Re: [gentoo-user] Mothballing a ~arch gentoo system?
William Kenworthy wrote: On Sun, 2009-12-27 at 20:45 -0600, Dale wrote: Marcus Wanner wrote: When an old (circa 2001) desktop came out of retirement a few months ago, I shuffled across Linuxes trying to find something that worked well, and finally hit on gentoo. I eventually switched to ~x86 because I was tired of using versions of apps from 6 months ago... Too make a long story short, I have a new computer now and that one is going back into retirement. I may want to use it more in future and would like to know how I would go about "mothballing" it so that if it ever needs to be used again, bringing it up to date will be as smooth and painless as possible. If I need to resurrect it, it will probably be at least a year from now. What would you recommend? Marcus Portage is better but that is a while to go without a update. It mostly depends on what all is updated with some sort of hiccup between the time you shut it down and the time you try to update it again. If there is no major problems then it wouldn't be a issue but of there is multiple packages with issues, then you have a problem. Me, I would put it in a closet or something with a ethernet cable hooked up and just update it say once every 6 to 8 weeks. Just hope for the best after that. Dale :-) :-) I have an "emergency desktop" system at work that I recently pulled out of storage to use (laptop HD died!). Once used, I spent quite a while updating it and was just going to put it aside using Dales suggestion when this thread got me thinking. I am going to clean out gnome and anything not of immediate use leaving just a bare desktop and minimal tools needed for emergency use (OO, evolution) - I'll replace gnome with fluxbox first. Then if it needs to get serious use other packages can be added on the fly. If it looks like longer term use, its easy to add gnome etc back overnight, and while continuing to use the fluxbox desktop. The minimal system should be quicker and simpler to update than a crufty system - and if you have to update much of gnome and the like, updating/reinstalling might take longer than building from scratch anyway (going by my last update to gnome :) BillK I should also add that I use KDE. So, updating all that takes time plus if there are packages with "issues" then that adds to the grief. It appears that it depends on just what you have installed. If it is a bare system, then it may not be to bad. If it is a full blown KDE like mine, then that could take a really long while. Of course, portage has been a lot better at handling blocks here lately too. There are exceptions and they always confuse the heck out of me but it is a lot better. That should shorten the update time for a lot of packages. Maybe a 'emerge -ep world | genlop -p' would be in order here. Dale :-) :-)
Re: [gentoo-user] The current correct way to start kde 4
Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: On Montag 28 Dezember 2009, Kirill Lipatov wrote: well yeah. I just think that setting the kdm as the login manager is the easiest way to automatically start kde4 session after loging in. However, kdm is of course not mandatory and it can do more than just start kde4 OP wrote he wanted 'kde' as login manager. Which implies he wants kdm. That's the way I read it too. I should also note I had a typo in mine. It should have read *"multiple useRs"*. I sort of left out the r and made it "uses". It does have multiple uses to but that was not what I meant. I need a better keyboard or better fingers. ;-) Dale :-) :-)
Re: [gentoo-user] The current correct way to start kde 4
On 28/12/2009 1:03 PM, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: On Montag 28 Dezember 2009, Kirill Lipatov wrote: well yeah. I just think that setting the kdm as the login manager is the easiest way to automatically start kde4 session after loging in. However, kdm is of course not mandatory and it can do more than just start kde4 OP wrote he wanted 'kde' as login manager. Which implies he wants kdm. Thank you gentlemen for your replies. Setting DISPLAYMANAGER to kdm in /etc/conf.d/xmd it will be then. My confusion comes from there being posts suggesting this method, others setting XSESSION in /etc/env.d/90xsession, things mentioning /etc/X11/sessions and so on. I've still got my training wheels on so it can be a bit confusing at times. Once again, thanks, Andrew
Re: [gentoo-user] kde-4.3 tweenview does not work
