* Re: [gentoo-user] thin-provisioning-tools - but I don't provision anything!!!!!
2017-09-15 21:43 ` Alan Mackenzie
@ 2017-09-15 22:14 ` Neil Bothwick
2017-09-15 22:15 ` Alan McKinnon
` (2 subsequent siblings)
3 siblings, 0 replies; 15+ messages in thread
From: Neil Bothwick @ 2017-09-15 22:14 UTC (permalink / raw
To: gentoo-user
Tbe time and effort is minimal, one line in package.use. Profiles have nothing to with it, the flag is turned on in the ebuild. It's not a server vs. desktop issue either.
On 15 September 2017 22:43:15 BST, Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> wrote:
>On Fri, Sep 15, 2017 at 23:38:21 +0200, Marc Joliet wrote:
>> Am Freitag, 15. September 2017, 23:15:05 CEST schrieb Alan Mackenzie:
>> > Yes, but do I want it to go away? What is it, what does it do?
>
>> > OK, let's try emerge -s thin-provisioning-tools. We get back only
>> > patronising garbage, namely "A suite of tools for thin provisioning
>on
>> > Linux" - well, duh! Who write's this stuff?
>
>> > So, WTF is thin provisioning?
>
>> I'm tempted to ask whether google is down or something, but I'm tired
>and
>> waiting for 7z to finish so here you go anyway:
>
>For me, google is permanently down.
>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_provisioning
>
>Yes, I've read it, thanks. My question above was somewhat rhetorical.
>
>> I would say you probably don't need to care about it.
>
>I do. I need to spend time and effort removing it. It sounds like
>something only useful in servers, yet I have a desktop profile
>installed.
>
>There's something not quite right, here.
>
>> HTH
>> --
>> Marc Joliet
>> --
>> "People who think they know everything really annoy those of us who
>know we
>> don't" - Bjarne Stroustrup
--
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 15+ messages in thread* Re: [gentoo-user] thin-provisioning-tools - but I don't provision anything!!!!!
2017-09-15 21:43 ` Alan Mackenzie
2017-09-15 22:14 ` Neil Bothwick
@ 2017-09-15 22:15 ` Alan McKinnon
2017-09-16 14:35 ` Alan Mackenzie
2017-09-15 22:30 ` Daniel Campbell
2017-09-15 22:31 ` Marc Joliet
3 siblings, 1 reply; 15+ messages in thread
From: Alan McKinnon @ 2017-09-15 22:15 UTC (permalink / raw
To: gentoo-user
On 15/09/2017 23:43, Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 15, 2017 at 23:38:21 +0200, Marc Joliet wrote:
>> Am Freitag, 15. September 2017, 23:15:05 CEST schrieb Alan Mackenzie:
>>> Yes, but do I want it to go away? What is it, what does it do?
>
>>> OK, let's try emerge -s thin-provisioning-tools. We get back only
>>> patronising garbage, namely "A suite of tools for thin provisioning on
>>> Linux" - well, duh! Who write's this stuff?
>
>>> So, WTF is thin provisioning?
>
>> I'm tempted to ask whether google is down or something, but I'm tired and
>> waiting for 7z to finish so here you go anyway:
>
> For me, google is permanently down.
>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_provisioning
>
> Yes, I've read it, thanks. My question above was somewhat rhetorical.
>
>> I would say you probably don't need to care about it.
>
> I do. I need to spend time and effort removing it. It sounds like
> something only useful in servers, yet I have a desktop profile installed.
>
> There's something not quite right, here.
Reign in the paranoia there friend. This is Gentoo and you have choices.
You are getting lvm because you elected to get it, it's set somewhere in
your USE.
What is LVM? A tool for managing disk volumes. If you don't know what it
is, you probably don't need it.
What is thin-provisioning? A way to allocate space on your disks without
actually using it until you put real data in. So a say 50G volume that
is empty will consume no disk space (or maybe a few K in overhead). Sort
of like sparse files for entire volumes.
--
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 15+ messages in thread
* Re: [gentoo-user] thin-provisioning-tools - but I don't provision anything!!!!!
