Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Walter Dnes]

On Thu, Sep 08, 2011 at 04:03:53PM -0400, Canek Pel??ez Vald??s wrote

> I answered that already (actually, in that paragraph). But again: udev
> is not trivial, and it solves a (far from) trivial problem. If some
> developers think they can outsmart the kernel devs, please, lets try
> it. Maybe they will.

  A fraction of 1% of linux users need to run initramfs or keep /usr on
/.  Why should the remaining 99%+ be required to follow suit?

-- 
Walter Dnes 

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[David W Noon]

On Sun, 11 Sep 2011 20:44:20 -0500, James Wall wrote about Re:
[gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot:

> On Sun, Sep 11, 2011 at 4:46 PM, David W Noon 
> wrote:
[snip]
> > I have some scripts that generate LVM rebuild scripts.  These scan
> > the current logical volumes and generate lvcreate commands into a
> > script that can rebuild your LVM set-up in seconds.  You (or
> > anybody else) are welcome to a copy if you wish.
> 
> I am interested in the backup scripts to help improve my
> backup/restore system.

Attached.  I hope this list permits binary attachments.  Reply by
private email if it doesn't get through.

Note that it is a zsh script, so you'll need zsh installed.  The output
script will run under any shell.

I keep mine installed in /usr/local/bin/.  You can test the script by
running:

   lvm_rebuild.zsh | less

and you should see the output script displayed on the screen.
-- 
Regards,

Dave  [RLU #314465]
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
dwn...@ntlworld.com (David W Noon)
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*


lvm_rebuild.tgz
Description: application/compressed-tar


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Dale]

Pandu Poluan wrote:

On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 19:28, Joost Roeleveld  wrote:

On Monday, September 12, 2011 08:14:57 AM Mike Edenfield wrote:

His response, to me, appeared to be a heavy dose of "way
more people use Fedora/Debian/etc than Gentoo so I'm
tailoring my fix to those people" combined with a touch of
"if you're running Gentoo you're smart enough to figure this
out on your own". Possibly with a subtle, hidden hint of
"that's what you get for not running Fedora", but I could be
imagining that.

Of that's how he sees it, then he is admitting that Gentoo-users are smarter
then he is
I like the compliment :)


That's a nice way of finding the silver lining, Joost :-D

That said...

Anyone up to forking udev? What will we be needing?

I can volunteer virtual servers (on top of XenServer and/or VMware --
take your pick).

And maybe one physical server.

Rgds,


I noticed a new directory the other day.  I found out it belongs to 
cups.  It is named Resources.  If cups can use that, why not put the 
stuff udev needs in there?


Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Joost Roeleveld]

On Monday, September 12, 2011 11:29:12 AM Michael Mol wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 10:47 AM, Pandu Poluan  wrote:
> > On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 19:28, Joost Roeleveld  wrote:
> >> On Monday, September 12, 2011 08:14:57 AM Mike Edenfield wrote:
> >>> His response, to me, appeared to be a heavy dose of "way
> >>> more people use Fedora/Debian/etc than Gentoo so I'm
> >>> tailoring my fix to those people" combined with a touch of
> >>> "if you're running Gentoo you're smart enough to figure this
> >>> out on your own". Possibly with a subtle, hidden hint of
> >>> "that's what you get for not running Fedora", but I could be
> >>> imagining that.
> >> 
> >> Of that's how he sees it, then he is admitting that Gentoo-users are
> >> smarter then he is
> >> I like the compliment :)
> > 
> > That's a nice way of finding the silver lining, Joost :-D
> > 
> > That said...
> > 
> > Anyone up to forking udev? What will we be needing?
> > 
> > I can volunteer virtual servers (on top of XenServer and/or VMware --
> > take your pick).
> > 
> > And maybe one physical server.
> 
> Interested (it gives me an opportunity to learn a great deal about
> another area of the system), though I've never hacked on anything like
> udev, or anything early in the boot process, before. I'd probably be
> limited to testing.

I'm also interested. Not entirely sure how much I can help.
Testing, definitely. Coding, I'll try. :)

--
Joost

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Michael Mol]

On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 10:47 AM, Pandu Poluan  wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 19:28, Joost Roeleveld  wrote:
>> On Monday, September 12, 2011 08:14:57 AM Mike Edenfield wrote:
>>> His response, to me, appeared to be a heavy dose of "way
>>> more people use Fedora/Debian/etc than Gentoo so I'm
>>> tailoring my fix to those people" combined with a touch of
>>> "if you're running Gentoo you're smart enough to figure this
>>> out on your own". Possibly with a subtle, hidden hint of
>>> "that's what you get for not running Fedora", but I could be
>>> imagining that.
>>
>> Of that's how he sees it, then he is admitting that Gentoo-users are smarter
>> then he is
>> I like the compliment :)
>>
>
> That's a nice way of finding the silver lining, Joost :-D
>
> That said...
>
> Anyone up to forking udev? What will we be needing?
>
> I can volunteer virtual servers (on top of XenServer and/or VMware --
> take your pick).
>
> And maybe one physical server.

Interested (it gives me an opportunity to learn a great deal about
another area of the system), though I've never hacked on anything like
udev, or anything early in the boot process, before. I'd probably be
limited to testing.

-- 
:wq

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Pandu Poluan]

On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 19:28, Joost Roeleveld  wrote:
> On Monday, September 12, 2011 08:14:57 AM Mike Edenfield wrote:
>> His response, to me, appeared to be a heavy dose of "way
>> more people use Fedora/Debian/etc than Gentoo so I'm
>> tailoring my fix to those people" combined with a touch of
>> "if you're running Gentoo you're smart enough to figure this
>> out on your own". Possibly with a subtle, hidden hint of
>> "that's what you get for not running Fedora", but I could be
>> imagining that.
>
> Of that's how he sees it, then he is admitting that Gentoo-users are smarter
> then he is
> I like the compliment :)
>

That's a nice way of finding the silver lining, Joost :-D

That said...

Anyone up to forking udev? What will we be needing?

I can volunteer virtual servers (on top of XenServer and/or VMware --
take your pick).

And maybe one physical server.

Rgds,
-- 
FdS Pandu E Poluan
~ IT Optimizer ~

 • LOPSA Member #15248
 • Blog : http://pepoluan.tumblr.com
 • Linked-In : http://id.linkedin.com/in/pepoluan

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Joost Roeleveld]

On Monday, September 12, 2011 08:14:57 AM Mike Edenfield wrote:
> On 9/12/2011 3:12 AM, Joost Roeleveld wrote:
> > On Saturday, September 10, 2011 02:54:58 AM Dale wrote:
> >> If we are so skilled, why is the Fedora dev not listening you reckon?
> > 
> > Is the Fedora dev aware of non-Fedora installations?
> 
> He is, because a Gentoo user/dev explicitly pointed out the
> problems this will cause Gentoo.

Awareness comes at different levels.
It's like the difference of looking and seeing. :)

He seems to recall there is a world outside of Fedora, but doesn't seem to 
believe it...

> His response, to me, appeared to be a heavy dose of "way
> more people use Fedora/Debian/etc than Gentoo so I'm
> tailoring my fix to those people" combined with a touch of
> "if you're running Gentoo you're smart enough to figure this
> out on your own". Possibly with a subtle, hidden hint of
> "that's what you get for not running Fedora", but I could be
> imagining that.

Of that's how he sees it, then he is admitting that Gentoo-users are smarter 
then he is
I like the compliment :)

--
Joost

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Mike Edenfield]

On 9/12/2011 3:12 AM, Joost Roeleveld wrote:

On Saturday, September 10, 2011 02:54:58 AM Dale wrote:

If we are so skilled, why is the Fedora dev not listening you reckon?


Is the Fedora dev aware of non-Fedora installations?


He is, because a Gentoo user/dev explicitly pointed out the 
problems this will cause Gentoo.


His response, to me, appeared to be a heavy dose of "way 
more people use Fedora/Debian/etc than Gentoo so I'm 
tailoring my fix to those people" combined with a touch of 
"if you're running Gentoo you're smart enough to figure this 
out on your own". Possibly with a subtle, hidden hint of 
"that's what you get for not running Fedora", but I could be 
imagining that.


--Mike

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Neil Bothwick]

On Mon, 12 Sep 2011 11:34:17 +0200, Joost Roeleveld wrote:

> > I wonder if it could be done more simply. udevd loads but only parses
> > those rule files marked as suitable for early boot time. Later in the
> > boot it switches to "full" mode and loads all rule files.
> > 
> > This is so simple it is either pure genius or completely naive and
> > unworkable. I know which option my money is on...  
> 
> This would depend on wether or not udev (or whatever program handles
> the events) can pick specific events out of the queue.
> 
> I think the events are placed on a queue waiting for some process to
> handle them and that process then does the following in an endless loop:
> 1) get event from queue
> 2) handle event
> 
> In order to split the 2 options, there needs to be something that sorts
> them between "init-level" and "run-level" events where "init-level" is
> what is needed/possible during boot.
 
If the rules are not loaded, the events are ignored. They are not
run handled until the full set of rules are loaded later on.

Alternatively, the first rules file parsed would do whatever is necessary
for other rules to be handled, such as doing whatever is necessary
to make all programs and libraries available. Then it would be the
responsible of who/whatever adds the rules to make sure the setup is
complete.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit
the target.


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Joost Roeleveld]

On Monday, September 12, 2011 10:13:45 AM Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Mon, 12 Sep 2011 11:07:12 +0200, Joost Roeleveld wrote:
> > > I'd like to know why these functions cannot be separated, run the
> > > command to populate /dev early on, then start the udev daemon after
> > > the filesystems have been mounted.
> > > 
> > > Some sort of early boot rules file would need to be used to handle
> > > things like setting up symlinks for block devices to avoid breaking
> > > some users' fstabs.
> > 
> > Yes, which means "udev" would need to be split into:
> > * devd (which controls the /dev-tree)
> > * plugd (which handles all the "hotplug-events" where special things
> > happen)
> > 
> > The communication between the 2 could be done using a
> > simple /dev/udev_pipe device. "devd" throws events onto the pipe and
> > plugd handles these events.
> 
> I wonder if it could be done more simply. udevd loads but only parses
> those rule files marked as suitable for early boot time. Later in the
> boot it switches to "full" mode and loads all rule files.
> 
> This is so simple it is either pure genius or completely naive and
> unworkable. I know which option my money is on...

This would depend on wether or not udev (or whatever program handles the 
events) can pick specific events out of the queue.

I think the events are placed on a queue waiting for some process to handle 
them and that process then does the following in an endless loop:
1) get event from queue
2) handle event

In order to split the 2 options, there needs to be something that sorts them 
between "init-level" and "run-level" events where "init-level" is what is 
needed/possible during boot.

As I currently understand it, the kernel does not support cherry-picking / 
multiple queues for hotplug-events and all devices cause a hotplug-event for 
the /dev-tree creation part of "udev".

A second queue will need to be handled somehow.
I also don't see why "udev" needs to get the additional code to handle 
delaying running external tools when this could be split off into seperate 
process.

This way, if the program/script that is configured in the udev-rules causes a 
system-crash, avoiding the handler for these to start up, will actually 
provide a better fail-safe.

The part that creates the dev-tree will still run and has become smaller and 
simpler.

Would a udev-fork work for Gentoo? 

--
Joost

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Neil Bothwick]

On Mon, 12 Sep 2011 11:07:12 +0200, Joost Roeleveld wrote:

> > I'd like to know why these functions cannot be separated, run the
> > command to populate /dev early on, then start the udev daemon after
> > the filesystems have been mounted.
> > 
> > Some sort of early boot rules file would need to be used to handle
> > things like setting up symlinks for block devices to avoid breaking
> > some users' fstabs.  
> 
> Yes, which means "udev" would need to be split into:
> * devd (which controls the /dev-tree)
> * plugd (which handles all the "hotplug-events" where special things
> happen)
> 
> The communication between the 2 could be done using a
> simple /dev/udev_pipe device. "devd" throws events onto the pipe and
> plugd handles these events.

I wonder if it could be done more simply. udevd loads but only parses
those rule files marked as suitable for early boot time. Later in the
boot it switches to "full" mode and loads all rule files.

This is so simple it is either pure genius or completely naive and
unworkable. I know which option my money is on...


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Diarrhoea is hereditary, it runs in your genes.


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Joost Roeleveld]

On Monday, September 12, 2011 09:49:22 AM Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Mon, 12 Sep 2011 09:45:44 +0200, Joost Roeleveld wrote:
> > As long as filesystem-support for /usr is in the kernel, why can't
> > "/usr" be mounted right after "/"?
> > 
> > Eg. instead of worrying with an init*, why not edit the boot-scripts to
> > have "/usr" mounted before udev and colleagues start?
> 
> Because it is udev that creates the device entries needed to mount /usr -
> and that doesn't even touch other cases, like /usr being on a software
> block device, like LVM or dmcrypt.

Thanks Alex and Neil.

I didn't think it through properly. Which is why I posted it here, rather then 
try to see how to get the scripts updated for it.

> The problem here is that udev is trying to do too much. On the one hand
> it handles the initial population of /dev/ and all that is needed to
> mount the contents of fstab. On the other hand, it is trying to be an
> all-encompassing device and hotplug manager. the latter function should
> be started relatively late in the boot sequence, the former as soon as
> possible.
> 
> I'd like to know why these functions cannot be separated, run the command
> to populate /dev early on, then start the udev daemon after the
> filesystems have been mounted.
> 
> Some sort of early boot rules file would need to be used to handle things
> like setting up symlinks for block devices to avoid breaking some users'
> fstabs.

Yes, which means "udev" would need to be split into:
* devd (which controls the /dev-tree)
* plugd (which handles all the "hotplug-events" where special things happen)

The communication between the 2 could be done using a simple /dev/udev_pipe 
device. "devd" throws events onto the pipe and plugd handles these events.

That would also make things easier to configure as the renaming and such is 
for "devd". But the commands to be executed can then be based on the actual 
name in /dev. Rather then on the kernel-name/id//whatever.

Any thoughts on this?

--
Joost

PS. I'm throwing ideas here, hopefully we can come to a sane and logical 
option here

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Alex Schuster]

Neil Bothwick writes:

> On Sat, 10 Sep 2011 18:34:42 +0200, Alex Schuster wrote:

> > Since I am on this list, I tend to confuse Alan and Neil. Is this only
> > me?

Whoops, which should be: I tend to confuse Alan _with_ Neil. But then,
both may be right.

> No, it's not only you. Dale confuses the hell out of me regularly ;-)

Me too :)

Wonko

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Neil Bothwick]

On Mon, 12 Sep 2011 09:45:44 +0200, Joost Roeleveld wrote:

> As long as filesystem-support for /usr is in the kernel, why can't
> "/usr" be mounted right after "/"?
> 
> Eg. instead of worrying with an init*, why not edit the boot-scripts to
> have "/usr" mounted before udev and colleagues start?

Because it is udev that creates the device entries needed to mount /usr -
and that doesn't even touch other cases, like /usr being on a software
block device, like LVM or dmcrypt.

The problem here is that udev is trying to do too much. On the one hand
it handles the initial population of /dev/ and all that is needed to
mount the contents of fstab. On the other hand, it is trying to be an
all-encompassing device and hotplug manager. the latter function should
be started relatively late in the boot sequence, the former as soon as
possible.

I'd like to know why these functions cannot be separated, run the command
to populate /dev early on, then start the udev daemon after the
filesystems have been mounted.

Some sort of early boot rules file would need to be used to handle things
like setting up symlinks for block devices to avoid breaking some users'
fstabs.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a
warning to others.


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Neil Bothwick]

On Sun, 11 Sep 2011 10:37:25 +0100, Peter Humphrey wrote:

> > So I wonder what Neil will write about this.  
> 
> He seems to be lying low.

Just in an area with very poor Internet access. I'm back in England now :)


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Top Oxymorons Number 31: Small crowd


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Neil Bothwick]

On Sat, 10 Sep 2011 23:15:52 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:

> Since I am on this list, I tend to confuse Alan and Neil. Is this only
> me? girlfriend says that Alan and Neil are both male bald middle-aged
> pedantic old gits with a fascination for the writing of Douglas Adams.
> And they are both grammar Nazis.

I still strenuously deny being balding, although I won't be able to do so
for much longer :(

> She is not in the least surprised you get them confused. If Neil ever
> confesses to owning and riding motorcycles, she thinks she might get
> them mixed up herself.

I haven't ridden a bike for years, too many injuries from the days I used
to race them. Those walls on the Isle of Man are rather hard.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

"Criminal Lawyer" is a redundancy.


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Neil Bothwick]

On Sat, 10 Sep 2011 18:34:42 +0200, Alex Schuster wrote:

> > Me either.  That's when I had to accept that I was a true chatter
> > box. O_O  I wonder if Neil knows this?  He may not realize how many
> > he sends either.  
> 
> Since I am on this list, I tend to confuse Alan and Neil. Is this only
> me?

No, it's not only you. Dale confuses the hell out of me regularly ;-)


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Being politically correct means always having to say you're sorry.


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Neil Bothwick]

On Sat, 10 Sep 2011 09:59:41 -0500, Dale wrote:

> >> http://archives.gentoo.org/stats/gentoo-user-per-year.xml

> > I had absolutely no idea I sent *that* much mail to gentoo-user :-)
> >  
> 
> Me either.  That's when I had to accept that I was a true chatter box.  
> O_O  I wonder if Neil knows this?  He may not realize how many he sends 
> either.  He comes in third several times.  Does that qualify as a 
> chatter box too?

I have never in my life been accused of talking too much (and if you
believe that, you'll believe anything). Although the figures look high,
it only works out to around 2 mails per day - or 3 per day if you only
post in work time :)


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Confucius says "He who posts with broken addresses gets no replies.."


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Alex Schuster]

Joost Roeleveld writes:

> What about the following as a gentoo-solution:
> 
> As long as filesystem-support for /usr is in the kernel, why can't
> "/usr" be mounted right after "/"?
> 
> Eg. instead of worrying with an init*, why not edit the boot-scripts to
> have "/usr" mounted before udev and colleagues start?
> 
> mount is still in /bin
> fstab is still in /etc
> Both should be available during boot.

But there are no /dev/sd* entries yet for the device /usr is on. That's
what udev is for in the first place, creating them.

