Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
El sáb, 31-03-2012 a las 17:33 -0700, Zac Medico escribió: On 03/31/2012 04:25 PM, Walter Dnes wrote: On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 10:42:50AM -0700, Zac Medico wrote On 03/31/2012 06:34 AM, Pacho Ramos wrote: About the wiki page, I can only document reiserfs+tail usage as it's the one I use and I know, about other alternatives like using squashfs, loop mount... I cannot promise anything as I simply don't know how to set them. Squashfs is really simple to use: mksquashfs /usr/portage portage.squashfs mount -o loop portage.squashfs /usr/portage Don't the space-saving filesystems (squashfs, reiserfs-with-tail, etc) run more slowly due to their extra finicky steps to save space? If you really want to save a gigabyte or 2, run eclean -d distfiles and localepurge after every emerge update. I've also cobbled together my own autodepclean script that check for, and optionally unmerges unneeded stuff that was pulled in as a dependancy of a package that has since been removed. Well, in this case squashfs is more about improving access time than saving space. You end up with the whole tree stored in a mostly contiguous chunk of disk space, which minimizes seek time. Would be possible to generate and provide squashed files at the same time tarballs with portage tree snapshots are generated? mksquashfs can take a lot of resources depending on the machine, but providing the squashed images would still benefit people allowing them to download and mount them
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
Dnia 2013-07-21, o godz. 13:42:17 Pacho Ramos pa...@gentoo.org napisał(a): El sáb, 31-03-2012 a las 17:33 -0700, Zac Medico escribió: On 03/31/2012 04:25 PM, Walter Dnes wrote: On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 10:42:50AM -0700, Zac Medico wrote On 03/31/2012 06:34 AM, Pacho Ramos wrote: About the wiki page, I can only document reiserfs+tail usage as it's the one I use and I know, about other alternatives like using squashfs, loop mount... I cannot promise anything as I simply don't know how to set them. Squashfs is really simple to use: mksquashfs /usr/portage portage.squashfs mount -o loop portage.squashfs /usr/portage Don't the space-saving filesystems (squashfs, reiserfs-with-tail, etc) run more slowly due to their extra finicky steps to save space? If you really want to save a gigabyte or 2, run eclean -d distfiles and localepurge after every emerge update. I've also cobbled together my own autodepclean script that check for, and optionally unmerges unneeded stuff that was pulled in as a dependancy of a package that has since been removed. Well, in this case squashfs is more about improving access time than saving space. You end up with the whole tree stored in a mostly contiguous chunk of disk space, which minimizes seek time. Would be possible to generate and provide squashed files at the same time tarballs with portage tree snapshots are generated? mksquashfs can take a lot of resources depending on the machine, but providing the squashed images would still benefit people allowing them to download and mount them I'm experimenting with squashfs lately and here's a few notes: 1. I didn't find a good way of generating incremental images with squashfs itself. I didn't try tools like diffball (those that were used in emerge-delta-webrsync) but I recall they were very slow (you'd have to use 56K modem to get them faster than rsync) and I doubt they'll fit squashfs specifics. 2. squashfs is best used with union filesystem like aufs3. However, that basically requires patching the kernel since FUSE-based union filesystems simply don't work. a) unionfs-fuse doesn't support replacing files from read-only branch, b) funinonfs gets broken with rsync somehow. I haven't tested le ol' unionfs, but aufs3 I get working great. 3. squashfs+aufs3 really benefits from '--omit-dir-times' rsync option. Otherwise, it recreates the whole directory structure on each rsync. This also causes much less output. We should think about making this the default. 4. 'emerge --sync' is ultra-fast with this combo. very big sync goes in less than a minute. 5. I have doubts about 'emerge -1vDtu @world' speed. It is very subjective feeling but I feel like reiserfs was actually faster in this regard. However, space savings would surely benefit our users. 6. if we're to do squahfs+aufs3, we need a clean dir structure for all of it, including squashfs files, intermediate mounts and r/w branches. 7. we could probably get incremential squashfs+aufs3 through squashing old r/w branches and adding new ones on top of them. But considering the 'emerge --sync' speed gain, I don't know if this is really worth the effort, and if increase in branches wouldn't make it slow. -- Best regards, Michał Górny signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
El dom, 21-07-2013 a las 13:57 +0200, Michał Górny escribió: [...] 5. I have doubts about 'emerge -1vDtu @world' speed. It is very subjective feeling but I feel like reiserfs was actually faster in this regard. However, space savings would surely benefit our users. I also feel it faster (or, at least, not slower) with reiserfs, but going from ~300 MB to 79. Not sure if it would benefit from putting squashed image in a different filesystem (it was placed in /root, that is ext4 in my case). Maybe it would be faster if generated image was put in /var/tmp/portage (that is tmpfs in my case) But I am testing it with plain squashfs (without write support)
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
Dnia 2013-07-21, o godz. 14:06:12 Pacho Ramos pa...@gentoo.org napisał(a): El dom, 21-07-2013 a las 13:57 +0200, Michał Górny escribió: [...] 5. I have doubts about 'emerge -1vDtu @world' speed. It is very subjective feeling but I feel like reiserfs was actually faster in this regard. However, space savings would surely benefit our users. I also feel it faster (or, at least, not slower) with reiserfs, but going from ~300 MB to 79. Not sure if it would benefit from putting squashed image in a different filesystem (it was placed in /root, that is ext4 in my case). Maybe it would be faster if generated image was put in /var/tmp/portage (that is tmpfs in my case) Using different block size may make a difference. I suspect that most important reason for the slowdown is due to random accesses. -- Best regards, Michał Górny signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA256 On 07/21/2013 01:42 PM, Pacho Ramos wrote: Would be possible to generate and provide squashed files at the same time tarballs with portage tree snapshots are generated? mksquashfs can take a lot of resources depending on the machine, but providing the squashed images would still benefit people allowing them to download and mount them I've establish a cron job on my server to generate gzip and xz squashed snapshots. I sync distfiles from utwente at 6:05 and generate the squashfs at 6:35 after verifying the gpg signatures. There's a 10,5h lag between snapshots and squashfs files - we could improve if I'm allowed to sync against master rsync/dinstfiles. [1] http://lore.xmw.de/gentoo/genberry/snapshots/ - -- Michael Weber Gentoo Developer web: https://xmw.de/ mailto: Michael Weber x...@gentoo.org -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v2.0.20 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ iF4EAREIAAYFAlHr744ACgkQknrdDGLu8JAuNAD/YB8f+Pee7FNkjnNfnjaCYyMM kdYw2JnbGyH4Srvqlj8A/A/yC37W7MFOZSESLFipkvG01zQ6EvTM0576dC1Z9kdI =lBLB -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
On 7/21/13 4:26 PM, Michael Weber wrote: On 07/21/2013 01:42 PM, Pacho Ramos wrote: Would be possible to generate and provide squashed files at the same time tarballs with portage tree snapshots are generated? mksquashfs can take a lot of resources depending on the machine, but providing the squashed images would still benefit people allowing them to download and mount them I've establish a cron job on my server to generate gzip and xz squashed snapshots. I sync distfiles from utwente at 6:05 and generate the squashfs at 6:35 after verifying the gpg signatures. There's a 10,5h lag between snapshots and squashfs files - we could improve if I'm allowed to sync against master rsync/dinstfiles. [1] http://lore.xmw.de/gentoo/genberry/snapshots/ I am creating them as well. Perhaps we can bundle the effort. What I also found out that using zsync is quite efficient with squashfs images. I normally don't sync more then 20-30% of the image. Justin signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
