[gentoo-user] Minimal Gentoo installation

[gentoo-user] Minimal Gentoo installation

[Petar Dimitrijevic]

Hi ppl,

My basic idea is to have chroot-ed environment which will be the full 
system and then to install separate system with only minimal stuff 
(without gcc, portage, ...). When I need to update the minimal system I 
will first update the chrooted one and the emerge the updates onto the 
new one.

So I got the stage3 tarball, unpacked it and and chrooted it. I've 
updated all the packages and started installation of new packages with:
ROOT="/install" emerge ...

I wanted to ask if somebody has done something like this, is something 
like this possible and are there any wiki's or howto's on this topic. 
I've tried searching through the handbook and google-ing but had no luck.

Cheers,
Petar
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Re: [gentoo-user] Minimal Gentoo installation

[forgottenwizard]

On 19:42 Thu 27 Sep     , Petar Dimitrijevic wrote:
> Hi ppl,
>
> My basic idea is to have chroot-ed environment which will be the full 
> system and then to install separate system with only minimal stuff (without 
> gcc, portage, ...). When I need to update the minimal system I will first 
> update the chrooted one and the emerge the updates onto the new one.

What it sounds like you want is an LFS system. Look at the -B option for
emerge. That may have some of what you are looking for.

> I wanted to ask if somebody has done something like this, is something like 
> this possible and are there any wiki's or howto's on this topic. I've tried 
> searching through the handbook and google-ing but had no luck.

I thought about doing this once before, but what is going to make the
diffrence is how minimal you want the system. Are we talking a kernel +
[ba|z]sh + coreutils or are we talking a tiny Apache server?

If you want the absolute minimal, then I would look some into LFS since
Gentoo wants to install so much by default (gcc, bash, coreutils, wget,
ect).

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Re: [gentoo-user] Minimal Gentoo installation

[Petar Dimitrijevic]

forgottenwizard wrote:
> On 19:42 Thu 27 Sep     , Petar Dimitrijevic wrote:
>   
>> Hi ppl,
>>
>> My basic idea is to have chroot-ed environment which will be the full 
>> system and then to install separate system with only minimal stuff (without 
>> gcc, portage, ...). When I need to update the minimal system I will first 
>> update the chrooted one and the emerge the updates onto the new one.
>>     
>
> What it sounds like you want is an LFS system. Look at the -B option for
> emerge. That may have some of what you are looking for.
>
>   
Hm I browsed through emerge man page but I'm unable to find the -B 
option. Is this maybe --build option ?
>> I wanted to ask if somebody has done something like this, is something like 
>> this possible and are there any wiki's or howto's on this topic. I've tried 
>> searching through the handbook and google-ing but had no luck.
>>     
>
> I thought about doing this once before, but what is going to make the
> diffrence is how minimal you want the system. Are we talking a kernel +
> [ba|z]sh + coreutils or are we talking a tiny Apache server?
>   
Well I want to have couple of variations:
1. Apache, php, python,
2. Xorg, python, wxwindows

So I guess they wouldn't be too small. My expectations are that the fs 
size would be <= 256 MB to 400 MB. My target is VIA C3 Nemiah board with 
128MB RAM and 512MB CF Card.
> If you want the absolute minimal, then I would look some into LFS since
> Gentoo wants to install so much by default (gcc, bash, coreutils, wget,
> ect).
>
>   
I thought about checking out LFS but Gentoo seemed simpler to try. Also 
because of portage the system is easier to upgrade. But if I can't get 
what I need I guess I'll try LFS.
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Re: [gentoo-user] Minimal Gentoo installation

[Andreas Niederl]

Hi,

Petar Dimitrijevic wrote:
> Hi ppl,
> 
> My basic idea is to have chroot-ed environment which will be the full
> system and then to install separate system with only minimal stuff
> (without gcc, portage, ...). When I need to update the minimal system I
> will first update the chrooted one and the emerge the updates onto the
> new one.
> 
> So I got the stage3 tarball, unpacked it and and chrooted it. I've
> updated all the packages and started installation of new packages with:
> ROOT="/install" emerge ...
> 
> I wanted to ask if somebody has done something like this, is something
> like this possible and are there any wiki's or howto's on this topic.
> I've tried searching through the handbook and google-ing but had no luck.

http://gentoo-wiki.com/TinyGentoo provides a somewhat extensive
introduction to this as well as a long list of links to related web pages.

Note, that you have to include libstdc++.so yourself if you're not
emerging gcc into your /install.

If you're not cross-compiling you might want to have a look at
http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/base/embedded/gnap.xml


Regards,
Andi
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Re: [gentoo-user] Minimal Gentoo installation

[forgottenwizard]

On 23:04 Thu 27 Sep     , Petar Dimitrijevic wrote:
> forgottenwizard wrote:
>> On 19:42 Thu 27 Sep     , Petar Dimitrijevic wrote:
>>   
>>> Hi ppl,
>>>
>>> My basic idea is to have chroot-ed environment which will be the full 
>>> system and then to install separate system with only minimal stuff 
>>> (without gcc, portage, ...). When I need to update the minimal system I 
>>> will first update the chrooted one and the emerge the updates onto the 
>>> new one.
>>>     
>>
>> What it sounds like you want is an LFS system. Look at the -B option for
>> emerge. That may have some of what you are looking for.
>>
>>   
> Hm I browsed through emerge man page but I'm unable to find the -B option. 
> Is this maybe --build option ?