We could add those devices manually, like the essential /dev/console
and /dev/null that also have to be there before udev kicks in. Might be
simpler than creating the initramfs thing. But probably only with real
disk partitions. For LVM, many more devices will be necessary, and I
don't creating them all by hand might not be so easy.

When udev does so many things these days, couldn't udev itself mount
the /usr partition, and then continue with the rules
in /etc/udev/rules.d/?

But I really think that either udev should just not depend on stuff
in /usr, or consist of two stages, one for the essential device nodes,
and one that is run later, after /usr is mounted, dealing with stuff
in /etc/udev/rules.d. Which will not solve the problems with a bluetooth
keyboard, though. But for most of us it might work.

Just thinking,

Wonko

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Joost Roeleveld]

On Sunday, September 11, 2011 08:44:20 PM James Wall wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 11, 2011 at 4:46 PM, David W Noon  wrote:
> > On Sun, 11 Sep 2011 16:07:23 -0500, Dale wrote about Re:
> > 
> > [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot:
> >> Mick wrote:
> >> > On Sunday 11 Sep 2011 19:56:48 Dale wrote:
> >> > 
> >> > I always have /boot on a separate partition and it is always ext2.
> >> > So, that is done.  I also have a 200Mb /boot partition.  It
> >> > sometimes gets about half full but I could just clean out old
> >> > kernels more often.  I could always make /boot larger too.
> >> > It seems that I'm gonna have fun with a 35M /boot soon (and no LVM
> >> > of course). ;-)
> >> 
> >> I'm doing some thinking and reading.  I'm either going to go back to
> >> a rpm based thing and let something besides me deal with the init*
> >> stuff
> > 
> > IMO, better to use Debian or Slackware.  I went through "RPM Hell" back
> > in the days when I ran S.u.S.E. (complete with full-stops in the name)
> > and I will never go back.

Don't remind me, I used to install RPM-systems with the option "install 
everything" just to avoid having to find all the dependencies.
After install, I'd compile my own software (installing over distro-supplied 
files) or simply do a full new install. (Like I do with MS Windows...)

> >> or stick around and dive into this init* crap and add LVM on
> >> top.
> > 
> > Watch this space.  You might read something to your advantage in the
> > next few days.

If you're building something and needs testers, let me know.

> > I have some scripts that generate LVM rebuild scripts.  These scan the
> > current logical volumes and generate lvcreate commands into a script
> > that can rebuild your LVM set-up in seconds.  You (or anybody else) are
> > welcome to a copy if you wish.
> 
> I am interested in the backup scripts to help improve my backup/restore
> system.

Same here, I've been using LVM for a while and I generally remember how to fix 
things when it breaks. But as these occurences are now rare and far between, I 
always need to find my old notes again and then update them to new syntax.

--
Joost

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Dale]

Joost Roeleveld wrote:

On Saturday, September 10, 2011 02:56:48 AM Dale wrote:
I sometimes think people get tired of the chatter box. lol I wonder 
if I am on somebody's blacklist? :/ 

If you are, that person is missing out on some good entertainment :)




That may depend on my meds.  lol

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Joost Roeleveld]

On Friday, September 09, 2011 07:24:06 PM pk wrote:
> On 2011-09-09 10:53, Dale wrote:
> > Can I slap whoever started this?  The more I think on this, the worse it
> 
> Yes Dale, you have my permission! And while you're at it, slap him from
> me too! ;-)
> 
> It _may_ be this guy that's responsible for this crap:
> http://linuxplumbersconf.org/ocw/users/58
> 
> Also:
> http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.hotplug.devel/16994

Interesting read, also that link for systemd.

What about the following as a gentoo-solution:

As long as filesystem-support for /usr is in the kernel, why can't "/usr" be 
mounted right after "/"?

Eg. instead of worrying with an init*, why not edit the boot-scripts to have 
"/usr" mounted before udev and colleagues start?

mount is still in /bin
fstab is still in /etc
Both should be available during boot.

A script that does:
mount /
check /etc/fstab to see if "/usr" is seperate
if yes: mount /usr

--
Joost

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Joost Roeleveld]

On Saturday, September 10, 2011 02:56:48 AM Dale wrote:
> Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > On Fri, 09 Sep 2011 20:25:22 -0500
> > 
> > Dale  wrote:
> >> Alan McKinnon wrote:
> >>> I'm lucky, I can vote with my feet. Out of 140, I have two servers
> >>> that *require* Linux. One runs Sybase ASE, the other runs Oracle.
> >>> Everything else works like a bomb on FreeBSD. kthankxbyeudev,
> >>> thanksfornotplayingnicely Not everyone else is so fortunate though.
> >> 
> >> I guess I understood more than I thought then.  Shocking.  I
> >> understand that but the udev guru doesn't.  ;-)
> >> 
> >> I may go the BSD route too if I leave Gentoo.  So, my feet works
> >> too.  I wonder if I would even be missed here?  :/
> >> 
> >> Dale
> > 
> > N Dale you can't lavveee!
> > 
> > Seriously, you're an institution around here, you would be sorely
> > missed.
> 
> I sometimes think people get tired of the chatter box.  lol   I wonder
> if I am on somebody's blacklist?  :/

If you are, that person is missing out on some good entertainment :)

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Joost Roeleveld]

On Saturday, September 10, 2011 02:54:58 AM Dale wrote:
> Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > You give me too much credit :-)
> > 
> > There's also Neil, Wonko, Volker, Stroller, Grant, meino.cramer, Mick,
> > Paul, Harry, Albert, Alex, Walter, Alan Mackenzie (awesome name!),
> > James, kashani, Pandu and about a 1000 more whose names I can't exactly
> > recall right now.
> > 
> > This here mailing-list has got the most varied and highest skills of
> > any technical list I've ever subscribed to. We have regular desktop
> > users, folks who work in server rooms, devs, owners of software
> > companies, regular sysadmins, fellows who ship embedded devices, and at
> > least one of everything in between.
> > 
> > I don't mean to go all fuzzy feel-good here, but it's an honour to be
> > able to communicate and interact with so many skilled people for so many
> > years.

I agree here. There are a few other lists with people with really good 
technical skills. But some of those are quite strict with what is on-topic and 
what isn't.
On this list, we tend to cover anything that is related to computers.

> That is true.  There are lots who post a lot here.  I just recall seeing
> some stats somewhere and me and you were the top two.  That was about a
> year ago so it may have changed.  Just had to go find that link again.
> Here it is:
> 
> http://archives.gentoo.org/stats/gentoo-user-per-year.xml

Nice, I'm in the top 10 :)

> We have a new comer.  lol
> 
> I think the mailing lists, and forums, are one of the key features of
> Gentoo.  The docs seemed to have slumped some but I think it was down to
> one or two people for a while.  I think someone jumped in the fire a few
> weeks ago tho.  Maybe they will catch up.  I'm sure it is hard to keep
> up with all the changes that are going on tho.  Gentoo has a LOT of
> stuff to document.

Documenting Gentoo is difficult. I think this list is a good start for 
documentation though.

> If we are so skilled, why is the Fedora dev not listening you reckon?

Is the Fedora dev aware of non-Fedora installations?

--
Joost

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[James Wall]

On Sun, Sep 11, 2011 at 4:46 PM, David W Noon  wrote:
> On Sun, 11 Sep 2011 16:07:23 -0500, Dale wrote about Re:
> [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot:
>
>> Mick wrote:
>> > On Sunday 11 Sep 2011 19:56:48 Dale wrote:
>> >
>> > I always have /boot on a separate partition and it is always ext2.
>> > So, that is done.  I also have a 200Mb /boot partition.  It
>> > sometimes gets about half full but I could just clean out old
>> > kernels more often.  I could always make /boot larger too.
>> > It seems that I'm gonna have fun with a 35M /boot soon (and no LVM
>> > of course). ;-)
>>
>> I'm doing some thinking and reading.  I'm either going to go back to
>> a rpm based thing and let something besides me deal with the init*
>> stuff
>
> IMO, better to use Debian or Slackware.  I went through "RPM Hell" back
> in the days when I ran S.u.S.E. (complete with full-stops in the name)
> and I will never go back.
>
>> or stick around and dive into this init* crap and add LVM on
>> top.
>
> Watch this space.  You might read something to your advantage in the
> next few days.
>
>> /boot would be the only thing not on LVM.
>
> Well, /boot cannot be on LVM, as the BIOS does not know about logical
> volumes.
>
>> This makes me
>> nervous as heck tho. I have read where if something goes wrong, you
>> can lose everything.
>
> It's no worse than a normal partitioning system, just more flexible.
> [Of course, that also means that it is more flexible for you to destroy
> your DASD farm yourself.]
>
>> I'm hoping I can make mine simple enough that I
>> can manage any problems even if I can get no outside help.  From what
>> I have read, usually it's when you can't figure out how to fix it
>> that you lose everything.
>
> Same as partitions: just keep backups.
>
> I have some scripts that generate LVM rebuild scripts.  These scan the
> current logical volumes and generate lvcreate commands into a script
> that can rebuild your LVM set-up in seconds.  You (or anybody else) are
> welcome to a copy if you wish.

I am interested in the backup scripts to help improve my backup/restore system.

> After that, back up the contents using tar, dar, cpio or whatever your
> favourite archiving tool happens to be.
> --
> Regards,
>
> Dave  [RLU #314465]
> *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
> dwn...@ntlworld.com (David W Noon)
> *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
>



-- 
No trees were harmed in the sending of this message. However, a large
number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Dale]

David W Noon wrote:

On Sun, 11 Sep 2011 16:07:23 -0500, Dale wrote about Re:
[gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot:


Mick wrote:

On Sunday 11 Sep 2011 19:56:48 Dale wrote:

I always have /boot on a separate partition and it is always ext2.
So, that is done.  I also have a 200Mb /boot partition.  It
sometimes gets about half full but I could just clean out old
kernels more often.  I could always make /boot larger too.
It seems that I'm gonna have fun with a 35M /boot soon (and no LVM
of course). ;-)

I'm doing some thinking and reading.  I'm either going to go back to
a rpm based thing and let something besides me deal with the init*
stuff

IMO, better to use Debian or Slackware.  I went through "RPM Hell" back
in the days when I ran S.u.S.E. (complete with full-stops in the name)
and I will never go back.


If I decide to switch, I'll do like I did before Gentoo.  Just read and 
see what best suites my needs.  I do hate the RPM stuff tho.  The 
updates for Mandrake was a nightmare.



or stick around and dive into this init* crap and add LVM on
top.

Watch this space.  You might read something to your advantage in the
next few days.


O_O  Both eyes wide open and watching.  I'm hoping to get new glasses in 
the next few days.  My post count may go up then.  lol   I may be a 
turbo charged chatter box.  ROFL





/boot would be the only thing not on LVM.

Well, /boot cannot be on LVM, as the BIOS does not know about logical
volumes.


I knew there was a reason I had to do that.  Sometimes I know something 
but not the reason behind it.



This makes me
nervous as heck tho. I have read where if something goes wrong, you
can lose everything.

It's no worse than a normal partitioning system, just more flexible.
[Of course, that also means that it is more flexible for you to destroy
your DASD farm yourself.]


When I was reading about problems with LVM, I think it was mostly a lack 
of experience in the repair process.  Basically, something went wrong, 
typed in the wrong command and it got messy from there.  It wasn't LVM 
itself but the clueless geek in the chair.  That may be me before to 
long.  :/



I'm hoping I can make mine simple enough that I
can manage any problems even if I can get no outside help.  From what
I have read, usually it's when you can't figure out how to fix it
that you lose everything.

Same as partitions: just keep backups.

I have some scripts that generate LVM rebuild scripts.  These scan the
current logical volumes and generate lvcreate commands into a script
that can rebuild your LVM set-up in seconds.  You (or anybody else) are
welcome to a copy if you wish.

After that, back up the contents using tar, dar, cpio or whatever your
favourite archiving tool happens to be.


I generally backup my /etc and world file on a USB stick.  I also have a 
backup of my scripts in /root somewhere around here.  I don't have 
enough space to backup everything tho.  Before DSL came along, I could 
backup to DVD-RWs from time to time but not now.  DSL is addictive.  lol


I'm hoping to find a 2 or 3Tb drive one day.  I can have a partition for 
back up and some data too.  If I get a faster DSL package, I may need 
two of those drives.


Looking forward to the new info you are working on.

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[David W Noon]

On Sun, 11 Sep 2011 16:07:23 -0500, Dale wrote about Re:
[gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot:

> Mick wrote:
> > On Sunday 11 Sep 2011 19:56:48 Dale wrote:
> >
> > I always have /boot on a separate partition and it is always ext2.
> > So, that is done.  I also have a 200Mb /boot partition.  It
> > sometimes gets about half full but I could just clean out old
> > kernels more often.  I could always make /boot larger too.
> > It seems that I'm gonna have fun with a 35M /boot soon (and no LVM
> > of course). ;-)
> 
> I'm doing some thinking and reading.  I'm either going to go back to
> a rpm based thing and let something besides me deal with the init*
> stuff

IMO, better to use Debian or Slackware.  I went through "RPM Hell" back
in the days when I ran S.u.S.E. (complete with full-stops in the name)
and I will never go back.

> or stick around and dive into this init* crap and add LVM on
> top.

Watch this space.  You might read something to your advantage in the
next few days.

> /boot would be the only thing not on LVM.

Well, /boot cannot be on LVM, as the BIOS does not know about logical
volumes.

> This makes me
> nervous as heck tho. I have read where if something goes wrong, you
> can lose everything.

It's no worse than a normal partitioning system, just more flexible.
[Of course, that also means that it is more flexible for you to destroy
your DASD farm yourself.]

> I'm hoping I can make mine simple enough that I
> can manage any problems even if I can get no outside help.  From what
> I have read, usually it's when you can't figure out how to fix it
> that you lose everything.

Same as partitions: just keep backups.

I have some scripts that generate LVM rebuild scripts.  These scan the
current logical volumes and generate lvcreate commands into a script
that can rebuild your LVM set-up in seconds.  You (or anybody else) are
welcome to a copy if you wish.

After that, back up the contents using tar, dar, cpio or whatever your
favourite archiving tool happens to be.
-- 
Regards,

Dave  [RLU #314465]
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
dwn...@ntlworld.com (David W Noon)
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Dale]

Mick wrote:

On Sunday 11 Sep 2011 19:56:48 Dale wrote:

I always have /boot on a separate partition and it is always ext2.  So,
that is done.  I also have a 200Mb /boot partition.  It sometimes gets
about half full but I could just clean out old kernels more often.  I
could always make /boot larger too.
It seems that I'm gonna have fun with a 35M /boot soon (and no LVM of course).
  ;-)


I'm doing some thinking and reading.  I'm either going to go back to a 
rpm based thing and let something besides me deal with the init* stuff 
or stick around and dive into this init* crap and add LVM on top.  /boot 
would be the only thing not on LVM.  This makes me nervous as heck tho.  
I have read where if something goes wrong, you can lose everything.  I'm 
hoping I can make mine simple enough that I can manage any problems even 
if I can get no outside help.  From what I have read, usually it's when 
you can't figure out how to fix it that you lose everything.


I'm just not sure which I want to do right now.  I may put my spare 
drive to work here pretty soon tho. Either another distro or playing 
with the init* and LVM stuff.


< sighs >

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Mick]

On Sunday 11 Sep 2011 19:56:48 Dale wrote:
> Paul Colquhoun wrote:
> > On Fri, 9 Sep 2011 07:24:06 PM pk wrote:
> >> On 2011-09-09 10:53, Dale wrote:
> >>> Can I slap whoever started this?  The more I think on this, the worse
> >>> it
> >> 
> >> Yes Dale, you have my permission! And while you're at it, slap him from
> >> me too! ;-)
> >> 
> >> It _may_ be this guy that's responsible for this crap:
> >> http://linuxplumbersconf.org/ocw/users/58
> >> 
> >> Also:
> >> http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.hotplug.devel/16994
> > 
> > I've had a look at the stuff at those links, and some of what they link
> > to in turn, and had a bit of a think about it.
> > 
> > Looking at "initramfs" as a modern Linux replacement for the "bootable /
> > partition" of traditional Unix systems does make some sense, even though
> > I think it could be made simpler.
> > 
> > Fot those opposed to initramfs, would you also object to /boot being
> > 
> >1) a manditory seperate partition
> >2) required to be ext2 (or one of a *very* short list)
> >3) having /boot/{bin,sbin,lib} containing local copies of the absolute
> >
> >minimum boot requirements (i.e. initramfs in a real fs)
> > 
> > On the other hand, most of the problem seems to stem from software
> > packages hooking into the early boot via udev rules, and not beiong
> > careful where they put the executables and libraries that they
> > reference.
> > 
> > Is udev (as it currently stands) really the best place for them to hook
> > into?
> > 
> > Could udev be split into 2 passes, early-boot udev that only does system
> > stuff (like mount filesystems out of /etc/fstab, setup keyboards& 
> > video), and late- boot udev where other applications can put in any
> > hooks they like, since the full system would then be available.
> > 
> > The late-boot udev may need to do a full rescan of everything that
> > early-boot udev found, but didn't have the rules for yet, but I'm sure
> > that the 2 passes could talk to each other and sort that out fairly
> > simply.
> > 
> > Or possibly just add a whole new service to use just for hooking software
> > packages into system events. Although this would probably end upneeding
> > to be a udev clone anyway.
> 
> I always have /boot on a separate partition and it is always ext2.  So,
> that is done.  I also have a 200Mb /boot partition.  It sometimes gets
> about half full but I could just clean out old kernels more often.  I
> could always make /boot larger too.

It seems that I'm gonna have fun with a 35M /boot soon (and no LVM of course).
 ;-)
-- 
Regards,
Mick


signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part.

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Dale]

Paul Colquhoun wrote:

On Fri, 9 Sep 2011 07:24:06 PM pk wrote:

On 2011-09-09 10:53, Dale wrote:

Can I slap whoever started this?  The more I think on this, the worse it

Yes Dale, you have my permission! And while you're at it, slap him from
me too! ;-)

It _may_ be this guy that's responsible for this crap:
http://linuxplumbersconf.org/ocw/users/58

Also:
http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.hotplug.devel/16994


I've had a look at the stuff at those links, and some of what they link to in
turn, and had a bit of a think about it.

Looking at "initramfs" as a modern Linux replacement for the "bootable /
partition" of traditional Unix systems does make some sense, even though I
think it could be made simpler.