El dom, 21-07-2013 a las 16:46 +0200, justin escribió: On 7/21/13 4:26 PM, Michael Weber wrote: On 07/21/2013 01:42 PM, Pacho Ramos wrote: Would be possible to generate and provide squashed files at the same time tarballs with portage tree snapshots are generated? mksquashfs can take a lot of resources depending on the machine, but providing the squashed images would still benefit people allowing them to download and mount them I've establish a cron job on my server to generate gzip and xz squashed snapshots. I sync distfiles from utwente at 6:05 and generate the squashfs at 6:35 after verifying the gpg signatures. There's a 10,5h lag between snapshots and squashfs files - we could improve if I'm allowed to sync against master rsync/dinstfiles. [1] http://lore.xmw.de/gentoo/genberry/snapshots/ I am creating them as well. Perhaps we can bundle the effort. What I also found out that using zsync is quite efficient with squashfs images. I normally don't sync more then 20-30% of the image. Justin Maybe infra could be contacted to try to share the effort (and also offer the snapshot in a bit more official way, I mean, similar to tarballs with snapshots)
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
On 07/21/2013 04:57 AM, Michał Górny wrote: a) unionfs-fuse doesn't support replacing files from read-only branch, Maybe you've got some kind of configuration problem (did you forget to enable the cow option?), because unionfs-fuse seems to work fine for me. -- Thanks, Zac
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
Dnia 2013-07-21, o godz. 11:00:46 Zac Medico zmed...@gentoo.org napisał(a): On 07/21/2013 04:57 AM, Michał Górny wrote: a) unionfs-fuse doesn't support replacing files from read-only branch, Maybe you've got some kind of configuration problem (did you forget to enable the cow option?), because unionfs-fuse seems to work fine for me. It is possible. -- Best regards, Michał Górny signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
El sáb, 31-03-2012 a las 19:25 -0400, Walter Dnes escribió: On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 10:42:50AM -0700, Zac Medico wrote On 03/31/2012 06:34 AM, Pacho Ramos wrote: About the wiki page, I can only document reiserfs+tail usage as it's the one I use and I know, about other alternatives like using squashfs, loop mount... I cannot promise anything as I simply don't know how to set them. Squashfs is really simple to use: mksquashfs /usr/portage portage.squashfs mount -o loop portage.squashfs /usr/portage Don't the space-saving filesystems (squashfs, reiserfs-with-tail, etc) run more slowly due to their extra finicky steps to save space? If you really want to save a gigabyte or 2, run eclean -d distfiles and localepurge after every emerge update. I've also cobbled together my own autodepclean script that check for, and optionally unmerges unneeded stuff that was pulled in as a dependancy of a package that has since been removed. I have distfiles on a completely different dir and, using different partition for ages for portage tree hasn't show that space saving problems signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 10:06:18AM +0200, Pacho Ramos wrote: Looks then that there are several alternatives for portage tree, then, maybe the option would be to add a note to Gentoo Handbook explaining the cons of having portage tree on a standard partition and, then, put a link to a wiki page (for example) where all this alternatives are explained. What do you think about this approach? I don't like the cons approach, as it gives the impression that users are pushed into a negative solution, whereas the current situation works just fine for almost all users. The approach for a different partition is for performance reasons (which most users don't have any negative feelings about) and as such might be read as a ricer approach. But perhaps it would be more lean to just start with a wiki page (or document) for alternative / better partitioning layouts, and when that has stabilized then we can talk about Handbook integration, not? Wkr, Sven Vermeulen
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 08:44:02AM +, Sven Vermeulen wrote: On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 10:06:18AM +0200, Pacho Ramos wrote: Looks then that there are several alternatives for portage tree, then, maybe the option would be to add a note to Gentoo Handbook explaining the cons of having portage tree on a standard partition and, then, put a link to a wiki page (for example) where all this alternatives are explained. What do you think about this approach? I don't like the cons approach, as it gives the impression that users are pushed into a negative solution, whereas the current situation works just fine for almost all users. The approach for a different partition is for performance reasons (which most users don't have any negative feelings about) and as such might be read as a ricer approach. For modern hardware w/ a modern kernel (or at least =2.6.38 for the dcache resolution optimizations)... does anyone actually have real performance stats for this? If the notion is a seperate FS, one tailored to the portage tree's usage models (tail packing for example), sure, grok that although I question how much people really are getting out of it. In the past, situation definitely differed- I'm just wondering if the gain is actually worth debating it, rather than just ignoring it (or sticking it in a foot note for people trying to use durons). ~harring
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
El sáb, 31-03-2012 a las 08:44 +, Sven Vermeulen escribió: On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 10:06:18AM +0200, Pacho Ramos wrote: Looks then that there are several alternatives for portage tree, then, maybe the option would be to add a note to Gentoo Handbook explaining the cons of having portage tree on a standard partition and, then, put a link to a wiki page (for example) where all this alternatives are explained. What do you think about this approach? I don't like the cons approach, as it gives the impression that users are pushed into a negative solution, whereas the current situation works just fine for almost all users. The approach for a different partition is for performance reasons (which most users don't have any negative feelings about) and as such might be read as a ricer approach. But perhaps it would be more lean to just start with a wiki page (or document) for alternative / better partitioning layouts, and when that has stabilized then we can talk about Handbook integration, not? Wkr, Sven Vermeulen Current solution works but causes a really slow portage tree when ages passes (I still have a machine with tree in / and is really really slow but, since it's used by my father at his job, I am unable to solve it :( ). And not, I don't think it's a ricer approach at all, it's for performance and for save a lot of disk space too. About the wiki page, I can only document reiserfs+tail usage as it's the one I use and I know, about other alternatives like using squashfs, loop mount... I cannot promise anything as I simply don't know how to set them. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