Yeah. Just something to build the binaries should work.

>>> I wanted to ask if somebody has done something like this, is something 
>>> like this possible and are there any wiki's or howto's on this topic. 
>>> I've tried searching through the handbook and google-ing but had no luck.
>>>     
>>
>> I thought about doing this once before, but what is going to make the
>> diffrence is how minimal you want the system. Are we talking a kernel +
>> [ba|z]sh + coreutils or are we talking a tiny Apache server?
>>   
> Well I want to have couple of variations:
> 1. Apache, php, python,
> 2. Xorg, python, wxwindows
>
> So I guess they wouldn't be too small. My expectations are that the fs size 
> would be <= 256 MB to 400 MB. My target is VIA C3 Nemiah board with 128MB 
> RAM and 512MB CF Card.

Nice. Apache I know you could fit into that without a problem, and X
should be able to handle that little

>> If you want the absolute minimal, then I would look some into LFS since
>> Gentoo wants to install so much by default (gcc, bash, coreutils, wget,
>> ect).
>>
>>   
> I thought about checking out LFS but Gentoo seemed simpler to try. Also 
> because of portage the system is easier to upgrade. But if I can't get what 
> I need I guess I'll try LFS.

Look up ALFS (Automated Linuc From Scratch). It's a basic system, but if
you want something fairly minimal, I'd suggest looking at Portage and
the ebuilds you like and see if you couldn't script yourself a small
package manager just using wget and maybe doing the compiling by hand
(or just running ./configure && make && make install, if you don't want
to do anything to minimize the installed packages).

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Re: [gentoo-user] Minimal Gentoo installation

[Petar Dimitrijevic]

forgottenwizard wrote:
> On 23:04 Thu 27 Sep     , Petar Dimitrijevic wrote:
>   
>> forgottenwizard wrote:
>>     
>>> On 19:42 Thu 27 Sep     , Petar Dimitrijevic wrote:
>>>   
>>>       
>>>> Hi ppl,
>>>>
>>>> My basic idea is to have chroot-ed environment which will be the full 
>>>> system and then to install separate system with only minimal stuff 
>>>> (without gcc, portage, ...). When I need to update the minimal system I 
>>>> will first update the chrooted one and the emerge the updates onto the 
>>>> new one.
>>>>     
>>>>         
>>> What it sounds like you want is an LFS system. Look at the -B option for
>>> emerge. That may have some of what you are looking for.
>>>
>>>   
>>>       
>> Hm I browsed through emerge man page but I'm unable to find the -B option. 
>> Is this maybe --build option ?
>>     
>
> Yeah. Just something to build the binaries should work.
>
>   
>>>> I wanted to ask if somebody has done something like this, is something 
>>>> like this possible and are there any wiki's or howto's on this topic. 
>>>> I've tried searching through the handbook and google-ing but had no luck.
>>>>     
>>>>         
>>> I thought about doing this once before, but what is going to make the
>>> diffrence is how minimal you want the system. Are we talking a kernel +
>>> [ba|z]sh + coreutils or are we talking a tiny Apache server?
>>>   
>>>       
>> Well I want to have couple of variations:
>> 1. Apache, php, python,
>> 2. Xorg, python, wxwindows
>>
>> So I guess they wouldn't be too small. My expectations are that the fs size 
>> would be <= 256 MB to 400 MB. My target is VIA C3 Nemiah board with 128MB 
>> RAM and 512MB CF Card.
>>     
>
> Nice. Apache I know you could fit into that without a problem, and X
> should be able to handle that little
>
>   
>>> If you want the absolute minimal, then I would look some into LFS since
>>> Gentoo wants to install so much by default (gcc, bash, coreutils, wget,
>>> ect).
>>>
>>>   
>>>       
>> I thought about checking out LFS but Gentoo seemed simpler to try. Also 
>> because of portage the system is easier to upgrade. But if I can't get what 
>> I need I guess I'll try LFS.
>>     
>
> Look up ALFS (Automated Linuc From Scratch). It's a basic system, but if
> you want something fairly minimal, I'd suggest looking at Portage and
> the ebuilds you like and see if you couldn't script yourself a small
> package manager just using wget and maybe doing the compiling by hand
> (or just running ./configure && make && make install, if you don't want
> to do anything to minimize the installed packages).
>
>   
Hm very nice idea. Some kind of Gentoo/LFS hybtid :). I guess I'll give 
it a shot.

