etc; kernel configs start with a GENERIC config).  
NetBSD kernel config is much longer than FreeBSD kernel config but is dwarfed 
by Linux kernel config.

Tom

Re: [gentoo-user] slot conflict for the same package: how to add a USE flag?

[Thomas Mueller]

> from n952162:

> > And really unless you REALLY care about your CFLAGS you get 99% of the
> > benefit just sticking with the original stage3 and just rebuilding
> > anything you change USE flags for.  Over time it will all get rebuilt
> > anyway using your preferences.

> If I understand that correctly, using the stage3 tarball will give me a
> fully functioning system from binaries, but I can convert that in one
> fell swoop into sources by re-emerging everything, saving me the hassle
> of the bootstrap.=C2=A0 Of course, a trojan horse could be in that tarball
> and squirrel itself away ... but then, I'm not supporting Fort Knox,
> either...=C2=A0 that'll save some work ;-)

What do you refer to by "bootstrap"?

Do you mean setup.py in the portage tree?

Tom

Re: [gentoo-user] .fetchmailrc syntax error

[Thomas Mueller]

>   With getmail having been deprecated, I can't pull it in on my fresh
> install, so I *HAVE TO* go with fetchmail.  I tried following example at
> https://www.linode.com/docs/email/clients/using-fetchmail-to-retrieve-email/
> but it errors out at the first line...

> [i3][waltdnes][~] fetchmail 
> fetchmail:/home/waltdnes/.fetchmailrc:1: syntax error at option

>   Anybody have this working?  The following was pulled by getmail as
> "SimpleSSLretriever" on port 995.  Here's what I'm trying that's
> failing...

> poll mail.##.com protocol pop3 with option sslproto '': 
>  username "" password "" is "" here
>  mda "/usr/bin/procmail -m ~/.mailfilter/.procmailrc":

> Walter Dnes 

I didn't know getmail was deprecated, but haven't used getmail in a long time.

Maybe deprecated because of using Python 2.x which is deprecated?  Or did 
they/could they port to Python 3.x?

I use mpop and msmtp but am considering other possibilities including mutt.

I want to keep email in a format that does not limit use to one particular 
application.

I tried to use fetchmail long ago, the problem was that it would not allow 
downloading email direct to a file.

Tom

[gentoo-user] Re: meson build woes

[Thomas Mueller]

> >> - Unmerge all python and python-setuptools versions
   
> > No, don't do that!!!
> > Unmerging all python version will leave you with a non-working portage.

> Indeed -- I've done that.  It's not fun.  You certainly won't do it a
> second time.

> Grant

How did you recover?  You couldn't even use setup.py at that stage.

Did you have to download the python distfile if you didn't have it already, and 
build using configure and make directly?

Tom

[gentoo-user] Re: Simple replacement for "getmail"?

[Thomas Mueller]

> Would "fetchmail" work as a drop-in replacement for getmail here?  Are
> there any better, simpler solutions?

> Walter Dnes 

I generally use mpop, and msmtp to send mail.

I suppose you could use mutt; I also have Steffen Nurpmeso's s-mailx on the 
back of my mind, having used nail when I was using Slackware.

What put me off Slackware was their package manager completely ignoring 
dependencies; I was spoiled by NetBSD pkgsrc and FreeBSD ports.

Tom

Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo chroot with old glibc

[Thomas Mueller]

> > That's what I did: I found a 2017 stage3 with a still older glibc and
> > managed to upgrade to a 2020 gentoo while masking the last glibc
> > versions. That was tricky because I had to git-checkout intermediate
> > versions of the portage tree in order to deal with the EAPI changes but
> > I have a working chroot now. Thanks.

> That's the easy way to do it, yes.

> The hard way is to treat this as a cross-compilation problem and bootstrap
> your own stages from scratch. Instructions would be a bit longer...

> Andreas K. Hüttel

I have looked through crossdev.  Is that what it would take to cross-compile 
and bootstrap stages from scratch?

