[gentoo-user] Portable Gentoo (Pen Drive Linux)

[gentoo-user] Portable Gentoo (Pen Drive Linux)

[Nilesh Govindrajan]

Hi,

Since I don't have a laptop, I'm thinking of installing Gentoo on my
USB 3 pen drive. I'll use binpkgs from my desktop so that pen drive
lives long.

Has anybody tried Samsung's F2FS? I heard it performs better than the
traditional ext4/xfs/etc on flash drives.

Also the pen drive will be used on random hardware (which can be a
laptop or a desktop), so what else do I need to consider other than
using genkernel's default configuration (the livecd config, which
enables all modules)?

Re: [gentoo-user] Portable Gentoo (Pen Drive Linux)

[Brian Hesdorfer]

On 3/21/2014 9:53 PM, Nilesh Govindrajan wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Since I don't have a laptop, I'm thinking of installing Gentoo on my
> USB 3 pen drive. I'll use binpkgs from my desktop so that pen drive
> lives long.
>
> Has anybody tried Samsung's F2FS? I heard it performs better than the
> traditional ext4/xfs/etc on flash drives.
>
> Also the pen drive will be used on random hardware (which can be a
> laptop or a desktop), so what else do I need to consider other than
> using genkernel's default configuration (the livecd config, which
> enables all modules)?
>

FWIW, I've been F2FS plus encryption with Arch and haven't had any 
problems. I'd suggest having anything important backed up somewhere else 
since it's still seen as experimental (I think).

If you're using it on random hardware and want X, you'll have to include 
the variety of video cards you might run into (Intel, ATI, Nvidia) in 
your USE flags.

Also, be wary of the predictable naming for network interfaces (enp5s0, 
enp9s2,etc). You might want to disable that feature using something like 
"net.ifnames=0" in your bootloader or a udev rule so you can just set 
eth0 to DHCP and it will work on most machines.

Re: [gentoo-user] Portable Gentoo (Pen Drive Linux)

[Nilesh Govindrajan]

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On 22-Mar-2014 5:42 pm, "Brian Hesdorfer" <zerophnx@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On 3/21/2014 9:53 PM, Nilesh Govindrajan wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Since I don't have a laptop, I'm thinking of installing Gentoo on my
>> USB 3 pen drive. I'll use binpkgs from my desktop so that pen drive
>> lives long.
>>
>> Has anybody tried Samsung's F2FS? I heard it performs better than the
>> traditional ext4/xfs/etc on flash drives.
>>
>> Also the pen drive will be used on random hardware (which can be a
>> laptop or a desktop), so what else do I need to consider other than
>> using genkernel's default configuration (the livecd config, which
>> enables all modules)?
>>
>
> FWIW, I've been F2FS plus encryption with Arch and haven't had any
problems. I'd suggest having anything important backed up somewhere else
since it's still seen as experimental (I think).
>

Of course. Pen drives are as such not very reliable, so backups are a must.

> If you're using it on random hardware and want X, you'll have to include
the variety of video cards you might run into (Intel, ATI, Nvidia) in your
USE flags.
>

Will it work out the box without configuration?

> Also, be wary of the predictable naming for network interfaces (enp5s0,
enp9s2,etc). You might want to disable that feature using something like
"net.ifnames=0" in your bootloader or a udev rule so you can just set eth0
to DHCP and it will work on most machines.
>

NetworkManager helps with that, or may be just run dhcpcd.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Portable Gentoo (Pen Drive Linux)

[Alan McKinnon]

On 22/03/2014 15:00, Nilesh Govindrajan wrote:
> On 22-Mar-2014 5:42 pm, "Brian Hesdorfer" <zerophnx@gmail.com
> <mailto:zerophnx@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 3/21/2014 9:53 PM, Nilesh Govindrajan wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> Since I don't have a laptop, I'm thinking of installing Gentoo on my
>>> USB 3 pen drive. I'll use binpkgs from my desktop so that pen drive
>>> lives long.
>>>
>>> Has anybody tried Samsung's F2FS? I heard it performs better than the
>>> traditional ext4/xfs/etc on flash drives.
>>>
>>> Also the pen drive will be used on random hardware (which can be a
>>> laptop or a desktop), so what else do I need to consider other than
>>> using genkernel's default configuration (the livecd config, which
>>> enables all modules)?
>>>
>>
>> FWIW, I've been F2FS plus encryption with Arch and haven't had any
> problems. I'd suggest having anything important backed up somewhere else
> since it's still seen as experimental (I think).
>>
> 
> Of course. Pen drives are as such not very reliable, so backups are a must.
> 
>> If you're using it on random hardware and want X, you'll have to
> include the variety of video cards you might run into (Intel, ATI,
> Nvidia) in your USE flags.
>>
> 
> Will it work out the box without configuration?
> 
>> Also, be wary of the predictable naming for network interfaces
> (enp5s0, enp9s2,etc). You might want to disable that feature using
> something like "net.ifnames=0" in your bootloader or a udev rule so you
> can just set eth0 to DHCP and it will work on most machines.
>>
> 
> NetworkManager helps with that, or may be just run dhcpcd.
> 


I suspect you will end up duplicating a lot of work that is already done
elsewhere by the binary distros. You'll probably also have your hands
full just trying to keep up with video hardware as you'll need at least
intel, fglrx and nvidia drivers (plus maybe nouveau and radeon).

