[gentoo-soc] Plan 9 From Gentoo: Weekly Progress Report #8

[gentoo-soc] Plan 9 From Gentoo: Weekly Progress Report #8

[Robert Seaton]

Hi, all.

Plan 9 From Gentoo is a GSoC 2011 project to combine a Plan 9 inspired
userspace with a Linux kernel.

This week I worked on porting the Glendix patches to a newer kernel. I
currently have everything in a buildable state and I was just waiting
for Anant to help me figure out the parameters for two functions. He
got back to me yesterday, so I should be able to complete porting the
patches to a newer kernel sometime today.

In addition, I worked on getting portage up and running on the liveCD
image. At first, I tried to ship a copy of sudo so that users could
sudo emerge without being prompted by a password, which is -- I
believe -- randomly generated by the Catalyst build process. However,
there proved to be some problem with the way the liveCD filesystems
are set up and the security mechanisms surrounding /etc/sudoers. Very
cryptic error messages. I ended up just adding '/usr/bin/passwd -d' to
/etc/conf.d/local which deletes the root password on boot. This way
individuals can just run su and then emerge to their hearts content.

Currently, my generated liveCD images are ignoring the portage tree
that I have included in the liveCD overlay. I'm not sure if there is
something about my environment or what is going on. I intend to try
and build a fresh liveCD image after I have successfully ported the
Glendix patches to a newer kernel. Once I get portage working
(hopefully by Tuesday), I will release the generated liveCD image as a
BETA because it is in a pretty usable state and I just saw today that
someone has asked after it.

One other thing I completed this week: I contacted Robin about setting
up a project page. Currently, I have a test page up at
http://soc.dev.gentoo.org/~rps/plan9/ . Once I finish porting the
Glendix patches to a newer kernel and have a liveCD image generated
with portage working, I'm going to work on fleshing out the Plan 9
From Gentoo project page. So far I'm thinking about having an
introductory project page, an FAQ, and a page about remastering Plan 9
From Gentoo. I may add more pages as they occur to me.

Once the project pages, forward porting the Glendix patches, and
getting portage working are complete, I'm going to start working on
porting some of Plan 9's syscalls to the Linux kernel. The goal, as I
mentioned last week, is to get the sam editor from Plan 9 running on
top of a Linux kernel. It would eventually be cool to get every app
from Plan 9 running natively on top of the Linux kernel, but that
would require a lot of invasive changes to Linux and is probably
beyond the scope of this GSoC project. I intend to get as much of Plan
9 working on top of Linux as I can, though.

Cheers,
rps

Re: [gentoo-soc] Plan 9 From Gentoo: Weekly Progress Report #8

[Donnie Berkholz]

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On 10:27 Mon 18 Jul     , Robert Seaton wrote:
> In addition, I worked on getting portage up and running on the liveCD
> image. At first, I tried to ship a copy of sudo so that users could
> sudo emerge without being prompted by a password, which is -- I
> believe -- randomly generated by the Catalyst build process. However,
> there proved to be some problem with the way the liveCD filesystems
> are set up and the security mechanisms surrounding /etc/sudoers. Very
> cryptic error messages. I ended up just adding '/usr/bin/passwd -d' to
> /etc/conf.d/local which deletes the root password on boot. This way
> individuals can just run su and then emerge to their hearts content.

Don't LiveCDs log you in as root already? If not, how does anyone ever 
manage to chroot during a Gentoo installation?

> Currently, my generated liveCD images are ignoring the portage tree
> that I have included in the liveCD overlay. I'm not sure if there is
> something about my environment or what is going on. I intend to try
> and build a fresh liveCD image after I have successfully ported the
> Glendix patches to a newer kernel. Once I get portage working
> (hopefully by Tuesday), I will release the generated liveCD image as a
> BETA because it is in a pretty usable state and I just saw today that
> someone has asked after it.

Did you check the /etc/make.conf to make sure it's in PORTDIR_OVERLAY?

> Once the project pages, forward porting the Glendix patches, and 
> getting portage working are complete, I'm going to start working on 
> porting some of Plan 9's syscalls to the Linux kernel. The goal, as I 
> mentioned last week, is to get the sam editor from Plan 9 running on 
> top of a Linux kernel. It would eventually be cool to get every app 
> from Plan 9 running natively on top of the Linux kernel, but that 
> would require a lot of invasive changes to Linux and is probably 
> beyond the scope of this GSoC project.

It's only beyond the scope if you run out of time to do it. =)

-- 
Thanks,
Donnie

Donnie Berkholz
Admin, Summer of Code
Gentoo Linux and X.Org
Blog: http://dberkholz.com


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