On Monday 28 December 2009 05:54:31 Xi Shen wrote: > have they changed the definition of the word, or i were wrong at the > first place? I've never heard of tweenview, but Nvidia has had a thing called TwinView for ages. And nvidia also likes to do their own thing in their own way. They even rip out the X DRI and GLX stuff and replace it with their own, so they could easily make TwinView work differently as well... But I haven't seen that they did change things. For me, it's working as it always did. > > On Sun, Dec 27, 2009 at 5:13 AM, Alan McKinnon wrote: > > On Saturday 26 December 2009 19:29:10 Xi Shen wrote: > >> hi, > >> > >> my system is gentoo amd64, kde-4.3, my graphic card is nvidia's. i use > >> nvidia-settings to set up my two displayer to work in the tweenview > >> mode. it supposed to have two separate desktop, instead it have a > >> large desktop expand two displayer. > >> > >> on gnome and windows, tweenview always sets up two separate desktop. > >> how can i set this on kde? > > > > Per the nvidia-driver docs > > (/usr/share/doc/nvidia-drivers-190.53/README.bz2), TwinView is designed > > to give you one large desktop and there's not much you can do about that > > in KDE. > > > > See Chap 15 of that same doc for a description of how to configure two > > separate screens. > > > > -- > > alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com > -- alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com
Re: [gentoo-user] pxe + initramfs
James: > How would I go about taking a LiveCD and packing it into a LiveCD so > that I don't have to set up NFS exports for all the other Linux > distributions? I assume you mean taking a livecd and packing it into a initramfs. I would suggest you read this guide: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-initrd.html RDSIZE will have to be substantially larger though, large enough to fit whatever your putting into the image. Ubuntu Karmic netinstall is about 12Mb [1] so 13000 might be appropriate, iirc initramfs cannot exceed 16Mb (if this isn't true let me know :D). Some hackery of the "init" script will likely be required. [1] http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/karmic/main/installer-amd64/current/images/netboot/mini.iso -- Kyle
[gentoo-user] Howto generate a list of installed packages?
Season's Greetings to one and all. I would like to be able to generate a script or list of packages of some kind that would enable me to install Gentoo with an identical profile of installed packages. Since with Debian/Ubuntu one can run dpkg --get-selections > file and dpkg --set-selections < file (or some such), one imagines that the Gentoo gurus/magicians are able to do something similar. It takes me months to get a new machine up to speed. In fact, I have just realized I don't have tcsh installed, something I hardly EVER use, but need to run a one of a kind script. Can anyone make a suggestion? Am I missing something? Thanks Alan Davis
Re: [gentoo-user] Howto generate a list of installed packages?
On Monday 28 December 2009 09:50:31 Alan E. Davis wrote: > Season's Greetings to one and all. > > I would like to be able to generate a script or list of packages of some > kind that would enable me to install Gentoo with an identical profile of > installed packages. Since with Debian/Ubuntu one can run >dpkg --get-selections > file > and >dpkg --set-selections < file > (or some such), one imagines that the Gentoo gurus/magicians are able to do > something similar. > > It takes me months to get a new machine up to speed. In fact, I have just > realized I don't have tcsh installed, something I hardly EVER use, but need > to run a one of a kind script. > > Can anyone make a suggestion? Am I missing something? > > Thanks > > Alan Davis > You already have such a thing - it's the entire contents of: /etc/portage/* /etc/make.conf /etc/make.profile /var/lib/portage/world* Copy those files to a destination machine, adapt variable things like CHOST and ACCEPT_KEYWORDS to the new machine, and let portage do it's thing. If you simply want a list of packages (sans USE flags etc), "emerge -e world" and parse it through your favourite text pipes (grep, sed, awk, etc) then redirect somewhere If you want a list of installed packages with USE flags, "emerge -e world" Note that these last two just give you a (mostly) human readable list. They are not much use to portage. -- alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com
Re: [gentoo-user] Mothballing a ~arch gentoo system?