Are you 100% sure you want to go that route? Sounds like a huge amount
of work. In your position, I would rather investigate a LiveCD type
solution with a persistent fs layer on top and let the distro do all the
heavy lifting.

Especially as you don't have the target hardware to hand for testing,
you can only test by plugging the stick and seeing if it works.




-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] Portable Gentoo (Pen Drive Linux)

[Nilesh Govindrajan]

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On 22-Mar-2014 6:39 pm, "Alan McKinnon" <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 22/03/2014 15:00, Nilesh Govindrajan wrote:
> > On 22-Mar-2014 5:42 pm, "Brian Hesdorfer" <zerophnx@gmail.com
> > <mailto:zerophnx@gmail.com>> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> On 3/21/2014 9:53 PM, Nilesh Govindrajan wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Hi,
> >>>
> >>> Since I don't have a laptop, I'm thinking of installing Gentoo on my
> >>> USB 3 pen drive. I'll use binpkgs from my desktop so that pen drive
> >>> lives long.
> >>>
> >>> Has anybody tried Samsung's F2FS? I heard it performs better than the
> >>> traditional ext4/xfs/etc on flash drives.
> >>>
> >>> Also the pen drive will be used on random hardware (which can be a
> >>> laptop or a desktop), so what else do I need to consider other than
> >>> using genkernel's default configuration (the livecd config, which
> >>> enables all modules)?
> >>>
> >>
> >> FWIW, I've been F2FS plus encryption with Arch and haven't had any
> > problems. I'd suggest having anything important backed up somewhere else
> > since it's still seen as experimental (I think).
> >>
> >
> > Of course. Pen drives are as such not very reliable, so backups are a
must.
> >
> >> If you're using it on random hardware and want X, you'll have to
> > include the variety of video cards you might run into (Intel, ATI,
> > Nvidia) in your USE flags.
> >>
> >
> > Will it work out the box without configuration?
> >
> >> Also, be wary of the predictable naming for network interfaces
> > (enp5s0, enp9s2,etc). You might want to disable that feature using
> > something like "net.ifnames=0" in your bootloader or a udev rule so you
> > can just set eth0 to DHCP and it will work on most machines.
> >>
> >
> > NetworkManager helps with that, or may be just run dhcpcd.
> >
>
>
> I suspect you will end up duplicating a lot of work that is already done
> elsewhere by the binary distros. You'll probably also have your hands
> full just trying to keep up with video hardware as you'll need at least
> intel, fglrx and nvidia drivers (plus maybe nouveau and radeon).
>
> Are you 100% sure you want to go that route? Sounds like a huge amount
> of work. In your position, I would rather investigate a LiveCD type
> solution with a persistent fs layer on top and let the distro do all the
> heavy lifting.
>
> Especially as you don't have the target hardware to hand for testing,
> you can only test by plugging the stick and seeing if it works.
>
>
>
>
> --
> Alan McKinnon
> alan.mckinnon@gmail.com
>
>

I realize those problems, and that's why I've stayed away till now. I'm
running Fedora currently on the pen drive.
But the unmatched flexibility of gentoo is tempting me.

For example, 3.13.5,6 have problems with USB 3 storage. I've patched the
kernel on my desktop and it's working fine.
Such things are against mainstream distros.

What other distros are suited for this use case?

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Re: [gentoo-user] Portable Gentoo (Pen Drive Linux)

[Alan McKinnon]

On 22/03/2014 15:12, Nilesh Govindrajan wrote:
> On 22-Mar-2014 6:39 pm, "Alan McKinnon" <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com
> <mailto:alan.mckinnon@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> On 22/03/2014 15:00, Nilesh Govindrajan wrote:
>> > On 22-Mar-2014 5:42 pm, "Brian Hesdorfer" <zerophnx@gmail.com
> <mailto:zerophnx@gmail.com>
>> > <mailto:zerophnx@gmail.com <mailto:zerophnx@gmail.com>>> wrote:
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> On 3/21/2014 9:53 PM, Nilesh Govindrajan wrote:
>> >>>
>> >>> Hi,
>> >>>
>> >>> Since I don't have a laptop, I'm thinking of installing Gentoo on my
>> >>> USB 3 pen drive. I'll use binpkgs from my desktop so that pen drive
>> >>> lives long.
>> >>>
>> >>> Has anybody tried Samsung's F2FS? I heard it performs better than the
>> >>> traditional ext4/xfs/etc on flash drives.
>> >>>
>> >>> Also the pen drive will be used on random hardware (which can be a
>> >>> laptop or a desktop), so what else do I need to consider other than
>> >>> using genkernel's default configuration (the livecd config, which
>> >>> enables all modules)?
>> >>>
>> >>
>> >> FWIW, I've been F2FS plus encryption with Arch and haven't had any
>> > problems. I'd suggest having anything important backed up somewhere else
>> > since it's still seen as experimental (I think).
>> >>
>> >
>> > Of course. Pen drives are as such not very reliable, so backups are
> a must.
>> >
>> >> If you're using it on random hardware and want X, you'll have to
>> > include the variety of video cards you might run into (Intel, ATI,
>> > Nvidia) in your USE flags.
>> >>
>> >
>> > Will it work out the box without configuration?
>> >
>> >> Also, be wary of the predictable naming for network interfaces
>> > (enp5s0, enp9s2,etc). You might want to disable that feature using
>> > something like "net.ifnames=0" in your bootloader or a udev rule so you
>> > can just set eth0 to DHCP and it will work on most machines.
>> >>
>> >
>> > NetworkManager helps with that, or may be just run dhcpcd.
>> >
>>
>>
>> I suspect you will end up duplicating a lot of work that is already done
>> elsewhere by the binary distros. You'll probably also have your hands
>> full just trying to keep up with video hardware as you'll need at least
>> intel, fglrx and nvidia drivers (plus maybe nouveau and radeon).
>>
>> Are you 100% sure you want to go that route? Sounds like a huge amount
>> of work. In your position, I would rather investigate a LiveCD type
>> solution with a persistent fs layer on top and let the distro do all the
>> heavy lifting.
>>
>> Especially as you don't have the target hardware to hand for testing,
>> you can only test by plugging the stick and seeing if it works.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Alan McKinnon
>> alan.mckinnon@gmail.com <mailto:alan.mckinnon@gmail.com>
>>
>>
> 
> I realize those problems, and that's why I've stayed away till now. I'm
> running Fedora currently on the pen drive.
> But the unmatched flexibility of gentoo is tempting me.
> 
> For example, 3.13.5,6 have problems with USB 3 storage. I've patched the
> kernel on my desktop and it's working fine.
> Such things are against mainstream distros.
> 
> What other distros are suited for this use case?
> 