Could that be done from (instead of an old glibc) musl, uClibc, or FreeBSD or 
NetBSD?

Tom

[gentoo-user]

[Thomas Mueller]

> I got a message from him.  At least we will know he is OK.  All his
> machines was switched to Arch Linux and he wasn't using Gentoo anymore. 
> So, he unsubscribed and got active with Arch. 

> Miss the guy but glad he is OK and nothing happened to him. 

> Dale

> :-)  :-) 

When you mentioned the other Allan, I thought of Allan Gottlieb, who used to be 
on Gentoo list.

I think he was younger than me by two or three months?

I believe he is the same Allan Gottlieb I met years ago at The Rockefeller 
University when he was an (assistant? associate?) professor at CUNY in New York 
City.

I don't know if he is still living.

Regarding Arch, I believe Arch Linux is mainly binary-based, rather than 
source-based as is the case with Gentoo.

In May 2013, I joined Arch Linux emailing lists, asked the question about how 
an Arch system could be updated by building from source, as can be done with 
FreeBSD and NetBSD.

Moderator rejected that message, stating that if I looked through the wiki, I 
could find the answer inside ten minutes, which I couldn't. 

FreeBSD, NetBSD and Gentoo emailing lists are not so hostile!

Not wanting to feel so tongue-tied, I unsubscribed and became an infant 
mortality on the Arch emailing lists.

This was the first and only open-source OS or distro that I rejected on 
sociological grounds.

Tom

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Grub and multiple distros on LVM [was duplicate gentoo system ...]

[Thomas Mueller]

> I got a message from him.  At least we will know he is OK.  All his
> machines was switched to Arch Linux and he wasn't using Gentoo anymore. 
> So, he unsubscribed and got active with Arch. 

> Miss the guy but glad he is OK and nothing happened to him. 

> Dale

> :-)  :-) 

When I sent this message the first time, I inadvertently forgot the Subject: 
line, hence this repeat sending.  Sorry!

When you mentioned the other Allan, I thought of Allan Gottlieb, who used to be 
on Gentoo list.

I think he was younger than me by two or three months?

I believe he is the same Allan Gottlieb I met years ago at The Rockefeller 
University when he was an (assistant? associate?) professor at CUNY in New York 
City.

I don't know if he is still living.

Regarding Arch, I believe Arch Linux is mainly binary-based, rather than 
source-based as is the case with Gentoo.

In May 2013, I joined Arch Linux emailing lists, asked the question about how 
an Arch system could be updated by building from source, as can be done with 
FreeBSD and NetBSD.

Moderator rejected that message, stating that if I looked through the wiki, I 
could find the answer inside ten minutes, which I couldn't. 

FreeBSD, NetBSD and Gentoo emailing lists are not so hostile!

Not wanting to feel so tongue-tied, I unsubscribed and became an infant 
mortality on the Arch emailing lists.

This was the first and only open-source OS or distro that I rejected on 
sociological grounds.

Tom

Re: [gentoo-user] Is a USB-key-to-hard-drive-tap-dance-boot possible?

[Thomas Mueller]

> I think fdisk couldn't handle GPT at first.  I guess that's why gdisk
> came along.  Then I think the fdisk folks added support for GPT and
> since then it handles both.  That's my understanding of it.  If
> possible, you may want to check the time stamps on the info you have
> found.  I suspect the ones saying fdisk can't handle GPT are older posts
> or people who don't know it can now.  From the man page:


> fdisk is a dialog-driven program for creation and manipulation of
> partition tables.  It understands GPT, MBR, Sun, SGI and BSD partition
> tables.

> For gdisk:

> GPT fdisk (aka gdisk) is a text-mode menu-driven program for creation
> and manipulation of partition tables. It will automatically convert an
> old-style Master Boot Record (MBR) partition table or BSD disklabel
> stored without an MBR  carrier  partition  to  the  newer  Globally
> Unique Identifier (GUID) Partition Table (GPT) format, or will load a
> GUID partition table.


