Re: [gentoo-user] /usr/share/doc/openrc/net.example not found

2012-12-14 Thread Dale
Chris Stankevitz wrote:
> Hello,
>
> The file
>
>   /etc/conf.d/net
>
> reports that I can seen an example format at this location:
>
>   /usr/share/doc/openrc/net.example
>
> On my machine that example file does not exist.  Did I do something
> wrong or is this just a documentation oversight?
>
> Thank you,
>
> Chris
>
> PS: I'm trying to find a way to prevent dhcpd from updating my ntp.conf
>
>

Try this:

ls /usr/share/doc/openrc-0.11.8/net.example.bz2

You may have to edit the version.  Tab completion may be of use on this
one.  It's how I found it. 

Hmmm, why is it compressed? 

Dale

:-)  :-) 

-- 
I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how 
you interpreted my words!




[gentoo-user] /usr/share/doc/openrc/net.example not found

2012-12-14 Thread Chris Stankevitz
Hello,

The file

  /etc/conf.d/net

reports that I can seen an example format at this location:

  /usr/share/doc/openrc/net.example

On my machine that example file does not exist.  Did I do something
wrong or is this just a documentation oversight?

Thank you,

Chris

PS: I'm trying to find a way to prevent dhcpd from updating my ntp.conf



Re: [gentoo-user] System maintenance procedure?

2012-12-14 Thread Grant
> > > I think you're right about that.  Can I configure eclean to wait a
> > > certain number of days since a package was removed before cleaning it?
> > >  Even if I only run it once per week, it could remove a package that
> > > was updated yesterday that I find out I need tomorrow.
> > >
> > > - Grant
> >
> >
> > -t, --time-limit=don't delete files modified since 
> >  is an amount of time: "1y" is "one year", "2w" is "two weeks",
etc.
> > Units are: y (years), m (months), w (weeks), d (days) and h (hours).
>
> I just realized that --time-limit doesn't look like it takes into
consideration when a package was removed from the system, only when it was
installed.  Does anyone know how eclean behaves as far as leaving packages
behind for a while in case they're needed?

This just got me today.  I recently updated google-chrome on one system,
'eclean packages' ran at some point, then chrome started acting up and I
couldn't go back to the previous version because eclean had wiped out the
package.  I don't think we can count on --time-limit to save us because it
can still wipe out all previous versions of a package.  What we need is a
way to keep at least one older version of each package.

- Grant


Re: [gentoo-user] Dual or Quad CPU complications?

2012-12-14 Thread Michael Mol
On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 10:16 PM, Grant  wrote:
>> > >> > So if I have 2 physical CPU's with 4 cores each and I enable SMP,
>> > >> > I'm
>> > >> > using
>> > >> > 8 cores?  Can NUMA be either enabled or disabled when using more
>> > >> > than
>> > >> > one
>> > >> > physical CPU, or is it required?
>> > >>
>> > >>
>> > >> NUMA is a hardware architecture. It's how you access memory on a
>> > >> hardware level: NUMA = Non Uniform Memory Access vs a UMA
>> > >> architecture
>> > >> of typical (old/legacy) SMP systems (UMA = Uniform Memory Access).
>> > >>
>> > >> In a UMA system, all the memory belongs to all the sockets. In a NUMA
>> > >> system, each socket has it's "own" local memory. In modern (x86-64)
>> > >> processors, each socket has it's own memory controller so each socket
>> > >> controls its own local memory. If one socket runs out of memory it
>> > >> can
>> > >> ask another socket to lend him some memory. In a UMA system, no
>> > >> socket
>> > >> has to ask since memory is global and belongs to all sockets so if
>> > >> one
>> > >> socket uses up all the memory ... the rest "starve". In NUMA, there's
>> > >> more control over who uses what (be it cores or RAM).
>> > >>
>> > >> If you have a modern dual or quad (or higher #) socket system ...
>> > >> you've got NUMA architecture and you can't get rid of it, it's
>> > >> hardware, not software.
>> > >
>> > > So I must enable CONFIG_NUMA for more than one physical CPU, and
>> > > disable it
>> > > for only one physical CPU?
>> >
>> >
>> > Yup. But ... Why would you want to disable a socket (CPU)? If you
>> > disable a socket (CPU) ... you lose the memory attached to that socket
>> > (CPU) not to mention you lose those cores ;)
>>
>> Sure but it sounds like if my system only has one CPU socket, CONFIG_NUMA
>> should be disabled.
>
> I read this in make menuconfig:
>
> "The kernel will try to allocate memory used by a CPU on the local memory
> controller of the CPU and add some more NUMA awareness to the kernel. For
> 64-bit this is recommended if the system is Intel Core i7 (or later), AMD
> Opteron, or EM64T NUMA."
>
> To be sure I have this right, I should disable CONFIG_NUMA on any system
> with a single physical CPU, even if it's an AMD Opteron?

No harm done if you enable NUMA on a system where it's not necessary.

--
:wq



Re: [gentoo-user] Dual or Quad CPU complications?

2012-12-14 Thread Grant
> > >> > So if I have 2 physical CPU's with 4 cores each and I enable SMP,
I'm
> > >> > using
> > >> > 8 cores?  Can NUMA be either enabled or disabled when using more
than
> > >> > one
> > >> > physical CPU, or is it required?
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> NUMA is a hardware architecture. It's how you access memory on a
> > >> hardware level: NUMA = Non Uniform Memory Access vs a UMA
architecture
> > >> of typical (old/legacy) SMP systems (UMA = Uniform Memory Access).
> > >>
> > >> In a UMA system, all the memory belongs to all the sockets. In a NUMA
> > >> system, each socket has it's "own" local memory. In modern (x86-64)
> > >> processors, each socket has it's own memory controller so each socket
> > >> controls its own local memory. If one socket runs out of memory it
can
> > >> ask another socket to lend him some memory. In a UMA system, no
socket
> > >> has to ask since memory is global and belongs to all sockets so if
one
> > >> socket uses up all the memory ... the rest "starve". In NUMA, there's
> > >> more control over who uses what (be it cores or RAM).
> > >>
> > >> If you have a modern dual or quad (or higher #) socket system ...
> > >> you've got NUMA architecture and you can't get rid of it, it's
> > >> hardware, not software.
> > >
> > > So I must enable CONFIG_NUMA for more than one physical CPU, and
disable it
> > > for only one physical CPU?
> >
> >
> > Yup. But ... Why would you want to disable a socket (CPU)? If you
> > disable a socket (CPU) ... you lose the memory attached to that socket
> > (CPU) not to mention you lose those cores ;)
>
> Sure but it sounds like if my system only has one CPU socket, CONFIG_NUMA
should be disabled.

I read this in make menuconfig:

"The kernel will try to allocate memory used by a CPU on the local memory
controller of the CPU and add some more NUMA awareness to the kernel. For
64-bit this is recommended if the system is Intel Core i7 (or later), AMD
Opteron, or EM64T NUMA."

To be sure I have this right, I should disable CONFIG_NUMA on any system
with a single physical CPU, even if it's an AMD Opteron?

- Grant


Re: [gentoo-user] crontab questions

2012-12-14 Thread Grant
> > Thanks Michael.  I'd like to have more control over when the commands
> > are run.  Maybe the system crontab (cronbase) should be used when that
> > control isn't necessary or to allow programs to add stuff to a crontab,
> > and a user crontab should be used when more control is necessary?
> >
>
> I personally like the idea of the cron.{daily,weekly,...}, but the
> implementation is a little goofy. On our mail server, I've added an
> additional directory called cron.bihourly to update virus/spam
> signatures every two hours. The simplest way to accomplish this is to add,
>
>   # Run every two hours
>   0  */2 * * *  root   find -L /etc/cron.bihourly -type f -executable \
> -execdir '{}' \;
>
> in the global /etc/crontab. I'm sure this is horribly deficient
> according to whoever implemented the run-crons stuff, but for me the
> additional clarity is worth it.
>
> You can of course add anything else you like in the global/user
> crontabs, and they'll work normally.

OK, I've moved all of my user crontabs (including root) to /etc/crontab.

> But be careful: do you really want `emerge -puDN` to run 15 minutes
> after you start an `eix-sync`? Or do you just want it to run when
> `eix-sync` is done? If it's the latter, you don't want to schedule it 15
> minutes later -- you could hit a slow mirror and still be updating when
> the `emerge` kicks off. In that case it's better to put all of the
> commands in one script, and schedule that when you want. That way the
> commands occur in sequence, and you can bail out if something fails.

Done.

> > I think it's better for me to pipe the commands to mailx.  I get mail if
> > I run this on the command line
> >
> > emerge -pvDuN world | /usr/bin/mail -s "subject" -a "From: from"
> > m...@email.com 
> >
> > But I don't get any mail when it runs in the crontab.  Do you know why
> > that's happening?  I do get mail from 'emerge -pvDuN world' run in the
> > crontab without piping it to mail.

I got it working in /etc/crontab.  Should I file a bug for
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/cron-guide.xml to mention that vixie-cron must
be restarted when making changes to /etc/crontab?  It says:

"Note that only Vixie-cron schedules jobs in /etc/crontab automatically."

> I'm not sure. I do the same thing, though, albeit with a temporary file
> (and it works). Maybe try `echo`ing the output to a file? This script
> emails me the current iptables to make sure fail2ban hasn't gone berserk:
>
>   #!/bin/bash
>
>   # Send the current iptables -L -n output to the postmaster.
>
>   TMPFILE=/tmp/iptables-state.log
>   MAILADDR="postmas...@example.com"
>
>   echo "To: $MAILADDR" > $TMPFILE
>   echo "From: r...@mx1.example.com" >> $TMPFILE
>   echo "Subject: mx1 iptables state" >> $TMPFILE
>
>   iptables -L -n >> $TMPFILE
>
>   sendmail -f r...@mx1.example.com \
>$MAILADDR  \
>< $TMPFILE
>
>   rm $TMPFILE
>
> It's not very fancy but it does work. If a temp file works for you, it
> might help you narrow down the problem.

Wouldn't you rather use a one-liner like this?

iptables -L -n | mail -s "mx1 iptables state" -a "From: r...@mx1.example.com"
postmas...@example.com

- Grant


Re: [gentoo-user] Dual or Quad CPU complications?

2012-12-14 Thread Mick
On Thursday 13 Dec 2012 14:13:56 Bruce Hill wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 13, 2012 at 08:44:45AM +0100, J. Roeleveld wrote:
> > NUMA is also an option in the kernel. Should also be fully transparent.
> > I got one machine with NUMA and only had to set an option for it.
> > 
> > Does anyone know how to check it's working properly?
> 
> dmesg | grep NUMA

Hmm ... it seems that it can't find NUMA configuration:

$ dmesg | grep UMA
No NUMA configuration found

Am I supposed to configure something in userspace?  This is what the kernel 
has:

$ uname -a
Linux dell_xps 3.5.7-gentoo #2 SMP PREEMPT Mon Nov 26 10:36:47 GMT 2012 x86_64 
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU Q 720 @ 1.60GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

$ cat /usr/src/linux/.config | grep -i NUMA
CONFIG_NUMA=y
# CONFIG_AMD_NUMA is not set
CONFIG_X86_64_ACPI_NUMA=y
# CONFIG_NUMA_EMU is not set
CONFIG_USE_PERCPU_NUMA_NODE_ID=y
CONFIG_ACPI_NUMA=y
-- 
Regards,
Mick


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Re: [gentoo-user] Intel Atom: architecture, distcc, crossdev and compile flags

2012-12-14 Thread Frank Steinmetzger
On Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 09:16:58AM +0100, Florian Philipp wrote:

> >>> * The last thing I’m going to set up is filesystem encryption, at least 
> >>> for ~.
> >>>   I already know/think that AES would be the best choice due to limited 
> >>> CPU
> >>>   power, but what else is there to heed besides key size?
> >>
> >> Nothing, you're good. Hash and key chaining method have negligible
> >> impact. If you stick with an x86_32 userspace I suggest at least using
> >> an x64 kernel so you can use of CRYPTO_AES_X86_64.
> > 
> > That's an interesting idea.
> >> [...] 
> > I haven't done any comparisons of 32/64 crypto yet, I'm just reading
> > docs on Luks (never used it before).

Well now, I did a few comparisons yesterday. Not much---just permutated a few
of the most probable crypto combinations (aes/twofish, cbc/xts, essiv/plain).
I created the LUKS container, opened it and gave it a spin with hdparm -t.

The result was shocking and outrageous; reported throughput w/o encryption was
75 MB/s, which is your typical 5400 rev laptop HDD.  First I was disappointed
when I saw what aes-cbc-essiv gave me on 32 bit: a mere 19 and a bit.  But on
64 bit, it yielded a whopping 34 MB/s.  I had a hunch and booted the 32 bit
system with the 64 bit kernel---and throughput stayed high as expected.

So for the sake of simplicity (and to give it a rest after two weeks of ricing
to the day), I will use the 32 bit userland with a 64 bit kernel.  I will only
need to set up some magic (a multilib crossdev gcc and separate build dirs) so
I can build both kernels with their separate configs from the same source dir.