Fot those opposed to initramfs, would you also object to /boot being
   1) a manditory seperate partition
   2) required to be ext2 (or one of a *very* short list)
   3) having /boot/{bin,sbin,lib} containing local copies of the absolute
   minimum boot requirements (i.e. initramfs in a real fs)

On the other hand, most of the problem seems to stem from software packages
hooking into the early boot via udev rules, and not beiong careful where they
put the executables and libraries that they reference.

Is udev (as it currently stands) really the best place for them to hook into?

Could udev be split into 2 passes, early-boot udev that only does system stuff
(like mount filesystems out of /etc/fstab, setup keyboards&  video), and late-
boot udev where other applications can put in any hooks they like, since the
full system would then be available.

The late-boot udev may need to do a full rescan of everything that early-boot
udev found, but didn't have the rules for yet, but I'm sure that the 2 passes
could talk to each other and sort that out fairly simply.

Or possibly just add a whole new service to use just for hooking software
packages into system events. Although this would probably end upneeding to be
a udev clone anyway.



I always have /boot on a separate partition and it is always ext2.  So, 
that is done.  I also have a 200Mb /boot partition.  It sometimes gets 
about half full but I could just clean out old kernels more often.  I 
could always make /boot larger too.


Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Alex Schuster]

Paul Colquhoun writes:

> Looking at "initramfs" as a modern Linux replacement for the
> "bootable / partition" of traditional Unix systems does make some
> sense, even though I think it could be made simpler.
> 
> Fot those opposed to initramfs, would you also object to /boot being
>   1) a manditory seperate partition
>   2) required to be ext2 (or one of a *very* short list)
>   3) having /boot/{bin,sbin,lib} containing local copies of the absolute
>   minimum boot requirements (i.e. initramfs in a real fs)

I had this on one machine. I used the stuff that Dirk Heinrich offered
[*] (he simply calls it initfs), and it sort of worked, but I also got
some errors. Anyway, I always wondered why this is not the standard way.
Sure, having a single intr{d,amfs} file is convenient, but every time I
want to have a look into it, I have to google the cpio syntax in order to
extract stuff. While, with an initfs, you simply see everything as plain
files in the /boot partition.

Wonko

[*] http://www.mail-archive.com/gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org/msg88055.html

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Alex Schuster]

Keith Dart writes:

> === On Sun, 09/11, Alex Schuster wrote: ===
> > Interesting. What are the advantages?
> 
> Mainly that it's simpler, as a bootloader should be. However it does
> have some nice features, such as making nice looking, interactive
> menus. You can also edit the config file by hand, if you need to, and
> it's all contained on the boot partition.
> 
> The biggest problem with grub 2 is it adds a dependency on having your
> main root partition already mounted in order to configure it. That may
> not be available. Also, when you learn extlinux then you know syslinux,
> isolinux, and pxelinux already which helps when configuring boot
> loaders for those other media.

Thanks for the explanation. I like to learn, knowing how to use them
might come handy some time. 
I already installed syslinux recently, I think that was necessary for the
installation of systemrescuecd on USB. Which failed, after using the
installer, the stick was still empty. No idea what went wrong, I did not
dig further into this, I was too busy then.

> > What I like most about Grub is the interactive shell. And that I don't
> > have to run a command like I had to do with Lilo after installing a
> > new kernel.
> 
> If you need a shell, boot a minimal kernel and shell from a ramdisk. No
> good reason to bloat a bootloader with that. 

I still like how I could make Grub boot a system even when I did not know
on which partition it was. This happened a couple of times, like when I
had multiple hard drives that changed their order. Tab completion or the
find command were good to have then.
And about the bloat... 450 K being used for Grub in /boot is okay for me.
Which could probably be reduced further down to ~115K when removing
stage2{.old,_eltorito} and support for other file systems than ext2.

Wonko

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[pk]

On 2011-09-10 18:09, Dale wrote:

> From my understanding, the dev is not listening.  That is another thing
> that bothers me.  When devs stop listening to users, that causes a

AFAIU he doesn't listen to people not running RHEL/Fedora (or any of the
big binary distros). For a binary distro, that most likely already are
using an initrd thingie, this works fine. In my mind it also makes it
more difficult to support your own kernel (patches etc.) under these
binary distros making you more dependent on the distro supplier. If you
want control of what goes into your machine then this works less well...
Now if you were a _big_ customer of RHEL that wanted to keep udev
working like it currently does I think you might have some more leverage
(i.e. if the developer refuses to keep things working, then someone at
Red Hat would probably step in at the benefit of their customer and do
the right thing(tm)).

Best regards

Peter K

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Peter Humphrey]

On Saturday 10 September 2011 23:35:56 Alex Schuster wrote:
> Alan McKinnon writes:

> > And they are both grammar Nazis.
> 
> And I thought that was Peter Humphrey... or are all of you the same
> person? Who can tell.

First among equals? And seventh on the list!

> > She is not in the least surprised you get them confused. If Neil ever
> > confesses to owning and riding motorcycles, she thinks she might get
> > them mixed up herself.
> 
> So I wonder what Neil will write about this.

He seems to be lying low.

-- 
Rgds
Peter   Linux Counter 5290, 1994-04-23

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Pandu Poluan]

On Sep 11, 2011 3:25 PM, "Mike Edenfield"  wrote:
>
> It would make perfect sense to me for the udev maintainer to simply
declare a split /,/usr "not supported" and let us deal with the issues. The
problem, if I'm reading correctly, is that he's taken things one step
further and decided to move udev *itself* back into /usr.
>

100% agree!

> Even still, I would think that a Gentoo patchset to revert the paths back
to /lib would be a feasible workaround to this mess.
>
> --Mike
>

Yes, please!

And I'm sure there will be no shortage of testers among Gentoo users.

Heck, I hereby volunteer myself to be a tester if Gentoo devs go forth with
patching udev.

(I have several VMs on VMware ESX and XenServer where I can test an
initr*-free and separated-/usr environ)

Rgds,

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Mike Edenfield]

On 9/10/2011 5:28 PM, Alan McKinnon wrote:

On Sat, 10 Sep 2011 12:19:10 -0400
Michael Mol  wrote:


On Sat, Sep 10, 2011 at 12:09 PM, Dale  wrote:

Mick wrote:
 From my understanding, the dev is not listening.  That is another
thing that bothers me.  When devs stop listening to users, that
causes a problem. Remember hal?  How many people complained early


From what I read, he's listening, he just isn't being 
swayed by the argument. From his perspective, udev "doesn't 
support" a split /,/usr because of the arbitrarily complex 
udev rules. This is causing users to fill their bug queue 
with errors when needed binaries are unavailable at boot, 
and thus their hardware doesn't work. Apparently he has 
concluded that the number of people who require a separate 
/usr partition but cannot use an initramfs is smaller than 
the number of people who need udev to have access to all of 
/usr.


Unfortunately it appears that he's taking a pretty extreme 
approach to solving the problem that will actually *break* 
the systems of that second group, which I don't quite 
understand the reasoning behind.



As I understand it, nothing of udev itself is in /usr, but instead
packages and scripts which plug themselves into udev to be triggered
by various events.

Perhaps the real solution is to circumvent udev and get those other
packages and scripts to not put hotplug-active files under /usr.


That's my understanding too, and I agree with your conclusions. The
distros can easily (give enough man-power) deal with this too - they
simply have to modify their rpms/debs/pkgs/ebuilds to install specific
identified things to / instead of /usr. They *already* do this for
packages that natively install to peculiar locations.


It would make perfect sense to me for the udev maintainer to 
simply declare a split /,/usr "not supported" and let us 
deal with the issues. The problem, if I'm reading correctly, 
is that he's taken things one step further and decided to 
move udev *itself* back into /usr.


Even still, I would think that a Gentoo patchset to revert 
the paths back to /lib would be a feasible workaround to 
this mess.


--Mike

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Alan McKinnon]

On Sun, 11 Sep 2011 13:16:48 +1000
Paul Colquhoun  wrote:

> I've had a look at the stuff at those links, and some of what they
> link to in turn, and had a bit of a think about it.
> 
> Looking at "initramfs" as a modern Linux replacement for the
> "bootable / partition" of traditional Unix systems does make some
> sense, even though I think it could be made simpler.
> 
> Fot those opposed to initramfs, would you also object to /boot being
>   1) a manditory seperate partition
>   2) required to be ext2 (or one of a *very* short list)
>   3) having /boot/{bin,sbin,lib} containing local copies of the
> absolute minimum boot requirements (i.e. initramfs in a real fs)

For my part, I don't object to any of those. The Unix boot system is
generic enough that one should be able to build whatever one wants.
Only a very few things are required:

the kernel must be accessible to the bootloader
the root partition must be accessible to the kernel
init must be available early

everything else is optional

How the distro (or user) makes this happen should be up to them, not up
to udev. I understand that udev opens up all manner of
future possibilities and these could be very useful. But I do object
to a single package breaking all the foundation assumptions, especially
when the package is now being used in ways not originally envisaged.

udev is a dynamic device node controller. It is not a hotplug framework
and should not be dictating how the rest of the stack must be arranged.

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

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Paul Colquhoun]

On Fri, 9 Sep 2011 07:24:06 PM pk wrote:
> On 2011-09-09 10:53, Dale wrote:
> > Can I slap whoever started this?  The more I think on this, the worse it
> 
> Yes Dale, you have my permission! And while you're at it, slap him from
> me too! ;-)
> 
> It _may_ be this guy that's responsible for this crap:
> http://linuxplumbersconf.org/ocw/users/58
> 
> Also:
> http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.hotplug.devel/16994


I've had a look at the stuff at those links, and some of what they link to in 
turn, and had a bit of a think about it.

Looking at "initramfs" as a modern Linux replacement for the "bootable / 
partition" of traditional Unix systems does make some sense, even though I 
think it could be made simpler.

Fot those opposed to initramfs, would you also object to /boot being
  1) a manditory seperate partition
  2) required to be ext2 (or one of a *very* short list)
  3) having /boot/{bin,sbin,lib} containing local copies of the absolute
  minimum boot requirements (i.e. initramfs in a real fs)

On the other hand, most of the problem seems to stem from software packages 
hooking into the early boot via udev rules, and not beiong careful where they 
put the executables and libraries that they reference.

Is udev (as it currently stands) really the best place for them to hook into?

Could udev be split into 2 passes, early-boot udev that only does system stuff 
(like mount filesystems out of /etc/fstab, setup keyboards & video), and late-
boot udev where other applications can put in any hooks they like, since the 
full system would then be available.

The late-boot udev may need to do a full rescan of everything that early-boot 
udev found, but didn't have the rules for yet, but I'm sure that the 2 passes 
could talk to each other and sort that out fairly simply.

Or possibly just add a whole new service to use just for hooking software 
packages into system events. Although this would probably end upneeding to be 
a udev clone anyway.


-- 
Reverend Paul Colquhoun, ULC.http://andor.dropbear.id.au/~paulcol
 Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes.
Then, when you do, you'll be a mile away, and you'll have their shoes.

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Keith Dart]

=== On Sun, 09/11, Alex Schuster wrote: ===
> Interesting. What are the advantages?

Mainly that it's simpler, as a bootloader should be. However it does
have some nice features, such as making nice looking, interactive
menus. You can also edit the config file by hand, if you need to, and
it's all contained on the boot partition.

The biggest problem with grub 2 is it adds a dependency on having your
main root partition already mounted in order to configure it. That may
not be available. Also, when you learn extlinux then you know syslinux,
isolinux, and pxelinux already which helps when configuring boot
loaders for those other media. 

> What I like most about Grub is the interactive shell. And that I don't
> have to run a command like I had to do with Lilo after installing a
> new kernel.

If you need a shell, boot a minimal kernel and shell from a ramdisk. No
good reason to bloat a bootloader with that. 


-- Keith Dart

-- 

-- ~
   Keith Dart 
   public key: ID: 19017044
   
   =

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Alex Schuster]

Keith Dart writes:

> === On Fri, 09/09, Alex Schuster wrote: ===
> > What I fear much more is when good old grub is no longer supported
> > and I have to use grub2, which I tried to understand, but failed.
>
> Ya, it's horrid. But the {sys,ext}linux bootloader is still there and
> maintained and I like it better. I use extlinux on all my Gentoo
> systems now. 

Interesting. What are the advantages?

What I like most about Grub is the interactive shell. And that I don't
have to run a command like I had to do with Lilo after installing a new
kernel.

I guess Grub 1 will be around for a long time, and there will be no
need for me to switch soon. But I had to deal with Grub 2 on other
installations, and I had many problems. And I was disappointed because
configuring it is so much more complicated. It may have cooler features
and suport more file systems, but setting up grub 1 most of the times was
grub, root (hd0,0), setup (hd0), quit and setting up 2-3 lines in
grub.conf.

Wonko

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Alex Schuster]

Alan McKinnon writes:

> On Sat, 10 Sep 2011 18:34:42 +0200
> Alex Schuster  wrote:

> > Since I am on this list, I tend to confuse Alan and Neil. Is this
> > only me?

At least I know by now that you are the South Africa guy.

> Alan's girlfriend says that Alan and Neil are both male bald middle-aged
> pedantic old gits with a fascination for the writing of Douglas Adams.

I like that :-) The last part.

> And they are both grammar Nazis.

And I thought that was Peter Humphrey... or are all of you the same
person? Who can tell.

> She is not in the least surprised you get them confused. If Neil ever
> confesses to owning and riding motorcycles, she thinks she might get
> them mixed up herself.

So I wonder what Neil will write about this.

Wonko

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Keith Dart]

=== On Fri, 09/09, Alex Schuster wrote: ===
> What I fear much more is when good old grub is no longer supported
> and I have to use grub2, which I tried to understand, but failed.

===

Ya, it's horrid. But the {sys,ext}linux bootloader is still there and
maintained and I like it better. I use extlinux on all my Gentoo
systems now. 


-- Keith Dart

-- 

-- ~
   Keith Dart 
   public key: ID: 19017044
   
   =

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Dale]

Alan McKinnon wrote:
Since I am on this list, I tend to confuse Alan and Neil. Is this only 
me? girlfriend says that Alan and Neil are both male bald middle-aged 
pedantic old gits with a fascination for the writing of Douglas Adams. 
And they are both grammar Nazis. She is not in the least surprised you 
get them confused. If Neil ever confesses to owning and riding 
motorcycles, she thinks she might get them mixed up herself. :-) 


Well, I still got my hair.  ROFL  I guess we all have our oddities tho.  
;-)


Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Alan McKinnon]

On Sat, 10 Sep 2011 12:19:10 -0400
Michael Mol  wrote:

> On Sat, Sep 10, 2011 at 12:09 PM, Dale  wrote:
> > Mick wrote:
> > From my understanding, the dev is not listening.  That is another
> > thing that bothers me.  When devs stop listening to users, that
> > causes a problem. Remember hal?  How many people complained early
> > on about the config files? Lots.  I also don't like that a very few
> > people or just one person can make a decision like this that will
> > have a negative affect on a LOT and I mean a LOT of users.  That is
> > something that needs to be dealt with.  What I would like to see is
> > this, a good stable alternative that works well with a proper fix
> > and for that to push udev out and render it null.  I think that
> > would serve the dev right.  Listen to the people that use it or
> > people will use something else.  The mdev package comes to mind
> > here.  Maybe this will push it to take udevs place.  It seems there
> > is enough people that opposes this. If a few commercial and paying
> > people can help, it may just be the next better thing.
> 
> As I understand it, nothing of udev itself is in /usr, but instead
> packages and scripts which plug themselves into udev to be triggered
> by various events.
> 
> Perhaps the real solution is to circumvent udev and get those other
> packages and scripts to not put hotplug-active files under /usr.

That's my understanding too, and I agree with your conclusions. The
distros can easily (give enough man-power) deal with this too - they
simply have to modify their rpms/debs/pkgs/ebuilds to install specific
identified things to / instead of /usr. They *already* do this for
packages that natively install to peculiar locations.

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

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Alan McKinnon]

On Sat, 10 Sep 2011 18:34:42 +0200
Alex Schuster  wrote:

> > Me either.  That's when I had to accept that I was a true chatter
> > box. O_O  I wonder if Neil knows this?  He may not realize how many
> > he sends either.  
> 
> Since I am on this list, I tend to confuse Alan and Neil. Is this
> only me?

Alan's > Me either.  That's when I had to accept that I was a true
chatter box.  
> O_O  I wonder if Neil knows this?  He may not realize how many he
> sends either.  

Since I am on this list, I tend to confuse Alan and Neil. Is this only
me? girlfriend says that Alan and Neil are both male bald middle-aged
pedantic old gits with a fascination for the writing of Douglas Adams.
And they are both grammar Nazis.

She is not in the least surprised you get them confused. If Neil ever
confesses to owning and riding motorcycles, she thinks she might get
them mixed up herself.

:-)

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

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Dale]

William Kenworthy wrote:

  Actually, thats a bit optimistic - 2002

moriah ~ # ls -alth /var/backups/rattus/20110710/tree/etc/



drwxr-xr-x   3 root root   104 Sep  6  2003 hsf
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root80 May 13  2003 sysconfig
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root72 Jan  7  2003 devfs.d
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root48 Nov  5  2002 svga
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root80 Jul 10  2002 sasl
-rw---   1 root root   12K Jul  7  2002 .procmailrc.swp
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root   120 Jul  4  2002 oaf
drwxr-xr-x   3 root root72 Jul  3  2002 sound
-rw---   1 root root 0 Jul  3  2002 .pwd.lock
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root   112 Jul  3  2002 ssmtp

Decommissioned a couple of weeks ago!