> Odds are, you can likely use either tool but if you are using GPT, you
> may as well use the tool made for that purpose.  I think a lot of it is
> very similar as far as options that do the same things in each program. 

> Also, there is also cfdisk and cgdisk too.  The interface is different. 
> You may want to try the proper one and see which you like.  I use c*disk
> tools myself.  You may prefer the others.  Same result I guess. 

> Hope that helps.

> Dale

I remember from when nobody ever heard of GPT, fdisk was used to partition a 
hard drive, long before the days of GPT or USB.

Then Rod Smith developed a gdisk to partition a drive using GPT; could even be 
used on a USB hard drive or USB stick.

Linux fdisk was much easier to use than FreeBSD or NetBSD versions of fdisk.

I don't know how newer versions of Linux fdisk would do with traditional BSD 
disklabels, which are not compatible between the various BSDs.

But now FreeBSD and NetBSD can run on GPT with no traditional BSD disklabel.

I am not familiar with Sun or SGI partition tables.

Tom

Re: [gentoo-user] duplicate gentoo system

[Thomas Mueller]

from the...@sys-concept.com:

> Manual approach might be confusing and prone to errors.
> I will try Gparted as you suggested but I was wondering if it will allow
> me to combine/join partitions.  On most modern system I think there is:
> 1 - boot partiton
> 2 - swap if needed
> 3 - root partition (where home is as well)

> My current layout is old one:
> dev/sda1  /boot   ext2
> /dev/sda3 /   ext4
> /dev/sda2 noneswap
> /dev/sda4 /home   ext4

> Is it possible with Gparted combine "/" and "home" partitions, or is it
> as simple as coping all file from "home" partition to "/" home folder.

I never used parted or gparted, but prefer to put "home" in a different 
partition.

That way, if you mess up or otherwise have to reformat the root partition, home 
is unaffected.

Also, you can access the same home partition from more than one OS installation 
that can read/write the file system, in this case ext2 or ext4.

Tom

Re: [gentoo-user] Console scrollback

[Thomas Mueller]

On Sat, 16 Jan 2021 12:01:48 +, Alan Mackenzie wrote:

> Hello, Gentoo.

> On Thu, Jan 14, 2021 at 16:06:38 +, Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> > On Wed, Jan 13, 2021 at 22:15:25 -, Grant Edwards wrote:
> > > On 2021-01-13, Alan Mackenzie  wrote:

> > > > I think bringing up a new Gentoo system absolutely requires working in
> > > > the console, certainly up to the point where X11 and a Window Manager
> > > > have been installed and debugged.

> > > I usually install Gentoo via ssh.

> > > The article I read about the removal of Linux console's backscrolling
> > > feature said it was mostly due to lack of a maintainer for that code,
> > > and that if somebody stepped forward to maintain it, it could be revived.

> > I'm doing my best to step forward, but I suspect that will be almost as
> > difficult as fixing the bugs in it.  ;-)

> And so it transpired.  I subscribed to the linux-kernel list for a short
> time, and offered my services in a post.  Not one single reply did I get.
> That list is not a friendly one.  It gets an almost unmanageable ~2000
> posts a day, the vast bulk of which are patches, fragmented into,
> perhaps, one diff hunk per post.

> > I'm disappointed that the decision to cut out this important feature was
> > taken without any serious attempt to find a maintainer.  I have the
> > impression (though I may be wrong), that the problem was talked about on
> > the linux kernel mailing list, but nobody there took it upon himself to
> > post on any of the more hard-core distributions' mailing lists, such as
> > gentoo's.

> I've come to realise that Linus Torvalds, who personally took the
> decision to remove the scrolling, doesn't care about users, and indeed
> regards them with disdain.  He cares about _customers_, and Linux's
> customers are RedHat, Suse, IBM, Intel, and the other HW manufacturers.
> RedHat customers don't use the console, therefore the console isn't
> important.  It's a bit like Microsoft's attitude towards users.