> I personally see no reason for encrypting root as there is nothing of
> interest in there.

Hm ideed, the only password I have in a plaintext config file are WiFi
passwords vor wpa and vpnc.  For those the symlink solution could be used.
Not needing an initrd is a big incentive. :)

> > On a sidenote, While I was cleaning up unread mails in the ML, I just
> > found your interesting frontswap/zcache trick.

I tried that, too, but for now will keep it disabled---simple copying of big
files was slowed down to 33 MB/s, obviously b/c the cache is constantly being
changed.  It's just not suitable for little Atoms.
-- 
Gruß | Greetings | Qapla’
Please do not share anything from, with or about me with any Facebook service.

The duration of a minute is relative.
It depends on the side of the toilet door you are standing on.


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Re: [gentoo-user] Dual or Quad CPU complications?

2012-12-14 Thread Grant
> >> > So if I have 2 physical CPU's with 4 cores each and I enable SMP, I'm
> >> > using
> >> > 8 cores?  Can NUMA be either enabled or disabled when using more than
> >> > one
> >> > physical CPU, or is it required?
> >>
> >>
> >> NUMA is a hardware architecture. It's how you access memory on a
> >> hardware level: NUMA = Non Uniform Memory Access vs a UMA architecture
> >> of typical (old/legacy) SMP systems (UMA = Uniform Memory Access).
> >>
> >> In a UMA system, all the memory belongs to all the sockets. In a NUMA
> >> system, each socket has it's "own" local memory. In modern (x86-64)
> >> processors, each socket has it's own memory controller so each socket
> >> controls its own local memory. If one socket runs out of memory it can
> >> ask another socket to lend him some memory. In a UMA system, no socket
> >> has to ask since memory is global and belongs to all sockets so if one
> >> socket uses up all the memory ... the rest "starve". In NUMA, there's
> >> more control over who uses what (be it cores or RAM).
> >>
> >> If you have a modern dual or quad (or higher #) socket system ...
> >> you've got NUMA architecture and you can't get rid of it, it's
> >> hardware, not software.
> >
> > So I must enable CONFIG_NUMA for more than one physical CPU, and
disable it
> > for only one physical CPU?
>
>
> Yup. But ... Why would you want to disable a socket (CPU)? If you
> disable a socket (CPU) ... you lose the memory attached to that socket
> (CPU) not to mention you lose those cores ;)

Sure but it sounds like if my system only has one CPU socket, CONFIG_NUMA
should be disabled.

- Grant


> A better solution would be to use cgroups or numactl tools to pin a
> certain process to a set of cores and a memory region.
>
> If you really want to deactivate cores (but not the whole socket), you
can type:
>
>   echo 0 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/online
>
> This would deactivate core #1. You can deactivate as many cores as you
> wish, except for core #0.
>
> This can be done without rebooting your server (aka during run time).
> Your memory will not be affected, but you will have less cores (and
> theoretically more memory bandwidth). I say "theoretically" because
> you always have to benchmark these things with YOUR application
> (remember logic NEVER applies to real life ;)
>
> If you want to check the # of cores you've got:
>
>  cat /proc/interrupts | grep CPU
>
> Other possibilities such as cat /proc/cpuinfo or dmesg, ... can be
> useful too for this: your choice, FLOSS gives you options.
>
> If you want to activate the previously deactivated core, you can run:
>
>   echo 1 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/online
>
> Now ... be sure your core numbering is the expected core numbering.
> IOW, not all server vendors follow the same numbering scheme so core
> #1 in vendor A's server could be core #2 in vendor B's server. Never
> trust logic ;)
>
> As I mentioned previously: test/benchmark YOUR software. DON'T trust
> logic or generic benchmarks or web pages with results. Trust YOUR
> results only.
>
> HTH
>
>Rafa


Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} dedicated server or cloud server?

2012-12-14 Thread Grant
> > > > Would everyone here be in favor of a dedicated server over a cloud
> > > > server from a host with good cloud infrastructure?  The cloud
> > > > server concept is amazing but from what I'm reading a dedicated
> > > > server at the same price point far outperforms it.
> > > >
> > > > - Grant
> > >
> > > Last time I did the calculation, a dedicated or normal virtualized
> > > infrastructure was more cost effective as long as you could
> > > accurately predict the performance you need.
> > >
> > > Cloud services only really help if you need a high dynamic range
> > > regarding scale and performance, e.g. a service that could get a
> > > lot of new users very fast or is only really active for short time
> > > spans.
> >
> > Doesn't a good cloud server also have potentially higher availability
> > compared to dedicated?
>
> Potentially? Yes.
>
> In reality? No.
>
> It's not the virtualization that breaks, it's all the surrounding
> infrastructure, especially Layer 2. You will not believe how fragile
> that stuff can get.
>
> In the old days, a small slip up could isolate a small part of the
> network. These days, a small slip-up easily ripples though the entire
> network and takes down all of it, and sadly this is not rare. The
> networking needs of VMs are radically different from the traditional,
> and this is the side-effect: fragility.

Sounds like the technology isn't ready to compare favorably with dedicated
yet in an "ordinary" scenario with a website to run.  Maybe in a few years?
 The concept is amazing.  I'd also like to move my desktops and even
laptops to the cloud once things get solidified. Then client hardware
becomes interchangeable, disposable... each physical location would only
need one thin client and a bunch of USB peripherals (DisplayLink, etc).

- Grant


Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus -- REBOOT OK THIS A.M.

2012-12-14 Thread felix
On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 03:19:53PM -0600, Dale wrote:

> I did some math, my new rig is almost 8 times faster/powerful than my
> old rig but pulls much less than half the power even when fully loaded. 
> I might add, I think the old rig was idle when I measured that. 

My next box will be a commodity box.  This one is a big tower because
I wanted compute power for pictures I was generating, lots of them,
and I wanted lots of storage room.  Now with 4TB drives so cheap and
USB 3 for speed, the storage can all be done by external drives, and I
don't need the compute power any more.  I do like building computers,
in a way, but I don't like the idea of being rushed into building a
replacement, and I don't need any custom features.

A friend suggested a big lightning storm a month ago might have
temporarily scrambled something.  It tripped breakers in the house and
blew out a battery in the standby generator shed, but I've rebooted
twice since that storm without any problems.  I guess it will remain a
mystery.

-- 
... _._. ._ ._. . _._. ._. ___ .__ ._. . .__. ._ .. ._.
 Felix Finch: scarecrow repairman & rocket surgeon / fe...@crowfix.com
  GPG = E987 4493 C860 246C 3B1E  6477 7838 76E9 182E 8151 ITAR license #4933
I've found a solution to Fermat's Last Theorem but I see I've run out of room o



Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone switched to eudev yet?

2012-12-14 Thread Kevin Chadwick
On Fri, 14 Dec 2012 08:53:35 -0800
Mark Knecht  wrote:

> I guess the other question that's lurking here for me is why do you
> have /usr on a separate partition? What's the usage model that drives
> a person to do that? The most I've ever done is move /usr/portage and
> /usr/src to other places. My /usr never has all that much in it beyond
> those two directories, along with maybe /usr/share. Would it not be
> easier for you in the long run to move /usr back to / and not have to
> deal with this question at all?

It should be moving in the other direction for stability reasons and
busybox is no full answer.

On OpenBSD which has the benefit of userland being part of it. All the
critical single user binaries are in root and built statically as much
as possible, maximising system reliability no matter the custom
requirements or packages.

The way I have it on OpenBSD

/ ro

100 megabytes and I never need to fsck and can reliably fix all
but the most likely problem and snapshot quickly, though there is no
need as the kernel is rock solid.

/usr ro,nodev
~600 megabytes that I almost never need to fsck even when I pull the
plug

/usr/local ro,nodev,nosuid
All installed packages go here and I can give users the ability to only
mount writeable this location. There are other plusses I won't bother
going into.


All the BSDs and debian stable (old and initramfs) still get's this
right with debian suggesting a seperate /usr during install in
compliance with the filesystem hiearchical standard and the upcoming
draft/version 3, which states the real technical and uptime benefits of
a seperate /usr.

https://wiki.linuxfoundation.org/en/FHS

Unfortunately stability and security often only get's noticed and
chosen over other function when it's completely obliterated and has
stopped functioning alltogether.

When hard worked (including rusty russel) documents like this get
ignored when freedesktop.org is given so much credence even though
freedesktop.org is actually simply stating opinion without having
debate/comments on it's site and in contrast a combined root/usr has no
technical benefit not addressed elsewhere (grub etc..) and when the
issues in userland are far from insurmountable it is quite worrying and
I am grateful to those who have stood up against this and the trend
of added complexity into pid1/systemd and early boot.

What is also worrying is the recent trends of the kits, udisks
dropping features for months to get multiseat and dbus getting
everywhere like Windows and RPC.

I can take spread out documentation compared to OpenBSD but some of
these issues are quite rediculous, I just wish OpenBSD had more devs for
KMS and stable updates as it is perhaps due to being a smaller project
involving both core userland and kernel and with hard fast goals, far
better managed.



Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus -- REBOOT OK THIS A.M.

2012-12-14 Thread Dale
Michael Mol wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 2:51 PM,   wrote:
>> I finally ran out of excuses to not reboot after a night powered off, and it 
>> did.
>>
>> It's all running normally now, but I think it's time for me to take the 
>> hint, grab a clue, and start researching a replacement.
> I think you'll find the power consumption of modern systems absolutely
> delightful compared to 8yo systems. I was amazed to see that
> server-grade xeon CPUs can be had for ~250USD, with a 77W TDP. 5-6
> years ago, my Phenom 9650 was a 120TDP part for almost that much when
> not on sale. (Yes, I know Intel and AMD don't calculate their thermal
> data quite the same way, but it seems comperable enough.)
>
> --
> :wq
>
>


I agree.  My old rig, AMD 2500+ CPU with about 2Gbs of ram, a couple
hard drives and a FX-5200 video card pulled about 400 watts or so, not
counting the monitor.  My new rig, AMD 4 core 3.2Ghz CPU, 16Gbs of ram,
4 hard drives and a GT-220 1Gb video card and it pulls less than 150
watts and just barely over 200 watts when compiling something and using
the drives a lot while doing it.  That includes a LCD monitor too.  My
old rig had a CRT monitor.  Power hog big time which is why I didn't add
it to the power being pulled. 

I did some math, my new rig is almost 8 times faster/powerful than my
old rig but pulls much less than half the power even when fully loaded. 
I might add, I think the old rig was idle when I measured that. 

I bet you could find some really old and cheap mobos, say a year or two
old but still new out of the box, and build a cheap system and have a
lot more powerful system that pulls less power from the wall.  I saw a
Gigabyte mobo the other day on newegg for like $40.00.  I'm sure the
model is a year or two old but still, its better than a 8 year old. 
Also, memory is cheap for those too.  Most likely the CPU would be too. 

Sure is a weird problem tho.  Sounds like something I would run into
myself.  ;-) 

Dale

:-)  :-) 

-- 
I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how 
you interpreted my words!




Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Anyone switched to eudev yet?

2012-12-14 Thread Dale
Bruce Hill wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 10:52:12AM -0600, Dale wrote:
>> I have the flu, nasty one at that, and I really don't need to add hal to
>> my list right now.  That said, the Doctor called and the blood tests
>> said I was healthy as a horse, other than being sick as a dog.  :/  
>> Sort of like software, supposed to work great out of the box but usually
>> doesn't.  Imagine me on windoze.  O_O 
>>
>> Dale
>>
>> :-)  :-) 
>>
>> P. S.  I'm not sure about the living part yet.  It's a theory that is
>> yet to be proven. 
> Maybe I can give you a "run for your money". I hit most corner cases head on.
> See this bug https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=447184
>
> Today we have major things going on, for which I need my printer to print. And
> yesterday it stopped printing. It will crash FF when Print is selected, and
> won't print from Inkscape, LibreOffice, or Evince. There were already problems
> but now it just rolled over and died.
>
> And, no, it's not the printer ... workstation CAN print with this command:
> lp -d HP_Officejet_Pro_8500_A910 -o scaling=75 
> Happy-Penguin-Gymnastics/offers/Drop-and-Shop-text
>
> and baruch can print to the printer (192.168.100.10:9100)
>
> Hill's Law: it works best when you don't need it


I just depend on Murphy's law.  It always works for me.  lol 

Dale

:-)  :-) 

-- 
I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how 
you interpreted my words!




Re: [gentoo-user] Question about new USE flags for xf86-video-intel

2012-12-14 Thread Mark Knecht
On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 12:35 PM, Florian Philipp  wrote:
>
> If you don't miss features I say good riddance to xorg.conf.
>
> Regards,
> Florian Philipp

Yeah, I agree in general, but in this case how does one determine that
on a remote machine? I run KDE, my dad runs Gnome. How would I know if
things are OK, other than making the change and waiting for complaints
I guess.