On Mon, 2009-12-28 at 00:27 -0600, Dale wrote: > William Kenworthy wrote: > > On Sun, 2009-12-27 at 20:45 -0600, Dale wrote: > > > >> Marcus Wanner wrote: ... trim ... > > > > The minimal system should be quicker and simpler to update than a crufty > > system - and if you have to update much of gnome and the like, > > updating/reinstalling might take longer than building from scratch > > anyway (going by my last update to gnome :) > > > > BillK > > > > > > I should also add that I use KDE. So, updating all that takes time plus > if there are packages with "issues" then that adds to the grief. It > appears that it depends on just what you have installed. If it is a > bare system, then it may not be to bad. If it is a full blown KDE like > mine, then that could take a really long while. Of course, portage has > been a lot better at handling blocks here lately too. There are > exceptions and they always confuse the heck out of me but it is a lot > better. That should shorten the update time for a lot of packages. > > Maybe a 'emerge -ep world | genlop -p' would be in order here. > > Dale > > :-) :-) Thats why I think removing gnome (or kde) is a good idea - replace with a lightweight desktop so you still have the required functionality. it is for emergency use after all. I find that building from scratch is usually less of a problem than large updates as blocks and problems seem to occur less often. So it is feasable to spend overnight installing gnome/kde if need be as you still have a usable system in the meantime - may not be as nice as kde, but it will still get the job done.
Re: [gentoo-user] Howto generate a list of installed packages?
Alan E. Davis wrote: Season's Greetings to one and all. I would like to be able to generate a script or list of packages of some kind that would enable me to install Gentoo with an identical profile of installed packages. Since with Debian/Ubuntu one can run dpkg --get-selections > file and dpkg --set-selections < file (or some such), one imagines that the Gentoo gurus/magicians are able to do something similar. It takes me months to get a new machine up to speed. In fact, I have just realized I don't have tcsh installed, something I hardly EVER use, but need to run a one of a kind script. Can anyone make a suggestion? Am I missing something? Thanks Alan Davis You should be able to copy the world file over and it do pretty much the same thing. The biggest difference being maybe some change in hardware. If you want a list of what is installed, try this: equery list That should list all packages installed but the majority of them are dependencies so you should not emerge them individually. Copying the world file I would think would be the best solution. Dale :-) :-)
Re: [gentoo-user] Howto generate a list of installed packages?
Alan E. Davis wrote: > Season's Greetings to one and all. > > I would like to be able to generate a script or list of packages of > some kind that would enable me to install Gentoo with an identical > profile of installed packages. Since with Debian/Ubuntu one can run >dpkg --get-selections > file > and >dpkg --set-selections < file > (or some such), one imagines that the Gentoo gurus/magicians are able > to do something similar. > > It takes me months to get a new machine up to speed. In fact, I have > just realized I don't have tcsh installed, something I hardly EVER > use, but need to run a one of a kind script. > > Can anyone make a suggestion? Am I missing something? > > Thanks > > Alan Davis /var/lib/portage/world contains all packages you installed. Copy that file over to you new system and do a emerge --sync && emerge -puDN world and you should be done. Norman
Re: [gentoo-user] The current correct way to start kde 4
On Monday 28 December 2009 06:49:14 Andrew Lowe wrote: > Thank you gentlemen for your replies. Setting DISPLAYMANAGER to kdm in > /etc/conf.d/xmd it will be then. My confusion comes from there being > posts suggesting this method, others setting XSESSION in > /etc/env.d/90xsession, things mentioning /etc/X11/sessions and so on. > I've still got my training wheels on so it can be a bit confusing at times. The XSESSION environment variable is to be used when you want a different Window Manager or Display Environment to load as a default. So you would for example set XSESSION=openbox, or fluxbox, or xface, etc. Since you just want KDE and the kdm Display Manager knows where to find your KDE4 Display Environment and load it, setting up the XSESSION variable is not necessary - although it would cause no harm. HTH. -- Regards, Mick signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
[gentoo-user] Compressed Filesystem