2017-09-15 22:15 ` Alan McKinnon
@ 2017-09-16 14:35 ` Alan Mackenzie
2017-09-16 16:16 ` Peter Humphrey
0 siblings, 1 reply; 15+ messages in thread
From: Alan Mackenzie @ 2017-09-16 14:35 UTC (permalink / raw
To: gentoo-user
Hello, Alan.
On Sat, Sep 16, 2017 at 00:15:35 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On 15/09/2017 23:43, Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> > On Fri, Sep 15, 2017 at 23:38:21 +0200, Marc Joliet wrote:
> >> Am Freitag, 15. September 2017, 23:15:05 CEST schrieb Alan Mackenzie:
> >>> Yes, but do I want it to go away? What is it, what does it do?
> >>> OK, let's try emerge -s thin-provisioning-tools. We get back only
> >>> patronising garbage, namely "A suite of tools for thin provisioning on
> >>> Linux" - well, duh! Who write's this stuff?
> >>> So, WTF is thin provisioning?
> >> I'm tempted to ask whether google is down or something, but I'm tired and
> >> waiting for 7z to finish so here you go anyway:
> > For me, google is permanently down.
> >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_provisioning
> > Yes, I've read it, thanks. My question above was somewhat rhetorical.
> >> I would say you probably don't need to care about it.
> > I do. I need to spend time and effort removing it. It sounds like
> > something only useful in servers, yet I have a desktop profile installed.
> > There's something not quite right, here.
> Reign in the paranoia there friend. This is Gentoo and you have choices.
> You are getting lvm because you elected to get it, it's set somewhere in
> your USE.
No, I actually use LVM to massage partition sizes, (but not for anything
else).
> What is LVM? A tool for managing disk volumes. If you don't know what it
> is, you probably don't need it.
On my last machine, I only used it once or twice (to increase partition
sizes), but without it I would have spent a lot of time creating
partitions, copying stuff across, and so on. I might need it more on my
new machine, which has only 500Gb of SSD (as compared with 1Tb of HDD).
> What is thin-provisioning? A way to allocate space on your disks without
> actually using it until you put real data in. So a say 50G volume that
> is empty will consume no disk space (or maybe a few K in overhead). Sort
> of like sparse files for entire volumes.
Thanks. It sounds like something which, if you don't know what it is,
you don't need. And reading the Gentoo wiki article, it seems that there
are some gotchas associated with it. I don't think the USE flag `thin'
should have been enabled by default. I'm going to disable it, now I know
what it is.
What really got up my nose, as mentioned above, was doing an emerge -s on
thing-provisioning-tools and getting told it was "tools for thin
provisioning". What really takes up time maintaining a computer, or
programming for that matter, is continually having to look somewhere else
for something. Even though I doubt it was deliberately designed to
annoy, that emerge -s entry could hardly have been more annoying if
somebody had tried to make it so.
> --
> Alan McKinnon
> alan.mckinnon@gmail.com
--
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 15+ messages in thread
* Re: [gentoo-user] thin-provisioning-tools - but I don't provision anything!!!!!
2017-09-16 14:35 ` Alan Mackenzie
@ 2017-09-16 16:16 ` Peter Humphrey
2017-09-16 18:20 ` Stroller
0 siblings, 1 reply; 15+ messages in thread
From: Peter Humphrey @ 2017-09-16 16:16 UTC (permalink / raw
To: gentoo-user
On Saturday, 16 September 2017 15:35:44 BST Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> What really got up my nose, as mentioned above, was doing an emerge -s on
> thing-provisioning-tools and getting told it was "tools for thin
> provisioning".
I raised a bug report about that once, against use.desc. There was a flurry
of activity as devs looked around their own bailiwicks and fixed them, then
everything went quiet again.
It's an example of no designer or coder enjoying any of the still important
bits left over when the acceptance test is passed.
> What really takes up time maintaining a computer, or
> programming for that matter, is continually having to look somewhere else
> for something. Even though I doubt it was deliberately designed to
> annoy, that emerge -s entry could hardly have been more annoying if
> somebody had tried to make it so.
Quite so.
--
Regards,
Peter.
Speak severely to your boy
And beat him when he sneezes.
He only does it to annoy
Because he knows it teases.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 15+ messages in thread
* Re: [gentoo-user] thin-provisioning-tools - but I don't provision anything!!!!!