Cheers,
Mark



Re: [gentoo-user] Question about new USE flags for xf86-video-intel

2012-12-14 Thread Florian Philipp
Am 14.12.2012 18:56, schrieb Mark Knecht:
> On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 9:44 AM, Walter Dnes  wrote:
>>   I'm updating a system that's probably gone 2 or 3 months since its
>> last update.
>>
>> 
>> !!! The ebuild selected to satisfy "x11-drivers/xf86-video-intel" has unmet 
>> requirements.
>> - x11-drivers/xf86-video-intel-2.20.13::gentoo USE="dri -glamor -sna -udev 
>> -uxa -xvmc"
>>
>>   The following REQUIRED_USE flag constraints are unsatisfied:
>> any-of ( glamor sna uxa )
>> 
>>
>>   This is the first time I've run into these options.  A bit of Google
>> detective work turned up some articles...
>>
>> http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=intel_glamor_first&num=1
>> http://ickle.wordpress.com/2012/06/05/an-evening-with-glamor/
>>
>> ...which give the impression that SNA is the fastest option overall.
>> The phoronix article also mentioned some instability issues with glamor.
>> I'll probably be going with SNA.  Does anybody else have any experience
>> and/or opinions?
>>
>> --
>> Walter Dnes 
>> I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications
>>
> 
> I have no idea about performance but I've got udev and sna enabled at this 
> time.
> 

+1

> gandalf ~ # emerge -pv xf86-video-intel
> 
> These are the packages that would be merged, in order:
> 
> Calculating dependencies... done!
> [ebuild   R] x11-drivers/xf86-video-intel-2.20.13  USE="dri sna
> udev -glamor -uxa -xvmc" 0 kB
> 
> Total: 1 package (1 reinstall), Size of downloads: 0 kB
> gandalf ~ #
> 
> Be forewarned, or please report back if you can, but in my case on the
> two Intel machines I have (one local, one my 84 year old dad uses) X11
> stopped displaying anything after this update. As a quick fix I
> removed the xorg.conf file completely to get a desktop back. This was
> a couple of weeks ago. Removing xorg.conf worked on both machines and
> I haven't gone back to figure out what happened and how to best
> address it.
> 

If you don't miss features I say good riddance to xorg.conf.

Regards,
Florian Philipp




signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature


Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus -- REBOOT OK THIS A.M.

2012-12-14 Thread Michael Mol
On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 2:51 PM,   wrote:
> I finally ran out of excuses to not reboot after a night powered off, and it 
> did.
>
> It's all running normally now, but I think it's time for me to take the hint, 
> grab a clue, and start researching a replacement.

I think you'll find the power consumption of modern systems absolutely
delightful compared to 8yo systems. I was amazed to see that
server-grade xeon CPUs can be had for ~250USD, with a 77W TDP. 5-6
years ago, my Phenom 9650 was a 120TDP part for almost that much when
not on sale. (Yes, I know Intel and AMD don't calculate their thermal
data quite the same way, but it seems comperable enough.)

--
:wq



Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus -- REBOOT OK THIS A.M.

2012-12-14 Thread felix
I finally ran out of excuses to not reboot after a night powered off, and it 
did.

It's all running normally now, but I think it's time for me to take the hint, 
grab a clue, and start researching a replacement.

-- 
Felix Finch, a la mode



Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Anyone switched to eudev yet?

2012-12-14 Thread Tanstaafl

Sorry, you're right, I'll go back to sleep now... ;)

I spoke without looking, and indeed my mask is set to >=181

On 2012-12-14 12:34 PM, Bruce Hill  wrote:

On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 11:20:05AM -0500, Tanstaafl wrote:

>On 2012-12-14 10:39 AM, Bruce Hill  wrote:

> >What Mark wrote you is golden. I might only add that if you put:
> >
> >   >=sys-fs/udev-181
> >
> >into
> >
> >/etc/portage/package.mask
> >
> >you will have the present stable udev from*before*  those weirdos starting
> >messing it up, forcing systemd to take over udev.

>
>Hmmm...
>
>For some reason I have masked my udev at 171...
>
>Are you saying I can change the mask to 181 and not have to worry about
>having an unbootable system due to my /usr being on a separate partition?

The >=sys-fs/udev-181 in /etc/portage/package.mask means that any udev version
equal to or greater than udev-181 is masked from the system.





Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus

2012-12-14 Thread Bruce Hill
On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 01:43:01PM -0500, fe...@crowfix.com wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 12:34:49PM -0600, Bruce Hill wrote:
> 
> > Boot with SystemRescueCd and you can't get to a prompt?
> 
> Currently can't even boot -- it hangs wit a blank screen at the point grub or 
> the rescue DVD would take over.
> 
> > Yes, your southbridge chipset could just happened to have failed at the same
> > time; or it failed on the reboot; or USB and SATA are both on the 
> > southbridge
> > that failed so you lost both, basically.
> 
> Then my natural naive question is, can this be readily replaced, or is it 
> soldered in and/or obsolete?  It is about 8 years old.

An 8-year old consumer class mobo begs replacing. I think the way to replace
the southbridge chip (if that's it) is called floating point solder, or some
such. Hardware fails, and just a new kernel for your present drive will get
you up and running on a new board.
-- 
Happy Penguin Computers   >')
126 Fenco Drive   ( \
Tupelo, MS 38801   ^^
supp...@happypenguincomputers.com
662-269-2706 662-205-6424
http://happypenguincomputers.com/

Don't top-post: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_post#Top-posting



Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus

2012-12-14 Thread Michael Mol
On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 1:43 PM,   wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 12:34:49PM -0600, Bruce Hill wrote:
>
>> Boot with SystemRescueCd and you can't get to a prompt?
>
> Currently can't even boot -- it hangs wit a blank screen at the point grub or 
> the rescue DVD would take over.
>
>> Yes, your southbridge chipset could just happened to have failed at the same
>> time; or it failed on the reboot; or USB and SATA are both on the southbridge
>> that failed so you lost both, basically.
>
> Then my natural naive question is, can this be readily replaced, or is it 
> soldered in and/or obsolete?  It is about 8 years old.

Almost certainly no. Not unless you take the part numbers in question
and hit ebay.

--
:wq



Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus

2012-12-14 Thread felix
On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 12:34:49PM -0600, Bruce Hill wrote:

> Boot with SystemRescueCd and you can't get to a prompt?

Currently can't even boot -- it hangs wit a blank screen at the point grub or 
the rescue DVD would take over.

> Yes, your southbridge chipset could just happened to have failed at the same
> time; or it failed on the reboot; or USB and SATA are both on the southbridge
> that failed so you lost both, basically.

Then my natural naive question is, can this be readily replaced, or is it 
soldered in and/or obsolete?  It is about 8 years old.

-- 
Felix Finch, a la mode



Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus

2012-12-14 Thread Volker Armin Hemmann
Am Freitag, 14. Dezember 2012, 12:16:46 schrieb Bruce Hill:
> Whatever you think of logic, it is entirely illogical that a kernel could
> kill your BIOS, or any hardware ... at least, just booting into it.

emm, not, it isn't.

-- 
#163933



Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus

2012-12-14 Thread Bruce Hill
On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 01:24:10PM -0500, fe...@crowfix.com wrote:
> 
> That's what I've been using.
> 
> But the hardware failure is illogical too; why would USB and SATA fail at the 
> same time?  Or why would southbridge fail when it had been running perfectly 
> fine?
> 
> I don't really think it was 3.7.0, but who knows, did I answer some config 
> question incorrectly and tell it to load some firmware?  Without access to 
> the disk, I can't tell.  I don't remember any question about loading BIOS 
> firmware, and can't see why the kernel would even care about that.
> 
> The whole mess makes no sense.

Boot with SystemRescueCd and you can't get to a prompt?

If you do, do you have internet access once you're there?

If neither, take a photo and post a link to a *clear* snapshot.

Yes, your southbridge chipset could just happened to have failed at the same
time; or it failed on the reboot; or USB and SATA are both on the southbridge
that failed so you lost both, basically.
-- 
Happy Penguin Computers   >')
126 Fenco Drive   ( \
Tupelo, MS 38801   ^^
supp...@happypenguincomputers.com
662-269-2706 662-205-6424
http://happypenguincomputers.com/

Don't top-post: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_post#Top-posting



Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus

2012-12-14 Thread felix
On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 12:16:46PM -0600, Bruce Hill wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 11:18:21AM -0500, fe...@crowfix.com wrote:
> > 
> > I will try some more desperate tricks today, like reconnecting the USB pile 
> > to see if it at least boots the disks again - is my choice between disks 
> > and keyboard?  I will find out.  My best guess right now is that booting 
> > 3.7.0 is what clobbered things; whether I added a option which loaded bad 
> > firmware, or 3.7.0 is broken, I have no idea.  It could well be something 
> > unrelated to 3.7.0.  My goal for today is to try to get keyboard and disk 
> > working, then boot with 3.6.8.
> 
> Whatever you think of logic, it is entirely illogical that a kernel could kill
> your BIOS, or any hardware ... at least, just booting into it.
> 
> The southbridge is a good thing to look at, esp for a burned spot/pit.
> 
> My suggestion is http://www.sysresccd.org/SystemRescueCd_Homepage

That's what I've been using.

But the hardware failure is illogical too; why would USB and SATA fail at the 
same time?  Or why would southbridge fail when it had been running perfectly 
fine?

I don't really think it was 3.7.0, but who knows, did I answer some config 
question incorrectly and tell it to load some firmware?  Without access to the 
disk, I can't tell.  I don't remember any question about loading BIOS firmware, 
and can't see why the kernel would even care about that.

The whole mess makes no sense.

-- 
Felix Finch, a la mode



Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus

2012-12-14 Thread Bruce Hill
On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 11:18:21AM -0500, fe...@crowfix.com wrote:
> 
> I will try some more desperate tricks today, like reconnecting the USB pile 
> to see if it at least boots the disks again - is my choice between disks and 
> keyboard?  I will find out.  My best guess right now is that booting 3.7.0 is 
> what clobbered things; whether I added a option which loaded bad firmware, or 
> 3.7.0 is broken, I have no idea.  It could well be something unrelated to 
> 3.7.0.  My goal for today is to try to get keyboard and disk working, then 
> boot with 3.6.8.

Whatever you think of logic, it is entirely illogical that a kernel could kill
your BIOS, or any hardware ... at least, just booting into it.

The southbridge is a good thing to look at, esp for a burned spot/pit.

My suggestion is http://www.sysresccd.org/SystemRescueCd_Homepage

Our Gentoo images have been broken lately, and are short on tools always.
-- 
Happy Penguin Computers   >')
126 Fenco Drive   ( \
Tupelo, MS 38801   ^^
supp...@happypenguincomputers.com
662-269-2706 662-205-6424
http://happypenguincomputers.com/

Don't top-post: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_post#Top-posting



Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} dedicated server or cloud server?

2012-12-14 Thread Kevin Brandstatter
Cloud services are often far more expensive, I work with someone who did a
fair amount of research of the various costs of clouds. They are good for
dynamic scaling of resources but if your concentrating on one server or
another its likely your server load isn't highly intensive and a single
dedicated server could handle it. Also, there are the options of cheaper
webhosting, or a VPS, as a true dedicated server can be quite expensive due
to the cost of rackspace.

In terms of availability, it simply depends on replication and the
reliability of the data site. with a standard cloud server there is likely
not replication across sites and so the availability is determined by
availability of the data center. Dedicated servers dont have multi site
replication (unless you do it yourself), however many provide far better
uptime SLAs than a cloud provider.
For example, Amazon EC2 SLA guaruntees 99.95% uptime. whereas dedicated
servers or VPSs can generally offer between 99,99% and 99.% (depending
on who it is).