I don't really know, but that's because I too use Gentoo almost
exclusively, nothing else satisfies my OCD need to tweak everything
exactly right :-)

Pen drives tend to be slow so I think a great hulking monster like
Fedora won't suit the use-case.

You'd need something smaller and lighter, designed for lower end systems
I think.
Perhaps check out DistroWatch and try out a few? IIRC they have search
and filters that can help pick out the more lean distros




-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] Portable Gentoo (Pen Drive Linux)

[Nilesh Govindrajan]

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On 22-Mar-2014 6:56 pm, "Alan McKinnon" <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 22/03/2014 15:12, Nilesh Govindrajan wrote:
> > On 22-Mar-2014 6:39 pm, "Alan McKinnon" <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com
> > <mailto:alan.mckinnon@gmail.com>> wrote:
> >>
> >> On 22/03/2014 15:00, Nilesh Govindrajan wrote:
> >> > On 22-Mar-2014 5:42 pm, "Brian Hesdorfer" <zerophnx@gmail.com
> > <mailto:zerophnx@gmail.com>
> >> > <mailto:zerophnx@gmail.com <mailto:zerophnx@gmail.com>>> wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >> On 3/21/2014 9:53 PM, Nilesh Govindrajan wrote:
> >> >>>
> >> >>> Hi,
> >> >>>
> >> >>> Since I don't have a laptop, I'm thinking of installing Gentoo on
my
> >> >>> USB 3 pen drive. I'll use binpkgs from my desktop so that pen drive
> >> >>> lives long.
> >> >>>
> >> >>> Has anybody tried Samsung's F2FS? I heard it performs better than
the
> >> >>> traditional ext4/xfs/etc on flash drives.
> >> >>>
> >> >>> Also the pen drive will be used on random hardware (which can be a
> >> >>> laptop or a desktop), so what else do I need to consider other than
> >> >>> using genkernel's default configuration (the livecd config, which
> >> >>> enables all modules)?
> >> >>>
> >> >>
> >> >> FWIW, I've been F2FS plus encryption with Arch and haven't had any
> >> > problems. I'd suggest having anything important backed up somewhere
else
> >> > since it's still seen as experimental (I think).
> >> >>
> >> >
> >> > Of course. Pen drives are as such not very reliable, so backups are
> > a must.
> >> >
> >> >> If you're using it on random hardware and want X, you'll have to
> >> > include the variety of video cards you might run into (Intel, ATI,
> >> > Nvidia) in your USE flags.
> >> >>
> >> >
> >> > Will it work out the box without configuration?
> >> >
> >> >> Also, be wary of the predictable naming for network interfaces
> >> > (enp5s0, enp9s2,etc). You might want to disable that feature using
> >> > something like "net.ifnames=0" in your bootloader or a udev rule so
you
> >> > can just set eth0 to DHCP and it will work on most machines.
> >> >>
> >> >
> >> > NetworkManager helps with that, or may be just run dhcpcd.
> >> >
> >>
> >>
> >> I suspect you will end up duplicating a lot of work that is already
done
> >> elsewhere by the binary distros. You'll probably also have your hands
> >> full just trying to keep up with video hardware as you'll need at least
> >> intel, fglrx and nvidia drivers (plus maybe nouveau and radeon).
> >>
> >> Are you 100% sure you want to go that route? Sounds like a huge amount
> >> of work. In your position, I would rather investigate a LiveCD type
> >> solution with a persistent fs layer on top and let the distro do all
the
> >> heavy lifting.
> >>
> >> Especially as you don't have the target hardware to hand for testing,
> >> you can only test by plugging the stick and seeing if it works.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Alan McKinnon
> >> alan.mckinnon@gmail.com <mailto:alan.mckinnon@gmail.com>
> >>
> >>
> >
> > I realize those problems, and that's why I've stayed away till now. I'm
> > running Fedora currently on the pen drive.
> > But the unmatched flexibility of gentoo is tempting me.
> >
> > For example, 3.13.5,6 have problems with USB 3 storage. I've patched the
> > kernel on my desktop and it's working fine.
> > Such things are against mainstream distros.
> >
> > What other distros are suited for this use case?
> >
>
>
> I don't really know, but that's because I too use Gentoo almost
> exclusively, nothing else satisfies my OCD need to tweak everything
> exactly right :-)
>
> Pen drives tend to be slow so I think a great hulking monster like
> Fedora won't suit the use-case.
>
> You'd need something smaller and lighter, designed for lower end systems
> I think.
> Perhaps check out DistroWatch and try out a few? IIRC they have search
> and filters that can help pick out the more lean distros
>
>
>
>
> --
> Alan McKinnon
> alan.mckinnon@gmail.com
>
>