El sáb, 31-03-2012 a las 02:35 -0700, Brian Harring escribió: On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 08:44:02AM +, Sven Vermeulen wrote: On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 10:06:18AM +0200, Pacho Ramos wrote: Looks then that there are several alternatives for portage tree, then, maybe the option would be to add a note to Gentoo Handbook explaining the cons of having portage tree on a standard partition and, then, put a link to a wiki page (for example) where all this alternatives are explained. What do you think about this approach? I don't like the cons approach, as it gives the impression that users are pushed into a negative solution, whereas the current situation works just fine for almost all users. The approach for a different partition is for performance reasons (which most users don't have any negative feelings about) and as such might be read as a ricer approach. For modern hardware w/ a modern kernel (or at least =2.6.38 for the dcache resolution optimizations)... does anyone actually have real performance stats for this? If the notion is a seperate FS, one tailored to the portage tree's usage models (tail packing for example), sure, grok that although I question how much people really are getting out of it. In the past, situation definitely differed- I'm just wondering if the gain is actually worth debating it, rather than just ignoring it (or sticking it in a foot note for people trying to use durons). ~harring I did performance stats one year ago or so, but I don't have time to redo all of them to simply confirm how behave now with recent kernel (in that time, I checked reiserfs, ext2 with multiple block sizes). Regarding disk space usage, it's still valid today for sure signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
On 03/31/2012 06:34 AM, Pacho Ramos wrote: About the wiki page, I can only document reiserfs+tail usage as it's the one I use and I know, about other alternatives like using squashfs, loop mount... I cannot promise anything as I simply don't know how to set them. Squashfs is really simple to use: mksquashfs /usr/portage portage.squashfs mount -o loop portage.squashfs /usr/portage -- Thanks, Zac
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 10:42:50AM -0700, Zac Medico wrote On 03/31/2012 06:34 AM, Pacho Ramos wrote: About the wiki page, I can only document reiserfs+tail usage as it's the one I use and I know, about other alternatives like using squashfs, loop mount... I cannot promise anything as I simply don't know how to set them. Squashfs is really simple to use: mksquashfs /usr/portage portage.squashfs mount -o loop portage.squashfs /usr/portage Don't the space-saving filesystems (squashfs, reiserfs-with-tail, etc) run more slowly due to their extra finicky steps to save space? If you really want to save a gigabyte or 2, run eclean -d distfiles and localepurge after every emerge update. I've also cobbled together my own autodepclean script that check for, and optionally unmerges unneeded stuff that was pulled in as a dependancy of a package that has since been removed. -- Walter Dnes waltd...@waltdnes.org
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
On 03/31/2012 04:25 PM, Walter Dnes wrote: On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 10:42:50AM -0700, Zac Medico wrote On 03/31/2012 06:34 AM, Pacho Ramos wrote: About the wiki page, I can only document reiserfs+tail usage as it's the one I use and I know, about other alternatives like using squashfs, loop mount... I cannot promise anything as I simply don't know how to set them. Squashfs is really simple to use: mksquashfs /usr/portage portage.squashfs mount -o loop portage.squashfs /usr/portage Don't the space-saving filesystems (squashfs, reiserfs-with-tail, etc) run more slowly due to their extra finicky steps to save space? If you really want to save a gigabyte or 2, run eclean -d distfiles and localepurge after every emerge update. I've also cobbled together my own autodepclean script that check for, and optionally unmerges unneeded stuff that was pulled in as a dependancy of a package that has since been removed. Well, in this case squashfs is more about improving access time than saving space. You end up with the whole tree stored in a mostly contiguous chunk of disk space, which minimizes seek time. -- Thanks, Zac
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
Will start to reply but will take some time as I don't have much this days :( El mar, 27-03-2012 a las 20:01 +0200, Sven Vermeulen escribió: On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 07:49:00PM +0200, Pacho Ramos wrote: I am a bit surprised handbook still doesn't suggest people to create a separate partition for /usr/portage tree. I remember my first Gentoo systems had it inside / and that lead to a lot of fragmentation, much slower emerge -pvuDN world (I benchmarked it when I changed my partitioning scheme to put /usr/portage) separate and a lot of disk space lost (I remember portage tree reached around 3 GB of disk space while I am now running with 300MB) Could handbook suggest people to put /usr/portage on a different partition then? The only doubt I have is what filesystem would be better for it, in my case I am using reiserfs with tail enabled, but maybe you have other different setups. To be honest, I don't think it is wise to describe it in the Gentoo Handbook just yet. I don't mind having it documented elsewhere, but the separate partition is not mandatory for getting Gentoo up and running. The instructions currently also just give an example partition layout and tell users that different layouts are perfectly possible. We need to take into consideration what is needed (must) for a Gentoo installation, what is seriously recommended (should), what is nice to have (could), etc. And for me, having a separate /usr/portage is a nice-to-have imo. Wkr, Sven Vermeulen My idea is to add a comment about this because it's not obvious having portage tree in a common partition with the rest of the system has some problems like high fragmentation, waste of disk space and also performance problems. I discovered it empirically when trying to get emerge -pvuDN world a bit faster. Also, once a partition scheme is chosen when installing Gentoo at first time, it's sometimes difficult to modify (for example, I was luck in my cases because I had big swap partitions I shrinked a bit for portage tree. You can probably see it's nice-to-have (as partition scheme that is shown in handbook showing partitions for /var, /home...), but it's better than letting people put their portage trees in a standard partition with the rest of the system signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
El mar, 27-03-2012 a las 14:34 -0400, Alexandre Rostovtsev escribió: On Tue, 2012-03-27 at 20:01 +0200, Sven Vermeulen wrote: On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 07:49:00PM +0200, Pacho Ramos wrote: I am a bit surprised handbook still doesn't suggest people to create a separate partition for /usr/portage tree. I remember my first Gentoo systems had it inside / and that lead to a lot of fragmentation, much slower emerge -pvuDN world (I benchmarked it when I changed my partitioning scheme to put /usr/portage) separate and a lot of disk space lost (I remember portage tree reached around 3 GB of disk space while I am now running with 300MB) Could handbook suggest people to put /usr/portage on a different partition then? The only doubt I have is what filesystem would be better for it, in my case I am using reiserfs with tail enabled, but maybe you have other different setups. To be honest, I don't think it is wise to describe it in the Gentoo Handbook just yet. I don't mind having it documented elsewhere, but the separate partition is not mandatory for getting Gentoo up and running. The instructions currently also just give an example partition layout and tell users that different layouts are perfectly possible. We need to take into consideration what is needed (must) for a Gentoo installation, what is seriously recommended (should), what is nice to have (could), etc. And for me, having a separate /usr/portage is a nice-to-have imo. [...] 2. The handbook should mention that a separate small /usr/portage partition can noticeably improve performance for users with a rotational hard drive, and that it's not needed for solid-state drives. It should also mention that using Gentoo with a separate /usr/portage partition will require some additional configuration (such as changing DISTDIR and PKGDIR to avoid running out of space). -Alexandre. This would be nice :D signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