-Kevin Brandstatter



On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 8:34 AM, Florian Philipp wrote:

> Am 14.12.2012 11:00, schrieb Grant:
> >> > Would everyone here be in favor of a dedicated server over a cloud
> >> > server from a host with good cloud infrastructure?  The cloud server
> >> > concept is amazing but from what I'm reading a dedicated server at the
> >> > same price point far outperforms it.
> >> >
> >> > - Grant
> >>
> >> Last time I did the calculation, a dedicated or normal virtualized
> >> infrastructure was more cost effective as long as you could accurately
> >> predict the performance you need.
> >>
> >> Cloud services only really help if you need a high dynamic range
> >> regarding scale and performance, e.g. a service that could get a lot of
> >> new users very fast or is only really active for short time spans.
> >
> > Doesn't a good cloud server also have potentially higher availability
> > compared to dedicated?
> >
> > - Grant
>
> I'd be grateful if anyone can point me at a well conducted study on that
> topic. Until then I just say that my anecdotal evidence shows the
> opposite: My cheap-ass virtual server has an uptime of 492 days with
> only minor, previously announced network outages. During the same time,
> Amazon EC2 had what, 3 or 4 major outages?
>
> Regards,
> Florian Philipp
>
>


Re: [gentoo-user] Question about new USE flags for xf86-video-intel

2012-12-14 Thread Mark Knecht
On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 9:44 AM, Walter Dnes  wrote:
>   I'm updating a system that's probably gone 2 or 3 months since its
> last update.
>
> 
> !!! The ebuild selected to satisfy "x11-drivers/xf86-video-intel" has unmet 
> requirements.
> - x11-drivers/xf86-video-intel-2.20.13::gentoo USE="dri -glamor -sna -udev 
> -uxa -xvmc"
>
>   The following REQUIRED_USE flag constraints are unsatisfied:
> any-of ( glamor sna uxa )
> 
>
>   This is the first time I've run into these options.  A bit of Google
> detective work turned up some articles...
>
> http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=intel_glamor_first&num=1
> http://ickle.wordpress.com/2012/06/05/an-evening-with-glamor/
>
> ...which give the impression that SNA is the fastest option overall.
> The phoronix article also mentioned some instability issues with glamor.
> I'll probably be going with SNA.  Does anybody else have any experience
> and/or opinions?
>
> --
> Walter Dnes 
> I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications
>

I have no idea about performance but I've got udev and sna enabled at this time.

gandalf ~ # emerge -pv xf86-video-intel

These are the packages that would be merged, in order:

Calculating dependencies... done!
[ebuild   R] x11-drivers/xf86-video-intel-2.20.13  USE="dri sna
udev -glamor -uxa -xvmc" 0 kB

Total: 1 package (1 reinstall), Size of downloads: 0 kB
gandalf ~ #

Be forewarned, or please report back if you can, but in my case on the
two Intel machines I have (one local, one my 84 year old dad uses) X11
stopped displaying anything after this update. As a quick fix I
removed the xorg.conf file completely to get a desktop back. This was
a couple of weeks ago. Removing xorg.conf worked on both machines and
I haven't gone back to figure out what happened and how to best
address it.

Good luck,
Mark



Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Anyone switched to eudev yet?

2012-12-14 Thread Bruce Hill
On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 10:52:12AM -0600, Dale wrote:
> 
> I have the flu, nasty one at that, and I really don't need to add hal to
> my list right now.  That said, the Doctor called and the blood tests
> said I was healthy as a horse, other than being sick as a dog.  :/  
> Sort of like software, supposed to work great out of the box but usually
> doesn't.  Imagine me on windoze.  O_O 
> 
> Dale
> 
> :-)  :-) 
> 
> P. S.  I'm not sure about the living part yet.  It's a theory that is
> yet to be proven. 

Maybe I can give you a "run for your money". I hit most corner cases head on.
See this bug https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=447184

Today we have major things going on, for which I need my printer to print. And
yesterday it stopped printing. It will crash FF when Print is selected, and
won't print from Inkscape, LibreOffice, or Evince. There were already problems
but now it just rolled over and died.

And, no, it's not the printer ... workstation CAN print with this command:
lp -d HP_Officejet_Pro_8500_A910 -o scaling=75 
Happy-Penguin-Gymnastics/offers/Drop-and-Shop-text

and baruch can print to the printer (192.168.100.10:9100)

Hill's Law: it works best when you don't need it
-- 
Happy Penguin Computers   >')
126 Fenco Drive   ( \
Tupelo, MS 38801   ^^
supp...@happypenguincomputers.com
662-269-2706 662-205-6424
http://happypenguincomputers.com/

Don't top-post: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_post#Top-posting



[gentoo-user] Question about new USE flags for xf86-video-intel

2012-12-14 Thread Walter Dnes
  I'm updating a system that's probably gone 2 or 3 months since its
last update.


!!! The ebuild selected to satisfy "x11-drivers/xf86-video-intel" has unmet 
requirements.
- x11-drivers/xf86-video-intel-2.20.13::gentoo USE="dri -glamor -sna -udev -uxa 
-xvmc"

  The following REQUIRED_USE flag constraints are unsatisfied:
any-of ( glamor sna uxa )


  This is the first time I've run into these options.  A bit of Google
detective work turned up some articles...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=intel_glamor_first&num=1
http://ickle.wordpress.com/2012/06/05/an-evening-with-glamor/

...which give the impression that SNA is the fastest option overall.
The phoronix article also mentioned some instability issues with glamor.
I'll probably be going with SNA.  Does anybody else have any experience
and/or opinions?

-- 
Walter Dnes 
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications



Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus

2012-12-14 Thread felix
On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 06:22:10PM +0100, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:

> how about a more stable kernel - like 3.4.X?

It was running 3.6.8 fine, and ~ kernels for ages before that.

The paranoid in me thinks it was 3.7.0, but I really don't know.

> and yes, a confused bios can do a lot of strange things. One thing you might 
> try: disconnect your box from the main for several minutes, reset bios...
> 
> had to do that dance A LOT with a costly POS asus board...

I unplugged it last night, tried again half an hour later, no joy, so I 
unplugged it again and have been eating breakfast, got osme errands to run, and 
then I will try again.

What's so frustrating is that the box was working fine, including the keyboard, 
until that first boot into 3.7.0, where it couldn't find the root drive, and 
then the keyboard stopped working, even with the BIOS, almost as if 3.7.0 did 
something nasty and clobbered everything it could get its hands on.

Well, I'll try again in a bit.

-- 
Felix Finch, a la mode



Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Anyone switched to eudev yet?

2012-12-14 Thread Bruce Hill
On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 11:20:05AM -0500, Tanstaafl wrote:
> On 2012-12-14 10:39 AM, Bruce Hill  wrote:
> > What Mark wrote you is golden. I might only add that if you put:
> >
> >   >=sys-fs/udev-181
> >
> > into
> >
> > /etc/portage/package.mask
> >
> > you will have the present stable udev from*before*  those weirdos starting
> > messing it up, forcing systemd to take over udev.
> 
> Hmmm...
> 
> For some reason I have masked my udev at 171...
> 
> Are you saying I can change the mask to 181 and not have to worry about 
> having an unbootable system due to my /usr being on a separate partition?

The >=sys-fs/udev-181 in /etc/portage/package.mask means that any udev version
equal to or greater than udev-181 is masked from the system. Therefore, the
latest version under 181 will be used (stable or unstable depending upon
/etc/portage/package.accept_keywords). You can see versions/slots easily by:

mingdao@workstation ~ $ eshowkw sys-fs/udev
Keywords for sys-fs/udev:
  |   | u   |  
  | a a p s   | n   |  
  | l m   h i m m   p s   p   | u s | r
  | p d a p a 6 i p c 3   a x | s l | e
  | h 6 r p 6 8 p p 6 9 s r 8 | e o | p
  | a 4 m a 4 k s c 4 0 h c 6 | d t | o
--+---+-+---
   141-r1 | ~ ~ ~ + ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ | # 0 | gentoo
   146-r1 | ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ | #   | gentoo
   149| ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ | #   | gentoo
   151-r4 | ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ | #   | gentoo
   164-r2 | ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ | #   | gentoo
[I]171-r9 | + + + + + + ~ + + + + + + | o   | gentoo
   195| ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ | #   | gentoo
   196-r1 | ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ | o   | gentoo
  | o o o o o o o o o o o o o | o   | gentoo
-- 
Happy Penguin Computers   >')
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Tupelo, MS 38801   ^^
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Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus

2012-12-14 Thread Volker Armin Hemmann
Am Freitag, 14. Dezember 2012, 11:18:21 schrieb fe...@crowfix.com:
> Something went haywire with my 8 or 9 year old dual Opteron ~amd64 system
> last night.  I may have a bricked system.  I haven't given up yet, but I
> may have to buy a replacement system.  I have external USB drive backups,
> but the only other computer I have right now is an old Mac laptop which
> can't read Linux LVM partitions.
> 
> Questions:
> 
> 1.  I don't remember, and can't look up, the make.conf processor flags I
> emerge with.  But it is dual Opterons, and ~amd64.  How compatible could
> that be with modern Intel CPUs?  I know Intel adopted the extra registers
> of the AMD64 instruction set, but are there other differences which would
> prevent an Opteron system from running as is under an Intel processor? 
> Maybe AMD still sells Opterons, and I will be stuck with building a system.
> 
> 2.  Is it feasible to buy some commodity box, like from Dell, with an
> Intel processor, and plug in my two SATA SSD drives and get a console boot?
>  I don't give a fig right now about any GUI interface, and even Internet is
> not the problem.  If it will boot and run emerges, I can import the source
> files for X and Ethernet and other peripherals via USB stick.  But SATA
> drivers ...
> 
> 3.  My kernels always have just about every driver compiled in as
> modules, an old habit from when I used to swap in PCI cards like crazy.  I
> don't remember now how many SATA drivers are built in and how many are
> modules; if the commodity box needs SATA drivers which aren't built in,
> that could get tricky.  Are there boot command line options to preload
> certain modules?  Might not do me any good.  I think I could scrape by with
> USB modules, but not SATA.
> 
> For the curious, here is wat happened.  When I left off last night, the USB
> keyboard was only recognized when I unplugged all other USB devices, and
> the system hung at the grub point, with a blank screen.
> 
> A reboot failed because it couldn't find the root=/dev/sde drive.  But
> the USB keyboard was working because I used it in grub to select a new
> 3.7.0 kernel (had been running 3.6.8).
> 
> A second reboot ignored the USB keyboard and generated an ATA error I
> had never seen before for every ATA drive and some I don't have, all the
> way up to ATA13 before I rebooted it again.  I haven't got it to boot even
> this far since, so I can't regenerate that error.  There was a 5 second or
> so delay between these errors, making me think the ATAnn designator might
> not be different drives, just retries.
> 
> It booted a rescue DVD, but without the keyboard it was kind of
> pointless, and it hung after showing two lines which I believe are
> unrelated other than a place marker (generating xxx key, generating RSA
> key).
> 
> The keyboard wasn't even recognized by the BIOS.  I finally disconnected
> every USB device, all the ubs, and then the keyboard worked.
> 
> But when I left it last night, it wouldn't even bring up the grub
> screen.  All the BIOS screens show the usual disk drives.
> 
> The system was working perfectly fine before all hell broke loose.  The
> keyboard was recognized during grub the first time, but after that only if
> all other USB devices were disconnected.  The disk drives acted funny
> during the boot, first with the unknown root- device error, then with the
> funky ATA errors, and finally with not even bringing up grub.
> 
> I will try some more desperate tricks today, like reconnecting the USB pile
> to see if it at least boots the disks again - is my choice between disks
> and keyboard?  I will find out.  My best guess right now is that booting
> 3.7.0 is what clobbered things; whether I added a option which loaded bad
> firmware, or 3.7.0 is broken, I have no idea.  It could well be something
> unrelated to 3.7.0.  My goal for today is to try to get keyboard and disk
> working, then boot with 3.6.8.

how about a more stable kernel - like 3.4.X?

and yes, a confused bios can do a lot of strange things. One thing you might 
try: disconnect your box from the main for several minutes, reset bios...

had to do that dance A LOT with a costly POS asus board...

-- 
#163933



Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone switched to eudev yet?

2012-12-14 Thread Dale
Mark Knecht wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 8:29 AM, Dale  wrote:
>> That's all true, hence my question.  I'm not sure I want to use the very
>> first version so I thought it worth asking first.  Since it is a fork,
>> one could think it would be safe enough but then again, it is the very
>> first one.  It is stable according to that but is it really?
>>
> But portage isn't telling you to use it. It's a decision you're taking
> in reaction to how your machine is configured, correct? I think the
> reason I'm not understanding even asking the question is that portage
> hasn't _told_ you that you need to use it. I may well be wrong but
> aren't you a stable user? Or are you running bleeding edge?
>
> It's likely to be 6 months and probably far longer before there's any
> push from portage to tell us switch to eudev, if ever.
>
> I guess the other question that's lurking here for me is why do you
> have /usr on a separate partition? What's the usage model that drives
> a person to do that? The most I've ever done is move /usr/portage and
> /usr/src to other places. My /usr never has all that much in it beyond
> those two directories, along with maybe /usr/share. Would it not be
> easier for you in the long run to move /usr back to / and not have to
> deal with this question at all?
>
> Just my 2 questioning cents,
> Mark
>
>

Portage doesn't tell me to use a lot of things but I do because it makes
things easier for me.  I don't always wait for portage to tell me
something is about to break before I try to switch.  It's just like the
init thingy.  Right now, I'm not required to use it but I do because
when the newer udev comes along, I would then be forced too.  I didn't
want to wait until the last minute then have to scramble around to get
my ducks in a row.   Sort of learning to prepare better to avoid problems. 

I have / and /boot on regular partitions but everything else is on LVM
including /usr.  I got tired of having to move things around for space
issues.  So, I switched to LVM but not to the point where I needed a
init thingy.  THAT I wanted to avoid and was until udev threw a wrench
into the works. 

As long as we stick with the current udev I should be fine.  If they
start moving up to the newer ones tho, I'll be looking into what to do. 
I'm hoping to switch to eudev and that cure my issues. 

Dale

:-)  :-) 

-- 
I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how 
you interpreted my words!




Re: [gentoo-user] Re: {OT} Will ARM take over the world?