> Sure, Linus went through the motions of pretending to try to find a
> maintainer, but didn't put any serious effort into it.  He argued that
> "nobody" uses it anyway, therefore it is unimportant, which is an ironic
> echo of the argument that nobody uses Linux on a desktop PC.

> Even if the bugs came to be fixed, I doubt the scrolling would be allowed
> back into the kernel, for the above reasons.  Exactly what the bugs are
> in the scrolling code wasn't gone into on the list, despite more than one
> contributor asking.

> > > FWOW, if you really want backscrolling on the console, you can get
> > > that with screen, but doing so would drive me nuts, since I'd have to
> > > break all my fingers to stop them from typeing ctrl-A to move the
> > > start of a line. I've switched screen's meta-character a few times,
> > > but everytime I try that I find my fingers already have something else
> > > assigned to that control character (which I had forgotten about). It
> > > would be nice if I could print out my fingers' assignment table to
> > > find an unused control character, but that doesn't seem to be how it
> > > works.

> > Can one set up a "basic" screen which doesn't use a meta-character?

> I don't know what I'll be doing, long term.  For the moment, I'll be
> hanging onto the working kernel I've got, old though it may be (4.19.97).
> It might be possible (I'm not sure) to hook up a user space program to
> the keys - which would take care of the scrolling.
> This would obviously not work with early kernel messages, but would be
> better than nothing.  I had a look at the GNU screen source code
> yesterday to see how it managed such things, but it is very sparsely
> commented, and thus hard work to understand.

> Maybe I should just cut my losses, and convert to using one of the BSDs.

2000 posts per day on Linux kernel list would be more than unmanageable for me! 
 I wouldn't say "almost"!

Is Linus Torvalds' removal of console scrolling the reason why Scroll Lock does 
not work on the console with System Rescue CD or USB, while with FreeBSD and 
NetBSD, I can press Scroll Lock and scroll back?

I like that ability but don't think Linus Torvalds is listening or reading this.

Further, with System Rescue console, the lines/text go only partway down.

Using screen, now at v4.8, means having to remember a lot of key functions, you 
need a separate reference screen to look them up.

There is also tmux, which is part of the base system in NetBSD but not FreeBSD.

If Linus cared about his users, he could make the kernel headers more 
user-friendly, installing kernel headers should not be any more complicated 
than copying or downloading.

Console scrolling is especially useful with an OS or distro that is built from 
the ground up, like Gentoo, Void or Arch, as opposed to being installed all at 
once.

If more Linux users would go to and try NetBSD or FreeBSD, those OSes would 
have more users, more ideas, more ability to improve.

You can even 

Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo chroot with old glibc

[Thomas Mueller]

> > That's what I did: I found a 2017 stage3 with a still older glibc and
> > managed to upgrade to a 2020 gentoo while masking the last glibc
> > versions. That was tricky because I had to git-checkout intermediate
> > versions of the portage tree in order to deal with the EAPI changes but
> > I have a working chroot now. Thanks.

> That's the easy way to do it, yes.

> The hard way is to treat this as a cross-compilation problem and bootstrap
> your own stages from scratch. Instructions would be a bit longer...

> Andreas K. Hüttel

I have looked through crossdev.  Is that what it would take to cross-compile 
and bootstrap stages from scratch?

Could that be done from (instead of an old glibc) musl, uClibc, or FreeBSD or 
NetBSD?

Tom

Re: [gentoo-user] [SOLVED] fsck.fat 4.1 - File system couldn't be fixed [SOLVED]

[Thomas Mueller]

Excerpt from Michael:

> Right, on UEFI MoBos the ESP partition used by the UEFI firmware to locate 
> and 
> run *.EFI executables must be FAT32.  Such .EFI executables stored on the ESP 
> may be OS boot managers/loaders, or other UEFI compatible applications.  The 
> boot manager loaded by UEFI is then left to its own mechanisms (boot loader 
> and fs drivers) to load whatever fs the kernel image resides on.

Is it necessary for the ESP to be FAT32, as opposed to FAT16 or FAT12?