Hi, I'm looking for a working and maintained compressed filesystem. I'd like to use it for backing up my root and my /usr filesystems, so that I can use rsync to keep it up-to-date. I've come across CompFused which seems to be just what I'm looking for, but it's buggy not maintained anymore. Similarly, fusecompress http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=127433 doesn't build on an up-to-date Gentoo system and doesn't look maintained either. There would be sys-fs/zfs-fuse but that sounds like overkill to me. Are there any other packages? Many thanks for a hint, Helmut. -- Helmut Jarausch Lehrstuhl fuer Numerische Mathematik RWTH - Aachen University D 52056 Aachen, Germany
Re: [gentoo-user] Compressed Filesystem
On Mon, 28 Dec 2009 12:58:13 +0100 (CET) Helmut Jarausch wrote: > Hi, > > I'm looking for a working and maintained compressed filesystem. > I'd like to use it for backing up my root and my /usr filesystems, > so that I can use rsync to keep it up-to-date. > > I've come across CompFused which seems to be just what I'm looking > for, but it's buggy not maintained anymore. > > Similarly, fusecompress > http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=127433 > doesn't build on an up-to-date Gentoo system and doesn't > look maintained either. > > There would be sys-fs/zfs-fuse but that sounds like overkill to me. > > Are there any other packages? Although it might not be stable enough yet, btrfs has support for compression. -- Mike Kazantsev // fraggod.net
Re: [gentoo-user] Compressed Filesystem
On Mon, 2009-12-28 at 12:58 +0100, Helmut Jarausch wrote: > Hi, > > I'm looking for a working and maintained compressed filesystem. > I'd like to use it for backing up my root and my /usr filesystems, > so that I can use rsync to keep it up-to-date. > > I've come across CompFused which seems to be just what I'm looking for, > but it's buggy not maintained anymore. > > Similarly, fusecompress > http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=127433 > doesn't build on an up-to-date Gentoo system and doesn't > look maintained either. > > There would be sys-fs/zfs-fuse but that sounds like overkill to me. > > Are there any other packages? > > Many thanks for a hint, > Helmut. Tried a few for this and besides the unmaintained part, they dont stand up to the battering that rsync dishes out - regular corruption. If you have space, look at dirvish (its in portage) on reiserfs. Tried it on ext2 and ext3 - more corruption but reiserfs3 with data=journal is rock solid. The devs reccomend not using a journaled FS for performance, but I found it essential for my setup. Dirvish takes the full size for the first backup. Subsequent backups create hard links to existing files so only differences show up as using space. After a number of backups, total size stabilises around 2x original space unless you add some large files, or do an "emerge -ep world" :) Can be easily managed by cron and ssh keys including how many backups to keep etc. Can use on a local system, or more usually to a remote machine. Restore is as simple as copying the files back (though special files an permissions need to be maintained so a simple copy isnt viable for a full system restore.) BillK
Re: [gentoo-user] Howto generate a list of installed packages?
"Alan E. Davis" writes: >Season's Greetings to one and all. >I would like to be able to generate a script or list of packages of >some kind that would enable me to install Gentoo with an identical >profile of installed packages. Since with Debian/Ubuntu one can run > dpkg --get-selections > file >and > dpkg --set-selections < file >(or some such), one imagines that the Gentoo gurus/magicians are able >to do something similar. >It takes me months to get a new machine up to speed. In fact, I have >just realized I don't have tcsh installed, something I hardly EVER use, >but need to run a one of a kind script. >Can anyone make a suggestion? Am I missing something? >Thanks >Alan Davis You might also consider a stage4 installation: http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Custom_Stage4 I have just gone through this procedure to re-install gentoo on a laptop that had not been updated in a very long time. Cheers, Roger
[gentoo-user] [OT] Konqueror URL links
Hi All, I remember that when I hovered my mouse over links in web pages on Konq 3.5, it would show at the bottom of the window the URL that the link in question contained. This allowed me to decide if I wanted to visit the URL or not. With KDE4 I can't find how to activate this. Any ideas? -- Regards, Mick signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-user] Howto generate a list of installed packages?
On Mon, 28 Dec 2009 17:50:31 +1000 "Alan E. Davis" wrote: > [...] > > Can anyone make a suggestion? Am I missing something? qlist -I (from portage-utils) or eix -I --only-names will give you a list of everything installed. Although if you straight installed everything from such a list it would probably pollute the new machines world file somewhat, but it would be a good "catch anything I missed".