2012-12-14 Thread Walter Dnes
On Thu, Dec 13, 2012 at 07:29:21PM +0100, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote

> SLAX is using KDE4 - and uses 200mb.
> 
> KDE is flexible. If you have lots of memory, it does use lots of
> memory. If you don't it doesn't. So don't group it together with
> 'lets force mono unto our users - for a notes application' gnome or
> 'you can always add another 4gig' chrome.

  What about 'lets force dbus/libmpeg2/qt-webkit/phonon and a relational
database on our users - for a pdf viewer'?

  I have a stripped-down no-nonsense install on all my machines with the
USE variable beginning with "-*", and only necessary stuff being added.
When xpdf was deprecated, one of the suggested alternatives was
"okular".  It requires qt3support, which in turn requires the
"accessibility" USE flag.  And qt-gui is required which requires the
"dbus" flag.  And oh yeah, I'd have to unmask dbus.

And dee first dependancy requires dee second dependancy
And dee second dependancy requires dee third dependancy
And dee third dependancy requires dee fourth dependancy
etc, etc, etc

  After unmasking dbus and adding a bunch of USE flags, I finally got
rid of the emerge error messages...

USE="accessibility dbus glib qt3support sqlite gstreamer" emerge -p okular

Total: 59 packages (59 new), Size of downloads: 347,087 kB

  A stinking pdf viewer requires, amongst other things...
libmpeg2  dbus  desktop-file-utils  strigi  xdg-utils  qt-webkit  phonon

and *A RELATIONAL DATABASE* (Hello!?!?), of which the lightest available
is sqlite.  Don't waste your time trying to convince me that KDE is
lightweight.  I run ICEWM.  See my sig...

-- 
Walter Dnes 
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications



Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Anyone switched to eudev yet?

2012-12-14 Thread Dale
Michael Mol wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 11:23 AM, Alan McKinnon  
> wrote:
>> On Fri, 14 Dec 2012 15:26:25 +0200
>> Nikos Chantziaras  wrote:
>>
>>> On 14/12/12 14:19, Dale wrote:
 I'm thinking of switching and getting rid of the init thingy
>>> Huh?
>> Once upon a time, not so long ago, Dale happened to try and make an
>> initrd. He followed the rules and the docs and it blew up in his face.
>> It blew up more in his face than HAL did even longer ago (and that was
>> pretty spectacular).
>>
>> Somewhere in that thread the words "init thingy" were used in
>> frustration, and it's since become a meme, a disparaging reference to
>> initrd for those who don't like the idea of them.
>>
>> Dale is getting famous at this, if ever we need someone to find the
>> really bad bugs in basic software, just mark it stable enough so that
>> Dale will use it. He will find the bugs that no-one else ever could,
>> it's just a knack he has.
>>
>> Long live Dale.
> Hear! Hear!
>
> Dale, would you be interested in jobs doing software testing? If I see
> openings, I'd be happy to forward them your way...
>
>
> --
> :wq
>
>


I thought I did that already.  ROFL

Dale

:-)  :-) 

-- 
I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how 
you interpreted my words!




Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone switched to eudev yet?

2012-12-14 Thread Mark Knecht
On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 8:29 AM, Dale  wrote:
>
> That's all true, hence my question.  I'm not sure I want to use the very
> first version so I thought it worth asking first.  Since it is a fork,
> one could think it would be safe enough but then again, it is the very
> first one.  It is stable according to that but is it really?
>

But portage isn't telling you to use it. It's a decision you're taking
in reaction to how your machine is configured, correct? I think the
reason I'm not understanding even asking the question is that portage
hasn't _told_ you that you need to use it. I may well be wrong but
aren't you a stable user? Or are you running bleeding edge?

It's likely to be 6 months and probably far longer before there's any
push from portage to tell us switch to eudev, if ever.

I guess the other question that's lurking here for me is why do you
have /usr on a separate partition? What's the usage model that drives
a person to do that? The most I've ever done is move /usr/portage and
/usr/src to other places. My /usr never has all that much in it beyond
those two directories, along with maybe /usr/share. Would it not be
easier for you in the long run to move /usr back to / and not have to
deal with this question at all?

Just my 2 questioning cents,
Mark



Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Anyone switched to eudev yet?

2012-12-14 Thread Dale
Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On Fri, 14 Dec 2012 15:26:25 +0200
> Nikos Chantziaras  wrote:
>
>> On 14/12/12 14:19, Dale wrote:
>>> I'm thinking of switching and getting rid of the init thingy
>> Huh?
> Once upon a time, not so long ago, Dale happened to try and make an
> initrd. He followed the rules and the docs and it blew up in his face.
> It blew up more in his face than HAL did even longer ago (and that was
> pretty spectacular).
>
> Somewhere in that thread the words "init thingy" were used in
> frustration, and it's since become a meme, a disparaging reference to
> initrd for those who don't like the idea of them.
>
> Dale is getting famous at this, if ever we need someone to find the
> really bad bugs in basic software, just mark it stable enough so that
> Dale will use it. He will find the bugs that no-one else ever could,
> it's just a knack he has.
>
> Long live Dale.
>
> :-)
>


You would mention hal wouldn't you?  :-@  :-@ 

I have the flu, nasty one at that, and I really don't need to add hal to
my list right now.  That said, the Doctor called and the blood tests
said I was healthy as a horse, other than being sick as a dog.  :/  
Sort of like software, supposed to work great out of the box but usually
doesn't.  Imagine me on windoze.  O_O 

Dale

:-)  :-) 

P. S.  I'm not sure about the living part yet.  It's a theory that is
yet to be proven. 

-- 
I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how 
you interpreted my words!




Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus

2012-12-14 Thread Florian Philipp
Am 14.12.2012 17:18, schrieb fe...@crowfix.com:
> Something went haywire with my 8 or 9 year old dual Opteron ~amd64
> system last night.  I may have a bricked system.  I haven't given up
> yet, but I may have to buy a replacement system.  I have external USB
> drive backups, but the only other computer I have right now is an old
> Mac laptop which can't read Linux LVM partitions.
> 
> Questions:
> 
> 1.  I don't remember, and can't look up, the make.conf processor
> flags I emerge with.  But it is dual Opterons, and ~amd64.  How
> compatible could that be with modern Intel CPUs?  I know Intel
> adopted the extra registers of the AMD64 instruction set, but are
> there other differences which would prevent an Opteron system from
> running as is under an Intel processor?  Maybe AMD still sells
> Opterons, and I will be stuck with building a system.
> 

I guess your Opterons used -march=k8. Except of 3dnow, this should be
compatible. You might be lucky.

> 2.  Is it feasible to buy some commodity box, like from Dell, with an
> Intel processor, and plug in my two SATA SSD drives and get a console
> boot?  I don't give a fig right now about any GUI interface, and even
> Internet is not the problem.  If it will boot and run emerges, I can
> import the source files for X and Ethernet and other peripherals via
> USB stick.  But SATA drivers ...
> 

Yep, SATA drivers will be the biggest issue. Hope you had and will have
AHCI.

> 3.  My kernels always have just about every driver compiled in as
> modules, an old habit from when I used to swap in PCI cards like
> crazy.  I don't remember now how many SATA drivers are built in and
> how many are modules; if the commodity box needs SATA drivers which
> aren't built in, that could get tricky.  Are there boot command line
> options to preload certain modules?  Might not do me any good.  I
> think I could scrape by with USB modules, but not SATA.
> 

Not possible. You need an initrd or a new kernel. How about compiling a
new kernel on a different box and using a memory stick for grub + /boot?

> For the curious, here is wat happened.  When I left off last night,
> the USB keyboard was only recognized when I unplugged all other USB
> devices, and the system hung at the grub point, with a blank screen.
> 
> A reboot failed because it couldn't find the root=/dev/sde drive.
> But the USB keyboard was working because I used it in grub to select
> a new 3.7.0 kernel (had been running 3.6.8).
> 
> A second reboot ignored the USB keyboard and generated an ATA error I
> had never seen before for every ATA drive and some I don't have, all
> the way up to ATA13 before I rebooted it again.  I haven't got it to
> boot even this far since, so I can't regenerate that error.  There
> was a 5 second or so delay between these errors, making me think the
> ATAnn designator might not be different drives, just retries.
> [...]

Could be your south bridge. If you want to keep the system, try a
different board.

Regards,
Florian Philipp



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Description: OpenPGP digital signature


Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} dedicated server or cloud server?

2012-12-14 Thread Florian Philipp
Am 14.12.2012 11:00, schrieb Grant:
>> > Would everyone here be in favor of a dedicated server over a cloud
>> > server from a host with good cloud infrastructure?  The cloud server
>> > concept is amazing but from what I'm reading a dedicated server at the
>> > same price point far outperforms it.
>> >
>> > - Grant
>>
>> Last time I did the calculation, a dedicated or normal virtualized
>> infrastructure was more cost effective as long as you could accurately
>> predict the performance you need.
>>
>> Cloud services only really help if you need a high dynamic range
>> regarding scale and performance, e.g. a service that could get a lot of
>> new users very fast or is only really active for short time spans.
> 
> Doesn't a good cloud server also have potentially higher availability
> compared to dedicated?
> 
> - Grant

I'd be grateful if anyone can point me at a well conducted study on that
topic. Until then I just say that my anecdotal evidence shows the
opposite: My cheap-ass virtual server has an uptime of 492 days with
only minor, previously announced network outages. During the same time,
Amazon EC2 had what, 3 or 4 major outages?

Regards,
Florian Philipp



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Description: OpenPGP digital signature


Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus

2012-12-14 Thread felix
On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 11:28:41AM -0500, Michael Mol wrote:
> (Admittedly quick and dirty response)

Much appreciated.  Gives me some hope ...

> Pull out an old PS2 keyboard. Sometimes, that's the easiest way to get
> things going.

I thought of that -- don't have any.  They all got recycled a few years back :-(

-- 
Felix Finch, a la mode



Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Anyone switched to eudev yet?

2012-12-14 Thread Michael Mol
On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 11:23 AM, Alan McKinnon  wrote:
> On Fri, 14 Dec 2012 15:26:25 +0200
> Nikos Chantziaras  wrote:
>
>> On 14/12/12 14:19, Dale wrote:
>> > I'm thinking of switching and getting rid of the init thingy
>>
>> Huh?
>
> Once upon a time, not so long ago, Dale happened to try and make an
> initrd. He followed the rules and the docs and it blew up in his face.
> It blew up more in his face than HAL did even longer ago (and that was
> pretty spectacular).
>
> Somewhere in that thread the words "init thingy" were used in
> frustration, and it's since become a meme, a disparaging reference to
> initrd for those who don't like the idea of them.
>
> Dale is getting famous at this, if ever we need someone to find the
> really bad bugs in basic software, just mark it stable enough so that
> Dale will use it. He will find the bugs that no-one else ever could,
> it's just a knack he has.
>
> Long live Dale.

Hear! Hear!

Dale, would you be interested in jobs doing software testing? If I see
openings, I'd be happy to forward them your way...


--
:wq



Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Anyone switched to eudev yet?

2012-12-14 Thread Mark Knecht
On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 8:23 AM, Alan McKinnon  wrote:

>
> Long live Dale.
>


+1



Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone switched to eudev yet?

2012-12-14 Thread Dale
Bruce Hill wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 09:48:12AM -0600, Dale wrote:
>> Well, it appears that one version is stable:
>>
>> root@fireball / # equery list -p eudev
>>  * Searching for eudev ...
>> [-P-] [  ] sys-fs/eudev-0:0
>> [-P-] [ ~] sys-fs/eudev-1_beta1-r1:0
>> [-P-] [ -] sys-fs/eudev-:0
>> root@fireball / #
>>
>> The first one is not keyworded or masked. 
>>
>> You are right, I don't like the init fix because when I used Mandrake,
>> it caused me all sorts of problems.  That and the upgrade process for
>> Mandrake is the reason I switched to Gentoo.  If eudev is ready, then so
>> am I. 
>>
>> Dale
> Kindly read /usr/portage/sys-fs/eudev/eudev-0.ebuild especially:
>
> pkg_pretend() {
> einfo "Please note that sys-fs/eudev-0 is actually a mirror of 
> sys-fs/udev-171-r9,"
> einfo "which is necessary to handle the package name change when 
> migrating to eudev"
> einfo "from udev < 180"


A, so it needs a little more time yet then.  I can do that, for a
little while longer.

Dale

:-)  :-) 

-- 
I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how 
you interpreted my words!




Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone switched to eudev yet?

2012-12-14 Thread Dale
Mark Knecht wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 7:48 AM, Dale  wrote:
>> Mark Knecht wrote:
>>> On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 4:19 AM, Dale  wrote:
 Howdy,

 I noticed eudev has hit the tree.  Has anyone used it yet?  If so, any
 issues?  Did you just uninstall udev and install eudev in one step or
 some other way?

 I'm thinking of switching and getting rid of the init thingy but curious
 as to what others may have ran into.

 Thanks much.