Thank you so much.
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Re: [gentoo-user] Minimal Gentoo installation

[Petar Dimitrijevic]

Andreas Niederl wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Petar Dimitrijevic wrote:
>   
>> Hi ppl,
>>
>> My basic idea is to have chroot-ed environment which will be the full
>> system and then to install separate system with only minimal stuff
>> (without gcc, portage, ...). When I need to update the minimal system I
>> will first update the chrooted one and the emerge the updates onto the
>> new one.
>>
>> So I got the stage3 tarball, unpacked it and and chrooted it. I've
>> updated all the packages and started installation of new packages with:
>> ROOT="/install" emerge ...
>>
>> I wanted to ask if somebody has done something like this, is something
>> like this possible and are there any wiki's or howto's on this topic.
>> I've tried searching through the handbook and google-ing but had no luck.
>>     
>
> http://gentoo-wiki.com/TinyGentoo provides a somewhat extensive
> introduction to this as well as a long list of links to related web pages.
>   
Thanks I'll give it a look.
> Note, that you have to include libstdc++.so yourself if you're not
> emerging gcc into your /install.
>   
You mean just to copy libstdc++.so to /lib or emerge libstdc++ ?
> If you're not cross-compiling you might want to have a look at
> http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/base/embedded/gnap.xml
>   
I'm not cross compiling. I'm compiling the packages on i686 arch for 
i686 arch. So I'll check this one too.
>
> Regards,
> Andi
>   
Thanks for the pointers.
Petar
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Re: [gentoo-user] Minimal Gentoo installation

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Fri, 28 Sep 2007 00:51:45 +0200, Petar Dimitrijevic wrote:

> I'm not cross compiling. I'm compiling the packages on i686 arch for 
> i686 arch.

The C3 is i586 not i686. Compile for i686 and it will crash. I built a
system booting from CF on an Epia board and I used a variation on this
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-244837.html

Using a compressed filesystem lets you fit far more on the card, I had a
MythTV frontend in less than 256MB. This Wiki page may be worth a look
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Small_Footprint_Gentoo_on_USB

You can reduce the size of packages by adding nodoc, noman and noinfo to
FEATURES.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

It's ten o'clock; do you know where your processes are?

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Re: [gentoo-user] Minimal Gentoo installation

[Andreas Niederl]

Petar Dimitrijevic wrote:
> Andreas Niederl wrote:
[...]
>> Note, that you have to include libstdc++.so yourself if you're not
>> emerging gcc into your /install.
>>   
> You mean just to copy libstdc++.so to /lib or emerge libstdc++ ?
[...]

Just copy it over to /usr/lib (which is the default location for this
library, I believe).

There is no general separate libstdc++ package. sys-libs/libstdc++-v3
only provides an older version for backwards compatibility.


Regards,
Andi
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Re: [gentoo-user] Minimal Gentoo installation

[Petar Dimitrijevic]

Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Fri, 28 Sep 2007 00:51:45 +0200, Petar Dimitrijevic wrote:
>
>   
>> I'm not cross compiling. I'm compiling the packages on i686 arch for 
>> i686 arch.
>>     
>
> The C3 is i586 not i686. Compile for i686 and it will crash. I built a
> system booting from CF on an Epia board and I used a variation on this
> http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-244837.html
>   
The CPU on the boards is VIA Mark CoreFusion™ CPU with 533 MHz core. 
That is a CPU (I think that is VIA C3 Nemiah which is newer than the C3) 
with integrated southbridge. I've been running i686 Fedora Core on it 
(By i686 I mean i686 kernel and few applications compiled by hand for 
i686 arch).

I've use to have one or two VIA EPIA boards which could run only i586 
software.
> Using a compressed filesystem lets you fit far more on the card, I had a
> MythTV frontend in less than 256MB. This Wiki page may be worth a look
> http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Small_Footprint_Gentoo_on_USB
>
> You can reduce the size of packages by adding nodoc, noman and noinfo to
> FEATURES.
>
>
>   
I'll definitely give it a look but I had bad experience with compressed 
file systems in the past. I've tried using Slax or any live cd distro 
for that matter. There are two variations of the board I'm using. One 
with 128 MB RAM and one with 256 MB RAM. The second one has no problem 
whatsoever with running compressed filesystems. But the first one is a 
living nightmare if you try using compressed filesystem. The CPU is slow 
and in combination with small amount of RAM it's a real killer.


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Re: [gentoo-user] Minimal Gentoo installation

[Petar Dimitrijevic]

Andreas Niederl wrote:
> Petar Dimitrijevic wrote:
>   
>> Andreas Niederl wrote:
>>     
> [...]
>   
>>> Note, that you have to include libstdc++.so yourself if you're not
>>> emerging gcc into your /install.
>>>   
>>>       
>> You mean just to copy libstdc++.so to /lib or emerge libstdc++ ?
>>     
> [...]
>
> Just copy it over to /usr/lib (which is the default location for this
> library, I believe).
>   
Thx for the tip.
> There is no general separate libstdc++ package. sys-libs/libstdc++-v3
> only provides an older version for backwards compatibility.
>
>
> Regards,
> Andi
>   

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