BillK



I do mine this way.  I joined the forums when I installed Gentoo.  So, 
this is pretty close to how long people have put up with me:


Joined: 19 Sep 2003
Posts: 1240
Location: Mississippi USA

I joined the mailing list shortly after that.  I'm amazed ya'll have put 
up with me this long.  lol


Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[William Kenworthy]

On Sun, 2011-09-11 at 01:33 +0800, William Kenworthy wrote:
> On Sat, 2011-09-10 at 02:54 -0500, Dale wrote:
> > Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > > You give me too much credit :-)
> > >
> > > There's also Neil, Wonko, Volker, Stroller, Grant, meino.cramer, Mick,
> > > Paul, Harry, Albert, Alex, Walter, Alan Mackenzie (awesome name!),
> > > James, kashani, Pandu and about a 1000 more whose names I can't exactly
> > > recall right now.
> > >
> > > This here mailing-list has got the most varied and highest skills of
> > > any technical list I've ever subscribed to. We have regular desktop
> > > users, folks who work in server rooms, devs, owners of software
> > > companies, regular sysadmins, fellows who ship embedded devices, and at
> > > least one of everything in between.
> > >
> > > I don't mean to go all fuzzy feel-good here, but it's an honour to be
> > > able to communicate and interact with so many skilled people for so many
> > > years.
> > >
> > >
> > 
> > That is true.  There are lots who post a lot here.  I just recall seeing 
> > some stats somewhere and me and you were the top two.  That was about a 
> > year ago so it may have changed.  Just had to go find that link again.  
> > Here it is:
> > 
> > http://archives.gentoo.org/stats/gentoo-user-per-year.xml
> > 
> > We have a new comer.  lol
> > 
> > I think the mailing lists, and forums, are one of the key features of 
> > Gentoo.  The docs seemed to have slumped some but I think it was down to 
> > one or two people for a while.  I think someone jumped in the fire a few 
> > weeks ago tho.  Maybe they will catch up.  I'm sure it is hard to keep 
> > up with all the changes that are going on tho.  Gentoo has a LOT of 
> > stuff to document.
> > 
> > If we are so skilled, why is the Fedora dev not listening you reckon?
> > 
> > Dale
> > 
> > :-)  :-)
> > 
> 
> Ha, I got on the list in 2005!  Unfortunately it doesnt go back into the
> 90's when I started with Gentoo and the learning curve was REALLY
> steep :)
> 
> BillK
> 
 Actually, thats a bit optimistic - 2002

moriah ~ # ls -alth /var/backups/rattus/20110710/tree/etc/



drwxr-xr-x   3 root root   104 Sep  6  2003 hsf
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root80 May 13  2003 sysconfig
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root72 Jan  7  2003 devfs.d
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root48 Nov  5  2002 svga
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root80 Jul 10  2002 sasl
-rw---   1 root root   12K Jul  7  2002 .procmailrc.swp
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root   120 Jul  4  2002 oaf
drwxr-xr-x   3 root root72 Jul  3  2002 sound
-rw---   1 root root 0 Jul  3  2002 .pwd.lock
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root   112 Jul  3  2002 ssmtp

Decommissioned a couple of weeks ago!

BillK

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[William Kenworthy]

On Sat, 2011-09-10 at 02:54 -0500, Dale wrote:
> Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > You give me too much credit :-)
> >
> > There's also Neil, Wonko, Volker, Stroller, Grant, meino.cramer, Mick,
> > Paul, Harry, Albert, Alex, Walter, Alan Mackenzie (awesome name!),
> > James, kashani, Pandu and about a 1000 more whose names I can't exactly
> > recall right now.
> >
> > This here mailing-list has got the most varied and highest skills of
> > any technical list I've ever subscribed to. We have regular desktop
> > users, folks who work in server rooms, devs, owners of software
> > companies, regular sysadmins, fellows who ship embedded devices, and at
> > least one of everything in between.
> >
> > I don't mean to go all fuzzy feel-good here, but it's an honour to be
> > able to communicate and interact with so many skilled people for so many
> > years.
> >
> >
> 
> That is true.  There are lots who post a lot here.  I just recall seeing 
> some stats somewhere and me and you were the top two.  That was about a 
> year ago so it may have changed.  Just had to go find that link again.  
> Here it is:
> 
> http://archives.gentoo.org/stats/gentoo-user-per-year.xml
> 
> We have a new comer.  lol
> 
> I think the mailing lists, and forums, are one of the key features of 
> Gentoo.  The docs seemed to have slumped some but I think it was down to 
> one or two people for a while.  I think someone jumped in the fire a few 
> weeks ago tho.  Maybe they will catch up.  I'm sure it is hard to keep 
> up with all the changes that are going on tho.  Gentoo has a LOT of 
> stuff to document.
> 
> If we are so skilled, why is the Fedora dev not listening you reckon?
> 
> Dale
> 
> :-)  :-)
> 

Ha, I got on the list in 2005!  Unfortunately it doesnt go back into the
90's when I started with Gentoo and the learning curve was REALLY
steep :)

BillK

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Michael Mol]

On Sat, Sep 10, 2011 at 12:36 PM, Pandu Poluan  wrote:
>
> On Sep 10, 2011 11:22 PM, "Michael Mol"  wrote:
>>
>> As I understand it, nothing of udev itself is in /usr, but instead
>> packages and scripts which plug themselves into udev to be triggered
>> by various events.
>>
>> Perhaps the real solution is to circumvent udev and get those other
>> packages and scripts to not put hotplug-active files under /usr.
>>
>
> Agree with both your points.
>
> udev *should* refuse accessing anything under /usr if it's still in the
> sysinit phase. After all, that's what the FHS assumed (/usr does not contain
> anything required during boot)
>
> IIRC, one of the most vocal designer of the FHS is Red Hat; if the dev of
> udev is also Red Hat-related, shouldn't he at least try to follow FHS's
> philosophy?

In Portage, we have all kinds of warnings and QA notices pop up when
building things. Could we patch udev to throw warnings when files
under /usr are accessed? (such as by hooking in via strace and
grepping for fopen() calls)

-- 
:wq

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Dale]

Michael Mol wrote:

On Sat, Sep 10, 2011 at 12:09 PM, Dale  wrote:

Mick wrote:
 From my understanding, the dev is not listening.  That is another thing that
bothers me.  When devs stop listening to users, that causes a problem.
  Remember hal?  How many people complained early on about the config files?
  Lots.  I also don't like that a very few people or just one person can make
a decision like this that will have a negative affect on a LOT and I mean a
LOT of users.  That is something that needs to be dealt with.  What I would
like to see is this, a good stable alternative that works well with a proper
fix and for that to push udev out and render it null.  I think that would
serve the dev right.  Listen to the people that use it or people will use
something else.  The mdev package comes to mind here.  Maybe this will push
it to take udevs place.  It seems there is enough people that opposes this.
  If a few commercial and paying people can help, it may just be the next
better thing.

As I understand it, nothing of udev itself is in /usr, but instead
packages and scripts which plug themselves into udev to be triggered
by various events.

Perhaps the real solution is to circumvent udev and get those other
packages and scripts to not put hotplug-active files under /usr.




Either way, udev is what is the root of it.  Udev is calling for 
something that is not there.  Either udev needs to change or it needs to 
require the files to be somewhere other than /usr.


Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Pandu Poluan]

On Sep 10, 2011 11:22 PM, "Michael Mol"  wrote:
>
> As I understand it, nothing of udev itself is in /usr, but instead
> packages and scripts which plug themselves into udev to be triggered
> by various events.
>
> Perhaps the real solution is to circumvent udev and get those other
> packages and scripts to not put hotplug-active files under /usr.
>

Agree with both your points.

udev *should* refuse accessing anything under /usr if it's still in the
sysinit phase. After all, that's what the FHS assumed (/usr does not contain
anything required during boot)

IIRC, one of the most vocal designer of the FHS is Red Hat; if the dev of
udev is also Red Hat-related, shouldn't he at least try to follow FHS's
philosophy?

Rgds,

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Alex Schuster]

Dale writes:

> Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > On Sat, 10 Sep 2011 02:54:58 -0500
> > Dale  wrote:
> >
> >> That is true.  There are lots who post a lot here.  I just recall
> >> seeing some stats somewhere and me and you were the top two.  That
> >> was about a year ago so it may have changed.  Just had to go find
> >> that link again. Here it is:
> >>
> >> http://archives.gentoo.org/stats/gentoo-user-per-year.xml
> >>
> >> We have a new comer.  lol
> > I had absolutely no idea I sent *that* much mail to gentoo-user :-)
> 
> Me either.  That's when I had to accept that I was a true chatter box.  
> O_O  I wonder if Neil knows this?  He may not realize how many he sends 
> either.

Since I am on this list, I tend to confuse Alan and Neil. Is this only me?

> He comes in third several times.  Does that qualify as a  chatter box
> too?  lol

Or as yet another very helpful and competent person.

I very much agree with Alan, this is a great list indeed.

Wonko

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Michael Mol]

On Sat, Sep 10, 2011 at 12:09 PM, Dale  wrote:
> Mick wrote:
> From my understanding, the dev is not listening.  That is another thing that
> bothers me.  When devs stop listening to users, that causes a problem.
>  Remember hal?  How many people complained early on about the config files?
>  Lots.  I also don't like that a very few people or just one person can make
> a decision like this that will have a negative affect on a LOT and I mean a
> LOT of users.  That is something that needs to be dealt with.  What I would
> like to see is this, a good stable alternative that works well with a proper
> fix and for that to push udev out and render it null.  I think that would
> serve the dev right.  Listen to the people that use it or people will use
> something else.  The mdev package comes to mind here.  Maybe this will push
> it to take udevs place.  It seems there is enough people that opposes this.
>  If a few commercial and paying people can help, it may just be the next
> better thing.

As I understand it, nothing of udev itself is in /usr, but instead
packages and scripts which plug themselves into udev to be triggered
by various events.

Perhaps the real solution is to circumvent udev and get those other
packages and scripts to not put hotplug-active files under /usr.


-- 
:wq

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Dale]

Mick wrote:
I've flirted with Slackware before I came over to Gentoo and the 
reason I chose Gentoo is because it gave me more freedom to built and 
configure an OS exactly as I wanted it. I was at the time thinking of 
trying BSD with portage, but when I was keeping an eye on it there was 
this start/stop development as Alan mentions and loads of packages 
were unstable for yonks or missing completely. This made me decide to 
stay on Linux. I don't think we should give up completely yet. Perhaps 
we need to lobby a bit more effectively (Can we email directly the 
dev(s)? Where do they live? Ha, ha!) PS. Dale please don't leave! 
There'll be no mammoth threads without you and who are we going to 
rely to trash the credibility of packages - HAL springs to mind! Come 
to think of it, given HAL's demise can you also please have a go at 
udev? You never know ... ;) 


Well, this is me.  I like things simple.  I have built my own 
computers.  I have rebuilt car engines, small mower engines, worked on 
about every machine, except heavy equipment such as a crane, and done 
well.  What I don't do is add unneeded junk to something.  This init* 
stuff is one of them.  If a person wants to use it, then fine, by all 
means use it.  Thing is, this is going to affect a lot of people in a 
negative way.  When I first installed Mandrake and didn't know a lot 
about Linux, I had /usr on a separate partition.  As ignorant as I was, 
I knew it was a good thing to do.  I clearly wasn't thinking when I put 
/usr on / when I did this install.  Maybe the excitement of my new rig 
got the better of me.  lol


I have to admit, hal got on my bad nerve.  Thing is, I could at least 
boot up to fix it.  Console was still working.  If this init* thing 
breaks, I can't even do that.  Trust me, I'm going to be super duper 
pissed if this init thing fails.  I won't care why.  The point is, I 
don't want the thing to begin with and it shouldn't even be needed.  
There are better ways to do this.


From my understanding, the dev is not listening.  That is another thing 
that bothers me.  When devs stop listening to users, that causes a 
problem.  Remember hal?  How many people complained early on about the 
config files?  Lots.  I also don't like that a very few people or just 
one person can make a decision like this that will have a negative 
affect on a LOT and I mean a LOT of users.  That is something that needs 
to be dealt with.  What I would like to see is this, a good stable 
alternative that works well with a proper fix and for that to push udev 
out and render it null.  I think that would serve the dev right.  Listen 
to the people that use it or people will use something else.  The mdev 
package comes to mind here.  Maybe this will push it to take udevs 
place.  It seems there is enough people that opposes this.  If a few 
commercial and paying people can help, it may just be the next better 
thing.


Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Dale]

Alex Schuster wrote:

Dale writes:


pk wrote:

On 2011-09-09 13:35, Alex Schuster wrote:


When I switched to using an initramfs, it was not very complicated. I
simply use genkernel. With CLEAN="no" and MRPROPER="no", it uses my
/usr/src/linux/.config and does not change the kernel options. Then
comes genkernel --install --lvm -luks all, and I have kernel and
initramfs

And for those that like to do without genkernel? Again, adding another
layer for things to go wrong.

That's just what I do and what I know about. I'm reading about dracut
here, but I don't know how easy that is. Sure, I also wouldn't like an
additional layer, but what if there are no good alternatives?


There is alternative, get a proper fix for udev.  Since udev is needed 
to boot, put those files in /bin or /sbin where they should be.  It's 
really that simple.  If they are truly opposed to that idea, have a /run 
directory or something like that.  Then let it be documented, FHS maybe, 
that that directory has to be on / just like /bin and /sbin.





I tried genkernel.  All I got was a kernel that wouldn't boot.  Heck,
it barely even started to boot.  The kernel wouldn't even finish
loading. After several tries, I put genkernel in the trash.  It worked
a LOT better there for me.  It was out of sight and mind.  ;-)

Yes, I remember the discussion. But I think you used genkernel as it was
designed, to generate a new kernel .config from scratch. This is not
necessary, as I wrote above you can also make it use your
working .config. That's what I do, and it also gives me the initramfs I
need, without having to think about how it does that. I suggest you just
try it, and I'd say there is a really good chance it just works. When you
use 'genkernel --install kernel', you should get the same kernel as when
you build it manually, just with a different name. With 'genkernel
--install all', you also get the initramfs.
I can't guarantee this, though, and especially you seem to have a history
of being bitten by bugs. But then, that's what people say about me, too,
and I'm using genkernel just fine.


The point is, its one more thing to break and as Alan explains, it 
breaks the tradition of what is required for booting up.  I run into 
enough problems already.  I don't want to add yet one more, to booting 
at that.  I'm sure I'm not the only one that doesn't like init* stuff.  
That is part two of not liking this idea.






I don't get this one. Why do you want to copy an existing /usr
partition to another one?

He said he wishes to move his /usr to a spare partition (the part
about KDE4)... I assume his /usr currently resides on / (or maybe a
smaller partition that he cannot easily expand).

You hit it, for some reason I put /usr on the root partition without
thinking.  This is where I am now:

rootfs19534436  10693048   8841388  55% /

Over half full.  When I have a critical partition get over 60%, I start
looking for expansion.  Moving /usr was my plan but someone stole that
from me I guess.  Now I got to figure out what I want to do next.

Uh. So you think about leaving Gentopo, because your root partition is
barely over half full, and moving /usr somewhere else might involve an
initramfs soon? I'd just wait until it starts getting to 80-90%, and
think about it again.

Wonko



No, I'm thinking about this because one of the reasons I left binary 
based distros was crap like this.  I didn't like init* stuff because 
they caused me grief when booting.  I wasn't as skilled as I am now so I 
didn't know how to fix them.  Heck, I still don't and really don't want 
to be forced to learn either.  It's the same reason I don't use LVM.  It 
just adds one more layer to cause problems.  I *may* use LVM for data or 
something but not for anything required for booting.


I'm sort of like this.  I want to be able to boot to single user at a 
minimum as simple as possible.  If I can do that, I can fix whatever is 
broke.  If I install a init* thingy and I can't boot because it got 
screwed up somehow, I'm not going to be happy.  I don't get mad often 
but this could be much worse than hal.  Given my medical situation, I 
need to avoid that at all costs.  One of those costs may be me picking 
something else for my OS.  I like Gentoo but the reasons I started using 
Gentoo are slipping away.  I'm running out of reasons to have this 
installed.  It's like having a car.  If you have a old car that breaks a 
lot, at some point you have to decide whether the reason you have the 
car is the same as when you bought the car.  If you can't depend on it 
to get you where you are going, it's time for a new car.  Cars are to 
get a person from point A to point B for most people.  I want a OS that 
is simple enough to get it running but I also like the control Gentoo 
offers or used to.  Yea, I know, Gentoo isn't that simple but it is 
simple in how it works once set up.  Load grub, load kernel, start the 
init process.  Simple.  The init* process

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Pandu Poluan]

On Sep 10, 2011 10:06 PM, "Dale"  wrote:
>
> Alan McKinnon wrote:
>>
>> On Sat, 10 Sep 2011 02:54:58 -0500
>> Dale  wrote:
>>
>>> That is true.  There are lots who post a lot here.  I just recall
>>> seeing some stats somewhere and me and you were the top two.  That
>>> was about a year ago so it may have changed.  Just had to go find
>>> that link again. Here it is:
>>>
>>> http://archives.gentoo.org/stats/gentoo-user-per-year.xml
>>>
>>> We have a new comer.  lol
>>
>> I had absolutely no idea I sent *that* much mail to gentoo-user :-)
>>
>
> Me either.  That's when I had to accept that I was a true chatter box.
 O_O  I wonder if Neil knows this?  He may not realize how many he sends
either.  He comes in third several times.  Does that qualify as a chatter
box too?  lol

Whoa, I'm number eight on the list?! o_O

That's strange... especially considering I'm quiet through lengthy threads
(e.g., this one)

Dubious achievement... not sure if I should be proud or not -.-

Rgds,

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Dale]

Alan McKinnon wrote:

On Sat, 10 Sep 2011 02:54:58 -0500
Dale  wrote:


That is true.  There are lots who post a lot here.  I just recall
seeing some stats somewhere and me and you were the top two.  That
was about a year ago so it may have changed.  Just had to go find
that link again. Here it is:

http://archives.gentoo.org/stats/gentoo-user-per-year.xml

We have a new comer.  lol

I had absolutely no idea I sent *that* much mail to gentoo-user :-)



Me either.  That's when I had to accept that I was a true chatter box.  
O_O  I wonder if Neil knows this?  He may not realize how many he sends 
either.  He comes in third several times.  Does that qualify as a 
chatter box too?  lol


Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Alex Schuster]

Dale writes:

> pk wrote:
> > On 2011-09-09 13:35, Alex Schuster wrote:
> >
> >> When I switched to using an initramfs, it was not very complicated. I
> >> simply use genkernel. With CLEAN="no" and MRPROPER="no", it uses my
> >> /usr/src/linux/.config and does not change the kernel options. Then
> >> comes genkernel --install --lvm -luks all, and I have kernel and
> >> initramfs
> > And for those that like to do without genkernel? Again, adding another
> > layer for things to go wrong.

That's just what I do and what I know about. I'm reading about dracut
here, but I don't know how easy that is. Sure, I also wouldn't like an
additional layer, but what if there are no good alternatives? 