2017-09-16 16:16 ` Peter Humphrey
@ 2017-09-16 18:20 ` Stroller
0 siblings, 0 replies; 15+ messages in thread
From: Stroller @ 2017-09-16 18:20 UTC (permalink / raw
To: gentoo-user
> On 16 Sep 2017, at 17:16, Peter Humphrey <peter@prh.myzen.co.uk> wrote:
> On Saturday, 16 September 2017 15:35:44 BST Alan Mackenzie wrote:
>
>> What really got up my nose, as mentioned above, was doing an emerge -s on
>> thing-provisioning-tools and getting told it was "tools for thin
>> provisioning".
>
> I raised a bug report about that once, against use.desc. There was a flurry
> of activity as devs looked around their own bailiwicks and fixed them, then
> everything went quiet again.
Really?
I started threads at least twice on gentoo-dev (now years ago), and it seemed to have no effect.
I've given up expecting USE descriptions to be useful.
> It's an example of no designer or coder enjoying any of the still important
> bits left over when the acceptance test is passed.
+1
Stroller.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 15+ messages in thread
* Re: [gentoo-user] thin-provisioning-tools - but I don't provision anything!!!!!
2017-09-15 21:43 ` Alan Mackenzie
2017-09-15 22:14 ` Neil Bothwick
2017-09-15 22:15 ` Alan McKinnon
@ 2017-09-15 22:30 ` Daniel Campbell
2017-09-16 8:14 ` Peter Humphrey
2017-09-15 22:31 ` Marc Joliet
3 siblings, 1 reply; 15+ messages in thread
From: Daniel Campbell @ 2017-09-15 22:30 UTC (permalink / raw
To: gentoo-user
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On 09/15/2017 02:43 PM, Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 15, 2017 at 23:38:21 +0200, Marc Joliet wrote:
>> Am Freitag, 15. September 2017, 23:15:05 CEST schrieb Alan Mackenzie:
>>> Yes, but do I want it to go away? What is it, what does it do?
>
>>> OK, let's try emerge -s thin-provisioning-tools. We get back only
>>> patronising garbage, namely "A suite of tools for thin provisioning on
>>> Linux" - well, duh! Who write's this stuff?
>
>>> So, WTF is thin provisioning?
>
>> I'm tempted to ask whether google is down or something, but I'm tired and
>> waiting for 7z to finish so here you go anyway:
>
> For me, google is permanently down.
>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_provisioning
>
> Yes, I've read it, thanks. My question above was somewhat rhetorical.
>
>> I would say you probably don't need to care about it.
>
> I do. I need to spend time and effort removing it. It sounds like
> something only useful in servers, yet I have a desktop profile installed.
>
> There's something not quite right, here.
>
>> HTH
>> --
>> Marc Joliet
>> --
>> "People who think they know everything really annoy those of us who know we
>> don't" - Bjarne Stroustrup
>
The USE flag is likely enabled by default so users won't have to rebuild
all of lvm2 in order to get one small feature that may be useful in
self-hosting or experimental/learning scenarios. That is, the feature
seems useful enough to add as a default. But the default is in
sys-fs/lvm2, not in a profile:
'''
# Assume gentoolkit is present
$ grep "+thin" $(equery w sys-fs/lvm2)
IUSE="readline static static-libs systemd clvm cman corosync lvm1
lvm2create_initrd openais sanlock selinux +udev +thin device-mapper-only"
'''
If you have app-portage/gentoolkit (I highly recommend it) you can run
`equery d sys-block/thin-provisioning-tools` to find what's pulling it
in. It's probably lvm2, which is expected if you use LVM for anything.
If you don't have any need for it:
* Add `USE="-lvm"` to make.conf to ensure you don't get LVM through IUSE
* Add `sys-fs/lvm2` to package.mask, but realize you may lose partial
functionality with some things, like net-fs/nfs-utils NFS v4.1 support.
* emerge --changed-use --ask @world
* emerge --ask --depclean
or
* Put `sys-fs/lvm2 -thin` in package.use, run `emerge --changed-use
--ask @world`, and go about your day.