El mar, 27-03-2012 a las 14:53 -0400, Ian Stakenvicius escribió: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA256 On 27/03/12 02:47 PM, Rich Freeman wrote: On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 2:34 PM, Alexandre Rostovtsev tetrom...@gentoo.org The partitioning scheme is something that the user needs to decide on *before* getting Gentoo up and running. After the user had finished installing the operating system, it's too late to inform him about the advantages of a separate /usr/portage. Yes and no (if you have free space, you could easily move /usr/portage - some other changes are harder). However, you could extend this line of argument to raid, lvm, and even stuff like the use of systemd or an alternative package manager. All of those things are much easier to implement if you just start out with them. I'm all for creating a wiki to talk about some alternative options. Perhaps even link to it at the start of the handbook in the intro (if you're not in a rush and want to read about more advanced configurations, check out ...). However, I tend to agree that the handbook should be a nearly-foolproof no-frills Gentoo installation. You know, we have Code Listing 2.1: Filesystem Example in Section 4, we could always adjust that to have a /usr/portage partition in it (take a bit of space away from /home, or something) It doesn't recommend/require anything, but when users see it they'll think about it. This would be a good option, but I would anyway add a note warning people about the cons of having portage tree in a normal partition with the rest of the system, otherwise people could simply ignore that code listing because they could thing it's there simply on a try to get all system splitted ;) (for example, I don't usually have a separate partition for all what is listed there, only /, /home and /usr/portage) signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
El mar, 27-03-2012 a las 16:05 -0400, Alec Moskvin escribió: On Tuesday 27 March 2012 14:34:03, Alexandre Rostovtsev wrote: On Tue, 2012-03-27 at 20:01 +0200, Sven Vermeulen wrote: On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 07:49:00PM +0200, Pacho Ramos wrote: I am a bit surprised handbook still doesn't suggest people to create a separate partition for /usr/portage tree. I remember my first Gentoo systems had it inside / and that lead to a lot of fragmentation, much slower emerge -pvuDN world (I benchmarked it when I changed my partitioning scheme to put /usr/portage) separate and a lot of disk space lost (I remember portage tree reached around 3 GB of disk space while I am now running with 300MB) Could handbook suggest people to put /usr/portage on a different partition then? The only doubt I have is what filesystem would be better for it, in my case I am using reiserfs with tail enabled, but maybe you have other different setups. To be honest, I don't think it is wise to describe it in the Gentoo Handbook just yet. I don't mind having it documented elsewhere, but the separate partition is not mandatory for getting Gentoo up and running. The instructions currently also just give an example partition layout and tell users that different layouts are perfectly possible. We need to take into consideration what is needed (must) for a Gentoo installation, what is seriously recommended (should), what is nice to have (could), etc. And for me, having a separate /usr/portage is a nice-to-have imo. The partitioning scheme is something that the user needs to decide on *before* getting Gentoo up and running. After the user had finished installing the operating system, it's too late to inform him about the advantages of a separate /usr/portage. It does not have to be a separate *physical* partition. It could be set up as a loop device without any real downsides: /usr/portage/tree.ext4/usr/portage/tree ext4loop,noatime 0 0 An advantage is that it can be easily resized if necessary. IMHO, chapter 4 of the handbook needs the following changes: 1. ext4, not ext3, needs to be recommended as the default filesystem. We have kernel 3.2 marked stable, there is no need to keep talking about ext4 as if it's something experimental. 2. The handbook should mention that a separate small /usr/portage partition can noticeably improve performance for users with a rotational hard drive, and that it's not needed for solid-state drives. It should also mention that using Gentoo with a separate /usr/portage partition will require some additional configuration (such as changing DISTDIR and PKGDIR to avoid running out of space). -Alexandre. (I think this last reply can complete my replies to this thread for now :)) Looks then that there are several alternatives for portage tree, then, maybe the option would be to add a note to Gentoo Handbook explaining the cons of having portage tree on a standard partition and, then, put a link to a wiki page (for example) where all this alternatives are explained. What do you think about this approach? signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
On Tue, 2012-03-27 at 19:16 +0100, Ciaran McCreesh wrote: But that's ok, because extensive studies have shown that the only possible reasons for putting /usr/portage on its own partition are historical, since everyone has an SSD now. Yeah, right. Since I must be the only one out there that doesn't yet have an SSD, you'll give me (and anyone else that still doesn't) one? -- Brian Dolbec dol...@gentoo.org signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 3:16 AM, Brian Dolbec dol...@gentoo.org wrote: On Tue, 2012-03-27 at 19:16 +0100, Ciaran McCreesh wrote: But that's ok, because extensive studies have shown that the only possible reasons for putting /usr/portage on its own partition are historical, since everyone has an SSD now. Yeah, right. Since I must be the only one out there that doesn't yet have an SSD, you'll give me (and anyone else that still doesn't) one? Woosh...
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
On 28 March 2012 20:16, Brian Dolbec dol...@gentoo.org wrote: On Tue, 2012-03-27 at 19:16 +0100, Ciaran McCreesh wrote: But that's ok, because extensive studies have shown that the only possible reasons for putting /usr/portage on its own partition are historical, since everyone has an SSD now. Yeah, right. Since I must be the only one out there that doesn't yet have an SSD, you'll give me (and anyone else that still doesn't) one? -- Brian Dolbec dol...@gentoo.org https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcasm Unfortunately, when on the internet, this often transmutes into : https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dick [image: Inline images 1] Sorry. -- Kent perl -e print substr( \edrgmaM SPA NOcomil.ic\\@tfrken\, \$_ * 3, 3 ) for ( 9,8,0,7,1,6,5,4,3,2 ); http://kent-fredric.fox.geek.nz
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
On 03/28/12 03:16, Brian Dolbec wrote: On Tue, 2012-03-27 at 19:16 +0100, Ciaran McCreesh wrote: But that's ok, because extensive studies have shown that the only possible reasons for putting /usr/portage on its own partition are historical, since everyone has an SSD now. Yeah, right. Since I must be the only one out there that doesn't yet have an SSD, you'll give me (and anyone else that still doesn't) one? In response to the people who don't like what Brian had to say, I would like to say that we can't start making assumptions about what hardware people have and ignore anyone who does not fit those assumptions. I support Brian on this. If you guys want to have documentation on more advanced disk tricks, make a separate handbook that specializes in partitioning and filesystems. The main handbook can include a reference to it for advanced users. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 10:59 AM, Richard Yao r...@cs.stonybrook.edu wrote: On 03/28/12 03:16, Brian Dolbec wrote: On Tue, 2012-03-27 at 19:16 +0100, Ciaran McCreesh wrote: But that's ok, because extensive studies have shown that the only possible reasons for putting /usr/portage on its own partition are historical, since everyone has an SSD now. Yeah, right. Since I must be the only one out there that doesn't yet have an SSD, you'll give me (and anyone else that still doesn't) one? In response to the people who don't like what Brian had to say, I would like to say that we can't start making assumptions about what hardware people have and ignore anyone who does not fit those assumptions. I support Brian on this. If you guys want to have documentation on more advanced disk tricks, make a separate handbook that specializes in partitioning and filesystems. The main handbook can include a reference to it for advanced users. You seem to have missed it too, so let's someone just spell it out before this goes farther. Ciaran was mocking the argument that's given by proponents of merging / into /usr. He *doesn't* actually feel like that. So let's stop this.