What happens if the ESP is formatted FAT12 or FAT16?

In some cases, ESP might be small enough that FAT32 would not be appropriate, 
especially when there is only one OS installation on the disk.

That would be the case on many MS-Windows or Mac computers, and also other OSes 
when installed on a USB stick.

Tom

[gentoo-user] Building kernel without messing the kernel source tree

[Thomas Mueller]

I am looking to compile the Linux kernel and send the work and output to 
another directory, thereby leaving the kernel source tree directory clean.

If I build gcc or other software using configure script, I can go to another 
directory and run, for instance, ~/builds/gcc-8.3.0/configure --prefix=/usr ... 
without dirtying the source directory.

This would likely be a cross-compile from NetBSD or FreeBSD. 

Could I do make -C ~/builds/linux-4.19.105 ARCH=x86_64 
CROSS_COMPILE=x86_64-linux-musl- ... ?

That would be my first thought, seeking to avoid having to clean after every 
run, successful or unsuccessful.  Avoid the worry about whether clean, 
distclean or mrproper work.

I would like to compile for x86_64 and also i486 (or would that be i386)?

Is this a question for gentoo-user or gentoo-dev?

The "make" I use is built from GNU source, not /usr/bin/make as is found on 
NetBSD or FreeBSD. 

Tom

[gentoo-user] Re: Building kernel without messing the kernel source tree

[Thomas Mueller]

from netfab at Fri, 14 May 2021 11:59:37 +0200:

> Le 14/05/21 à 11:47, Thomas Mueller a tapoté : 
> > I am looking to compile the Linux kernel and send the work and output
> > to another directory, thereby leaving the kernel source tree
> > directory clean.

> You should have a look to KBUILD_OUTPUT environment variable.

> https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/kbuild/kbuild.html#kbuild-output

I just looked in Documentation/kbuild/kbuild.txt, and the information was right 
there.

I should have noticed it, even though it was mixed in with other environment 
variables.

Thanks for pointing it out!

Tom

[gentoo-user] Can Portage be used with FreeBSD or NetBSD?

[Thomas Mueller]

Can Portage be used as a package manager with anything other than Linux? 

I like some features of Portage; think it might be better than FreeBSD ports or 
NetBSD pkgsrc, or is just a case of the grass being greener on the other side?

I like the option "--with-bdeps=y", wish FreeBSD's synth and poudriere had that 
option.

But I don't want to use Portage where it would be incompatible.

Portage's assumption of location of python binary and /bin/bash are contrary to 
anything non-Linux, or even a Linux that uses another shell such as dash or 
mksh.

Tom

[gentoo-user] RE: [gentoo-user] Encrypted hard drives on LVM and urgent power shutdowns.

[Thomas Mueller]

from Laurence Perkins:

> Some of the higher-end UPS models do have diagnostic modes for simulating 
> various events to make sure the connected systems behave as desired.  A very 
> few of the consumer-grade ones do as well.  But how to do it is model 
> specific,
> so you'll have to dig up the documentation.

> Commercial-grade units also often have a DC port on the back so you can plug 
> in larger battery banks and/or hotswap battery banks during extended outages.

> If you want an arbitrarily large battery bank, just get a decent power 
> inverter heavy enough to run your load and a battery float charger that can 
> push enough amps to keep up, then put as big a stack of batteries as you like
> between the two.  The nicer inverters will even warn you when the batteries 
> get low.

> You can often get used batteries from the local automotive shop for just the 
> core charge.  Just because it can't provide 600 amps to start a car any more 
> doesn't mean it can't provide 60 to run your computers.  Obviously they'll
> require more regular maintenance, but it's hard to beat the price.

> LMP 

How would you physically connect the automotive battery to the computer, and 
would you need the shell of the old UPS?

I have an old Tripp-Lite UPS, batteries are dead and no longer rechargeable.

Would you connect only the computer, or would you connect the monitor as well?  
Would you connect networking equipment?

Tom