> I tried genkernel.  All I got was a kernel that wouldn't boot.  Heck,
> it barely even started to boot.  The kernel wouldn't even finish
> loading. After several tries, I put genkernel in the trash.  It worked
> a LOT better there for me.  It was out of sight and mind.  ;-)

Yes, I remember the discussion. But I think you used genkernel as it was
designed, to generate a new kernel .config from scratch. This is not
necessary, as I wrote above you can also make it use your
working .config. That's what I do, and it also gives me the initramfs I
need, without having to think about how it does that. I suggest you just
try it, and I'd say there is a really good chance it just works. When you
use 'genkernel --install kernel', you should get the same kernel as when
you build it manually, just with a different name. With 'genkernel
--install all', you also get the initramfs.
I can't guarantee this, though, and especially you seem to have a history
of being bitten by bugs. But then, that's what people say about me, too,
and I'm using genkernel just fine.

> >> I don't get this one. Why do you want to copy an existing /usr
> >> partition to another one?
> > He said he wishes to move his /usr to a spare partition (the part
> > about KDE4)... I assume his /usr currently resides on / (or maybe a
> > smaller partition that he cannot easily expand).
> 
> You hit it, for some reason I put /usr on the root partition without 
> thinking.  This is where I am now:
> 
> rootfs19534436  10693048   8841388  55% /
> 
> Over half full.  When I have a critical partition get over 60%, I start 
> looking for expansion.  Moving /usr was my plan but someone stole that 
> from me I guess.  Now I got to figure out what I want to do next.

Uh. So you think about leaving Gentopo, because your root partition is
barely over half full, and moving /usr somewhere else might involve an
initramfs soon? I'd just wait until it starts getting to 80-90%, and
think about it again.

Wonko

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Alex Schuster]

Dale writes:

> I know one thing, BSD is secure as heck.  I installed it once on a old 
> rig and typed the password in wrong during setup.  I never could get 
> into that thing again.  I had to start over.

That's what you thought :)  Normally, all you have to do is to boot in
single user mode, this gives you a root shell without asking for a
password. Unless you have changed 

console  none  unknown  off  secure

in /etc/ttys to:

console  none  unknown  off  insecure

It will then prompt for a password, but even this will not help much. As
long as you have physical access to a machine, you can simply boot it from
a CD or via USB, mount the partitions and remove the password
in /etc/passwd, or simply chroot and do whatever you want. To make it
really secure, you have to encrypt the whole system. Which is fairly easy
BTW.

> lol  That is why I chose 
> Linux in general.  I want something that is secure enough that I don't 
> have to worry about some script kiddie messing with me.

Just make sure to block or disable flash content when surfing the web.

> BSD is one option I will be looking into if I move from Gentoo.  After 
> all, they are fairly close maybe even a step up.  Especially now.

BSD is elegant, simpler, and has some nice features like a file
system that can be checked in the background while being in use already.
With the drawback of being quite slow compared to others.

But I would miss many things. I think portage is much superior these
days. Builds that continue when a package fails, or even parallel builds
are not possible AFAIK. The driver situation is worse I believe, when it
comes to graphics hardware. And I just read [*] that some KDE guys are
rethinking whether they will support other operating systems than Linux
for the plasma desktop, because it may not be worth the effort.

Wonko

[*] 
http://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/2011/08/thoughts-about-kde-plasma-on-non-linux-systems/

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Mick]

On Saturday 10 Sep 2011 08:36:59 Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On Fri, 9 Sep 2011 21:23:42 -0400
> 
> Michael Mol  wrote:
> > On Fri, Sep 9, 2011 at 9:15 PM, Dale  wrote:
> > > Michael Schreckenbauer wrote:
> > >> Am Freitag, 9. September 2011, 19:24:06 schrieb pk:
> > >>> On 2011-09-09 10:53, Dale wrote:
> >  Can I slap whoever started this?  The more I think on this, the
> >  worse it
> > >>> 
> > >>> Yes Dale, you have my permission! And while you're at it, slap
> > >>> him from me too! ;-)
> > >>> 
> > >>> It _may_ be this guy that's responsible for this crap:
> > >>> http://linuxplumbersconf.org/ocw/users/58
> > >>> 
> > >>> Also:
> > >>> http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.hotplug.devel/16994
> > >> 
> > >> OMG!
> > >> What a mess. udev treats all exit-codes except 0 the same.
> > >> That's so bad, I have no words for it.
> > >> Definitely not a developer I trust to do things the right way.
> > >> 
> > >>> PS. If things go "tits up" you may want to have a look at FreeBSD
> > >>> (or some other BSD). I'm quite sure they wouldn't put up with
> > >>> crap like this... I know I will investigate my options at least.
> > >> 
> > >> Agree, FreeBSD is really a fine OS.
> > >> 
> > >>> Best regards
> > >>> Peter K
> > >> 
> > >> Thanks for the links,
> > >> regards,
> > >> Michael
> > > 
> > > I know one thing, BSD is secure as heck.  I installed it once on a
> > > old rig and typed the password in wrong during setup.  I never
> > > could get into that thing again.  I had to start over.  lol  That
> > > is why I chose Linux in general.  I want something that is secure
> > > enough that I don't have to worry about some script kiddie messing
> > > with me.
> > > 
> > > BSD is one option I will be looking into if I move from Gentoo.
> > >  After all, they are fairly close maybe even a step up.  Especially
> > > now.
> > 
> > Doesn't Gentoo have a BSD target? The problem here is with udev, which
> > doesn't apply to BSD, AFAIK. Gentoo/BSD might be a good direction to
> > go.
> > 
> > Also, where does FreeBSD's kernel stand, with respect to device
> > drivers?
> 
> There is a BSD target on Gentoo, but I don't know too much about it (I
> just use regular parts on my installs). It seems to suffer from lack of
> manpower, starting up and dying down occasionally. Which is a shame as
> it has huge potential but Linux grabs most of the limelight.
> 
> Driver support is excellent. At least on server grade hardware
> everything I've ever bought just works, but I can't comment on desktop
> hardware.

I've flirted with Slackware before I came over to Gentoo and the reason I 
chose Gentoo is because it gave me more freedom to built and configure an OS 
exactly as I wanted it.  I was at the time thinking of trying BSD with 
portage, but when I was keeping an eye on it there was this start/stop 
development as Alan mentions and loads of packages were unstable for yonks or 
missing completely.  This made me decide to stay on Linux.

I don't think we should give up completely yet.  Perhaps we need to lobby a 
bit more effectively (Can we email directly the dev(s)? Where do they live? 
Ha, ha!)

PS.  Dale please don't leave!  There'll be no mammoth threads without you and 
who are we going to rely to trash the credibility of packages - HAL springs to 
mind!  Come to think of it, given HAL's demise can you also please have a go 
at udev?  You never know ...  ;)
-- 
Regards,
Mick


signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part.

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Alan McKinnon]

On Sat, 10 Sep 2011 02:54:58 -0500
Dale  wrote:

> That is true.  There are lots who post a lot here.  I just recall
> seeing some stats somewhere and me and you were the top two.  That
> was about a year ago so it may have changed.  Just had to go find
> that link again. Here it is:
> 
> http://archives.gentoo.org/stats/gentoo-user-per-year.xml
> 
> We have a new comer.  lol

I had absolutely no idea I sent *that* much mail to gentoo-user :-)

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

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Dale]

Alan McKinnon wrote:

On Fri, 09 Sep 2011 20:25:22 -0500
Dale  wrote:


Alan McKinnon wrote:

I'm lucky, I can vote with my feet. Out of 140, I have two servers
that *require* Linux. One runs Sybase ASE, the other runs Oracle.
Everything else works like a bomb on FreeBSD. kthankxbyeudev,
thanksfornotplayingnicely Not everyone else is so fortunate though.

I guess I understood more than I thought then.  Shocking.  I
understand that but the udev guru doesn't.  ;-)

I may go the BSD route too if I leave Gentoo.  So, my feet works
too.  I wonder if I would even be missed here?  :/

Dale


N Dale you can't lavveee!

Seriously, you're an institution around here, you would be sorely
missed.




I sometimes think people get tired of the chatter box.  lol   I wonder 
if I am on somebody's blacklist?  :/


Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Dale]

Alan McKinnon wrote:

You give me too much credit :-)

There's also Neil, Wonko, Volker, Stroller, Grant, meino.cramer, Mick,
Paul, Harry, Albert, Alex, Walter, Alan Mackenzie (awesome name!),
James, kashani, Pandu and about a 1000 more whose names I can't exactly
recall right now.

This here mailing-list has got the most varied and highest skills of
any technical list I've ever subscribed to. We have regular desktop
users, folks who work in server rooms, devs, owners of software
companies, regular sysadmins, fellows who ship embedded devices, and at
least one of everything in between.

I don't mean to go all fuzzy feel-good here, but it's an honour to be
able to communicate and interact with so many skilled people for so many
years.




That is true.  There are lots who post a lot here.  I just recall seeing 
some stats somewhere and me and you were the top two.  That was about a 
year ago so it may have changed.  Just had to go find that link again.  
Here it is:


http://archives.gentoo.org/stats/gentoo-user-per-year.xml

We have a new comer.  lol

I think the mailing lists, and forums, are one of the key features of 
Gentoo.  The docs seemed to have slumped some but I think it was down to 
one or two people for a while.  I think someone jumped in the fire a few 
weeks ago tho.  Maybe they will catch up.  I'm sure it is hard to keep 
up with all the changes that are going on tho.  Gentoo has a LOT of 
stuff to document.


If we are so skilled, why is the Fedora dev not listening you reckon?

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Alan McKinnon]

On Fri, 9 Sep 2011 21:23:42 -0400
Michael Mol  wrote:

> On Fri, Sep 9, 2011 at 9:15 PM, Dale  wrote:
> > Michael Schreckenbauer wrote:
> >>
> >> Am Freitag, 9. September 2011, 19:24:06 schrieb pk:
> >>>
> >>> On 2011-09-09 10:53, Dale wrote:
> 
>  Can I slap whoever started this?  The more I think on this, the
>  worse it
> >>>
> >>> Yes Dale, you have my permission! And while you're at it, slap
> >>> him from me too! ;-)
> >>>
> >>> It _may_ be this guy that's responsible for this crap:
> >>> http://linuxplumbersconf.org/ocw/users/58
> >>>
> >>> Also:
> >>> http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.hotplug.devel/16994
> >>
> >> OMG!
> >> What a mess. udev treats all exit-codes except 0 the same.
> >> That's so bad, I have no words for it.
> >> Definitely not a developer I trust to do things the right way.
> >>
> >>> PS. If things go "tits up" you may want to have a look at FreeBSD
> >>> (or some other BSD). I'm quite sure they wouldn't put up with
> >>> crap like this... I know I will investigate my options at least.
> >>
> >> Agree, FreeBSD is really a fine OS.
> >>
> >>> Best regards
> >>> Peter K
> >>
> >> Thanks for the links,
> >> regards,
> >> Michael
> >>
> >
> > I know one thing, BSD is secure as heck.  I installed it once on a
> > old rig and typed the password in wrong during setup.  I never
> > could get into that thing again.  I had to start over.  lol  That
> > is why I chose Linux in general.  I want something that is secure
> > enough that I don't have to worry about some script kiddie messing
> > with me.
> >
> > BSD is one option I will be looking into if I move from Gentoo.
> >  After all, they are fairly close maybe even a step up.  Especially
> > now.
> 
> Doesn't Gentoo have a BSD target? The problem here is with udev, which
> doesn't apply to BSD, AFAIK. Gentoo/BSD might be a good direction to
> go.
> 
> Also, where does FreeBSD's kernel stand, with respect to device
> drivers?
 
There is a BSD target on Gentoo, but I don't know too much about it (I
just use regular parts on my installs). It seems to suffer from lack of
manpower, starting up and dying down occasionally. Which is a shame as
it has huge potential but Linux grabs most of the limelight.

Driver support is excellent. At least on server grade hardware
everything I've ever bought just works, but I can't comment on desktop
hardware.

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

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Alan McKinnon]

On Fri, 09 Sep 2011 20:58:23 -0500
Dale  wrote:

> Michael Mol wrote:
> > On Fri, Sep 9, 2011 at 9:25 PM, Dale  wrote:
> >> I may go the BSD route too if I leave Gentoo.  So, my feet works
> >> too.  I wonder if I would even be missed here?  :/
> > I'd hate it if you left. In the short time I've been on this list,
> > your usage habits and history are the ones I've identified most
> > with. :)
> >
> 
> The bad thing is, I like helping people and enjoy this list.  I think
> me and Alan are the top posters here so I guess me and him like
> helping folks.  Alan has a lot of server type experience and I have a
> bit of desktop experience.  We may have some overlap there tho.

You give me too much credit :-)

There's also Neil, Wonko, Volker, Stroller, Grant, meino.cramer, Mick,
Paul, Harry, Albert, Alex, Walter, Alan Mackenzie (awesome name!),
James, kashani, Pandu and about a 1000 more whose names I can't exactly
recall right now.

This here mailing-list has got the most varied and highest skills of
any technical list I've ever subscribed to. We have regular desktop
users, folks who work in server rooms, devs, owners of software
companies, regular sysadmins, fellows who ship embedded devices, and at
least one of everything in between.

I don't mean to go all fuzzy feel-good here, but it's an honour to be
able to communicate and interact with so many skilled people for so many
years.


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

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[pk]

On 2011-09-10 03:49, Dale wrote:

> If I recall correctly, Gentoo is sort of based on BSD.  I don't think
> using their target would solve the problem with udev tho.

FreeBSD uses "Ports" which Portage is based on, AIUI. The FreeBSD kernel
doesn't use udev. They do have a similar thing though called devd but I
don't think it will be quite the same mess as (future?) udev.

> I have no idea on device drivers but I suspect Alan might.

AFAIK, device driver situation is worse than Linux. How much worse I
don't know but I assume they're trailing behind (i.e. what ever is
supported under Linux will eventually come to FreeBSD as well, assuming
there's enough interest). So if you're patient and not running state of
the art hardware... :-)

Hm... One more thing to try with Linux would be to do without udev (i.e.
static /dev). That is still supported by Gentoo (AFAIK) and could be a
way to solve this mess (yes, you would miss the dynamic creation of
device nodes but...).

As someone else mentioned there's also mdev from busybox (it's mainly
aimed at embedded systems AIUI) to try:
https://wildanm.wordpress.com/2007/08/21/mdev-mini-udev-in-busybox/

Not sure how well supported mdev under Gentoo is though...

Best regards

Peter K

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Alan McKinnon]

On Fri, 09 Sep 2011 20:25:22 -0500
Dale  wrote:

> Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > I'm lucky, I can vote with my feet. Out of 140, I have two servers 
> > that *require* Linux. One runs Sybase ASE, the other runs Oracle. 
> > Everything else works like a bomb on FreeBSD. kthankxbyeudev, 
> > thanksfornotplayingnicely Not everyone else is so fortunate though. 
> 
> I guess I understood more than I thought then.  Shocking.  I
> understand that but the udev guru doesn't.  ;-)
> 
> I may go the BSD route too if I leave Gentoo.  So, my feet works
> too.  I wonder if I would even be missed here?  :/
> 
> Dale


N Dale you can't lavveee!

Seriously, you're an institution around here, you would be sorely
missed.


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

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Dale]

Michael Mol wrote:

On Fri, Sep 9, 2011 at 9:25 PM, Dale  wrote:

I may go the BSD route too if I leave Gentoo.  So, my feet works too.  I
wonder if I would even be missed here?  :/

I'd hate it if you left. In the short time I've been on this list,
your usage habits and history are the ones I've identified most with.
:)



The bad thing is, I like helping people and enjoy this list.  I think me 
and Alan are the top posters here so I guess me and him like helping 
folks.  Alan has a lot of server type experience and I have a bit of 
desktop experience.  We may have some overlap there tho.  Me, I'm a 
desktop user and I like to run a distro that I'm proud of.  In the past, 
it seemed Gentoo sort of lead on some things.  Now, it seems to follow 
instead.  If I want a distro that just follows, I could have stayed with 
Mandrake/Mandriva.  It follows Redhat if I recall correctly.  It also 
uses the init* stuff too.  Which as I pointed out before is one reason I 
left that.  If I got to use one with Gentoo, that just takes one reason 
for using Gentoo and all the compiling stuff away.  Gentoo has some good 
points but lately, they seem to be getting lost on the point scale.


Well, I got divorced once.  I just hope reason will pop up and I don't 
have to shift something important to me again.  This would be as bad as 
me divorcing my ex.  Heck, maybe worse.  I been using Gentoo long 
before I met my ex.


< sighs >

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Dale]

Michael Mol wrote:

Doesn't Gentoo have a BSD target? The problem here is with udev, which
doesn't apply to BSD, AFAIK. Gentoo/BSD might be a good direction to
go.

Also, where does FreeBSD's kernel stand, with respect to device drivers?



If I recall correctly, Gentoo is sort of based on BSD.  I don't think 
using their target would solve the problem with udev tho.


I have no idea on device drivers but I suspect Alan might.

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Michael Mol]

On Fri, Sep 9, 2011 at 9:25 PM, Dale  wrote:
> I may go the BSD route too if I leave Gentoo.  So, my feet works too.  I
> wonder if I would even be missed here?  :/

I'd hate it if you left. In the short time I've been on this list,
your usage habits and history are the ones I've identified most with.
:)

-- 
:wq

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Dale]

Alan McKinnon wrote:
I'm lucky, I can vote with my feet. Out of 140, I have two servers 
that *require* Linux. One runs Sybase ASE, the other runs Oracle. 
Everything else works like a bomb on FreeBSD. kthankxbyeudev, 
thanksfornotplayingnicely Not everyone else is so fortunate though. 