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 10:59 AM, Richard Yao r...@cs.stonybrook.edu wrote: On 03/28/12 03:16, Brian Dolbec wrote: On Tue, 2012-03-27 at 19:16 +0100, Ciaran McCreesh wrote: But that's ok, because extensive studies have shown that the only possible reasons for putting /usr/portage on its own partition are historical, since everyone has an SSD now. Yeah, right. Since I must be the only one out there that doesn't yet have an SSD, you'll give me (and anyone else that still doesn't) one? In response to the people who don't like what Brian had to say, I would like to say that we can't start making assumptions about what hardware people have and ignore anyone who does not fit those assumptions. Nobody doesn't like what Brian had to say. Most everybody around here including Ciaran likely agrees with him. The issue is that Ciaran said the complete opposite of what he was trying to communicate (sarcasm), and that likely due to language/culture/etc that might not have been clear to somebody who isn't a native English speaker in a western culture. The allusion was clearly to the larger udev/systemd/usr issues and the point he was making is that many of these boil down to disagreements about what use cases you consider important. So, just take everything Ciaran said in that particular post, assume he meant the exact opposite, and now you'll see where he is coming from. Yes, I do agree that sarcasm tends to cause problems on international email lists, but his post did at least make me smile. :) Rich
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
On 03/28/2012 03:16, Brian Dolbec wrote: On Tue, 2012-03-27 at 19:16 +0100, Ciaran McCreesh wrote: But that's ok, because extensive studies have shown that the only possible reasons for putting /usr/portage on its own partition are historical, since everyone has an SSD now. Yeah, right. Since I must be the only one out there that doesn't yet have an SSD, you'll give me (and anyone else that still doesn't) one? Does this mean that those of us who still use old mechanical disks are like a bunch of steampunk fans? Come to think of it, a disk drive that blew steam and made a whistling sound without totally destroying the disk would be pretty awesome... -- Joshua Kinard Gentoo/MIPS ku...@gentoo.org 4096R/D25D95E3 2011-03-28 The past tempts us, the present confuses us, the future frightens us. And our lives slip away, moment by moment, lost in that vast, terrible in-between. --Emperor Turhan, Centauri Republic signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
On Wed, 2012-03-28 at 11:37 -0400, Rich Freeman wrote: On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 10:59 AM, Richard Yao r...@cs.stonybrook.edu wrote: On 03/28/12 03:16, Brian Dolbec wrote: On Tue, 2012-03-27 at 19:16 +0100, Ciaran McCreesh wrote: But that's ok, because extensive studies have shown that the only possible reasons for putting /usr/portage on its own partition are historical, since everyone has an SSD now. Yeah, right. Since I must be the only one out there that doesn't yet have an SSD, you'll give me (and anyone else that still doesn't) one? In response to the people who don't like what Brian had to say, I would like to say that we can't start making assumptions about what hardware people have and ignore anyone who does not fit those assumptions. Nobody doesn't like what Brian had to say. Most everybody around here including Ciaran likely agrees with him. The issue is that Ciaran said the complete opposite of what he was trying to communicate (sarcasm), and that likely due to language/culture/etc that might not have been clear to somebody who isn't a native English speaker in a western culture. The allusion was clearly to the larger udev/systemd/usr issues and the point he was making is that many of these boil down to disagreements about what use cases you consider important. So, just take everything Ciaran said in that particular post, assume he meant the exact opposite, and now you'll see where he is coming from. Yes, I do agree that sarcasm tends to cause problems on international email lists, but his post did at least make me smile. :) Rich I didn't miss that his statements were sarcasm. I just failed at sarcastic reply without it being clear that it was. Sorry, Not my best work :/ -- Brian Dolbec dol...@gentoo.org signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
On Tue, 27 Mar 2012 19:49:00 +0200 Pacho Ramos pa...@gentoo.org wrote: Hello I am a bit surprised handbook still doesn't suggest people to create a separate partition for /usr/portage tree. I remember my first Gentoo systems had it inside / and that lead to a lot of fragmentation, much slower emerge -pvuDN world (I benchmarked it when I changed my partitioning scheme to put /usr/portage) separate and a lot of disk space lost (I remember portage tree reached around 3 GB of disk space while I am now running with 300MB) Could handbook suggest people to put /usr/portage on a different partition then? The only doubt I have is what filesystem would be better for it, in my case I am using reiserfs with tail enabled, but maybe you have other different setups. Thanks for discussing this :) not gonna happen, for reasons that SwifT others already mentioned. this is the sort of non-simple, non-trivial text/info/instructions that would be better suited to an optimizing your FS layout article on the gentoo wiki, or similar. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
Joshua Saddler wrote: On Tue, 27 Mar 2012 19:49:00 +0200 Pacho Ramos pa...@gentoo.org wrote: Hello I am a bit surprised handbook still doesn't suggest people to create a separate partition for /usr/portage tree. I remember my first Gentoo systems had it inside / and that lead to a lot of fragmentation, much slower emerge -pvuDN world (I benchmarked it when I changed my partitioning scheme to put /usr/portage) separate and a lot of disk space lost (I remember portage tree reached around 3 GB of disk space while I am now running with 300MB) Could handbook suggest people to put /usr/portage on a different partition then? The only doubt I have is what filesystem would be better for it, in my case I am using reiserfs with tail enabled, but maybe you have other different setups. Thanks for discussing this :) not gonna happen, for reasons that SwifT others already mentioned. this is the sort of non-simple, non-trivial text/info/instructions that would be better suited to an optimizing your FS layout article on the gentoo wiki, or similar. Well, way back when I first installed Gentoo, I actually read some before I even started. I learned through all that reading that /, /boot, /home, /usr, /usr/portage and /var are best on their own partition. Each of those are for different reasons. The root partition is obvious, I would hope anyway. ;-) The boot partitions comes in handy if you don't automount it or have more than one distro installed. Home is obvious. People recommended /usr because it could a) be mounted read only and b) it can be enlarged if needed since it tends to grow a lot. Portage since it is tons of small files and tends to fragment a lot. The var partition is so that if some error message repeats itself overnight and fills up the partition it at least doesn't lock up the whole system. I actually had this one happen to me once. For some reason, even logrotate didn't catch it, tar up and delete the old ones. I woke up to a mess that only going to single user would fix. The best thing I did was to have /var on its own partition. When people are planning to install Gentoo and they have not done at least some research, I think they should get to keep the pieces. Installing Gentoo is not something to do on a whim. It should be planned and thought through even if the person is completely new to Gentoo. I read up for at least a month before ever even starting. I agree with having a simple manual for the folks that want to install just to look and then have a separate manual, wiki even, for more serious set ups. This can include things like RAID, LVM and having more than a couple partitions. Of course, Gentoo is almost endless in options. Back to my hole. Dale :-) :-) -- I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how you interpreted my words! Miss the compile output? Hint: EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS=--quiet-build=n
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 07:49:00PM +0200, Pacho Ramos wrote: I am a bit surprised handbook still doesn't suggest people to create a separate partition for /usr/portage tree. I remember my first Gentoo systems had it inside / and that lead to a lot of fragmentation, much slower emerge -pvuDN world (I benchmarked it when I changed my partitioning scheme to put /usr/portage) separate and a lot of disk space lost (I remember portage tree reached around 3 GB of disk space while I am now running with 300MB) Could handbook suggest people to put /usr/portage on a different partition then? The only doubt I have is what filesystem would be better for it, in my case I am using reiserfs with tail enabled, but maybe you have other different setups. To be honest, I don't think it is wise to describe it in the Gentoo Handbook just yet. I don't mind having it documented elsewhere, but the separate partition is not mandatory for getting Gentoo up and running. The instructions currently also just give an example partition layout and tell users that different layouts are perfectly possible. We need to take into consideration what is needed (must) for a Gentoo installation, what is seriously recommended (should), what is nice to have (could), etc. And for me, having a separate /usr/portage is a nice-to-have imo. Wkr, Sven Vermeulen