It works actually. Using gnome3. I've even used it to run eclipse for
working on my project at college and friend's laptop.
May be debian would be good, need something stable. Gentoo is stable
because it's manually tweaked, but too much work to manage that for random
hardware.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Portable Gentoo (Pen Drive Linux)

[Peter Humphrey]

On Saturday 22 Mar 2014 18:42:46 Nilesh Govindrajan wrote:

--->8

> What other distros are suited for this use case?

I've installed that old favourite SysRescCD on a pen drive, following a method 
I found on the Web to include a persistent file-system with all the extras I 
wanted in, e.g., /usr/local/bin.

It works well, except that I haven't found yet where to put all my aliases to 
have them sourced at (auto) log-in.

This distro is quite close to Gentoo, but not identical.

-- 
Regards
Peter

Re: [gentoo-user] Portable Gentoo (Pen Drive Linux)

[Yohan Pereira]

On Sat, Mar 22, 2014 at 7:27 PM, Peter Humphrey <peter@prh.myzen.co.uk> wrote:
> On Saturday 22 Mar 2014 18:42:46 Nilesh Govindrajan wrote:
>
> --->8
>
>> What other distros are suited for this use case?
>
> I've installed that old favourite SysRescCD on a pen drive, following a method
> I found on the Web to include a persistent file-system with all the extras I
> wanted in, e.g., /usr/local/bin.
>
> It works well, except that I haven't found yet where to put all my aliases to
> have them sourced at (auto) log-in.
>
> This distro is quite close to Gentoo, but not identical.
>
> --
> Regards
> Peter
>
>

SystemRescueCD sounds like the best compromise, since its based on gentoo.
You can add whatever it is you need.
http://www.sysresccd.org/Sysresccd-manual-en_How_to_personalize_SystemRescueCd

Re: [gentoo-user] Portable Gentoo (Pen Drive Linux)

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Sat, 22 Mar 2014 13:57:22 +0000, Peter Humphrey wrote:

> I've installed that old favourite SysRescCD on a pen drive, following a
> method I found on the Web to include a persistent file-system with all
> the extras I wanted in, e.g., /usr/local/bin.
> 
> It works well, except that I haven't found yet where to put all my
> aliases to have them sourced at (auto) log-in.

There is a file that is executed by default at login, I think it
is .autorun. I remember having to add an option to ignore it on the
LXFDVDs because we use .autorun on those to launch a browser.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

IBM: Itty Bitty Mentality

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Re: [gentoo-user] Portable Gentoo (Pen Drive Linux)

[Peter Humphrey]

On Saturday 22 Mar 2014 19:37:35 Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Sat, 22 Mar 2014 13:57:22 +0000, Peter Humphrey wrote:
> > I've installed that old favourite SysRescCD on a pen drive, following a
> > method I found on the Web to include a persistent file-system with all
> > the extras I wanted in, e.g., /usr/local/bin.
> > 
> > It works well, except that I haven't found yet where to put all my
> > aliases to have them sourced at (auto) log-in.
> 
> There is a file that is executed by default at login, I think it
> is .autorun. I remember having to add an option to ignore it on the
> LXFDVDs because we use .autorun on those to launch a browser.

Ah! That sounds likely. I'll have another look. Thanks again, Neil.

-- 
Regards
Peter

Re: [gentoo-user] Portable Gentoo (Pen Drive Linux)

[Peter Humphrey]

On Saturday 22 Mar 2014 19:37:35 Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Sat, 22 Mar 2014 13:57:22 +0000, Peter Humphrey wrote:
> > I've installed that old favourite SysRescCD on a pen drive, following a
> > method I found on the Web to include a persistent file-system with all
> > the extras I wanted in, e.g., /usr/local/bin.
> > 
> > It works well, except that I haven't found yet where to put all my
> > aliases to have them sourced at (auto) log-in.
> 
> There is a file that is executed by default at login, I think it
> is .autorun. I remember having to add an option to ignore it on the
> LXFDVDs because we use .autorun on those to launch a browser.

I had a poke around and didn't get anywhere with .autorun, but eventually I 
found that SysRescCD uses zsh, not bash. It hadn't occurred to me until then 
to consider the shell. So that's why the auto-login function wasn't behaving 
the way I expected.