I guess I understood more than I thought then.  Shocking.  I understand 
that but the udev guru doesn't.  ;-)


I may go the BSD route too if I leave Gentoo.  So, my feet works too.  I 
wonder if I would even be missed here?  :/


Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Michael Mol]

On Fri, Sep 9, 2011 at 9:15 PM, Dale  wrote:
> Michael Schreckenbauer wrote:
>>
>> Am Freitag, 9. September 2011, 19:24:06 schrieb pk:
>>>
>>> On 2011-09-09 10:53, Dale wrote:

 Can I slap whoever started this?  The more I think on this, the worse it
>>>
>>> Yes Dale, you have my permission! And while you're at it, slap him from
>>> me too! ;-)
>>>
>>> It _may_ be this guy that's responsible for this crap:
>>> http://linuxplumbersconf.org/ocw/users/58
>>>
>>> Also:
>>> http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.hotplug.devel/16994
>>
>> OMG!
>> What a mess. udev treats all exit-codes except 0 the same.
>> That's so bad, I have no words for it.
>> Definitely not a developer I trust to do things the right way.
>>
>>> PS. If things go "tits up" you may want to have a look at FreeBSD (or
>>> some other BSD). I'm quite sure they wouldn't put up with crap like
>>> this... I know I will investigate my options at least.
>>
>> Agree, FreeBSD is really a fine OS.
>>
>>> Best regards
>>> Peter K
>>
>> Thanks for the links,
>> regards,
>> Michael
>>
>
> I know one thing, BSD is secure as heck.  I installed it once on a old rig
> and typed the password in wrong during setup.  I never could get into that
> thing again.  I had to start over.  lol  That is why I chose Linux in
> general.  I want something that is secure enough that I don't have to worry
> about some script kiddie messing with me.
>
> BSD is one option I will be looking into if I move from Gentoo.  After all,
> they are fairly close maybe even a step up.  Especially now.

Doesn't Gentoo have a BSD target? The problem here is with udev, which
doesn't apply to BSD, AFAIK. Gentoo/BSD might be a good direction to
go.

Also, where does FreeBSD's kernel stand, with respect to device drivers?

-- 
:wq

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Dale]

Alex Schuster wrote:

Dale writes:


Alex Schuster wrote:

David W Noon writes:


The more I think about this merge of / and /usr, the dumber I think
the idea is.  As I wrote in an earlier message on this list, the
initramfs will be many times larger than the kernel itself.  Indeed,
my /boot partition is only 32 MiB, and that will be too small to
contain all the extra libraries and programs to run the initramfs
script.

Here, I only need 2.2 M for the kernel, 1.7 M for System.map, and 3.5
M for the initramfs.

Well, that may not be the case for everyone else.

Sure, but how much bigger are your kernels actually?


root@fireball / # du -shc /boot/
84M /boot/
84M total
root@fireball / #

I get 82M, but I have ten kernels in there. What stuff do you have
in /boot?

Wonko




Well, I *had* several old kernels in there.  I save stable kernels as I 
upgrade until I have a really good one then I remove the older ones.  I 
always keep at least two kernels tho.  If one fails, I got a fall back.  
I have had to use those fall backs before so I won't be changing that 
policy here any time soon.


I think I had about a dozen or so in there until my cleaning out party 
last night.  I also save back up configs to just in case a kernel goes 
bad or I need to go back.  I version my kernels too.  Long story.


Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Dale]

Michael Schreckenbauer wrote:

Am Freitag, 9. September 2011, 19:24:06 schrieb pk:

On 2011-09-09 10:53, Dale wrote:

Can I slap whoever started this?  The more I think on this, the worse it

Yes Dale, you have my permission! And while you're at it, slap him from
me too! ;-)

It _may_ be this guy that's responsible for this crap:
http://linuxplumbersconf.org/ocw/users/58

Also:
http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.hotplug.devel/16994

OMG!
What a mess. udev treats all exit-codes except 0 the same.
That's so bad, I have no words for it.
Definitely not a developer I trust to do things the right way.


PS. If things go "tits up" you may want to have a look at FreeBSD (or
some other BSD). I'm quite sure they wouldn't put up with crap like
this... I know I will investigate my options at least.

Agree, FreeBSD is really a fine OS.


Best regards
Peter K

Thanks for the links,
regards,
Michael



I know one thing, BSD is secure as heck.  I installed it once on a old 
rig and typed the password in wrong during setup.  I never could get 
into that thing again.  I had to start over.  lol  That is why I chose 
Linux in general.  I want something that is secure enough that I don't 
have to worry about some script kiddie messing with me.


BSD is one option I will be looking into if I move from Gentoo.  After 
all, they are fairly close maybe even a step up.  Especially now.


Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Dale]

Alex Schuster wrote:
Right, I somehow overlooked this, thanks for pointing that out. Dale, 
if you want to avoid the initramfs, what about moving large stuff like 
/usr/src to another location and symlinking it? That's a hack, but a 
small one compared to what an initramfs is :) Wonko 


I already have portage on a separate partition and I clean out my kernel 
sources once I get a really good stable kernel.  I actually cleaned out 
/boot and /usr/src last night.  The kernel I am running now has let me 
have weeks of uptimes so I guess it is stable, at least everything works 
and no random crashes or anything.  Well, kpat locks up on me sometimes 
but that is nothing new.  As soon as I see a way to win, it locks up 
tight.  Pisses me off when it does that.  lol


I got a spare drive in here.  I may just do a install there and use it 
to play with init crap and maybe LVM.  Sort of see what I want to do.  
Still thinking about just picking something else tho.  I'm just not 
seeing the need to continue if options are going to be removed.  
Eventually Gentoo will be like Mandrake where you just install and say a 
prayer it works.  The things that are going away are the reasons I chose 
Gentoo to begin with.


< sighs >

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Dale]

pk wrote:

On 2011-09-09 13:35, Alex Schuster wrote:


When I switched to using an initramfs, it was not very complicated. I
simply use genkernel. With CLEAN="no" and MRPROPER="no", it uses my
/usr/src/linux/.config and does not change the kernel options. Then comes 
genkernel --install --lvm -luks all, and I have kernel and initramfs

And for those that like to do without genkernel? Again, adding another
layer for things to go wrong.


I tried genkernel.  All I got was a kernel that wouldn't boot.  Heck, it 
barely even started to boot.  The kernel wouldn't even finish loading.  
After several tries, I put genkernel in the trash.  It worked a LOT 
better there for me.  It was out of sight and mind.  ;-)




I don't get this one. Why do you want to copy an existing /usr partition
to another one?

He said he wishes to move his /usr to a spare partition (the part about
KDE4)... I assume his /usr currently resides on / (or maybe a smaller
partition that he cannot easily expand).



You hit it, for some reason I put /usr on the root partition without 
thinking.  This is where I am now:


rootfs19534436  10693048   8841388  55% /

Over half full.  When I have a critical partition get over 60%, I start 
looking for expansion.  Moving /usr was my plan but someone stole that 
from me I guess.  Now I got to figure out what I want to do next.




Yes, I also feel sorry for guys like Alan. But for us desktop users
I think's it's not such a big deal.

I'm a desktop and a (personal server) user and I think it's quite a big
deal. I want simplicity; adding layers increases complexity. I think
it's the same for Dale and most other people objecting to this. To me
it's a very big deal (this is a deal breaker, or close to it). I've been
using Linux continously since around 1998 (well, I did my first install
on my amiga 4000 in 1995 using 9 floppy disks, don't remember the
distro) and I've been using (not much administration though) Solaris,
AIX and HP-UX since around that time as well (at school&  at work). It
seems some developers are hell bent on inventing Windows all over again
(this goes not only for udev but also for Gnome and their supporting
libraries)...

Best regards

Peter K



I'm a desktop user to and I'm not liking this one bit.

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Alex Schuster]

David W Noon writes:

> On Fri, 9 Sep 2011 13:41:07 +0200, Alex Schuster wrote about Re:
> [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot:
> 
> > David W Noon writes:
> > 
> > > The more I think about this merge of / and /usr, the dumber I think
> > > the idea is.  As I wrote in an earlier message on this list, the
> > > initramfs will be many times larger than the kernel itself.
> > > Indeed, my /boot partition is only 32 MiB, and that will be too
> > > small to contain all the extra libraries and programs to run the
> > > initramfs script.
> > 
> > Here, I only need 2.2 M for the kernel, 1.7 M for System.map, and 3.5
> > M for the initramfs.
> 
> My kernels are even smaller than yours: around 1.8MiB; and I have no
> initramfs at all -- currently.
> 
> The problem is the initramfs will bloat out significantly once large
> run-time libraries are required for early housekeeping, such as fsck
> for various types of filesystem.  In particular, the old e2fsck.static
> program has been dropped from e2fspprogs (about 3 years ago) and we now
> have the following:
> 
> dwn@karnak ~ % ldd /sbin/e2fsck
>   linux-gate.so.1 =>  (0xb7832000)
>   libext2fs.so.2 => /lib/libext2fs.so.2 (0xb77c1000)
>   libcom_err.so.2 => /lib/libcom_err.so.2 (0xb77bd000)
>   libblkid.so.1 => /lib/libblkid.so.1 (0xb7798000)
>   libuuid.so.1 => /lib/libuuid.so.1 (0xb7793000)
>   libe2p.so.2 => /lib/libe2p.so.2 (0xb778b000)
>   libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0xb7604000)
>   libpthread.so.0 => /lib/libpthread.so.0 (0xb75ea000)
>   /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0xb7833000)
> 
> As you can see, the fsck utility for ext2/3/4 filesystems requires
> glibc and libpthread, as well as its smaller custom libraries.  Putting
> all the run-time libraries into the initramfs will make it both large
> and a maintenance chore.

Okay, it seems I very much underestimated the problems. In my case, I
only need the initramfs in order to scan for logical volumes and to open
the luks-encrypted root partition. Other partitions are mounted _after_
the initramfs was left.
With the UDEV change, /usr needs to be mounted from _inside_ the
initramfs. So you're right, much more stuff is being needed. The
above libraries and the e2fsck binary total to 2.3 M here. The initramfs
is gzipped, so we have 1 M. Still not _that_ much, but I don't know what
else might be needed.
And something must put it into the initramfs... I assume genkernel will
get this feature? Surely the Gentoo devs won't expect us users to do this
all by ourselves?

> What kind of libraries do you have inside your initramfs?

I have no idea... but I can have a look. Ah - none at all. /lib contains a
directory with all sorts of keymaps, an empty luks directory, and some 56
kernel modules.

Wonko

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[David W Noon]

On Fri, 9 Sep 2011 13:41:07 +0200, Alex Schuster wrote about Re:
[gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot:

> David W Noon writes:
> 
> > The more I think about this merge of / and /usr, the dumber I think
> > the idea is.  As I wrote in an earlier message on this list, the
> > initramfs will be many times larger than the kernel itself.
> > Indeed, my /boot partition is only 32 MiB, and that will be too
> > small to contain all the extra libraries and programs to run the
> > initramfs script.
> 
> Here, I only need 2.2 M for the kernel, 1.7 M for System.map, and 3.5
> M for the initramfs.

My kernels are even smaller than yours: around 1.8MiB; and I have no
initramfs at all -- currently.

The problem is the initramfs will bloat out significantly once large
run-time libraries are required for early housekeeping, such as fsck
for various types of filesystem.  In particular, the old e2fsck.static
program has been dropped from e2fspprogs (about 3 years ago) and we now
have the following:

dwn@karnak ~ % ldd /sbin/e2fsck
linux-gate.so.1 =>  (0xb7832000)
libext2fs.so.2 => /lib/libext2fs.so.2 (0xb77c1000)
libcom_err.so.2 => /lib/libcom_err.so.2 (0xb77bd000)
libblkid.so.1 => /lib/libblkid.so.1 (0xb7798000)
libuuid.so.1 => /lib/libuuid.so.1 (0xb7793000)
libe2p.so.2 => /lib/libe2p.so.2 (0xb778b000)
libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0xb7604000)
libpthread.so.0 => /lib/libpthread.so.0 (0xb75ea000)
/lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0xb7833000)

As you can see, the fsck utility for ext2/3/4 filesystems requires
glibc and libpthread, as well as its smaller custom libraries.  Putting
all the run-time libraries into the initramfs will make it both large
and a maintenance chore.

What kind of libraries do you have inside your initramfs?
-- 
Regards,

Dave  [RLU #314465]
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
dwn...@ntlworld.com (David W Noon)
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Michael Schreckenbauer]

Am Freitag, 9. September 2011, 19:24:06 schrieb pk:
> On 2011-09-09 10:53, Dale wrote:
> > Can I slap whoever started this?  The more I think on this, the worse it
> 
> Yes Dale, you have my permission! And while you're at it, slap him from
> me too! ;-)
> 
> It _may_ be this guy that's responsible for this crap:
> http://linuxplumbersconf.org/ocw/users/58
> 
> Also:
> http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.hotplug.devel/16994

OMG!
What a mess. udev treats all exit-codes except 0 the same.
That's so bad, I have no words for it.
Definitely not a developer I trust to do things the right way.

> PS. If things go "tits up" you may want to have a look at FreeBSD (or
> some other BSD). I'm quite sure they wouldn't put up with crap like
> this... I know I will investigate my options at least.

Agree, FreeBSD is really a fine OS.

> Best regards
> Peter K

Thanks for the links,
regards,
Michael

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[pk]

On 2011-09-09 10:53, Dale wrote:

> Can I slap whoever started this?  The more I think on this, the worse it

Yes Dale, you have my permission! And while you're at it, slap him from
me too! ;-)

It _may_ be this guy that's responsible for this crap:
http://linuxplumbersconf.org/ocw/users/58

Also:
http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.hotplug.devel/16994

PS. If things go "tits up" you may want to have a look at FreeBSD (or
some other BSD). I'm quite sure they wouldn't put up with crap like
this... I know I will investigate my options at least.

Best regards

Peter K

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Michael Mol]

On Fri, Sep 9, 2011 at 1:04 PM, Alex Schuster  wrote:
> pk writes:
>
>> On 2011-09-09 13:35, Alex Schuster wrote:
>>
>> > When I switched to using an initramfs, it was not very complicated. I
>> > simply use genkernel. With CLEAN="no" and MRPROPER="no", it uses my
>> > /usr/src/linux/.config and does not change the kernel options. Then
>> > comes genkernel --install --lvm -luks all, and I have kernel and
>> > initramfs
>>
>> And for those that like to do without genkernel? Again, adding another
>> layer for things to go wrong.
>
> I just wanted to say that it _can_ be easy. When I installed my system, I
> knew I would need an initramfs, and while I knew what that is, I did
> not know how to set it up. But then I thought about trying genkernel,
> which I never used before, and it worked very well. I did not have to
> care about the details. Instead of make bzImage modules modules_install
> and copying the results to /boot, I use the genkernel command, and that's
> it.
>
>> > I don't get this one. Why do you want to copy an existing /usr
>> > partition to another one?
>>
>> He said he wishes to move his /usr to a spare partition (the part about
>> KDE4)... I assume his /usr currently resides on / (or maybe a smaller
>> partition that he cannot easily expand).
>
> Right, I somehow overlooked this, thanks for pointing that out. Dale, if
> you want to avoid the initramfs, what about moving large stuff
> like /usr/src to another location and symlinking it? That's a hack, but a
> small one compared to what an initramfs is :)

Why symlink? Why not make it its own mountpoint? :)


-- 
:wq

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Alex Schuster]

pk writes:

> On 2011-09-09 13:35, Alex Schuster wrote:
> 
> > When I switched to using an initramfs, it was not very complicated. I
> > simply use genkernel. With CLEAN="no" and MRPROPER="no", it uses my 
> > /usr/src/linux/.config and does not change the kernel options. Then
> > comes genkernel --install --lvm -luks all, and I have kernel and
> > initramfs
> 
> And for those that like to do without genkernel? Again, adding another
> layer for things to go wrong.

I just wanted to say that it _can_ be easy. When I installed my system, I
knew I would need an initramfs, and while I knew what that is, I did
not know how to set it up. But then I thought about trying genkernel,
which I never used before, and it worked very well. I did not have to
care about the details. Instead of make bzImage modules modules_install
and copying the results to /boot, I use the genkernel command, and that's
it.

> > I don't get this one. Why do you want to copy an existing /usr
> > partition to another one?
> 
> He said he wishes to move his /usr to a spare partition (the part about
> KDE4)... I assume his /usr currently resides on / (or maybe a smaller
> partition that he cannot easily expand).

Right, I somehow overlooked this, thanks for pointing that out. Dale, if
you want to avoid the initramfs, what about moving large stuff
like /usr/src to another location and symlinking it? That's a hack, but a
small one compared to what an initramfs is :)

Wonko

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[pk]

On 2011-09-09 13:35, Alex Schuster wrote:

> When I switched to using an initramfs, it was not very complicated. I
> simply use genkernel. With CLEAN="no" and MRPROPER="no", it uses my 
> /usr/src/linux/.config and does not change the kernel options. Then comes 
> genkernel --install --lvm -luks all, and I have kernel and initramfs

And for those that like to do without genkernel? Again, adding another
layer for things to go wrong.

> I don't get this one. Why do you want to copy an existing /usr partition
> to another one?

He said he wishes to move his /usr to a spare partition (the part about
KDE4)... I assume his /usr currently resides on / (or maybe a smaller
partition that he cannot easily expand).

> Yes, I also feel sorry for guys like Alan. But for us desktop users
> I think's it's not such a big deal.

I'm a desktop and a (personal server) user and I think it's quite a big
deal. I want simplicity; adding layers increases complexity. I think
it's the same for Dale and most other people objecting to this. To me
it's a very big deal (this is a deal breaker, or close to it). I've been
using Linux continously since around 1998 (well, I did my first install
on my amiga 4000 in 1995 using 9 floppy disks, don't remember the
distro) and I've been using (not much administration though) Solaris,
AIX and HP-UX since around that time as well (at school & at work). It
seems some developers are hell bent on inventing Windows all over again
(this goes not only for udev but also for Gnome and their supporting
libraries)...

Best regards

Peter K

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Canek Peláez Valdés]

On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 10:55 PM, Dale  wrote:
> Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 5:03 PM, Dale  wrote:
>>>
>>> Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:

 I htink almost everyone understand this. Regards.
>>>
>>> I think you are one of *very* few that understands this.
>>>
>>> This reminds me of a old joke.  One in four people have a mental issue.
>>>  Check three friends and if they are OK, you are it.  Again, it is a joke
>>> but my point is, very few people are liking this.  That alone should say
>>> a
>>> lot.
>>
>> I know, but Open Source has never been a democracy. It is a
>> meritocracy. No matter how many get upset by a change, the opinions
>> that matter are from those writing the code.
>>
>>>  This is a very few people forcing a change that no one wants.
>>
>> That's a contradiction, isn't it? The "few people" forcing the change
>> want it, I hope.
>
> It's not.  So far, one dev made the decision to do this and a few have
> agreed.  There are lots of people, as noted in this thread, that disagree.
>  Some of those people have been using Linux for a very long time.  I don't
> know how long you have been using Linux but I'm pushing ten years myself.  I
> suspect that Neil and Alan, and maybe others, have been using Linux a LOT
> longer than that.  Maybe more than both of us put together.  When I see a
> post by Alan or Neil, I read it carefully.  There are Linux idiots in this
> world but they are not one of them.  On some subjects, I fall into the
> ignorance category.  I don't claim to know it all but some things I do know
> well.