If you want to learn what thin provisioning is, you'll have to do
research on it. Manpages, project pages, fora, tutorials, etc. A good
way to find detailed information is to look up support threads and see
what difficulties other people are having, so you can go straight to
useful advice. (search terms like "problem lvm thin provision") If the
software's remotely popular, you'll get some good results. Since we've
already established lvm2 uses it, you can consult its documentation
(usually found from HOMEPAGE) and get an idea for what it is. Some
terminology is understood differently in specialized scenarios, so the
only way to learn it is to read it.
A Web search for 'lvm thin provisioning' turned up results from Red Hat,
tech blogs, and other sources. This information is easily available, if
you're willing to seek it.
--
Daniel Campbell - Gentoo Developer, Trustee, Treasurer
OpenPGP Key: 0x1EA055D6 @ hkp://keys.gnupg.net
fpr: AE03 9064 AE00 053C 270C 1DE4 6F7A 9091 1EA0 55D6
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^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 15+ messages in thread
* Re: [gentoo-user] thin-provisioning-tools - but I don't provision anything!!!!!
2017-09-15 22:30 ` Daniel Campbell
@ 2017-09-16 8:14 ` Peter Humphrey
0 siblings, 0 replies; 15+ messages in thread
From: Peter Humphrey @ 2017-09-16 8:14 UTC (permalink / raw
To: gentoo-user
On Friday, 15 September 2017 23:30:07 BST Daniel Campbell wrote:
> If you have app-portage/gentoolkit (I highly recommend it) you can run
> `equery d sys-block/thin-provisioning-tools` to find what's pulling it
> in. It's probably lvm2, which is expected if you use LVM for anything.
> If you don't have any need for it:
>
> * Add `USE="-lvm"` to make.conf to ensure you don't get LVM through IUSE
> * Add `sys-fs/lvm2` to package.mask, but realize you may lose partial
> functionality with some things, like net-fs/nfs-utils NFS v4.1 support.
> * emerge --changed-use --ask @world
> * emerge --ask --depclean
>
> or
>
> * Put `sys-fs/lvm2 -thin` in package.use, run `emerge --changed-use
> --ask @world`, and go about your day.
I just have -thin in make.conf. It's still there because I haven't got round
to removing it since building this box 18 months ago. The old box had LVM on
twin disks and I didn't want thin provisioning, whereas this one just has a
single SSD.
--
Regards,
Peter.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 15+ messages in thread
* Re: [gentoo-user] thin-provisioning-tools - but I don't provision anything!!!!!
2017-09-15 21:43 ` Alan Mackenzie
` (2 preceding siblings ...)
2017-09-15 22:30 ` Daniel Campbell
@ 2017-09-15 22:31 ` Marc Joliet
3 siblings, 0 replies; 15+ messages in thread
From: Marc Joliet @ 2017-09-15 22:31 UTC (permalink / raw
To: gentoo-user
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Am Freitag, 15. September 2017, 23:43:15 CEST schrieb Alan Mackenzie:
> On Fri, Sep 15, 2017 at 23:38:21 +0200, Marc Joliet wrote:
> > Am Freitag, 15. September 2017, 23:15:05 CEST schrieb Alan Mackenzie:
> > > Yes, but do I want it to go away? What is it, what does it do?
> > >
> > > OK, let's try emerge -s thin-provisioning-tools. We get back only
> > > patronising garbage, namely "A suite of tools for thin provisioning on
> > > Linux" - well, duh! Who write's this stuff?
> > >
> > > So, WTF is thin provisioning?
> >
> > I'm tempted to ask whether google is down or something, but I'm tired and
>
> > waiting for 7z to finish so here you go anyway:
> For me, google is permanently down.
I use Duckduckgo, myself.
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_provisioning
>
> Yes, I've read it, thanks. My question above was somewhat rhetorical.
OK
> > I would say you probably don't need to care about it.
>
> I do. I need to spend time and effort removing it. It sounds like
> something only useful in servers, yet I have a desktop profile installed.
>
> There's something not quite right, here.
As Alan and Neil already mentioned, it's set by default in the ebuild (i.e.,
"+thin" somewhere in IUSE, which you can also see in the output of eix).
You'd have to ask the maintainer why that is, though.
HTH
--
Marc Joliet
--
"People who think they know everything really annoy those of us who know we
don't" - Bjarne Stroustrup
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^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 15+ messages in thread