Thanks again Neil.

-- 
Regards
Peter

Re: [gentoo-user] Portable Gentoo (Pen Drive Linux)

[Francisco Ares]

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To auto log-in, I use a feature of "agetty":

On /etc/inittab:

# TERMINALS
# c1:12345:respawn:/usr/bin/fbi -a -noverbose --nocomments
/etc/splash/natural_altec/images/silent-1024x768.jpg
c1:12345:respawn:/sbin/agetty --noclear 38400 tty1 linux
c2:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty2 linux
c3:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty3 linux
c4:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty4 linux
c5:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty5 linux
c6:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -a AutoLogInUserName 38400 tty6 linux

And for auto run, after auto log-in accomplished, I use ".bash_profile" on
the auto logged-in user's home directory.

Hope this helps
Francisco


2014-03-28 11:15 GMT-03:00 Peter Humphrey <peter@prh.myzen.co.uk>:

> On Saturday 22 Mar 2014 19:37:35 Neil Bothwick wrote:
> > On Sat, 22 Mar 2014 13:57:22 +0000, Peter Humphrey wrote:
> > > I've installed that old favourite SysRescCD on a pen drive, following a
> > > method I found on the Web to include a persistent file-system with all
> > > the extras I wanted in, e.g., /usr/local/bin.
> > >
> > > It works well, except that I haven't found yet where to put all my
> > > aliases to have them sourced at (auto) log-in.
> >
> > There is a file that is executed by default at login, I think it
> > is .autorun. I remember having to add an option to ignore it on the
> > LXFDVDs because we use .autorun on those to launch a browser.
>
> I had a poke around and didn't get anywhere with .autorun, but eventually I
> found that SysRescCD uses zsh, not bash. It hadn't occurred to me until
> then
> to consider the shell. So that's why the auto-login function wasn't
> behaving
> the way I expected.
>
> Thanks again Neil.
>
> --
> Regards
> Peter
>
>
>

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Re: [gentoo-user] Portable Gentoo (Pen Drive Linux)

[Francisco Ares]

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Also, as for a bootable flash drive, if you use logical volumes for mount
partitions, it works like a charm. If not, depending on the other physical
drives, during boot, drive letters may change (I believe during the
initramfs part of the boot).

It was basically like this:

- install a bare bones Gentoo system on a hard drive in the usual way, and
make it do whatever you'll want when it goes to the pen drive.
- build the kernel with several modules built in, in special usb storage
(of course) and all related to LVM (Gentoo Wiki is great!), and also, as I
use "genkernel", there is a command line argument "--lvm"
- create a few partitions on the pen drive (on mine there are two, but one
is enough), create logical volumes for /boot and / - or /root - at least)
- using grub2, in the file /etc/default/grub, the kernel command line
should include "dolvm scandelay=10 rootdelay=10" (the numerical values are
far from optimized).
- mount the root partition in another directory (so that other mounts would
not appear), copy it to yet another directory, strip it down (since I use
squashfs and it is read-only, there is no reason to have /usr/src ,
/usr/include , /usr/portage and many others), then copy to the pen drive
root partition; special care should be taken with /etc/fstab .
- umount your current /boot partition, mount the pen drive boot partition
in /boot (just to make things look familiar), mount the hard drive boot
partition elsewhere, copy its contents to the pen drive boot partition, and
issue a grub-install to the pen drive disk (/dev/sdb, for instance) and
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

That's very incomplete, since, for instance and as already mentioned, I use
a squashfs root partition, so I had to figure out some ways, using unionfs,
to have a writable partition mounted on top of the read only one for /var
and for /etc (at least).


2014-03-28 12:00 GMT-03:00 Francisco Ares <frares@gmail.com>:

> To auto log-in, I use a feature of "agetty":
>
> On /etc/inittab:
>
> # TERMINALS
> # c1:12345:respawn:/usr/bin/fbi -a -noverbose --nocomments
> /etc/splash/natural_altec/images/silent-1024x768.jpg
> c1:12345:respawn:/sbin/agetty --noclear 38400 tty1 linux
> c2:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty2 linux
> c3:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty3 linux
> c4:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty4 linux
> c5:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty5 linux
> c6:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -a AutoLogInUserName 38400 tty6 linux
>
> And for auto run, after auto log-in accomplished, I use ".bash_profile" on
> the auto logged-in user's home directory.
>
> Hope this helps
> Francisco
>
>
> 2014-03-28 11:15 GMT-03:00 Peter Humphrey <peter@prh.myzen.co.uk>:
>
> On Saturday 22 Mar 2014 19:37:35 Neil Bothwick wrote:
>> > On Sat, 22 Mar 2014 13:57:22 +0000, Peter Humphrey wrote:
>> > > I've installed that old favourite SysRescCD on a pen drive, following
>> a
>> > > method I found on the Web to include a persistent file-system with all
>> > > the extras I wanted in, e.g., /usr/local/bin.
>> > >
>> > > It works well, except that I haven't found yet where to put all my
>> > > aliases to have them sourced at (auto) log-in.
>> >
>> > There is a file that is executed by default at login, I think it
>> > is .autorun. I remember having to add an option to ignore it on the
>> > LXFDVDs because we use .autorun on those to launch a browser.
>>
>> I had a poke around and didn't get anywhere with .autorun, but eventually
>> I
>> found that SysRescCD uses zsh, not bash. It hadn't occurred to me until
>> then
>> to consider the shell. So that's why the auto-login function wasn't
>> behaving
>> the way I expected.
>>
>> Thanks again Neil.
>>
>> --
>> Regards
>> Peter
>>
>>
>>
>