The "contradiction" part was a joke. A bad one, it seems.

I started using Linux in 1996, when I started college (Computer
Science, if you must know). I used RedHat, then Mandrake, then Gentoo,
around 2003. After college I worked in several companies, doing mostly
programming, but also a lot of system administration. I have worked
with Solaris, HP-UX, SCO, and a tiny little bit of AIX, but the bulk
of my curriculum is in Linux.

In 2005 I got bored of being like Dilbert, and went back to school to
get my masters in 2008 (Computer Science, again), and after getting
back to work less than six months, I returned to Academia to get my
PhD (Computer Science, what the hell), which I hope to get next year.

That is not going to happen if instead of finishing writing my papers,
I keep posting to threads in gentoo-user.

I have some experience with Linux and Unix. I have followed the
development of Linux, GNOME and everything in beetween in the stack
like some people follow soap operas or football games. I think I kinda
know what I'm talking about.

But of course, I could be wrong in this issue. I just don't think so.

I said my points and listened to very different and interesting ones.
>From my POV (and I say this with all the respect possible), I see a
lot of people afraid of change or too worried about their pet
configurations, but not a really Earth-shattering technical strong
point that makes me believe this change is "unnecessary",
"irrational", or "lazy". It is incovenient? Sure, but in the long run
I think it would make Linux better.

This I haven't said, I think: I care about Linux, and basically Linux
only. I want it to be on all my electronics, from my cell phone to my
refrigerator and of course in my desktop. That is already happening,
and the direction it is heading.

But to do that, Linux cannot be a "classical Unix". It needs to be so
much more. It needs to do thinks *DIFFERENTLY*. So, even if Linux will
be always able to do anything any other Unix could do, it will do it
in a fundamentally different way. So if you care for a Unix boxen that
only does Unix-boxen things, in the classical, 1970-way, then probably
Linux is not the best option for you.

And for sure *I* don't want progress stopped only so Linux is able to
do the things already does in the same way, with the only argument
being "my script/setup/partition works now, why should I changed it?"

Change happens.

I appreciate the discussion, and I think it was enlightening and
entertaining, but I will not participate anymore. I need to get my PhD
one of this days.

Regards.
-- 
Canek Peláez Valdés
Posgrado en Ciencia e Ingeniería de la Computación
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Alex Schuster]

Dale writes:

> Alex Schuster wrote:
> > David W Noon writes:
> >
> >> The more I think about this merge of / and /usr, the dumber I think
> >> the idea is.  As I wrote in an earlier message on this list, the
> >> initramfs will be many times larger than the kernel itself.  Indeed,
> >> my /boot partition is only 32 MiB, and that will be too small to
> >> contain all the extra libraries and programs to run the initramfs
> >> script.
> > Here, I only need 2.2 M for the kernel, 1.7 M for System.map, and 3.5
> > M for the initramfs.

> Well, that may not be the case for everyone else.

Sure, but how much bigger are your kernels actually?

> root@fireball / # du -shc /boot/
> 84M /boot/
> 84M total
> root@fireball / #

I get 82M, but I have ten kernels in there. What stuff do you have
in /boot?

Wonko

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Mick]

On Friday 09 Sep 2011 12:35:47 Alex Schuster wrote:
> Dale writes:
> 
> Wow, what a big thread. While I also do not really like udev
> requiring /usr at boot time, I also understand that there are some
> arguments pro doing so.
> But then, I wonder what the big deal is. If an initramfs is now required
> for people using a separate /usr, then let's all use an initramfs, if we
> can't change how udev is going. It's annoying, we may feel it is wrong,
> but to me it seems that for most of us it is not a really big problem.
> What I fear much more is when good old grub is no longer supported and I
> have to use grub2, which I tried to understand, but failed.
> 
> > My choices are:
> > 
> > 1: move from Gentoo to something else.  I'm seriously considering this
> > one.  If I can learn Gentoo, I can learn any distro!  LFS may be
> > excluded tho.
> 
> So, because you want to avoid to change your Gentoo installation to use
> an initramfs, you switch to another distribution, which most likely uses
> an initramfs anayway?
> 
> > 2: Stick with Gentoo and hope this is corrected like hal was dealt with.
> > 2b:  Go with LVM for everything and have a init* to boot.
> 
> LVM is great and I suggest everyone using it, but it's not necessary here.
> 
> > 2c:  Move /usr and use init* with no LVM.
> 
> If you can extend you root partition, yes, just copy /usr there, and all
> will be fine.
> 
> > 2d:  Just redo my whole system with a larger / partition.
> 
> Which would be a lot of work.
> 
> Personally I do not care much about this, as I already am using an
> initramfs :) That's because all my partitions are encrypted LVM volumes.
> Except for /boot, which is on on USB stick.
> 
> When I switched to using an initramfs, it was not very complicated. I
> simply use genkernel. With CLEAN="no" and MRPROPER="no", it uses my
> /usr/src/linux/.config and does not change the kernel options. Then comes
> genkernel --install --lvm -luks all, and I have kernel and initramfs in
> /boot. I manually add them to my grub.conf. emerge @module-rebuild, and
> I'm done. I guess for most of us this would work. I don't know what
> Michael has to do in order to keep nvidia-drivers instead of nouveau, but
> I assume some howto or new item will come up to solve this. Whenever
> Gentoo had us to do major changes, there was a good explanation of what to
> do, and it worked fine. Migration to openrc was more complicated I think.
> And hey, I was satisfied with the way it's been before.
> 
> > I liked my original plan better.
> > 
> > 1:  Go to boot runlevel.
> > 2:  Mount what will be new /usr partition to some mount point.
> > 3:  Copy /usr to the new partition
> > 4:  rm the old /usr data.
> > 5:  Mount the new /usr partition and add it to fstab
> > 6:  Switch back to default runlevel and life goes on.
> 
> I don't get this one. Why do you want to copy an existing /usr partition
> to another one?
> 
> > Can I slap whoever started this?  The more I think on this, the worse
> > it sounds.  I can't even imagine someone who runs some large server.
> > Any hair left?  lol
> 
> Yes, I also feel sorry for guys like Alan. But for us desktop users
> I think's it's not such a big deal.

It's not a catastrophically big deal, but it is an imposed workaround that 
goes against the freedom of choice that we gentoo-ers have enjoyed hitherto.

It also seems counter-intuitive that udev devs' convenience should take 
primacy over the FHS convention and the prevailing minimal booting process.

It will only affect one out of three boxen of mine and I could surely fix 
that, but I am against restricting unquestioningly what I can do with gentoo, 
just because a udev coder didn't think it through enough to come up with a 
smarter solution; and then the Gentoo devs did not put up a fight in 
representing their user base.

It's a point of principle and on this basis I'd like to object to it, not for 
a poxy little box which I can reconfigure one day if I must.
-- 
Regards,
Mick


signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part.

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Dale]

Alex Schuster wrote:

David W Noon writes:


The more I think about this merge of / and /usr, the dumber I think the
idea is.  As I wrote in an earlier message on this list, the initramfs
will be many times larger than the kernel itself.  Indeed, my /boot
partition is only 32 MiB, and that will be too small to contain all the
extra libraries and programs to run the initramfs script.

Here, I only need 2.2 M for the kernel, 1.7 M for System.map, and 3.5 M
for the initramfs.

Wonko



Well, that may not be the case for everyone else.

root@fireball / # du -shc /boot/
84M /boot/
84M total
root@fireball / #

Of course, while I am redoing my partitions, I guess I can make /boot 
bigger as well.  Heck, may have to change something else before to 
long.  I'm sure someone will find some side corner case where something 
might happen and decide to fix what isn't broke.  Yep, sounds about 
right to me.  It's not the first time for this sort of thing to happen.


Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Alex Schuster]

David W Noon writes:

> The more I think about this merge of / and /usr, the dumber I think the
> idea is.  As I wrote in an earlier message on this list, the initramfs
> will be many times larger than the kernel itself.  Indeed, my /boot
> partition is only 32 MiB, and that will be too small to contain all the
> extra libraries and programs to run the initramfs script.

Here, I only need 2.2 M for the kernel, 1.7 M for System.map, and 3.5 M
for the initramfs.

Wonko

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Alex Schuster]

Dale writes:

Wow, what a big thread. While I also do not really like udev
requiring /usr at boot time, I also understand that there are some
arguments pro doing so.
But then, I wonder what the big deal is. If an initramfs is now required
for people using a separate /usr, then let's all use an initramfs, if we
can't change how udev is going. It's annoying, we may feel it is wrong,
but to me it seems that for most of us it is not a really big problem.
What I fear much more is when good old grub is no longer supported and I
have to use grub2, which I tried to understand, but failed.

> My choices are:
> 
> 1: move from Gentoo to something else.  I'm seriously considering this 
> one.  If I can learn Gentoo, I can learn any distro!  LFS may be 
> excluded tho.

So, because you want to avoid to change your Gentoo installation to use
an initramfs, you switch to another distribution, which most likely uses
an initramfs anayway?

> 2: Stick with Gentoo and hope this is corrected like hal was dealt with.
> 2b:  Go with LVM for everything and have a init* to boot.

LVM is great and I suggest everyone using it, but it's not necessary here.

> 2c:  Move /usr and use init* with no LVM.

If you can extend you root partition, yes, just copy /usr there, and all
will be fine.

> 2d:  Just redo my whole system with a larger / partition.

Which would be a lot of work.

Personally I do not care much about this, as I already am using an
initramfs :) That's because all my partitions are encrypted LVM volumes.
Except for /boot, which is on on USB stick.

When I switched to using an initramfs, it was not very complicated. I
simply use genkernel. With CLEAN="no" and MRPROPER="no", it uses my 
/usr/src/linux/.config and does not change the kernel options. Then comes 
genkernel --install --lvm -luks all, and I have kernel and initramfs
in /boot. I manually add them to my grub.conf. emerge @module-rebuild,
and I'm done. I guess for most of us this would work. I don't know what
Michael has to do in order to keep nvidia-drivers instead of nouveau, but
I assume some howto or new item will come up to solve this. Whenever
Gentoo had us to do major changes, there was a good explanation of what
to do, and it worked fine. Migration to openrc was more complicated I
think. And hey, I was satisfied with the way it's been before.

> I liked my original plan better.
> 
> 1:  Go to boot runlevel.
> 2:  Mount what will be new /usr partition to some mount point.
> 3:  Copy /usr to the new partition
> 4:  rm the old /usr data.
> 5:  Mount the new /usr partition and add it to fstab
> 6:  Switch back to default runlevel and life goes on.

I don't get this one. Why do you want to copy an existing /usr partition
to another one?

> Can I slap whoever started this?  The more I think on this, the worse
> it sounds.  I can't even imagine someone who runs some large server.
> Any hair left?  lol

Yes, I also feel sorry for guys like Alan. But for us desktop users
I think's it's not such a big deal.

Wonko

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Alan McKinnon]

On Thu, 8 Sep 2011 19:34:56 -0400
Canek Peláez Valdés  wrote:

> > You don't need every possible thing that udev could ever run to be
> > avialable on /, just the things that are essential. That is quite a
> > small list subset of the full list of all possible devices:
> >
> > All HID devices
> > All console devices
> > All code to access and read file systems
> > Everything that can be used in place of a physical keyboard (serial,
> > console over ethernet)
> >
> > That looks like it might be a large amount of disk space, but
> > in fact it isn't. This very mail is being typed on a binary distro
> > (Ubuntu):
> >
> > The bluez package is 1.6M.
> > /lib alone is 331M, I use a fraction of it but it is still there.
> > /lib/modules contains two kernel versions of 136M each.  
> 
> Again, it is not bounded. Today is bluez, tomorrow we don't know.
> That's the point of udev, really.

You're still not getting it.

Just because it appears convenient to make udev unbounded does not mean
that all possible code on the machine has to be accessible to udev.
Or that udev will potentially run any arbitrary code you might have.
Or put another way, udev might be able to run anything, like say
lauching KDE, but the simple truth is that it won't in any reasonable
scenario. Therefore you do not need to support or entertain that
possibility. The truth is that a very small portion of the total code
on the machine needs to be accessible to udev and all of it (including
all foreseeable code) fits into a traditional / quite nicely.

There is no upper limit on the size of /, you simply make it as large as
you need and put everything supported in there.

Once again, and this is very important, the only things that are
absolutely required to be in / is all the code that must run
before /usr is mounted. That list of things is very small, and if the
user or the distro happens to cock it up, then the user or distro must
fix it. 

Why is this apparently so hard to understand? The solution seems
blindingly obvious:

Any code launched by udev must be available on the same partition as /.
However the system is rigged, that one condition must be satisfied. And
consider who is setting this up:

- root, who presumably knows what they are doing
- distro devs, who also know what they are doing

Or are the udev devs seriously contemplating allowing udev hooks so
that any arbitrary user can launch any arbitrary code that might
arbitrarily be anywhere?

I still maintain this "fix" is for a problem that does not exist.


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

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Joost Roeleveld]

On Thursday, September 08, 2011 03:01:10 PM Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 1:47 PM, Michael Mol  wrote:
> > On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 1:35 PM, pk  wrote:
> >> On 2011-09-08 16:51, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:
> >>> But the freedom is still there. The freedom to either keep your
> >>> system
> >>> as it is (don't upgrade)
> >> 
> >>^
> >> You do realise that this is quite valid for Windows (and all other
> >> OS's
> >> in existence)? At least so far...
> > 
> > Don't get *me* started. My _day job_ is C++/MFC on Windows. _Please_
> > upgrade, you'll make my life much easier.
> > 
> > Outdated operating systems make baby coder cry.
> 
> I already mentioned that you update security flaws.

Update the security flaws is all nice and well, but won't hold up for very 
long.
Security updates for older versions will stop within a short period. And not 
sufficient information will be available to keep patching the software 
individually.

> And again, that's only if you resist the change.

This sounds like "We are borg, resistance is futile" :)

--
Joost

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Alan McKinnon]

On Fri, 09 Sep 2011 03:53:26 -0500
Dale  wrote:

> Paul Colquhoun wrote:
> > >From my point of view, as an old Solaris admin, point 3) is the 
> > problem. If what-ever-it-is is needed during boot, it should be in 
> > /sbin or /bin or /lib If it is curently in /usr/* then it is in the 
> > wrong place, and that package should be modified. Later in the
> > thread you mentioned a bluetooth keyboard. This obviously requires
> > either a driver module, or a bluetooth server process, or similar,
> > which belong in /lib{32,64}/modules or /sbin Having udev able to
> > execute arbitrary code during boot looks like yet another large
> > security hole opening up. At least keep the code it can execute
> > tied down to the directories that were set up for this purpose. 
> 
> Picking a random post to reply to.
> 
> I been using Linux for a while.  Let me see if I understand this 
> correctly.  As I understand it, when a system boots it needs /bin, 
> /sbin, /lib*, and /etc and nothing else other than /boot for grub to 
> load the kernel.  Those directories are for booting the system and
> for "system" operations.  That is my understanding of how it has been
> since further back than I care to explore.  

Correct.

/ is often set up with only the minimal packages needed to guarantee
that single user mode will work correctly if the only thing mounted
is / itself.

> Things that are used
> after a system boots, such as things in the default runlevel or KDE,
> goes into /usr somewhere.  This is the reason that /usr and /var can
> be on separate partitions.  I have always understood that /usr
> and /var can be put on separate partitions for security reasons or to
> put some larger partitions on separate drives.  If I recall
> correctly, websites files are under /var.  Those can get pretty large
> quick I would guess.

Correct again.

/var is for "variable data", usually persistent data like log files,
databases, web sites, caches. It is writeable by root and system data
goes there (as opposed to user data).

> 
> So, now someone has decided to change this and it seems a few think
> this is nothing users should worry about.  I don't run a large server
> or anything but this still worries me.  I don't like the fact that
> the changes I had planned will now require me to also install one
> more thing to break.  My system is simple and I like to keep it that
> way.  The fanciest thing I have is a camera and a printer that I use
> once in a blue moon.  I want to put /usr on a spare partition because
> it is growing fairly quickly with the KDE4 updates and others too.
> Now, it looks like I have to do a whole redo of everything.
> Something that was simple just got complicated.

The truth is that with these changes your system will continue to work
just fine. Just like my laptops work just fine (I have one big
partition with another for /home on laptops).

My laptops don't need a separate /usr, but my servers do.

So it really looks like someone is forcing a change that makes udev's
life easier and potentially wreaks everything else in doing so.

> My choices are:
> 
> 1: move from Gentoo to something else.  I'm seriously considering
> this one.  If I can learn Gentoo, I can learn any distro!  LFS may be 
> excluded tho.

It's not a Gentoo change, it's a udev change. So you'll be stuck with
this new stuff regardless of which distro you go with.

> 2: Stick with Gentoo and hope this is corrected like hal was dealt
> with. 2b:  Go with LVM for everything and have a init* to boot.
> 2c:  Move /usr and use init* with no LVM.
> 2d:  Just redo my whole system with a larger / partition.

2e. Migrate to Windows where you too can have one partition on / and
have it fully supported by Microsoft!! OK, my sarcasm is showing.

> I liked my original plan better.
> 
> 1:  Go to boot runlevel.
> 2:  Mount what will be new /usr partition to some mount point.
> 3:  Copy /usr to the new partition
> 4:  rm the old /usr data.
> 5:  Mount the new /usr partition and add it to fstab
> 6:  Switch back to default runlevel and life goes on.
> 
> Can I slap whoever started this?  The more I think on this, the worse
> it sounds.  I can't even imagine someone who runs some large server.
> Any hair left?  lol

I'm lucky, I can vote with my feet. Out of 140, I have two servers that
*require* Linux. One runs Sybase ASE, the other runs Oracle. Everything
else works like a bomb on FreeBSD. 

kthankxbyeudev, thanksfornotplayingnicely

Not everyone else is so fortunate though.