 Dale
>>> Even if someone has, and clearly _someone_ out there has or it likely
>>> wouldn't even be visible yet, but even if 10 or 20 people have, and
>>> even if all of their results are fine because they are high skill set
>>> folks, why would that change how you are running your machines?
>>>
>>> I suspect this is about your (and my) dislike for dealing with initrd
>>> on a box at home. Gentoo doesn't make it at all easy so we're in that
>>> together. However so what if someone has used it? Let it get used for
>>> 6 months. Let it go stable. Why bother with a piece of software that
>>> won't really improve your life now that you do have your 'init
>>> thingy'?
>>>
>>> Just my view,
>>> Mark
>> Well, it appears that one version is stable:
>>
>> root@fireball / # equery list -p eudev
>>  * Searching for eudev ...
>> [-P-] [  ] sys-fs/eudev-0:0
>> [-P-] [ ~] sys-fs/eudev-1_beta1-r1:0
>> [-P-] [ -] sys-fs/eudev-:0
>> root@fireball / #
>>
>> The first one is not keyworded or masked.
>>
>> You are right, I don't like the init fix because when I used Mandrake,
>> it caused me all sorts of problems.  That and the upgrade process for
>> Mandrake is the reason I switched to Gentoo.  If eudev is ready, then so
>> am I.
>>
>> Dale
> Well, OK, so if you want to call version 0.0 stable then I guess that
> meets the rules of portage anyway. However version '0.0' doesn't sound
> like anything that's seen the light of day, been used by lots of
> people and proven robust and stable. At least to me it sounds like a
> place holder...
>
> This is just my view, but it goes something like this:
>
> 1) Unless someone tells me why a really new package helps me then I go
> slow, most especially if it could have a large impact like a new
> version of udev might.
>
> 2) Somewhere in the install guide, or elsewhere, I don't remember, it
> says something like 'don't expect ~packages to work correctly. We do
> what we can to check them but you should expect things to break'. And
> then most importantly, again from memory and paraphrased 'If you don't
> know how to fix things when they do break don't use ~packages'. I let
> these few sentences guide a lot of my Gentoo maintenance here at home.
> I mask packages (good info from Bruce about which to mask) and wait
> for the heavy lifters to shake things out a bit before I update things
> that might take more than 5 minutes to fix.
>
> Again, all my systems are stable with ~amd64 only when required to get
> an app, but that's just me.
>
> Good luck with whatever path you take.
>
> Cheers,
> Mark
>
>


That's all true, hence my question.  I'm not sure I want to use the very
first version so I thought it worth asking first.  Since it is a fork,
one could think it would be safe enough but then again, it is the very
first one.  It is stable according to that but is it really? 

That is why I asked.  It seems no one has used it yet tho since no one
has fessed up to installing it, other than testers and such I guess.  ;-)

Guess I'll wait a bit and see what else changes.  Current udev is
working for the moment at least.  I do plan to abandon udev as soon as I
think it is safe tho. 

Dale

:-)  :-) 

-- 
I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how 
you interpreted my words!




Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus

2012-12-14 Thread Michael Mol
(Admittedly quick and dirty response)

On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 11:18 AM,   wrote:
> Something went haywire with my 8 or 9 year old dual Opteron ~amd64 system 
> last night.  I may have a bricked system.  I haven't given up yet, but I may 
> have to buy a replacement system.  I have external USB drive backups, but the 
> only other computer I have right now is an old Mac laptop which can't read 
> Linux LVM partitions.
>
> Questions:
>
> 1.  I don't remember, and can't look up, the make.conf processor flags I 
> emerge with.  But it is dual Opterons, and ~amd64.  How compatible could that 
> be with modern Intel CPUs?  I know Intel adopted the extra registers of the 
> AMD64 instruction set, but are there other differences which would prevent an 
> Opteron system from running as is under an Intel processor?  Maybe AMD still 
> sells Opterons, and I will be stuck with building a system.

I'm not aware of any currently-sold AMD or Intel x86 processors
(except, *maybe* Atom) which don't handily support x86_64. You should
have no problem here.

>
> 2.  Is it feasible to buy some commodity box, like from Dell, with an 
> Intel processor, and plug in my two SATA SSD drives and get a console boot?  
> I don't give a fig right now about any GUI interface, and even Internet is 
> not the problem.  If it will boot and run emerges, I can import the source 
> files for X and Ethernet and other peripherals via USB stick.  But SATA 
> drivers ...

Depends on if you have the necessary drivers installed, but yes, it's
a recoverable scenario. You might need to boot a live CD and compile
and install a kernel with the right drivers. It'd be like installing
Gentoo fresh, but skipping 95% of the handbook.

>
> 3.  My kernels always have just about every driver compiled in as 
> modules, an old habit from when I used to swap in PCI cards like crazy.  I 
> don't remember now how many SATA drivers are built in and how many are 
> modules; if the commodity box needs SATA drivers which aren't built in, that 
> could get tricky.  Are there boot command line options to preload certain 
> modules?  Might not do me any good.  I think I could scrape by with USB 
> modules, but not SATA.

NAFAIK. I'd just use the Gentoo live CD image.

>
> For the curious, here is wat happened.  When I left off last night, the USB 
> keyboard was only recognized when I unplugged all other USB devices, and the 
> system hung at the grub point, with a blank screen.
>
> A reboot failed because it couldn't find the root=/dev/sde drive.  But 
> the USB keyboard was working because I used it in grub to select a new 3.7.0 
> kernel (had been running 3.6.8).
>
> A second reboot ignored the USB keyboard and generated an ATA error I had 
> never seen before for every ATA drive and some I don't have, all the way up 
> to ATA13 before I rebooted it again.  I haven't got it to boot even this far 
> since, so I can't regenerate that error.  There was a 5 second or so delay 
> between these errors, making me think the ATAnn designator might not be 
> different drives, just retries.
>
> It booted a rescue DVD, but without the keyboard it was kind of 
> pointless, and it hung after showing two lines which I believe are unrelated 
> other than a place marker (generating xxx key, generating RSA key).
>
> The keyboard wasn't even recognized by the BIOS.  I finally disconnected 
> every USB device, all the ubs, and then the keyboard worked.
>
> But when I left it last night, it wouldn't even bring up the grub screen. 
>  All the BIOS screens show the usual disk drives.
>
> The system was working perfectly fine before all hell broke loose.  The 
> keyboard was recognized during grub the first time, but after that only if 
> all other USB devices were disconnected.  The disk drives acted funny during 
> the boot, first with the unknown root- device error, then with the funky ATA 
> errors, and finally with not even bringing up grub.
>
> I will try some more desperate tricks today, like reconnecting the USB pile 
> to see if it at least boots the disks again - is my choice between disks and 
> keyboard?  I will find out.  My best guess right now is that booting 3.7.0 is 
> what clobbered things; whether I added a option which loaded bad firmware, or 
> 3.7.0 is broken, I have no idea.  It could well be something unrelated to 
> 3.7.0.  My goal for today is to try to get keyboard and disk working, then 
> boot with 3.6.8.

Pull out an old PS2 keyboard. Sometimes, that's the easiest way to get
things going.

--
:wq



Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Anyone switched to eudev yet?

2012-12-14 Thread Alan McKinnon
On Fri, 14 Dec 2012 15:26:25 +0200
Nikos Chantziaras  wrote:

> On 14/12/12 14:19, Dale wrote:
> > I'm thinking of switching and getting rid of the init thingy
> 
> Huh?

Once upon a time, not so long ago, Dale happened to try and make an
initrd. He followed the rules and the docs and it blew up in his face.
It blew up more in his face than HAL did even longer ago (and that was
pretty spectacular).

Somewhere in that thread the words "init thingy" were used in
frustration, and it's since become a meme, a disparaging reference to
initrd for those who don't like the idea of them.

Dale is getting famous at this, if ever we need someone to find the
really bad bugs in basic software, just mark it stable enough so that
Dale will use it. He will find the bugs that no-one else ever could,
it's just a knack he has.

Long live Dale.

:-)

-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckin...@gmail.com




Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Anyone switched to eudev yet?

2012-12-14 Thread Tanstaafl

On 2012-12-14 10:39 AM, Bruce Hill  wrote:

What Mark wrote you is golden. I might only add that if you put:

  >=sys-fs/udev-181

into

/etc/portage/package.mask

you will have the present stable udev from*before*  those weirdos starting
messing it up, forcing systemd to take over udev.


Hmmm...

For some reason I have masked my udev at 171...

Are you saying I can change the mask to 181 and not have to worry about 
having an unbootable system due to my /usr being on a separate partition?


Thanks



[gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus

2012-12-14 Thread felix
Something went haywire with my 8 or 9 year old dual Opteron ~amd64 system last 
night.  I may have a bricked system.  I haven't given up yet, but I may have to 
buy a replacement system.  I have external USB drive backups, but the only 
other computer I have right now is an old Mac laptop which can't read Linux LVM 
partitions.

Questions:

1.  I don't remember, and can't look up, the make.conf processor flags I 
emerge with.  But it is dual Opterons, and ~amd64.  How compatible could that 
be with modern Intel CPUs?  I know Intel adopted the extra registers of the 
AMD64 instruction set, but are there other differences which would prevent an 
Opteron system from running as is under an Intel processor?  Maybe AMD still 
sells Opterons, and I will be stuck with building a system.

2.  Is it feasible to buy some commodity box, like from Dell, with an Intel 
processor, and plug in my two SATA SSD drives and get a console boot?  I don't 
give a fig right now about any GUI interface, and even Internet is not the 
problem.  If it will boot and run emerges, I can import the source files for X 
and Ethernet and other peripherals via USB stick.  But SATA drivers ...

3.  My kernels always have just about every driver compiled in as modules, 
an old habit from when I used to swap in PCI cards like crazy.  I don't 
remember now how many SATA drivers are built in and how many are modules; if 
the commodity box needs SATA drivers which aren't built in, that could get 
tricky.  Are there boot command line options to preload certain modules?  Might 
not do me any good.  I think I could scrape by with USB modules, but not SATA.

For the curious, here is wat happened.  When I left off last night, the USB 
keyboard was only recognized when I unplugged all other USB devices, and the 
system hung at the grub point, with a blank screen.

A reboot failed because it couldn't find the root=/dev/sde drive.  But the 
USB keyboard was working because I used it in grub to select a new 3.7.0 kernel 
(had been running 3.6.8).

A second reboot ignored the USB keyboard and generated an ATA error I had 
never seen before for every ATA drive and some I don't have, all the way up to 
ATA13 before I rebooted it again.  I haven't got it to boot even this far 
since, so I can't regenerate that error.  There was a 5 second or so delay 
between these errors, making me think the ATAnn designator might not be 
different drives, just retries.

It booted a rescue DVD, but without the keyboard it was kind of pointless, 
and it hung after showing two lines which I believe are unrelated other than a 
place marker (generating xxx key, generating RSA key).

The keyboard wasn't even recognized by the BIOS.  I finally disconnected 
every USB device, all the ubs, and then the keyboard worked.

But when I left it last night, it wouldn't even bring up the grub screen.  
All the BIOS screens show the usual disk drives.

The system was working perfectly fine before all hell broke loose.  The 
keyboard was recognized during grub the first time, but after that only if all 
other USB devices were disconnected.  The disk drives acted funny during the 
boot, first with the unknown root- device error, then with the funky ATA 
errors, and finally with not even bringing up grub.

I will try some more desperate tricks today, like reconnecting the USB pile to 
see if it at least boots the disks again - is my choice between disks and 
keyboard?  I will find out.  My best guess right now is that booting 3.7.0 is 
what clobbered things; whether I added a option which loaded bad firmware, or 
3.7.0 is broken, I have no idea.  It could well be something unrelated to 
3.7.0.  My goal for today is to try to get keyboard and disk working, then boot 
with 3.6.8.

-- 
Felix Finch, a la mode



Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone switched to eudev yet?

2012-12-14 Thread Bruce Hill
On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 09:48:12AM -0600, Dale wrote:
> 
> Well, it appears that one version is stable:
> 
> root@fireball / # equery list -p eudev
>  * Searching for eudev ...
> [-P-] [  ] sys-fs/eudev-0:0
> [-P-] [ ~] sys-fs/eudev-1_beta1-r1:0
> [-P-] [ -] sys-fs/eudev-:0
> root@fireball / #
> 
> The first one is not keyworded or masked. 
> 
> You are right, I don't like the init fix because when I used Mandrake,
> it caused me all sorts of problems.  That and the upgrade process for
> Mandrake is the reason I switched to Gentoo.  If eudev is ready, then so
> am I. 
> 
> Dale

Kindly read /usr/portage/sys-fs/eudev/eudev-0.ebuild especially:

pkg_pretend() {
einfo "Please note that sys-fs/eudev-0 is actually a mirror of 
sys-fs/udev-171-r9,"
einfo "which is necessary to handle the package name change when 
migrating to eudev"
einfo "from udev < 180"
-- 
Happy Penguin Computers   >')
126 Fenco Drive   ( \
Tupelo, MS 38801   ^^
supp...@happypenguincomputers.com
662-269-2706 662-205-6424
http://happypenguincomputers.com/

Don't top-post: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_post#Top-posting



Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone switched to eudev yet?