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Re: [gentoo-user] Portable Gentoo (Pen Drive Linux)

[Nilesh Govindrajan]

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On 28-Mar-2014 8:55 pm, "Francisco Ares" <frares@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Also, as for a bootable flash drive, if you use logical volumes for mount
partitions, it works like a charm. If not, depending on the other physical
drives, during boot, drive letters may change (I believe during the
initramfs part of the boot).
>
> It was basically like this:
>
> - install a bare bones Gentoo system on a hard drive in the usual way,
and make it do whatever you'll want when it goes to the pen drive.
> - build the kernel with several modules built in, in special usb storage
(of course) and all related to LVM (Gentoo Wiki is great!), and also, as I
use "genkernel", there is a command line argument "--lvm"
> - create a few partitions on the pen drive (on mine there are two, but
one is enough), create logical volumes for /boot and / - or /root - at
least)
> - using grub2, in the file /etc/default/grub, the kernel command line
should include "dolvm scandelay=10 rootdelay=10" (the numerical values are
far from optimized).
> - mount the root partition in another directory (so that other mounts
would not appear), copy it to yet another directory, strip it down (since I
use squashfs and it is read-only, there is no reason to have /usr/src ,
/usr/include , /usr/portage and many others), then copy to the pen drive
root partition; special care should be taken with /etc/fstab .
> - umount your current /boot partition, mount the pen drive boot partition
in /boot (just to make things look familiar), mount the hard drive boot
partition elsewhere, copy its contents to the pen drive boot partition, and
issue a grub-install to the pen drive disk (/dev/sdb, for instance) and
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
>
> That's very incomplete, since, for instance and as already mentioned, I
use a squashfs root partition, so I had to figure out some ways, using
unionfs, to have a writable partition mounted on top of the read only one
for /var and for /etc (at least).
>
>
> 2014-03-28 12:00 GMT-03:00 Francisco Ares <frares@gmail.com>:
>
>> To auto log-in, I use a feature of "agetty":
>>
>> On /etc/inittab:
>>
>> # TERMINALS
>> # c1:12345:respawn:/usr/bin/fbi -a -noverbose --nocomments
/etc/splash/natural_altec/images/silent-1024x768.jpg
>> c1:12345:respawn:/sbin/agetty --noclear 38400 tty1 linux
>> c2:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty2 linux
>> c3:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty3 linux
>> c4:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty4 linux
>> c5:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty5 linux
>> c6:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -a AutoLogInUserName 38400 tty6 linux
>>
>> And for auto run, after auto log-in accomplished, I use ".bash_profile"
on the auto logged-in user's home directory.
>>
>> Hope this helps
>> Francisco
>>
>>
>> 2014-03-28 11:15 GMT-03:00 Peter Humphrey <peter@prh.myzen.co.uk>:
>>
>>> On Saturday 22 Mar 2014 19:37:35 Neil Bothwick wrote:
>>> > On Sat, 22 Mar 2014 13:57:22 +0000, Peter Humphrey wrote:
>>> > > I've installed that old favourite SysRescCD on a pen drive,
following a
>>> > > method I found on the Web to include a persistent file-system with
all
>>> > > the extras I wanted in, e.g., /usr/local/bin.
>>> > >
>>> > > It works well, except that I haven't found yet where to put all my
>>> > > aliases to have them sourced at (auto) log-in.
>>> >
>>> > There is a file that is executed by default at login, I think it
>>> > is .autorun. I remember having to add an option to ignore it on the
>>> > LXFDVDs because we use .autorun on those to launch a browser.
>>>
>>> I had a poke around and didn't get anywhere with .autorun, but
eventually I
>>> found that SysRescCD uses zsh, not bash. It hadn't occurred to me until
then
>>> to consider the shell. So that's why the auto-login function wasn't
behaving
>>> the way I expected.
>>>
>>> Thanks again Neil.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Regards
>>> Peter
>>>
>>>
>>
>

You don't really need to use LVM, you just assign filesystem labels and use
root=LABEL=...

Or use UUID

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Re: [gentoo-user] Portable Gentoo (Pen Drive Linux)

[Francisco Ares]

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Everyday learning something.... that's why I like Linux and, in special,
Gentoo.