Re: [gentoo-user] Mothballing a ~arch gentoo system?
On 12/28/2009 3:40 AM, William Kenworthy wrote: Thats why I think removing gnome (or kde) is a good idea - replace with a lightweight desktop so you still have the required functionality. it is for emergency use after all. I find that building from scratch is usually less of a problem than large updates as blocks and problems seem to occur less often. So it is feasable to spend overnight installing gnome/kde if need be as you still have a usable system in the meantime - may not be as nice as kde, but it will still get the job done. Actually, the only things I have installed in the way of GUIs are lxde and ion3, the first takes about 10 minutes to compile and the latter about 5 seconds. The system is very lightweight because it has to be. I also might add that if I ever try to resurrect this thing, it will probably be in order to use it as either a web-browser-only type thing or an experimental-hardware box. In both cases, it would be better as a non-~arch system. Since I have heard that the only way to go back to arch involves waiting for the installed packages to be stabilized, I would like to try that method. Do you guys have any tips for what I am supposed to do? Marcus
Re: [gentoo-user] The current correct way to start kde 4
On 12/28/2009 1:49 AM, Andrew Lowe wrote: On 28/12/2009 1:03 PM, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: On Montag 28 Dezember 2009, Kirill Lipatov wrote: well yeah. I just think that setting the kdm as the login manager is the easiest way to automatically start kde4 session after loging in. However, kdm is of course not mandatory and it can do more than just start kde4 OP wrote he wanted 'kde' as login manager. Which implies he wants kdm. Thank you gentlemen for your replies. Setting DISPLAYMANAGER to kdm in /etc/conf.d/xmd it will be then. My confusion comes from there being posts suggesting this method, others setting XSESSION in /etc/env.d/90xsession, things mentioning /etc/X11/sessions and so on. I've still got my training wheels on so it can be a bit confusing at times. You are probably confusing KDE - the entire Qt-based desktop environment, with kdm - a Qt-based display manager and an (optional) component of KDE. The first option will set up the KDE display manager to run when you boot, but it won't actually start "KDE". The second will make KDE the default when you log in through the generic xdm display manager. The last option will get KDE to show up in the list of known session types (for example, what you see in the drop-down list on gdm). You don't *need* to use KDE's display manager to launch KDE, you just need to tell whatever display manager you have to start the kde4 session. Similarly, just because you run kdm doesn't mean you have to launch KDE when you log in; you could launch any of the sessions in kdm's list. But if you are only installing KDE on your machine, then there's really no good reason not to use kdm as well, and allow it to default to KDE4, so you should be all set. --Mike
Re: [gentoo-user] Compressed Filesystem
On Montag 28 Dezember 2009, Helmut Jarausch wrote: > Hi, > > I'm looking for a working and maintained compressed filesystem. > I'd like to use it for backing up my root and my /usr filesystems, > so that I can use rsync to keep it up-to-date. > > I've come across CompFused which seems to be just what I'm looking for, > but it's buggy not maintained anymore. > > Similarly, fusecompress > http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=127433 > doesn't build on an up-to-date Gentoo system and doesn't > look maintained either. > > There would be sys-fs/zfs-fuse but that sounds like overkill to me. > > Are there any other packages? > > Many thanks for a hint, > Helmut. > reiser4. Bonus, it only tries to compress stuff that can be compressed (the test is quick&dirty and sometimes wrong, but most of the time good enough).
