[gentoo-releng] Handbook changes for x86 (and amd64)

[gentoo-releng] Handbook changes for x86 (and amd64)

[Chris Gianelloni]

The following changes are from my quick glance of doing a network-less
stage3 install using the current 2004.3 builds.  Since amd64 has nearly
mirrored x86 on this release, these apply for them, too.  There may be
other amd64 changes, but these are the common ones.



http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=1&chap=2:

s/You should see a fancy boot screen with the Gentoo Linux logo on
it./You should see a boot: prompt./

s/Specifying a kernel? Yes, we provide several kernels on our LiveCDs.
The default one is gentoo. Other kernels are smp, which activates
support for multi-cpu systems and the -nofb variants which disable
framebuffer./Specifying a kernel? Yes, we provide several kernels on
most of our LiveCDs. The default one is gentoo. Other kernels are for
specific hardware needs and the -nofb variants which disable
framebuffer./

s/It is recommended that you select the gentoo or gentoo-nofb kernels if
you want to install Gentoo Linux with a 2.4 kernel or smp or smp-nofb if
you want to install Gentoo Linux with a 2.6 kernel. Otherwise you might
run into compatibility issues.//

s/gentoo  	Default 2.4 kernel with framebuffer support/gentoo  	2.6
Kernel with support for multiple CPUs/

s/smp  	2.6 Kernel with support for multiple CPUs//

s/smp-nofb  	Same as smp but without framebuffer support//



This next part is the "Code Listing 3" table.  I'm just going to paste
the new one here since it'll be easier than listing the changes.

- agpgart       loads agpgart (use if you have graphic problems,lockups)
- acpi=on       loads support for ACPI firmware
- ide=nodma     force disabling of DMA for malfunctioning IDE devices
- doscsi        scan for scsi devices (breaks some ethernet cards)
- dopcmcia      starts pcmcia service for PCMCIA cdroms
- nofirewire    disables firewire modules in initrd (for firewire
cdroms,etc)
- nokeymap      disables keymap selection for non-us keyboard layouts
- docache       cache the entire runtime portion of cd in RAM, allows
you
		to umount /mnt/cdrom to mount another cdrom.
- nodetect      causes hwsetup/kudzu and hotplug not to run
- nousb         disables usb module load from initrd, disables hotplug
- nodhcp        dhcp does not automatically start if nic detected
- nohotplug     disables loading hotplug service
- noapic        disable apic (try if having hardware problems
nics,scsi,etc)
- hdx=stroke	allows you to partition the whole harddrive even when your
BIOS
		can't handle large harddrives



s/You will then be greeted with another boot screen and progress
bar./You will then be greeted with a boot screen and progress bar. If
you are installing Gentoo on a system with a non-US keyboard, make sure
you press F2 to switch to verbose mode and follow the prompt. If no
selection is made in 10 second, the default will be accepted and the
boot process will continue./

s/If you are installing Gentoo on a system with a non-US keyboard, make
sure you boot the LiveCD with the dokeymap boot option.//


http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=1&chap=3

I'm not really sure what to say here.  I have added wireless
configuration for any iwconfig-compatible wireless device to net-setup.
When running net-setup, it now asks if the network is wired or wireless,
then asks for the SSID and WEP (if required) if it is wireless.  It then
continues with the old net-setup functionality by asking if the network
uses DHCP or not.  This is preliminary, so I would consider marking it
as the new "automatic" way and leaving the documentation for the old
"manual" way.



http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=1&chap=5

s/portage-20040710.tar.bz2/portage-20041022.tar.bz2/

A note should be added to 5.e about leaving USE alone if planning on
doing a stage3 + GRP install.  Make this note red... and bold... and
flashing... and make it so when people look at it a very large klaxon
sounds...  *grin*



http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=1&chap=6

s/(of course in case you have a working network connection)/(of course
this requires you have a working network connection)/

There also needs to be the same big fat warning in 6.a in the USE
section about how changing the USE flags when using a stage3 + GRP will
be cause the releng demons to come and eat your babies.



http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=1&chap=7

s/ati-drivers-extra  	Graphical ATI tools  	emerge ati-drivers-extra//

We're removing this since it isn't provided by distfiles.