2012-12-14 Thread Mark Knecht
On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 7:48 AM, Dale  wrote:
> Mark Knecht wrote:
>> On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 4:19 AM, Dale  wrote:
>>> Howdy,
>>>
>>> I noticed eudev has hit the tree.  Has anyone used it yet?  If so, any
>>> issues?  Did you just uninstall udev and install eudev in one step or
>>> some other way?
>>>
>>> I'm thinking of switching and getting rid of the init thingy but curious
>>> as to what others may have ran into.
>>>
>>> Thanks much.
>>>
>>> Dale
>>
>> Even if someone has, and clearly _someone_ out there has or it likely
>> wouldn't even be visible yet, but even if 10 or 20 people have, and
>> even if all of their results are fine because they are high skill set
>> folks, why would that change how you are running your machines?
>>
>> I suspect this is about your (and my) dislike for dealing with initrd
>> on a box at home. Gentoo doesn't make it at all easy so we're in that
>> together. However so what if someone has used it? Let it get used for
>> 6 months. Let it go stable. Why bother with a piece of software that
>> won't really improve your life now that you do have your 'init
>> thingy'?
>>
>> Just my view,
>> Mark

> Well, it appears that one version is stable:
>
> root@fireball / # equery list -p eudev
>  * Searching for eudev ...
> [-P-] [  ] sys-fs/eudev-0:0
> [-P-] [ ~] sys-fs/eudev-1_beta1-r1:0
> [-P-] [ -] sys-fs/eudev-:0
> root@fireball / #
>
> The first one is not keyworded or masked.
>
> You are right, I don't like the init fix because when I used Mandrake,
> it caused me all sorts of problems.  That and the upgrade process for
> Mandrake is the reason I switched to Gentoo.  If eudev is ready, then so
> am I.
>
> Dale

Well, OK, so if you want to call version 0.0 stable then I guess that
meets the rules of portage anyway. However version '0.0' doesn't sound
like anything that's seen the light of day, been used by lots of
people and proven robust and stable. At least to me it sounds like a
place holder...

This is just my view, but it goes something like this:

1) Unless someone tells me why a really new package helps me then I go
slow, most especially if it could have a large impact like a new
version of udev might.

2) Somewhere in the install guide, or elsewhere, I don't remember, it
says something like 'don't expect ~packages to work correctly. We do
what we can to check them but you should expect things to break'. And
then most importantly, again from memory and paraphrased 'If you don't
know how to fix things when they do break don't use ~packages'. I let
these few sentences guide a lot of my Gentoo maintenance here at home.
I mask packages (good info from Bruce about which to mask) and wait
for the heavy lifters to shake things out a bit before I update things
that might take more than 5 minutes to fix.

Again, all my systems are stable with ~amd64 only when required to get
an app, but that's just me.

Good luck with whatever path you take.

Cheers,
Mark



Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone switched to eudev yet?

2012-12-14 Thread Dale
Mark Knecht wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 4:19 AM, Dale  wrote:
>> Howdy,
>>
>> I noticed eudev has hit the tree.  Has anyone used it yet?  If so, any
>> issues?  Did you just uninstall udev and install eudev in one step or
>> some other way?
>>
>> I'm thinking of switching and getting rid of the init thingy but curious
>> as to what others may have ran into.
>>
>> Thanks much.
>>
>> Dale
>
> Even if someone has, and clearly _someone_ out there has or it likely
> wouldn't even be visible yet, but even if 10 or 20 people have, and
> even if all of their results are fine because they are high skill set
> folks, why would that change how you are running your machines?
>
> I suspect this is about your (and my) dislike for dealing with initrd
> on a box at home. Gentoo doesn't make it at all easy so we're in that
> together. However so what if someone has used it? Let it get used for
> 6 months. Let it go stable. Why bother with a piece of software that
> won't really improve your life now that you do have your 'init
> thingy'?
>
> Just my view,
> Mark
>
>


Well, it appears that one version is stable:

root@fireball / # equery list -p eudev
 * Searching for eudev ...
[-P-] [  ] sys-fs/eudev-0:0
[-P-] [ ~] sys-fs/eudev-1_beta1-r1:0
[-P-] [ -] sys-fs/eudev-:0
root@fireball / #

The first one is not keyworded or masked. 

You are right, I don't like the init fix because when I used Mandrake,
it caused me all sorts of problems.  That and the upgrade process for
Mandrake is the reason I switched to Gentoo.  If eudev is ready, then so
am I. 

Dale

:-)  :-) 

-- 
I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how 
you interpreted my words!




Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Anyone switched to eudev yet?

2012-12-14 Thread Bruce Hill
On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 08:25:08AM -0600, Dale wrote:
> 
> Pretty much yea.  I started making a init thing when they were talking
> about not supporting /usr on a separate partition.  Then about a month
> ago eudev was announced which means we can boot with /usr on a separate
> partition and no init thingy, like it used to be.
> 
> My basic question is this, has anyone started using eudev yet?  From my
> understanding it is basically udev with the files where they used to be
> before they changed things.  I'm thinking about switching but wondering
> what all is involved.  It appears to be as simple as unmerge udev and
> emerge eudev and restart eudev.  Is it really THAT simple? 
> 
> Dale

What Mark wrote you is golden. I might only add that if you put:

 >=sys-fs/udev-181

into

/etc/portage/package.mask

you will have the present stable udev from *before* those weirdos starting
messing it up, forcing systemd to take over udev. And, you won't be required
to have an initrd image. (At sys-fs/udev-171-r9 as of Fri Dec 14 09:37:06 CST
2012). And the only USE flag you *need* for that version of udev would be
rule_generator. If you don't know that you need another, you probably don't.

Bruce
-- 
Happy Penguin Computers   >')
126 Fenco Drive   ( \
Tupelo, MS 38801   ^^
supp...@happypenguincomputers.com
662-269-2706 662-205-6424
http://happypenguincomputers.com/

Don't top-post: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_post#Top-posting



Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone switched to eudev yet?

2012-12-14 Thread Mark Knecht
On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 4:19 AM, Dale  wrote:
> Howdy,
>
> I noticed eudev has hit the tree.  Has anyone used it yet?  If so, any
> issues?  Did you just uninstall udev and install eudev in one step or
> some other way?
>
> I'm thinking of switching and getting rid of the init thingy but curious
> as to what others may have ran into.
>
> Thanks much.
>
> Dale


Even if someone has, and clearly _someone_ out there has or it likely
wouldn't even be visible yet, but even if 10 or 20 people have, and
even if all of their results are fine because they are high skill set
folks, why would that change how you are running your machines?

I suspect this is about your (and my) dislike for dealing with initrd
on a box at home. Gentoo doesn't make it at all easy so we're in that
together. However so what if someone has used it? Let it get used for
6 months. Let it go stable. Why bother with a piece of software that
won't really improve your life now that you do have your 'init
thingy'?

Just my view,
Mark



Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Anyone switched to eudev yet?

2012-12-14 Thread Dale
Bruce Hill wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 07:41:45AM -0600, Dale wrote:
>> Right now, I have /usr on a separate partition so I would need a init
>> thingy to boot.  When I switch to eudev, that won't be required, from
>> what I have read anyway. 
>>
>> I didn't want the init thingy to begin with either. 
>>
>> Dale
> Let me translate his "Mississippi English"...
>
> define: init thingy
>
> initrd: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initrd
>
> My file server has /boot with / on /dev/md0 (well, see here:)
>
> mingdao@server ~ $ egrep -v "(^#|^ *$)" /etc/fstab 
> /dev/md0  /   xfs inode64,logbsize=262144 
> 0 1
> /var/swapfile1swapswapdefaults
> 0 0
> /dev/system/var   /varxfs defaults
> 0 0
> /dev/system/usr   /usrxfs defaults
> 0 0
> /dev/system/home  /home   xfs defaults
> 0 0
> /dev/storage/photos   /photos xfs users,rw
> 0 0
> /dev/storage/backups  /backupsxfs users,rw
> 0 0
> /dev/storage/offload  /offloadntfsdefaults
> 0 0
> /dev/storage/peter/peter  xfs defaults
> 0 0
> /dev/storage/jeremiah /jeremiah   xfs defaults
> 0 0
>
> And no "init thingy" anywhere on this LAN. ;)


Pretty much yea.  I started making a init thing when they were talking
about not supporting /usr on a separate partition.  Then about a month
ago eudev was announced which means we can boot with /usr on a separate
partition and no init thingy, like it used to be.

My basic question is this, has anyone started using eudev yet?  From my
understanding it is basically udev with the files where they used to be
before they changed things.  I'm thinking about switching but wondering
what all is involved.  It appears to be as simple as unmerge udev and
emerge eudev and restart eudev.  Is it really THAT simple? 

Dale

:-)  :-) 

-- 
I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how 
you interpreted my words!




Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Anyone switched to eudev yet?

2012-12-14 Thread Bruce Hill
On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 07:41:45AM -0600, Dale wrote:
> 
> Right now, I have /usr on a separate partition so I would need a init
> thingy to boot.  When I switch to eudev, that won't be required, from
> what I have read anyway. 
> 
> I didn't want the init thingy to begin with either. 
> 
> Dale

Let me translate his "Mississippi English"...

define: init thingy

initrd: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initrd

My file server has /boot with / on /dev/md0 (well, see here:)

mingdao@server ~ $ egrep -v "(^#|^ *$)" /etc/fstab 
/dev/md0/   xfs inode64,logbsize=262144 
0 1
/var/swapfile1  swapswapdefaults
0 0
/dev/system/var /varxfs defaults
0 0
/dev/system/usr /usrxfs defaults
0 0
/dev/system/home/home   xfs defaults
0 0
/dev/storage/photos /photos xfs users,rw
0 0
/dev/storage/backups/backupsxfs users,rw
0 0
/dev/storage/offload/offloadntfsdefaults
0 0
/dev/storage/peter  /peter  xfs defaults
0 0
/dev/storage/jeremiah   /jeremiah   xfs defaults
0 0

And no "init thingy" anywhere on this LAN. ;)
-- 
Happy Penguin Computers   >')
126 Fenco Drive   ( \
Tupelo, MS 38801   ^^
supp...@happypenguincomputers.com
662-269-2706 662-205-6424
http://happypenguincomputers.com/

Don't top-post: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_post#Top-posting



Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} dedicated server or cloud server?

2012-12-14 Thread Bruce Hill
On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 03:24:03PM +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > 
> > Doesn't a good cloud server also have potentially higher availability
> > compared to dedicated?
> 
> Potentially? Yes.
> 
> In reality? No.
> 
> It's not the virtualization that breaks, it's all the surrounding
> infrastructure, especially Layer 2. You will not believe how fragile
> that stuff can get.
> 
> In the old days, a small slip up could isolate a small part of the
> network. These days, a small slip-up easily ripples though the entire
> network and takes down all of it, and sadly this is not rare. The
> networking needs of VMs are radically different from the traditional,
> and this is the side-effect: fragility.

And it happens *every* day, all over the place.

Yesterday I went to Coburn's Supply to get a box of air filters for our HVAC
units. They "couldn't get in". One guy says, "I'm on the internet, don't know
what's wrong". The other guy says, "It's _them_ ..." So they couldn't even
tell me the price of the filters, or if they had them. So one guy walks in the
back and does it the "old fashioned way" -- he just looks. (Reminds me a bit
of sneakernet.) By the time he gets back, and tries again, "Hey, it's working
now ... quick!"

Welcome to the cloud. Your packet has reached critical mass. Please reboot.
-- 
Happy Penguin Computers   >')
126 Fenco Drive   ( \
Tupelo, MS 38801   ^^
supp...@happypenguincomputers.com
662-269-2706 662-205-6424
http://happypenguincomputers.com/

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Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} dedicated server or cloud server?

2012-12-14 Thread Bruce Hill
On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 03:19:58PM +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On Fri, 14 Dec 2012 06:39:03 -0600
> Bruce Hill  wrote:
> > 
> > My data is allergic to "the cloud" ... too much pixey dust.
> 
> If I get up from my desk, walk down the corridor and turn right, I find
> myself right in the middle of a technical team that built and delivers
> cloud.
> 
> I do not use cloud.
> 
> This is not a co-incidence.

We have reached common ground...thanks for the note.

Or as another once said, "Great minds think alike."  ;)
-- 
Happy Penguin Computers   >')
126 Fenco Drive   ( \
Tupelo, MS 38801   ^^
supp...@happypenguincomputers.com
662-269-2706 662-205-6424
http://happypenguincomputers.com/

Don't top-post: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_post#Top-posting



Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Anyone switched to eudev yet?

2012-12-14 Thread Dale
Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
> On 14/12/12 14:19, Dale wrote:
>> I'm thinking of switching and getting rid of the init thingy
>
> Huh

Right now, I have /usr on a separate partition so I would need a init
thingy to boot.  When I switch to eudev, that won't be required, from
what I have read anyway. 

I didn't want the init thingy to begin with either. 