Thanks
Francisco


2014-03-28 12:26 GMT-03:00 Nilesh Govindrajan <me@nileshgr.com>:

> On 28-Mar-2014 8:55 pm, "Francisco Ares" <frares@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Also, as for a bootable flash drive, if you use logical volumes for
> mount partitions, it works like a charm. If not, depending on the other
> physical drives, during boot, drive letters may change (I believe during
> the initramfs part of the boot).
> >
> > It was basically like this:
> >
> > - install a bare bones Gentoo system on a hard drive in the usual way,
> and make it do whatever you'll want when it goes to the pen drive.
> > - build the kernel with several modules built in, in special usb storage
> (of course) and all related to LVM (Gentoo Wiki is great!), and also, as I
> use "genkernel", there is a command line argument "--lvm"
> > - create a few partitions on the pen drive (on mine there are two, but
> one is enough), create logical volumes for /boot and / - or /root - at
> least)
> > - using grub2, in the file /etc/default/grub, the kernel command line
> should include "dolvm scandelay=10 rootdelay=10" (the numerical values are
> far from optimized).
> > - mount the root partition in another directory (so that other mounts
> would not appear), copy it to yet another directory, strip it down (since I
> use squashfs and it is read-only, there is no reason to have /usr/src ,
> /usr/include , /usr/portage and many others), then copy to the pen drive
> root partition; special care should be taken with /etc/fstab .
> > - umount your current /boot partition, mount the pen drive boot
> partition in /boot (just to make things look familiar), mount the hard
> drive boot partition elsewhere, copy its contents to the pen drive boot
> partition, and issue a grub-install to the pen drive disk (/dev/sdb, for
> instance) and grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
> >
> > That's very incomplete, since, for instance and as already mentioned, I
> use a squashfs root partition, so I had to figure out some ways, using
> unionfs, to have a writable partition mounted on top of the read only one
> for /var and for /etc (at least).
> >
> >
> > 2014-03-28 12:00 GMT-03:00 Francisco Ares <frares@gmail.com>:
> >
> >> To auto log-in, I use a feature of "agetty":
> >>
> >> On /etc/inittab:
> >>
> >> # TERMINALS
> >> # c1:12345:respawn:/usr/bin/fbi -a -noverbose --nocomments
> /etc/splash/natural_altec/images/silent-1024x768.jpg
> >> c1:12345:respawn:/sbin/agetty --noclear 38400 tty1 linux
> >> c2:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty2 linux
> >> c3:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty3 linux
> >> c4:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty4 linux
> >> c5:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty5 linux
> >> c6:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -a AutoLogInUserName 38400 tty6 linux
> >>
> >> And for auto run, after auto log-in accomplished, I use ".bash_profile"
> on the auto logged-in user's home directory.
> >>
> >> Hope this helps
> >> Francisco
> >>
> >>
> >> 2014-03-28 11:15 GMT-03:00 Peter Humphrey <peter@prh.myzen.co.uk>:
> >>
> >>> On Saturday 22 Mar 2014 19:37:35 Neil Bothwick wrote:
> >>> > On Sat, 22 Mar 2014 13:57:22 +0000, Peter Humphrey wrote:
> >>> > > I've installed that old favourite SysRescCD on a pen drive,
> following a
> >>> > > method I found on the Web to include a persistent file-system with
> all
> >>> > > the extras I wanted in, e.g., /usr/local/bin.
> >>> > >
> >>> > > It works well, except that I haven't found yet where to put all my
> >>> > > aliases to have them sourced at (auto) log-in.
> >>> >
> >>> > There is a file that is executed by default at login, I think it
> >>> > is .autorun. I remember having to add an option to ignore it on the
> >>> > LXFDVDs because we use .autorun on those to launch a browser.
> >>>
> >>> I had a poke around and didn't get anywhere with .autorun, but
> eventually I
> >>> found that SysRescCD uses zsh, not bash. It hadn't occurred to me
> until then
> >>> to consider the shell. So that's why the auto-login function wasn't
> behaving
> >>> the way I expected.
> >>>
> >>> Thanks again Neil.
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> Regards
> >>> Peter
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >
>
> You don't really need to use LVM, you just assign filesystem labels and
> use root=LABEL=...
>
> Or use UUID
>

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Re: [gentoo-user] Portable Gentoo (Pen Drive Linux)

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Fri, 28 Mar 2014 14:15:56 +0000, Peter Humphrey wrote:

> > There is a file that is executed by default at login, I think it
> > is .autorun. I remember having to add an option to ignore it on the
> > LXFDVDs because we use .autorun on those to launch a browser.  
> 
> I had a poke around and didn't get anywhere with .autorun, but
> eventually I found that SysRescCD uses zsh, not bash. It hadn't
> occurred to me until then to consider the shell. So that's why the
> auto-login function wasn't behaving the way I expected.

I don't think it's down to the shell, sysresccd includes bash too AFAIR.
It's more likely due to me giving your duff information, the file is
autorun not .autorun. If you press the help keys at the boot menu, you
will eventually find an explanation of how it works, around F5 I think.

Aha, just found the proper documentation for it
http://www.sysresccd.org/Sysresccd-manual-en_Run_your_own_scripts_with_autorun


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Portable Gentoo (Pen Drive Linux)

[Peter Humphrey]

On Friday 28 Mar 2014 21:08:02 Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Fri, 28 Mar 2014 14:15:56 +0000, Peter Humphrey wrote:
> > > There is a file that is executed by default at login, I think it
> > > is .autorun. I remember having to add an option to ignore it on the
> > > LXFDVDs because we use .autorun on those to launch a browser.
> > 
> > I had a poke around and didn't get anywhere with .autorun, but
> > eventually I found that SysRescCD uses zsh, not bash. It hadn't
> > occurred to me until then to consider the shell. So that's why the
> > auto-login function wasn't behaving the way I expected.
> 
> I don't think it's down to the shell, sysresccd includes bash too AFAIR.

