Re: [gentoo-desktop] System problems

[Roman Zilka <zilka@fi.muni.cz>]

> /etc/fstab has been edited several times, as I noted in my post.  The
> kernel, udev and /etc/fstab have been now been reverted, as I also noted, so
> I could get the desktop working.  Considering that, posting any of the
> information you've asked for would probably be useless.

OK, so be it, fstab is not that important.

> Roman, if you don't have any useful insights based on the information I
> already posted, then please don't post on thread and leave it to others
> who may.

I may have useful insights that are different from the insights posted
previously by other people. But I need your `emerge --info` and kernel
conf for that first. To give you a hint of explanation: I need the
kernel conf to look for whatever may be wrong in there. There's no
point in sending you a working conf for my (i.e., different) machine -
there's plenty of those lying around the net, as we both know. I assume
you have either already tried one of those or simply don't want to use
one for some reason. Thus, it's possible that you keep making a
recurring mistake while modifying default / borrowed / your own old
configs. And I need to see your conf to discover such potential
mistakes. As for `emerge --info`, it may uncover problems relevant in
this case too.

Please, cooperate with those whom you'd asked for help. Writing these
several paragraphs worth of e-mail text as a reply was a waste of time
for you - it clearly hasn't produced any help at all regarding your
booting issue. On the other hand, sending me what I'd asked for right
away would not only eat up much less of your time, it might have
yielded a solution by now. I suppose you're asking for help because you
understand that others may be more knowledgeable than yourself.

> > Also, by upgrading to a little less ancient versions than 2.6.29
> > you won't have the same situation like now boomerang back at you in the
> > near future.
> 
> Can you cite a source or sources for this assertion?

The source is the very reality of change of things in the world over
time. Software evolves and because hardly anything in nature has
infinite duration, it is only a matter of time before compatibility of
udev (or something else) with the 2.6.29 ends. In fact, this is true
for any two pieces of software that coexist, not just the
kernel+something, of course.

> Is there a known
> problem with kernel 2.6.29, or the portage tree which spec'd that
> kernel?

There are so many known problems with that kernel that it'd take me a
lifetime to remember and copy them all. See:
ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.3?*

And some of those are relatively serious security holes and it'd take a
really special handling of the system to avoid them. And I'm talking
about handling that'd probably render an Internet-connected desktop box
with a web browser unusable. I'm not gonna google those specific ones
for you, we don't need that to get ahead; every active admin will
remember them.

And yes, Gentoo devs deem 2.6.29 dangerous too - that's why it isn't in
the current Portage tree at all (vanilla-sources and gentoo-sources).
Kernel devs themselves deem it dangerous and they don't maintain that
branch anymore. Of what's maintained (in terms of security patches),
2.6.27 and 2.6.32 are nearest to 2.6.29. And I wouldn't expect at least
one of them to linger around for a very long time.

> In almost every case, I've found that people who lecture me online about
> my system admin practices don't really have a handle on the issue about
> which I'm writing.  Please prove me wrong :-)

I suppose one can say I've done just that, having written what I've
written. At least I hope did so in a sensitive way. There's no need to
defend your admin skills in case you happen to feel offended by
something above. Why is there no need? Because failing in an honest
effort is not a reason for disregard for a human being. So there's
actually no harm for you from that.

Well, in fact, it is a reason for disregard for a few people, but let's
not have our lives spoiled by those.:)

-rz