[gentoo-user] x11-base/xorg-x11
Hi all, My laptop runs KDE4 fine without x11-base/xorg-x11 installed. Should we install x11-base/xorg-x11 if desktop environments such as KDE4, GNOME, or XFCE4 are used? Happy New Year Hung
Re: [gentoo-user] x11-base/xorg-x11
On Tuesday 29 December 2009 00:21:55 Gmail wrote: > Hi all, > My laptop runs KDE4 fine without x11-base/xorg-x11 installed. Should we > install x11-base/xorg-x11 if desktop environments such as KDE4, GNOME, > or XFCE4 are used? > > Happy New Year > Hung > Not necessarily. xorg-x11 is a meta package that DEPENDS on other things needed for an X session. You obviously have everything you need for an X session, how otherwise would you be able to run KDE4? (assuming you are not exporting X). Normally it is advisable to install xorg-x11 so as to take advantage of updated DEPENDs etc etc. But it's not a must, it's actually a question only you can answer for you. -- alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com
Re: [gentoo-user] x11-base/xorg-x11 -> SOLVED
Alan: Thanks a lot for an insightful reply. Hung On 12/28/09 15:29, Alan McKinnon wrote: > On Tuesday 29 December 2009 00:21:55 Gmail wrote: > >> Hi all, >> My laptop runs KDE4 fine without x11-base/xorg-x11 installed. Should we >> install x11-base/xorg-x11 if desktop environments such as KDE4, GNOME, >> or XFCE4 are used? >> >> Happy New Year >> Hung >> >> > Not necessarily. > > xorg-x11 is a meta package that DEPENDS on other things needed for an X > session. You obviously have everything you need for an X session, how > otherwise would you be able to run KDE4? (assuming you are not exporting X). > > Normally it is advisable to install xorg-x11 so as to take advantage of > updated DEPENDs etc etc. But it's not a must, it's actually a question only > you can answer for you. > > >
Re: [gentoo-user] x11-base/xorg-x11
On Mon, Dec 28, 2009 at 03:21:55PM -0700, Penguin Lover Gmail squawked: > My laptop runs KDE4 fine without x11-base/xorg-x11 installed. Should we > install x11-base/xorg-x11 if desktop environments such as KDE4, GNOME, > or XFCE4 are used? Depends. For the most part if you just run emerge a DE or a WM, or an X-based application, the dependencies will pull in any bits of X that you will need to have it run. xorg-x11 is just a meta ebuild that lists a large part of what may be used for running X. Not everything in it are used by every program. I installed xorg-x11 personally because I had some home-made add-ons to fvwm that depends on various X utilities that are generally not a dependency of anything else. It is slighly more convenient to have xorg-x11 in my world file instead of the dozen or so small utilities. Cheers, W -- Thesaurus: ancient reptile with an excellent vocabulary. Sortir en Pantoufles: up 1116 days, 23:51
[gentoo-user] rsync reverts to old file versions
I've been using a command like this to sync my music files across 2 systems: rsync -vr --inplace --delete /path/to/music/ gr...@192.168.1.2:/path/to/music Periodically, I'll manually touch up cover art that I've scanned, and I've noticed that it will revert to the untouched-up version after one of these rsyncs. Does that make sense to anyone? - Grant
[gentoo-user] Cascading autofs mounts
Hi, does anyone know (or have an idea about) how to achieve cascading mounts with autofs 5?! Basically what I would like to do is to (auto)-mount an iso image which lies on an (auto)-mounted smb share. /etc/auto.master contains: # mount_directory map_file options /mnt/smb /etc/auto/smb --timeout=5 --ghost /mnt/iso /etc/auto/iso --timeout=5 --ghost /etc/auto/smb: tkampe -fstype=cifs,cred=/root/cred ://tkampe/C\$ /etc/auto/iso: image -fstype=iso9660,ro,loop :/mnt/smb/tkampe/image.iso The auto-mount of the smb share works fine. But the mount of the iso works only if the smb share is already mounted (via "cd /mnt/smb/tkampe" for instance). What I would like to achieve is that trying to access /mnt/iso/image (which should be auto-mounted to /mnt/smb/tkampe/image.iso) triggers the auto-mount of /mnt/smb/tkampe to //tkampe/C$. But it doesn't. Ideas? Thorsten
Re: [gentoo-user] rsync reverts to old file versions
On Mon, 2009-12-28 at 17:16 -0800, Grant wrote: > Periodically, I'll manually touch up cover art that I've scanned, and > I've noticed that it will revert to the untouched-up version after one > of these rsyncs. Does that make sense to anyone? > > - Grant So it it synchronizes in the opposite direction of the one given in the command?