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

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Joost Roeleveld]

On Thursday, September 08, 2011 06:55:32 PM Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 5:03 PM, Dale  wrote:
> > Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:
> >> I htink almost everyone understand this. Regards.
> > 
> > I think you are one of *very* few that understands this.
> > 
> > This reminds me of a old joke.  One in four people have a mental issue.
> >  Check three friends and if they are OK, you are it.  Again, it is a
> > joke
> > but my point is, very few people are liking this.  That alone should say
> > a lot.
> 
> I know, but Open Source has never been a democracy. It is a
> meritocracy. No matter how many get upset by a change, the opinions
> that matter are from those writing the code.

I don't agree. There are people with opinions that matter even though they 
don't write the code. There are plenty of Open Source projects where the 
opinions and comments from users also matter. And if those users actually put 
time and effort into the documentation/support side they get listened to more 
often.

> > This is a very few people forcing a change that no one wants.
> 
> That's a contradiction, isn't it? The "few people" forcing the change
> want it, I hope.

Ok, lets do it by numbers.
People forcing it: 5 (maybe? not that many more)
People liking it (including the above 5): 10 (maybe?)
total number of users: 1,000,000 (pulled out of my head)

Percentage of users liking it of all the users: 10 / 1,000,000 = 0.0001 %.
That's a very low number that in most cases would be rounded to 0. Eg. noone.

> > You seem to fail to understand that.
> 
> I don't agree with the "few people" and the "no one wants" parts. I
> understand that this change is upseting some people, but I don't think
> you (nor I) can say for sure if it's even a majority of Gentoo users,

I think the majority of Gentoo users will happily continue the way they have 
been working with their systems. Then, when this change gets forced upon them, 
they will all start complaining loudly because all their systems no longer 
boot.

> and even if it were, again, Open Source is not a democracy.

Actually, it is. People tend to vote with their feet (ok, downloads) and if 
they don't like something, they walk away.

> > Personally, if I'm going to have to start running my Gentoo box like a
> > binary based distro, I may as well use a binary based distro.  If others
> > feel like I do, then Gentoo may start losing users.  I got away from
> > Mandrake for reasons such as this.
> 
> That's your prerrogative. And that's why I'm saying my word in the
> list: I'm pretty sure many users in the list (which are not all the
> Gentoo users) are not really upset with this change. The other POV has
> to be heard.

I haven't gone through the whole thread, but it seems to me there are several 
people against this change and only one who is for.

I kept quiet as my arguments were already being raised and I dislike "+1" 
postings. But in this case, I feel an exception is needed.

> > I'm going back to my garden.  You have fun promoting this mess that is
> > being created.  You seem to enjoy it a lot.
> 
> I'm not promoting anything. Just want to get into the record that some
> users don't mind this change, and some of us even welcome it.

Why would anyone welcome a change where an initramfs (or whatever it's called 
these days) is necessary just to boot your system?
This also needs to keep getting updated whenever a needed piece of software is 
updated. I tend to update the software more often then the kernel. Now, I'll 
have to rebuild my kernel more regularly. Even though, from my point of view, 
nothing will have changed.

--
Joost

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Dale]

Paul Colquhoun wrote:
>From my point of view, as an old Solaris admin, point 3) is the 
problem. If what-ever-it-is is needed during boot, it should be in 
/sbin or /bin or /lib If it is curently in /usr/* then it is in the 
wrong place, and that package should be modified. Later in the thread 
you mentioned a bluetooth keyboard. This obviously requires either a 
driver module, or a bluetooth server process, or similar, which belong 
in /lib{32,64}/modules or /sbin Having udev able to execute arbitrary 
code during boot looks like yet another large security hole opening 
up. At least keep the code it can execute tied down to the directories 
that were set up for this purpose. 


Picking a random post to reply to.

I been using Linux for a while.  Let me see if I understand this 
correctly.  As I understand it, when a system boots it needs /bin, 
/sbin, /lib*, and /etc and nothing else other than /boot for grub to 
load the kernel.  Those directories are for booting the system and for 
"system" operations.  That is my understanding of how it has been since 
further back than I care to explore.  Things that are used after a 
system boots, such as things in the default runlevel or KDE, goes into 
/usr somewhere.  This is the reason that /usr and /var can be on 
separate partitions.  I have always understood that /usr and /var can be 
put on separate partitions for security reasons or to put some larger 
partitions on separate drives.  If I recall correctly, websites files 
are under /var.  Those can get pretty large quick I would guess.


So, now someone has decided to change this and it seems a few think this 
is nothing users should worry about.  I don't run a large server or 
anything but this still worries me.  I don't like the fact that the 
changes I had planned will now require me to also install one more thing 
to break.  My system is simple and I like to keep it that way.  The 
fanciest thing I have is a camera and a printer that I use once in a 
blue moon.  I want to put /usr on a spare partition because it is 
growing fairly quickly with the KDE4 updates and others too.  Now, it 
looks like I have to do a whole redo of everything.  Something that was 
simple just got complicated.


My choices are:

1: move from Gentoo to something else.  I'm seriously considering this 
one.  If I can learn Gentoo, I can learn any distro!  LFS may be 
excluded tho.

2: Stick with Gentoo and hope this is corrected like hal was dealt with.
2b:  Go with LVM for everything and have a init* to boot.
2c:  Move /usr and use init* with no LVM.
2d:  Just redo my whole system with a larger / partition.

I liked my original plan better.

1:  Go to boot runlevel.
2:  Mount what will be new /usr partition to some mount point.
3:  Copy /usr to the new partition
4:  rm the old /usr data.
5:  Mount the new /usr partition and add it to fstab
6:  Switch back to default runlevel and life goes on.

Can I slap whoever started this?  The more I think on this, the worse it 
sounds.  I can't even imagine someone who runs some large server.  Any 
hair left?  lol


Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Paul Colquhoun]

On Thu, 8 Sep 2011 04:03:53 PM Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:

> No, I think you haven't been reading carefully enough. Again:
> 
> 1. In 2011, we need a dynamic /dev tree. I'm not going to argue why.
> 2. udev, successor of devfs, which was successor of the classical /dev
> tree, after years of design and development iterations, solves the
> problem. It's not perfect, but I think that is as close as it could
> be, for the problem it tries to solve, and with the feature set it
> has.
> 3. udev needs either an initramfs, because it needs an early user
> space, or a /usr inside /.
> 
> From this 3 points, I make my conclusion: keep up with the changes, or
> code an alternative (that includes using something like mdev).


>From my point of view, as an old Solaris admin, point 3) is the problem.

If what-ever-it-is is needed during boot, it should be in /sbin or /bin or 
/lib

If it is curently in /usr/* then it is in the wrong place, and that package 
should be modified.

Later in the thread you mentioned a bluetooth keyboard. This obviously 
requires either a driver module, or a bluetooth server process, or similar, 
which  belong in /lib{32,64}/modules or /sbin

Having udev able to execute arbitrary code during boot looks like yet another 
large security hole opening up. At least keep the code it can execute tied 
down to the directories that were set up for this purpose.


-- 
Reverend Paul Colquhoun, ULC.http://andor.dropbear.id.au/~paulcol
 Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes.
Then, when you do, you'll be a mile away, and you'll have their shoes.

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Dale]

Mick wrote:

On Friday 09 Sep 2011 00:26:33 Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:
In the case of Gentoo, the dialog is having place in the dev list, at
this very moment. In the case of Fedora (and, I think, OpenSuse), the
dialog is actually over. The Gentoo devs are just going with the flow.

(This is how I see things, I could have some facts wrong).
Aha!  This is I think where it went wrong.

The Gentoo devs should *not* have gone with the flow.  Giving the udev code
primacy over the conventional FHS way, rather than spending some more time to
sort out the genuine cause of the problem (udev) is something that in this
case affects the Gentoo principle of doing it the 'Gentoo way' - more than
binary distros who are already using initramfs.

So this is a Gentoo user/use case argument more than upstream devs may care to
examine.


This is my understanding and what I can recall reading on -dev.  
Basically someone, a dev, at Fedora decided to do it this way.  That was 
where the discussion ended.  I read somewhere that the dev in question 
won't even reply, maybe not even read, complaints to what he/she is 
doing.   Basically, he/she is saying what has been said in this thread.  
It is my way or the highway.  Along with the loss of options, having 
this big a change with the person inflicting it not listening is 
disturbing.  What's next, /home will be need on / as well?   I really 
think having one or even just a few people that can cause a change like 
this needs to be revisited.


I would like to know what Linus thinks about this mess.  Does he know?  
Is he thinking this is OK?


Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Mick]

On Friday 09 Sep 2011 00:26:33 Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 7:00 PM, Alan McKinnon  
wrote:
> > On Thu, 8 Sep 2011 18:39:21 -0400
> > 
> > Canek Peláez Valdés  wrote:
> >> On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 6:33 PM, Mick 
> >> 
> >> wrote:
> >> > Unless I misunderstood this and referenced threads, all this agro
> >> > is being generated because udev devs decided to give primacy not to
> >> > the linux fs and prevailing FHS conventions, but their udev code
> >> > and what may have been an easy workaround for them?
> >> > 
> >> > Given that I do not understand the ins and outs of udev, or the way
> >> > gentoo and upstream manage such proposals and ultimately accept
> >> > changes, why don't gentoo devs raise alternative options with the
> >> > Fedora dev or who ever had this idea upstream that udev code effort
> >> > is more precious than all the workarounds (initramfs,
> >> > repartitioning, etc.) that some of us have to go through?
> >> > 
> >> > The alternatives I've read so far that advocate the avoidance of the
> >> > imposition of an initramfs or merging /usr into / for the sake of a
> >> > udev design choice, seem more 'intelligent' to me - in a gentoo
> >> > principle sort of way.
> >> > 
> >> > On the other hand, for a binary distro the udev dev approach would
> >> > of course seem less disruptive and therefore our small gentoo user
> >> > base may need to shout really loud to be heard.
> >> > 
> >> > Do we get to vote on this?
> >> 
> >> Not really: you can vote with your feet and use another
> >> distro/operating system. But the choice is theirs.
> >> 
> >> >  Can we make a difference other than venting here
> >> > and in the forums?
> >> 
> >> Yes: design and write a different system.
> > 
> > That's a really poor answer. You are offering two distasteful options
> > at either end of the spectrum when the real solution is plainly obvious
> > right in the middle:
> > 
> > Communicate to whichever devs are making the calls, explain the issue
> > caused by the proposed changes, open and entertain dialogue, let all
> > voices be heard and let sanity prevail.
> > 
> > You have consistently offered only two realistic options: their way or
> > the highway. This presumes that the devs involved are impervious to the
> > concept of dialogue at all, and cannot be contacted or swayed.
> > 
> > You see, none of that is true. There is *always* a third way and it is
> > almost always the best possible route to follow.
> 
> In the case of Gentoo, the dialog is having place in the dev list, at
> this very moment. In the case of Fedora (and, I think, OpenSuse), the
> dialog is actually over. The Gentoo devs are just going with the flow.
> 
> (This is how I see things, I could have some facts wrong).

Aha!  This is I think where it went wrong.

The Gentoo devs should *not* have gone with the flow.  Giving the udev code 
primacy over the conventional FHS way, rather than spending some more time to 
sort out the genuine cause of the problem (udev) is something that in this 
case affects the Gentoo principle of doing it the 'Gentoo way' - more than 
binary distros who are already using initramfs.

So this is a Gentoo user/use case argument more than upstream devs may care to 
examine.


> It is not an arbitrary decision, and it is not from one developer
> (this kind of things never are). The dialog happend (or is happening)
> among those who construct the stack or the distributions. We have a
> say, of course (we always do), but I don't really think that it should
> be that important. I really, truly believe that the decision is (and
> should be) in the hands of the people actually writing the code.

You have made this point clear enough, but the way this has been decided 
clearly cuts across the choice of freedom that Gentoo users had until now.

People are getting upset and using an initramfs, repartitioning, or becoming 
Linux developers overnight to write their own udev code is not a particularly 
attractive option for most Gentoo users.


> I think this is how Linux rose to be what it is today, and how it will
> keep going on strong. Sometimes mistakes will be made, and some users
> will be burned by them.
> 
> I (personally, IMHO, etc., etc.) don't think this is one of those
> times. And that is way I'm expressing myself in this thread.

Fair enough.  It is evident that there are quite a few of us that disagree 
with your view on this matter.

I think that in this case some devs followed what is convenient or expedient, 
rather than choosing a more purist/elegant approach that fixes what's broken 
(udev) without affecting adversely the wider ecosystem.


> That is all. I know what I say a lot of people don't like, but I think
> it should be said, clear and loud.

I believe that you have repeated your position enough times that we all get 
it.  Your position though advocates a design solution which cuts across the 
Gentoo way of doing things.  This makes Gentoo less valuable to some of us.

-- 
Regards

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[pk]

On 2011-09-08 20:41, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:

> Yeah, but not the second part that you conveniently omitted: the
> freedom to modify the code.

What does the freedom to modify the code has to do with this discussion?
I thought we were discussing removed functionality (or changed as you
like to see it)...

Best regards

Peter K

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[pk]

On 2011-09-08 20:40, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:

> The world is never black or white. Under several definitions,
> *nothing* has stopped working.

Hm. Using the same setup as I always have, nothing will stop working
with the new "paradigm"? Great, then what are we arguing about? If
things will work the way they always have without me having to _add_
something completely unnecessary just to be able to boot then I'm all
for it.

>You just need to do extra stuff to keep
> it working.

So functionality _is_ removed then? By definition, I would say that's
something that has stopped working. No, I don't want to install more
crap or change my partitioning that doesn't add any value to _me_...

But as you say, if the rest of the _binary distro_ world decides to do
it there's not much we can do about it than arguing. I don't expect
Gentoo devs to support/maintain something that upstream doesn't support.
I'm just really unhappy about it.

> (Of course, again, is not black and white: the kernel devs, I trust
> almost withouth doubt. GNOME devs I trust less. An unknown hacker with
> a new project I trust almost nothing.)

Hm... I think the kernel devs, Gentoo maintainers are, for the most part
extremely competent and I trust their judgements for the most part (even
though I agree with Linus that the kernel has become bloated).
To put it bluntly: GNOME devs seems like blathering idiots to me,
spewing out crap, trying to mimic MS desktop/functionality as best as
they can which usually ends up a very poor (and buggy) version of it.
Unfortunately it's hard to escape their influence completely but I'm
trying my best (and Gentoo is one of the very few ways of having some
control of this). Concerning new projects I judge it by functionality,
dependencies, "buggyness"...

Best regards

Peter K

Re: [gentoo-user] /dev/sda* missing at boot

[Dale]

Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:

On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 5:03 PM, Dale  wrote:

Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:

I htink almost everyone understand this. Regards.

I think you are one of *very* few that understands this.

This reminds me of a old joke.  One in four people have a mental issue.
  Check three friends and if they are OK, you are it.  Again, it is a joke
but my point is, very few people are liking this.  That alone should say a
lot.

I know, but Open Source has never been a democracy. It is a
meritocracy. No matter how many get upset by a change, the opinions
that matter are from those writing the code.


  This is a very few people forcing a change that no one wants.

That's a contradiction, isn't it? The "few people" forcing the change
want it, I hope.


It's not.  So far, one dev made the decision to do this and a few have 
agreed.  There are lots of people, as noted in this thread, that 
disagree.  Some of those people have been using Linux for a very long 
time.  I don't know how long you have been using Linux but I'm pushing 
ten years myself.  I suspect that Neil and Alan, and maybe others, have 
been using Linux a LOT longer than that.  Maybe more than both of us put 
together.  When I see a post by Alan or Neil, I read it carefully.  
There are Linux idiots in this world but they are not one of them.  On 
some subjects, I fall into the ignorance category.  I don't claim to 
know it all but some things I do know well.






  You seem to fail to understand that.

I don't agree with the "few people" and the "no one wants" parts. I
understand that this change is upseting some people, but I don't think
you (nor I) can say for sure if it's even a majority of Gentoo users,
and even if it were, again, Open Source is not a democracy.


I don't think you quite understood my wording.  I think you mentioned 
English is not your first language so this happens a lot.  I hope the 
above helped.






  If this "new way" of doing things causes
someones server to be hacked, I would be looking for that dev that started
this mess.  I don't run some large server but some on here do and this is
important as it gets.

If you don't trust this change, you can always change distro/OS (Alan
even recommended it).


I'm putting that in the consideration bin.  It could be a possibility.  
I like to stick with things but if I'm going to be told to bend over and 
take it, they could at least bring some Vaseline.  It seems some of the 
things I left Mandrake over are coming to Gentoo.  Almost makes me 
wonder if I should have left.  Well, I have had some good years so far.  
Plus I like helping folks on this list too.





Personally, if I'm going to have to start running my Gentoo box like a
binary based distro, I may as well use a binary based distro.  If others
feel like I do, then Gentoo may start losing users.  I got away from
Mandrake for reasons such as this.

That's your prerrogative. And that's why I'm saying my word in the
list: I'm pretty sure many users in the list (which are not all the
Gentoo users) are not really upset with this change. The other POV has
to be heard.


A init* is just one more thing to break.
  If you been on this list long enough, you know my record for finding things
that are really crappy.  One that comes to mind is hal.  I can assure you I
can find other examples.  People complained about hal and the dev didn't
seem to listen until it really hit the fan.  I think the replacement was
made by the same dev but maybe after listening a bit he found where he could
improve things.  I wish the person behind this could do the same before he
breaks a lot of stuff.  By the way, as Alan and others can point out, I
never got hal to work on my system.  It was nothing fancy either.  At the
time it was a Abit NF7 mobo with IDE drives and a PS/2 mouse and keyboard.
  If a package can't work right on something as basic as that, it has little
hope of anything fancy for sure.

I agree with HAL being a failed experiment: but I think we had to try
it before discarding the idea. Maybe the crap will also hit the fan
with this: I don't know (lost my crystal ball, sorry). But I really
don't believe it, and I have some experience with Linux and Unix and
this kind of stuff. Maybe I'm wrong of course.


It was more than failed.  It was miserable.



I'm going back to my garden.  You have fun promoting this mess that is being
created.  You seem to enjoy it a lot.

I'm not promoting anything. Just want to get into the record that some
users don't mind this change, and some of us even welcome it.

The discussion I think has been interesting and civil. I do enjoy it.

Regards.


Some don't but my point still stands.  If this becomes a security issue 
for someone with a rig that can't adapt, I'd have some really choice 
words for a dev if I had a server that I depended on.  I think Alan has 
already pointed out some of those exceptions.  Alan is more able to 
explain that than me for sure.  He sits at some of those servers