Dale

:-)  :-) 

-- 
I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how 
you interpreted my words!




Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} dedicated server or cloud server?

2012-12-14 Thread Alan McKinnon
On Fri, 14 Dec 2012 02:00:54 -0800
Grant  wrote:

> > > Would everyone here be in favor of a dedicated server over a cloud
> > > server from a host with good cloud infrastructure?  The cloud
> > > server concept is amazing but from what I'm reading a dedicated
> > > server at the same price point far outperforms it.
> > >
> > > - Grant
> >
> > Last time I did the calculation, a dedicated or normal virtualized
> > infrastructure was more cost effective as long as you could
> > accurately predict the performance you need.
> >
> > Cloud services only really help if you need a high dynamic range
> > regarding scale and performance, e.g. a service that could get a
> > lot of new users very fast or is only really active for short time
> > spans.
> 
> Doesn't a good cloud server also have potentially higher availability
> compared to dedicated?

Potentially? Yes.

In reality? No.

It's not the virtualization that breaks, it's all the surrounding
infrastructure, especially Layer 2. You will not believe how fragile
that stuff can get.

In the old days, a small slip up could isolate a small part of the
network. These days, a small slip-up easily ripples though the entire
network and takes down all of it, and sadly this is not rare. The
networking needs of VMs are radically different from the traditional,
and this is the side-effect: fragility.


-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckin...@gmail.com




[gentoo-user] Re: Anyone switched to eudev yet?

2012-12-14 Thread Nikos Chantziaras

On 14/12/12 14:19, Dale wrote:

I'm thinking of switching and getting rid of the init thingy


Huh?





Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} dedicated server or cloud server?

2012-12-14 Thread Kevin Chadwick
> Doesn't a good cloud server also have potentially higher availability
> compared to dedicated?

Perhaps at your price point through redundancy which could be applied
to dedicated all be it at higher cost and so potentially still more
reliable and certainly more secure and also tested in almost any case
(lookup the paper about timing attacks on amazon services etc.).

-- 
___

'Write programs that do one thing and do it well. Write programs to work
together. Write programs to handle text streams, because that is a
universal interface'

(Doug McIlroy)
___



Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} dedicated server or cloud server?

2012-12-14 Thread Alan McKinnon
On Fri, 14 Dec 2012 06:39:03 -0600
Bruce Hill  wrote:

> On Thu, Dec 13, 2012 at 11:49:23PM -0800, Grant wrote:
> > Would everyone here be in favor of a dedicated server over a cloud
> > server from a host with good cloud infrastructure?  The cloud
> > server concept is amazing but from what I'm reading a dedicated
> > server at the same price point far outperforms it.
> > 
> > - Grant
> 
> My data is allergic to "the cloud" ... too much pixey dust.

If I get up from my desk, walk down the corridor and turn right, I find
myself right in the middle of a technical team that built and delivers
cloud.

I do not use cloud.

This is not a co-incidence.

-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckin...@gmail.com




Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} dedicated server or cloud server?

2012-12-14 Thread Bruce Hill
On Thu, Dec 13, 2012 at 11:49:23PM -0800, Grant wrote:
> Would everyone here be in favor of a dedicated server over a cloud server
> from a host with good cloud infrastructure?  The cloud server concept is
> amazing but from what I'm reading a dedicated server at the same price
> point far outperforms it.
> 
> - Grant

My data is allergic to "the cloud" ... too much pixey dust.
-- 
Happy Penguin Computers   >')
126 Fenco Drive   ( \
Tupelo, MS 38801   ^^
supp...@happypenguincomputers.com
662-269-2706 662-205-6424
http://happypenguincomputers.com/

Don't top-post: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_post#Top-posting



[gentoo-user] Anyone switched to eudev yet?

2012-12-14 Thread Dale
Howdy,

I noticed eudev has hit the tree.  Has anyone used it yet?  If so, any
issues?  Did you just uninstall udev and install eudev in one step or
some other way?

I'm thinking of switching and getting rid of the init thingy but curious
as to what others may have ran into. 

Thanks much.

Dale

:-)  :-) 

-- 
I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how 
you interpreted my words!




Re: [gentoo-user] emerge sets syntax (@world vs. world)

2012-12-14 Thread Francesco Turco
On Wed, Dec 12, 2012, at 19:22, Francesco Turco wrote:
> I'm still not convinced. emerge(1) man page for portage-2.1.11.37
> already contains the following command example:
> > emerge --update --newuse --deep @world
> 
> And:
> > emerge  --update  @world
> 
> But not a single example without the at sign.
> 
> I also found this (old) blog post from Portage developer Zac Medico:
> http://blogs.gentoo.org/zmedico/2010/09/07/portage_2-1-9_release/. It
> says:
> > Package set names in emerge arguments have to be prefixed with @ 
> > (exceptions: ‘world’ and ‘system’ can be used without the prefix).
> 
> So it seems that since version 2.1.9 @world and world (and @system and
> system) are just treated in the same way, but prefixing them with the at
> symbol is more future-proof.

I contacted Zac Medico and he said me:

> Yes, @world is more future proof. I don't plan to deprecate the old way
any time soon, but it could happen at some point in the future.

It seems pretty clear to me. Plain "world" is not wrong, but "@world" is
the way to go.



Re: [gentoo-user] Dual or Quad CPU complications?

2012-12-14 Thread Rafa Griman
On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 10:44 AM, Grant  wrote:
>> > So if I have 2 physical CPU's with 4 cores each and I enable SMP, I'm
>> > using
>> > 8 cores?  Can NUMA be either enabled or disabled when using more than
>> > one
>> > physical CPU, or is it required?
>>
>>
>> NUMA is a hardware architecture. It's how you access memory on a
>> hardware level: NUMA = Non Uniform Memory Access vs a UMA architecture
>> of typical (old/legacy) SMP systems (UMA = Uniform Memory Access).
>>
>> In a UMA system, all the memory belongs to all the sockets. In a NUMA
>> system, each socket has it's "own" local memory. In modern (x86-64)
>> processors, each socket has it's own memory controller so each socket
>> controls its own local memory. If one socket runs out of memory it can
>> ask another socket to lend him some memory. In a UMA system, no socket
>> has to ask since memory is global and belongs to all sockets so if one
>> socket uses up all the memory ... the rest "starve". In NUMA, there's
>> more control over who uses what (be it cores or RAM).
>>
>> If you have a modern dual or quad (or higher #) socket system ...
>> you've got NUMA architecture and you can't get rid of it, it's
>> hardware, not software.
>
> So I must enable CONFIG_NUMA for more than one physical CPU, and disable it
> for only one physical CPU?


Yup. But ... Why would you want to disable a socket (CPU)? If you
disable a socket (CPU) ... you lose the memory attached to that socket
(CPU) not to mention you lose those cores ;)

A better solution would be to use cgroups or numactl tools to pin a
certain process to a set of cores and a memory region.

If you really want to deactivate cores (but not the whole socket), you can type:

  echo 0 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/online

This would deactivate core #1. You can deactivate as many cores as you
wish, except for core #0.

This can be done without rebooting your server (aka during run time).
Your memory will not be affected, but you will have less cores (and
theoretically more memory bandwidth). I say "theoretically" because
you always have to benchmark these things with YOUR application
(remember logic NEVER applies to real life ;)

If you want to check the # of cores you've got:

 cat /proc/interrupts | grep CPU

Other possibilities such as cat /proc/cpuinfo or dmesg, ... can be
useful too for this: your choice, FLOSS gives you options.

If you want to activate the previously deactivated core, you can run:

  echo 1 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/online

Now ... be sure your core numbering is the expected core numbering.
IOW, not all server vendors follow the same numbering scheme so core
#1 in vendor A's server could be core #2 in vendor B's server. Never
trust logic ;)

As I mentioned previously: test/benchmark YOUR software. DON'T trust
logic or generic benchmarks or web pages with results. Trust YOUR
results only.

HTH

   Rafa



Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} dedicated server or cloud server?

2012-12-14 Thread Grant
> > Would everyone here be in favor of a dedicated server over a cloud
> > server from a host with good cloud infrastructure?  The cloud server
> > concept is amazing but from what I'm reading a dedicated server at the
> > same price point far outperforms it.
> >
> > - Grant
>
> Last time I did the calculation, a dedicated or normal virtualized
> infrastructure was more cost effective as long as you could accurately
> predict the performance you need.
>
> Cloud services only really help if you need a high dynamic range
> regarding scale and performance, e.g. a service that could get a lot of
> new users very fast or is only really active for short time spans.

Doesn't a good cloud server also have potentially higher availability
compared to dedicated?

- Grant


Re: [gentoo-user] Dual or Quad CPU complications?

2012-12-14 Thread Grant
> > So if I have 2 physical CPU's with 4 cores each and I enable SMP, I'm
using
> > 8 cores?  Can NUMA be either enabled or disabled when using more than
one
> > physical CPU, or is it required?
>
>
> NUMA is a hardware architecture. It's how you access memory on a
> hardware level: NUMA = Non Uniform Memory Access vs a UMA architecture
> of typical (old/legacy) SMP systems (UMA = Uniform Memory Access).
>
> In a UMA system, all the memory belongs to all the sockets. In a NUMA
> system, each socket has it's "own" local memory. In modern (x86-64)
> processors, each socket has it's own memory controller so each socket
> controls its own local memory. If one socket runs out of memory it can
> ask another socket to lend him some memory. In a UMA system, no socket
> has to ask since memory is global and belongs to all sockets so if one
> socket uses up all the memory ... the rest "starve". In NUMA, there's
> more control over who uses what (be it cores or RAM).
>
> If you have a modern dual or quad (or higher #) socket system ...
> you've got NUMA architecture and you can't get rid of it, it's
> hardware, not software.

So I must enable CONFIG_NUMA for more than one physical CPU, and disable it
for only one physical CPU?

- Grant


> NUMA is not bad nor good. It's "transparent" to you. If your SW
> supports threads, OpenMP, ... you'll be using it without knowing. That
> doesn't mean you can't tweak performance and use numactl tools,
> cgroups, ... to increase performance. You can :)
>
> HTH
>
>Rafa


Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} dedicated server or cloud server?

2012-12-14 Thread Florian Philipp
Am 14.12.2012 08:49, schrieb Grant:
> Would everyone here be in favor of a dedicated server over a cloud
> server from a host with good cloud infrastructure?  The cloud server
> concept is amazing but from what I'm reading a dedicated server at the
> same price point far outperforms it.
> 
> - Grant

Last time I did the calculation, a dedicated or normal virtualized
infrastructure was more cost effective as long as you could accurately
predict the performance you need.

Cloud services only really help if you need a high dynamic range
regarding scale and performance, e.g. a service that could get a lot of
new users very fast or is only really active for short time spans.

Regards,
Florian Philipp



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Re: [gentoo-user] Dual or Quad CPU complications?

2012-12-14 Thread Rafa Griman
On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 8:43 AM, Grant  wrote:

[...]

> So if I have 2 physical CPU's with 4 cores each and I enable SMP, I'm using
> 8 cores?  Can NUMA be either enabled or disabled when using more than one
> physical CPU, or is it required?


NUMA is a hardware architecture. It's how you access memory on a
hardware level: NUMA = Non Uniform Memory Access vs a UMA architecture
of typical (old/legacy) SMP systems (UMA = Uniform Memory Access).

In a UMA system, all the memory belongs to all the sockets. In a NUMA
system, each socket has it's "own" local memory. In modern (x86-64)
processors, each socket has it's own memory controller so each socket
controls its own local memory. If one socket runs out of memory it can
ask another socket to lend him some memory. In a UMA system, no socket
has to ask since memory is global and belongs to all sockets so if one
socket uses up all the memory ... the rest "starve". In NUMA, there's
more control over who uses what (be it cores or RAM).

If you have a modern dual or quad (or higher #) socket system ...
you've got NUMA architecture and you can't get rid of it, it's
hardware, not software.

NUMA is not bad nor good. It's "transparent" to you. If your SW
supports threads, OpenMP, ... you'll be using it without knowing. That
doesn't mean you can't tweak performance and use numactl tools,
cgroups, ... to increase performance. You can :)

HTH

   Rafa



Re: [gentoo-user] Dual or Quad CPU complications?

2012-12-14 Thread Grant
> >> I've only ever used systems with a single CPU.  I'm looking for a new
host
> >> for a dedicated server (suggestions?) and it looks like I'll probably
> >> choose a machine with two or four CPUs.  What sort of complications
does
> >> that add to set up and/or maintenance with Gentoo?
> >
> > none
> >
> > also, forget numa. You won't deal with douzends of cores each using
local
> > memory and acccession the memory managed by the other cores.
>
>
> It depends on his application, maybe his application does benefit on
> NUMA architecture. Until we don't know what he's running, we can't
> really say this or that architecture/technology is of no use ;)
>
> So Volker, what applications are you running (and BTW: what volume of
> data are you managing, how many users, ...)? This will helps us help
> you :)
>
>Rafa

It's an apache2/mysql server with a medium amount of traffic.

- Grant