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
On Tue, 27 Mar 2012 19:49:00 +0200 Pacho Ramos pa...@gentoo.org wrote: I am a bit surprised handbook still doesn't suggest people to create a separate partition for /usr/portage tree. I don't know whether you've heard, but PackageKit (a hard dependency of udev as of 185, to allow automatic installation of the appropriate firmware) no longer supports /usr/portage on its own partition. But that's ok, because extensive studies have shown that the only possible reasons for putting /usr/portage on its own partition are historical, since everyone has an SSD now. -- Ciaran McCreesh signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA256 On 03/27/2012 02:01 PM, Sven Vermeulen wrote: On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 07:49:00PM +0200, Pacho Ramos wrote: I am a bit surprised handbook still doesn't suggest people to create a separate partition for /usr/portage tree. I remember my first Gentoo systems had it inside / and that lead to a lot of fragmentation, much slower emerge -pvuDN world (I benchmarked it when I changed my partitioning scheme to put /usr/portage) separate and a lot of disk space lost (I remember portage tree reached around 3 GB of disk space while I am now running with 300MB) Could handbook suggest people to put /usr/portage on a different partition then? The only doubt I have is what filesystem would be better for it, in my case I am using reiserfs with tail enabled, but maybe you have other different setups. To be honest, I don't think it is wise to describe it in the Gentoo Handbook just yet. I don't mind having it documented elsewhere, but the separate partition is not mandatory for getting Gentoo up and running. The instructions currently also just give an example partition layout and tell users that different layouts are perfectly possible. We need to take into consideration what is needed (must) for a Gentoo installation, what is seriously recommended (should), what is nice to have (could), etc. And for me, having a separate /usr/portage is a nice-to-have imo. Wkr, Sven Vermeulen Definitely. The handbook should only cover simple, straightforward setups. New users are already overwhelmed by the handbook as it is. Going into details about alternate setups would only increase the number of Is there a quick start guide somewhere that I can follow or which setup is best questions that we currently get in #gentoo and friends. If anything, I'd recommend we remove some details, like getting rid of the 'mirrorselect' command. (Too many people run into a non-starter because of it.) - - Aaron -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v2.0.17 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iF4EAREIAAYFAk9yBREACgkQVxOqA9G7/aBPzAD+J7Lt3nmXDvKx9S2yMyLgM36B /ANwxzr/S/HwY+Zq8JwA/jY7m+Dp47150IUiSfZkyJBB0Wjc1uCCRy/x5SgR7+J9 =gy2m -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
On Tue, 2012-03-27 at 20:01 +0200, Sven Vermeulen wrote: On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 07:49:00PM +0200, Pacho Ramos wrote: I am a bit surprised handbook still doesn't suggest people to create a separate partition for /usr/portage tree. I remember my first Gentoo systems had it inside / and that lead to a lot of fragmentation, much slower emerge -pvuDN world (I benchmarked it when I changed my partitioning scheme to put /usr/portage) separate and a lot of disk space lost (I remember portage tree reached around 3 GB of disk space while I am now running with 300MB) Could handbook suggest people to put /usr/portage on a different partition then? The only doubt I have is what filesystem would be better for it, in my case I am using reiserfs with tail enabled, but maybe you have other different setups. To be honest, I don't think it is wise to describe it in the Gentoo Handbook just yet. I don't mind having it documented elsewhere, but the separate partition is not mandatory for getting Gentoo up and running. The instructions currently also just give an example partition layout and tell users that different layouts are perfectly possible. We need to take into consideration what is needed (must) for a Gentoo installation, what is seriously recommended (should), what is nice to have (could), etc. And for me, having a separate /usr/portage is a nice-to-have imo. The partitioning scheme is something that the user needs to decide on *before* getting Gentoo up and running. After the user had finished installing the operating system, it's too late to inform him about the advantages of a separate /usr/portage. IMHO, chapter 4 of the handbook needs the following changes: 1. ext4, not ext3, needs to be recommended as the default filesystem. We have kernel 3.2 marked stable, there is no need to keep talking about ext4 as if it's something experimental. 2. The handbook should mention that a separate small /usr/portage partition can noticeably improve performance for users with a rotational hard drive, and that it's not needed for solid-state drives. It should also mention that using Gentoo with a separate /usr/portage partition will require some additional configuration (such as changing DISTDIR and PKGDIR to avoid running out of space). -Alexandre.
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 2:34 PM, Alexandre Rostovtsev tetrom...@gentoo.org The partitioning scheme is something that the user needs to decide on *before* getting Gentoo up and running. After the user had finished installing the operating system, it's too late to inform him about the advantages of a separate /usr/portage. Yes and no (if you have free space, you could easily move /usr/portage - some other changes are harder). However, you could extend this line of argument to raid, lvm, and even stuff like the use of systemd or an alternative package manager. All of those things are much easier to implement if you just start out with them. I'm all for creating a wiki to talk about some alternative options. Perhaps even link to it at the start of the handbook in the intro (if you're not in a rush and want to read about more advanced configurations, check out ...). However, I tend to agree that the handbook should be a nearly-foolproof no-frills Gentoo installation. 1. ext4, not ext3, needs to be recommended as the default filesystem. We have kernel 3.2 marked stable, there is no need to keep talking about ext4 as if it's something experimental. I tend to agree here. Not sure we need the full discussion of filesystems either. Ext4 is probably good enough for everybody, and mention ext3/2 as more established alternatives. I tend to feel the same way about stuff like LILO. Then again, Gentoo is about choice. It just seems like we're presenting users with more choices than makes sense for a newbie. If there is a choice between something that 99.99% of users will want, and some ancient piece of cruft that still works and is better for 0.01% of the userbase, does that really have to be in the handbook? Rich
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA256 On 27/03/12 02:47 PM, Rich Freeman wrote: On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 2:34 PM, Alexandre Rostovtsev tetrom...@gentoo.org The partitioning scheme is something that the user needs to decide on *before* getting Gentoo up and running. After the user had finished installing the operating system, it's too late to inform him about the advantages of a separate /usr/portage. Yes and no (if you have free space, you could easily move /usr/portage - some other changes are harder). However, you could extend this line of argument to raid, lvm, and even stuff like the use of systemd or an alternative package manager. All of those things are much easier to implement if you just start out with them. I'm all for creating a wiki to talk about some alternative options. Perhaps even link to it at the start of the handbook in the intro (if you're not in a rush and want to read about more advanced configurations, check out ...). However, I tend to agree that the handbook should be a nearly-foolproof no-frills Gentoo installation. You know, we have Code Listing 2.1: Filesystem Example in Section 4, we could always adjust that to have a /usr/portage partition in it (take a bit of space away from /home, or something) It doesn't recommend/require anything, but when users see it they'll think about it. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v2.0.17 (GNU/Linux) iF4EAREIAAYFAk9yDK4ACgkQAJxUfCtlWe19QgEA22gRFMmyaxVpJp+LeaPsTWOq RqF2z9fZvebtBiSdLSUA/R4c10HtDeBpjEJyHCKbQkKJWc+ilRw8bilOgHgAvKT5 =egsm -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