Yes, bash is present, but root (superuser) has /bin/zsh as its shell in 
/etc/passwd, so bash scripts aren't run on login.

> It's more likely due to me giving your duff information, the file is
> autorun not .autorun.

I did manage to drop the dot :-)

--->8

> Aha, just found the proper documentation for it
> http://www.sysresccd.org/Sysresccd-manual-en_Run_your_own_scripts_with_autorun

That looks interesting - thanks. First though I think I'll pursue getting my 
aliases, and unaliases, into zsh startup. Or is it simple to change root's 
login shell? It seems unlikely that simply editing /etc/passwd would do it.

-- 
Regards
Peter

Re: [gentoo-user] Portable Gentoo (Pen Drive Linux)

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Sat, 29 Mar 2014 10:07:22 +0000, Peter Humphrey wrote:

> > I don't think it's down to the shell, sysresccd includes bash too
> > AFAIR.  
> 
> Yes, bash is present, but root (superuser) has /bin/zsh as its shell in 
> /etc/passwd, so bash scripts aren't run on login.

Ah yes, I see what you mean.

> > Aha, just found the proper documentation for it
> > http://www.sysresccd.org/Sysresccd-manual-en_Run_your_own_scripts_with_autorun  
 
> That looks interesting - thanks. First though I think I'll pursue
> getting my aliases, and unaliases, into zsh startup. Or is it simple to
> change root's login shell? It seems unlikely that simply
> editing /etc/passwd would do it.

It is that simple. One of the first things I do on a new install is
sed -i s/bash/zsh/ /etc/passwd

Dropping the aliases into ~/.zshrc is the easy option, that way to get
your aliases and a superior shell.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

"He's dead, Jim.  You get his phaser, I'll grab his wallet."

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Re: [gentoo-user] Portable Gentoo (Pen Drive Linux)

[Peter Humphrey]

On Saturday 29 Mar 2014 16:41:10 Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Sat, 29 Mar 2014 10:07:22 +0000, Peter Humphrey wrote:
> > > I don't think it's down to the shell, sysresccd includes bash too
> > > AFAIR.
> > 
> > Yes, bash is present, but root (superuser) has /bin/zsh as its shell in
> > /etc/passwd, so bash scripts aren't run on login.
> 
> Ah yes, I see what you mean.
> 
> > > Aha, just found the proper documentation for it
> > > http://www.sysresccd.org/Sysresccd-manual-en_Run_your_own_scripts_with_a
> > > utorun> 
> > That looks interesting - thanks. First though I think I'll pursue
> > getting my aliases, and unaliases, into zsh startup. Or is it simple to
> > change root's login shell? It seems unlikely that simply
> > editing /etc/passwd would do it.
> 
> It is that simple. One of the first things I do on a new install is
> sed -i s/bash/zsh/ /etc/passwd

I'll bear it in mind (until I forget - about 10 minutes, I expect).

> Dropping the aliases into ~/.zshrc is the easy option, that way to get
> your aliases and a superior shell.

That's what I've done so far. I haven't noticed any difficulty running zsh 
without knowing it, so maybe I'll just leave it at that.

Ta muchly.

-- 
Regards
Peter

[gentoo-user] Re: Portable Gentoo (Pen Drive Linux)

[Martin Vaeth]

Peter Humphrey <peter@prh.myzen.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> Dropping the aliases into ~/.zshrc is the easy option, that way to get
>> your aliases and a superior shell.
>
> That's what I've done so far.

If you have a complex bash configuration file which you want to keep,
source your .bashrc (or whatever you use) in compatibility mode
(the anonymous function will keep that mode local only for sourcing):

() {
	emulate -L sh
	setopt kshglob noshglob braceexpand nonomatch
	. ~/.bashrc
}

Most setups should work without any issues in this compatibility
mode, the most notable exception being [[ $var ]] which must be
cast into the more compatible [[ -n $var ]].

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Portable Gentoo (Pen Drive Linux)

[Peter Humphrey]

On Sunday 30 Mar 2014 11:27:53 Martin Vaeth wrote:
> Peter Humphrey <peter@prh.myzen.co.uk> wrote:
> >> Dropping the aliases into ~/.zshrc is the easy option, that way to get
> >> your aliases and a superior shell.
> > 
> > That's what I've done so far.
> 
> If you have a complex bash configuration file which you want to keep,
> source your .bashrc (or whatever you use) in compatibility mode
> (the anonymous function will keep that mode local only for sourcing):
> 
> () {
> 	emulate -L sh
> 	setopt kshglob noshglob braceexpand nonomatch
> 	. ~/.bashrc
> }
> 
> Most setups should work without any issues in this compatibility
> mode, the most notable exception being [[ $var ]] which must be
> cast into the more compatible [[ -n $var ]].

Well, thank you Martin. I don't have anything complex; just some aliases 
different from what's already in /root/.zshrc. Now that I've found where to put 
mine I'm happy.

Apart, that is, from another problem I seem to have caused for myself. But 
this is now OT re the original thread, so if I want to say more I'll start 
another thread with it.

Thanks again.

-- 
Regards
Peter