http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=1&chap=9

s/Warning: The stage3 tarballs of the 2004.2 release erroneously contain
the sysklogd logger. You will need to unmerge this logger before
emerging a new one.//

s/(First unmerge the sysklogd logger if you use a stage3 tarball)//

s/# emerge unmerge sysklogd//

s/(You will also need to remove the sysklogd init script)//

s/# rm /etc/init.d/sysklogd//

s/(Now install the system logger of your choice)//

I think something should be added to the 9.a section to state that if a
user selects sysklogd or syslog-ng that they should install logrotate,
too.  We do it for the cron daemons with running crontab /etc/crontab,
so why not the loggers?

s/Note: If you are not installing Gentoo using cascading profiles
slocate will already be part of your system. Cascading profiles are not
used by default yet so if you don't understand it you can assume that
you're not using cascading profiles.//

s/Note: If you are not installing Gentoo using cascading profiles dhcpcd
will already be part of your system. Cascading profiles are not used by
default yet so if you don't understand it you can assume that you're not
using cascading profiles.//



http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=1&chap=10

s/you have to add a vga- or video-statement to your bootloader
configuration file if you require framebuffer. The former is for 2.4
kernels while you should use the latter for 2.6 kernels./you have to add
a vga-statement to your bootloader configuration file if you wish to use
framebuffer./

s/For the video-statement, a simplified syntax is used. Most of the time
it's sufficient to use video=vesafb./If you are using a 2.6 kernel and
chose to use vesafb-tng, then you will use a video-statement instead.
The video statement is defined by WxH-D@Hz, or 1024x768-16@60./

Perhaps another table could be added for this, I'm not sure.  That's
totally up to you guys.  It should be noted that the vesafb-tng stuff is
only in the gentoo-dev-sources kernel and only in kernel >=2.6.8 at
that.

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Release Engineering - Operational/QA Manager
Games - Developer
Gentoo Linux

--
gentoo-releng@gentoo.org mailing list

[gentoo-releng] Re: [gentoo-doc] Handbook changes for x86 (and amd64)

[Sven Vermeulen]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2151 bytes --]

On Thu, Oct 28, 2004 at 05:58:06PM -0400, Chris Gianelloni wrote:
> The following changes are from my quick glance of doing a network-less
> stage3 install using the current 2004.3 builds.  Since amd64 has nearly
> mirrored x86 on this release, these apply for them, too.  There may be
> other amd64 changes, but these are the common ones.

Okay, a new snapshot is uploaded to
  http://dev.gentoo.org/~swift/releng/handbook-x86.tar.gz
  http://dev.gentoo.org/~swift/releng/handbook-amd64.tar.gz

You might want to ping plasmaroo to create a PDF of your architecture; the
sources are in the draft/ directory ([doc]/en/handbook/draft).

I've also quickly updated the handbook for sparc and ppc; snapshots can be
found at
  http://dev.gentoo.org/~swift/releng/handbook-sparc.tar.gz
  http://dev.gentoo.org/~swift/releng/handbook-ppc.tar.gz

Might I say I'm a bit disappointed that this is again a last-second work for
the documentation team to do all this? 

The release guidelines state that, during the development phase:

"""
The Arch Release Coordinator should be in contact with the releng
documentation liaison at all times to ensure that the documentation released
is in sync with the release itself.
"""
and
"""
The GDP requires a listing of all bootable kernels on each bootable LiveCD,
a listing of all supported boot options on each bootable LiveCD, the output
of find on a mounted CD from each category (both bootable LiveCDs and a
Packages CD), and the output of find  on a booted universal/ minimal LiveCD.
The information can be sent to the releng GDP liaison, who is listed on the
releng Project Page.
"""

It takes the GDP a lot longer than a few hours to double-check that
everything works. The snapshots mentioned above are based on Chris'
feedback, currently the only feedback we've received (sorry, that's not
true, PPC said there weren't any changes needed).

I truely hope that our next release (2005.0) will follow the guidelines
regarding documentation.

Wkr,
      Sven Vermeulen

-- 
  Documentation & PR project leader

  The Gentoo Project   <<< http://www.gentoo.org >>>

[-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 189 bytes --]