Il 27/03/2012 20:53, Ian Stakenvicius ha scritto: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA256 On 27/03/12 02:47 PM, Rich Freeman wrote: On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 2:34 PM, Alexandre Rostovtsev tetrom...@gentoo.org The partitioning scheme is something that the user needs to decide on *before* getting Gentoo up and running. After the user had finished installing the operating system, it's too late to inform him about the advantages of a separate /usr/portage. Yes and no (if you have free space, you could easily move /usr/portage - some other changes are harder). However, you could extend this line of argument to raid, lvm, and even stuff like the use of systemd or an alternative package manager. All of those things are much easier to implement if you just start out with them. I'm all for creating a wiki to talk about some alternative options. Perhaps even link to it at the start of the handbook in the intro (if you're not in a rush and want to read about more advanced configurations, check out ...). However, I tend to agree that the handbook should be a nearly-foolproof no-frills Gentoo installation. You know, we have Code Listing 2.1: Filesystem Example in Section 4, we could always adjust that to have a /usr/portage partition in it (take a bit of space away from /home, or something) It doesn't recommend/require anything, but when users see it they'll think about it. Boh ... IMHO /usr/portage should be a squashfs filesystem, rsynced from some kind server out there, auto(un)mounted, so it releases resources after use. No needs for any additional partition (which sound kinda lame for a package manager) However the devs are right here, handbook should be stripped down, not bloated with details that could be fulfilled later Rgds, Francesco
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA256 On 03/27/2012 02:53 PM, Ian Stakenvicius wrote: On 27/03/12 02:47 PM, Rich Freeman wrote: On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 2:34 PM, Alexandre Rostovtsev tetrom...@gentoo.org The partitioning scheme is something that the user needs to decide on *before* getting Gentoo up and running. After the user had finished installing the operating system, it's too late to inform him about the advantages of a separate /usr/portage. Yes and no (if you have free space, you could easily move /usr/portage - some other changes are harder). ... However, I tend to agree that the handbook should be a nearly-foolproof no-frills Gentoo installation. You know, we have Code Listing 2.1: Filesystem Example in Section 4, we could always adjust that to have a /usr/portage partition in it (take a bit of space away from /home, or something) It doesn't recommend/require anything, but when users see it they'll think about it. That isn't the way users read it, though. They read it and assume that is precisely how they *need* to configure their disk layout. - - Aaron -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v2.0.17 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iF4EAREIAAYFAk9yD0kACgkQVxOqA9G7/aAdKQD/WnFh36QVL1tV/kfHdPcUyebQ W0nvjhngMEU09fW8bWwA/A+A6wnhbm3DUA0Pl2dTmOY20rW9ceLE7qM3PSqM5tw1 =coW5 -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA256 On 27/03/12 03:04 PM, Aaron W. Swenson wrote: You know, we have Code Listing 2.1: Filesystem Example in Section 4, we could always adjust that to have a /usr/portage partition in it (take a bit of space away from /home, or something) It doesn't recommend/require anything, but when users see it they'll think about it. That isn't the way users read it, though. They read it and assume that is precisely how they *need* to configure their disk layout. - Aaron Really? It's been a while since i hung out in #gentoo, but i was there pretty solidly for a couple of years and i don't recall any new user (to gentoo or linux) reporting in, saying they set up their disk(s) with all of those partitions. They pretty well always followed the default partitioning scheme listed in the table in 4.b (which is used for every other example on that chapter). -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v2.0.17 (GNU/Linux) iF4EAREIAAYFAk9yEVoACgkQAJxUfCtlWe3EtgEAwr62YTL812ehPurzTJWT1sqr SUQhJzybaLlY0Rf2T6ABANqOtXDK+IbRTjLw1fcfjGHqWuYUAfqYnYtniN5ztwHK =Vi2z -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 02:47:15PM -0400, Rich Freeman wrote: On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 2:34 PM, Alexandre Rostovtsev tetrom...@gentoo.org 1. ext4, not ext3, needs to be recommended as the default filesystem. We have kernel 3.2 marked stable, there is no need to keep talking about ext4 as if it's something experimental. I tend to agree here. Not sure we need the full discussion of filesystems either. Ext4 is probably good enough for everybody, and mention ext3/2 as more established alternatives. I see no issue putting ext4 as the suggested file system. However, it must be checked on a per-architecture basis (I can only test x86 and amd64 myself - I know, I'm missing all the fun) and preferably brought on by the responsible teams of those architectures. Dropping the (elaborate) explanation on file systems won't win us much. It's not like it is that long - a paragraph per file system type. Even the online help in recent distribution installations provide more information. I tend to feel the same way about stuff like LILO. I would *really* like to drop LILO and while we are at it, get grub2 working on all systems/architectures and stable ;-) But I'm not going to drop LILO without group consent. Then again, Gentoo is about choice. It just seems like we're presenting users with more choices than makes sense for a newbie. If there is a choice between something that 99.99% of users will want, and some ancient piece of cruft that still works and is better for 0.01% of the userbase, does that really have to be in the handbook? Welcome to documentation development. The Gentoo Handbook has always been a difficult source for such discussions. If we truely want to provide information towards our users on all possible choices, you'll need a totally different approach. I once started (before I left Gentoo, rejoined, left again) on a complete gentoo handbook that covered much more in greater detail (you'll find the last version at http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/draft/complete/handbook.xml) but I've since moved away from that. Perhaps I should work again on it... Wkr, Sven Vermeulen
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
On 28 March 2012 07:53, Ian Stakenvicius a...@gentoo.org wrote: You know, we have Code Listing 2.1: Filesystem Example in Section 4, we could always adjust that to have a /usr/portage partition in it (take a bit of space away from /home, or something) It doesn't recommend/require anything, but when users see it they'll think about it. I'd be careful with that logic, users may just copy it without thinking and then wonder why it doesn't work ( because they didn't do all the other steps required to make it work such as making sure you don't run out of space, set DIST_DIR etc etc ) -- Kent perl -e print substr( \edrgmaM SPA NOcomil.ic\\@tfrken\, \$_ * 3, 3 ) for ( 9,8,0,7,1,6,5,4,3,2 );
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
On 28 March 2012 08:15, Sven Vermeulen sw...@gentoo.org wrote: Then again, Gentoo is about choice. It just seems like we're presenting users with more choices than makes sense for a newbie. If there is a choice between something that 99.99% of users will want, and some ancient piece of cruft that still works and is better for 0.01% of the userbase, does that really have to be in the handbook? Welcome to documentation development. The Gentoo Handbook has always been a difficult source for such discussions. If we truely want to provide information towards our users on all possible choices, you'll need a totally different approach. I once started (before I left Gentoo, rejoined, left again) on a complete gentoo handbook that covered much more in greater detail (you'll find the last version at http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/draft/complete/handbook.xml) but I've since moved away from that. Perhaps I should work again on it... Wkr, Sven Vermeulen An idea is a javascripty-dynamic-slidey thing that makes more details and advanced stuff visible to people who want it, so you can adjust the documentation to suit your skill level. -- Kent perl -e print substr( \edrgmaM SPA NOcomil.ic\\@tfrken\, \$_ * 3, 3 ) for ( 9,8,0,7,1,6,5,4,3,2 );
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 08:20:45AM +1300, Kent Fredric wrote: On 28 March 2012 08:15, Sven Vermeulen sw...@gentoo.org wrote: Then again, Gentoo is about choice. It just seems like we're presenting users with more choices than makes sense for a newbie. If there is a choice between something that 99.99% of users will want, and some ancient piece of cruft that still works and is better for 0.01% of the userbase, does that really have to be in the handbook? Welcome to documentation development. The Gentoo Handbook has always been a difficult source for such discussions. If we truely want to provide information towards our users on all possible choices, you'll need a totally different approach. I once started (before I left Gentoo, rejoined, left again) on a complete gentoo handbook that covered much more in greater detail (you'll find the last version at http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/draft/complete/handbook.xml) but I've since moved away from that. Perhaps I should work again on it... Wkr, Sven Vermeulen An idea is a javascripty-dynamic-slidey thing that makes more details and advanced stuff visible to people who want it, so you can adjust the documentation to suit your skill level. Why not just the separate quick install guide like we have that lists steps and the handbook if yu want more details? William pgpqE8WTjvLWn.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA256 On 03/27/2012 03:13 PM, Ian Stakenvicius wrote: On 27/03/12 03:04 PM, Aaron W. Swenson wrote: You know, we have Code Listing 2.1: Filesystem Example in Section 4, we could always adjust that to have a /usr/portage partition in it (take a bit of space away from /home, or something) It doesn't recommend/require anything, but when users see it they'll think about it. That isn't the way users read it, though. They read it and assume that is precisely how they *need* to configure their disk layout. - Aaron Really? It's been a while since i hung out in #gentoo, but i was there pretty solidly for a couple of years and i don't recall any new user (to gentoo or linux) reporting in, saying they set up their disk(s) with all of those partitions. They pretty well always followed the default partitioning scheme listed in the table in 4.b (which is used for every other example on that chapter). Yes, really. I've seen it often in #gentoo where a new user said that they did it just like the example told them to, despite it being marked 'Optional' they still thought it was required. It would take several of the experienced users to say 'skip it' in four-part harmony to convince the novice to move on. The less we show regarding advanced setups, the less likely we'll have support a new installation. We can hint at them somewhere in the paragraphs, but we should avoid them in the code samples because people don't read. They skim. - - Aaron -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v2.0.17 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iF4EAREIAAYFAk9yFZsACgkQVxOqA9G7/aCUrQD/UU0WysiyQg2CDRRtOCAAY0rR s53sHazRFILXEtey2/wA/jhMCobeu4n1YJmL2+Wz/txuClMmoY+gDHaW+O4CfZuf =fw9Z -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 02:29:34PM -0500, William Hubbs wrote: Why not just the separate quick install guide like we have that lists steps and the handbook if yu want more details? We came from that. It means we need to start managing just the commands for each architecture. After a while, people start asking more information for just the necessary bits, making the guides longer and longer, after which they'll eventually need to be made multi-page. Wkr, Sven Vermeulen
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
On 03/27/12 14:34, Alexandre Rostovtsev wrote:
The partitioning scheme is something that the user needs to decide on
*before* getting Gentoo up and running. After the user had finished
installing the operating system, it's too late to inform him about the
advantages of a separate /usr/portage.
IMHO, chapter 4 of the handbook needs the following changes:
1. ext4, not ext3, needs to be recommended as the default filesystem. We
have kernel 3.2 marked stable, there is no need to keep talking about
ext4 as if it's something experimental.
2. The handbook should mention that a separate small /usr/portage
partition can noticeably improve performance for users with a rotational
hard drive, and that it's not needed for solid-state drives. It should
also mention that using Gentoo with a separate /usr/portage partition
will require some additional configuration (such as changing DISTDIR and
PKGDIR to avoid running out of space).
-Alexandre.
Could we amend this to also include the benefits of ZFS and why you
would want to use XFS or reiserfs instead of ext{2,3,4} as your
filesystem in situations where ZFS is not yet appropriate (e.g. using it
on Gentoo stable)? We could also include documentation on Reiser4 while
we are at it.
With that said, I don't think that this is appropriate for the handbook.
It is meant to get users started, not to set things in stone. The
partitioning can always be redone later via a stage4 backup.
On the note, I would like to suggest that we make a separate disk
partitioning and filesystem handbook, which would seem to be a more
appropriate location for this information. I should also say that I do
agree about recommending ext4 instead of ext3 by default.
signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
On Tuesday 27 March 2012 14:34:03, Alexandre Rostovtsev wrote: On Tue, 2012-03-27 at 20:01 +0200, Sven Vermeulen wrote: On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 07:49:00PM +0200, Pacho Ramos wrote: I am a bit surprised handbook still doesn't suggest people to create a separate partition for /usr/portage tree. I remember my first Gentoo systems had it inside / and that lead to a lot of fragmentation, much slower emerge -pvuDN world (I benchmarked it when I changed my partitioning scheme to put /usr/portage) separate and a lot of disk space lost (I remember portage tree reached around 3 GB of disk space while I am now running with 300MB) Could handbook suggest people to put /usr/portage on a different partition then? The only doubt I have is what filesystem would be better for it, in my case I am using reiserfs with tail enabled, but maybe you have other different setups. To be honest, I don't think it is wise to describe it in the Gentoo Handbook just yet. I don't mind having it documented elsewhere, but the separate partition is not mandatory for getting Gentoo up and running. The instructions currently also just give an example partition layout and tell users that different layouts are perfectly possible. We need to take into consideration what is needed (must) for a Gentoo installation, what is seriously recommended (should), what is nice to have (could), etc. And for me, having a separate /usr/portage is a nice-to-have imo. The partitioning scheme is something that the user needs to decide on *before* getting Gentoo up and running. After the user had finished installing the operating system, it's too late to inform him about the advantages of a separate /usr/portage. It does not have to be a separate *physical* partition. It could be set up as a loop device without any real downsides: /usr/portage/tree.ext4 /usr/portage/tree ext4loop,noatime0 0 An advantage is that it can be easily resized if necessary. IMHO, chapter 4 of the handbook needs the following changes: 1. ext4, not ext3, needs to be recommended as the default filesystem. We have kernel 3.2 marked stable, there is no need to keep talking about ext4 as if it's something experimental. 2. The handbook should mention that a separate small /usr/portage partition can noticeably improve performance for users with a rotational hard drive, and that it's not needed for solid-state drives. It should also mention that using Gentoo with a separate /usr/portage partition will require some additional configuration (such as changing DISTDIR and PKGDIR to avoid running out of space). -Alexandre.
Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook
On 28 March 2012 08:57, Richard Yao r...@cs.stonybrook.edu wrote:
Could we amend this to also include the benefits of ZFS and why you
would want to use XFS or reiserfs instead of ext{2,3,4} as your
filesystem in situations where ZFS is not yet appropriate (e.g. using it
on Gentoo stable)? We could also include documentation on Reiser4 while
we are at it.
Thats probably asking a bit much, I've done my experimenting with
XFS/reiserfs , the benefits aren't that substantial to be worth the
hassle of the negatives. And as for Reiser4, if there's any
documentation mentioning that I think it being simply Don't use
Reiser4 adequate enough.
Noob Level: Just Use Ext4
Intermediate: Just Use Ext4, use Ext3 or 2 if you want more something
else, but ext4 should do the trick
Advanced: Entertain the ideas of XFS/reiser if you want, but you're
not likely going to see a *lot* of difference over ext4 on its own
partition. Not in the long term.
I used to advocate JFS, but long term experience with it taught me JFS
is fast for new file systems, and gets progressively slower over time.
The original IBM JFS had a defrag tool nobody managed to port to Linux
so JFS just gets crufty and stays that way.
--
Kent
perl -e print substr( \edrgmaM SPA NOcomil.ic\\@tfrken\, \$_ * 3,
3 ) for ( 9,8,0,7,1,6,5,4,3,2 );
