From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([208.92.234.80] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1Nl61J-0004Sj-91 for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Fri, 26 Feb 2010 19:38:41 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id BDEA9E0A5C; Fri, 26 Feb 2010 19:38:08 +0000 (UTC) Received: from n6a.bullet.mail.ac4.yahoo.com (n6a.bullet.mail.ac4.yahoo.com [76.13.13.69]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id A12C0E0A5C for ; Fri, 26 Feb 2010 19:38:08 +0000 (UTC) Received: from [74.6.228.94] by n6.bullet.mail.ac4.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 26 Feb 2010 19:38:08 -0000 Received: from [76.13.10.174] by t1.bullet.mail.ac4.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 26 Feb 2010 19:38:08 -0000 Received: from [127.0.0.1] by omp115.mail.ac4.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 26 Feb 2010 19:38:08 -0000 X-Yahoo-Newman-Property: ymail-3 X-Yahoo-Newman-Id: 478434.63761.bm@omp115.mail.ac4.yahoo.com Received: (qmail 18061 invoked by uid 60001); 26 Feb 2010 19:38:08 -0000 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=yahoo.com; s=s1024; t=1267213087; bh=PaO2nJbZWw+yXAaHRBCxC5zCEagw2X9Tx2rNQWnNXbY=; h=Message-ID:X-YMail-OSG:Received:X-Mailer:References:Date:From:Subject:To:In-Reply-To:MIME-Version:Content-Type; b=RBSEHa+9npaqkKr52EMDkuiPWEUw88Q0X0G+0h//mQ3MKUs3Z8sSHr6PYuiRbKBFyJm/LB68SYKZqTmbUpQQqR3Z693+6Z6aYx15mr8m6cXrmEjTX6vy9y6rpY8zv+tRViR6NxPQPuiiQ8VTgnuM/sU+Vq6F48tTaz8XKYY8P2U= DomainKey-Signature:a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=s1024; d=yahoo.com; h=Message-ID:X-YMail-OSG:Received:X-Mailer:References:Date:From:Subject:To:In-Reply-To:MIME-Version:Content-Type; b=yA8dbgsKp6olkzy21h/yB0jrZr8NcuyO3zodjTtDVUDhPfrQMnDsUWq0Jw6tEqE7+iWRboLLcctNzt7nzo2jSIY0xrjPyIAo87Rh8rdn+D+mRkg1A/PBMcvWneNXgHiUVGeE/scOgiZxhdjppg6h5tzuZHAQLcq1GX6OhPyvr4o=; Message-ID: <956289.16846.qm@web65404.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> X-YMail-OSG: Itk31AYVM1n1_0cyjm2wS4U2OBQ.pIdparCuuY0hiN79GIiq2KZ1iqH7znQWRrdR0649C9S48dx8t4CLaaFv0YiGeSwPuZtyWaqdt3_sJMvCYBslaUsPx483TWrZMmThQP6BW35iMCIdCyx_c7DWFz68F0_lN9IMhf6hzQu8PRxjMhocGScauxlSJrWMASDazMgnvrgZGQAeFDoLI1YlN9SY2aO4HwSLZjxmpqXbUEIfrB06.0HQz.3ib6t_XOQfJL.6Y0YH4rIoBSxv6jGdlMte8Xq5PJ3p3eaAKAJE9wWWeex2RXg5SosUr5Sradqa5mhNOW15lcFfWi.OvtcGiFWEOhX.tA8H0s69jRvDxnM.FR6xD7EGOjbjAdzPIK43iBxFHoBd Received: from [12.52.185.66] by web65404.mail.ac4.yahoo.com via HTTP; Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:38:07 PST X-Mailer: YahooMailRC/300.3 YahooMailWebService/0.8.100.260964 References: <58965d8a1002260954v37bc6293xd4b92d82183bd346@mail.gmail.com> Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:38:07 -0800 (PST) From: BRM Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Advice/best practices for a new Gentoo installation To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org In-Reply-To: <58965d8a1002260954v37bc6293xd4b92d82183bd346@mail.gmail.com> Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Archives-Salt: 4c6f918d-df3c-412f-bfbb-8fb8e6b8bbcb X-Archives-Hash: 372fcc8b947f1ac0bf4d1a251790598c ----- Original Message ---- > From: Paul Hartman > To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org > Some topics I'm thinking about (comments welcome): > - be aware of cylinder boundaries when partitioning (thanks to the > recent thread) > - utilizing device labels and/or volume labels instead of hoping > /dev/sda stays /dev/sda always I've never had an issue with /dev/sda changing, but I don't change out hard drives a lot either. If you're doing hot-pluggable systems may be. But it typically does the right thing. I haven't gotten around to do doing it yet, but one thing I did think about was setting up udev to recognize certain external hard drives for use - e.g. always mapping a backup hard drive to a certain location for backups instead of the normal prompting. > - initrd - I've never used one, but maybe it's needed if root is on > software RAID? You only need initrd if you can't build a kernel with everything needed to boot up - namely, when you need to load specialized firmware to access the hard drive or if you are doing net-booting. > - grub/kernel parameter tips and tricks... i'm already using uvesafb, > and don't dual-boot with MSWin or anything, just Gentoo I typically make sure to alias or map a "default" that should always work. It's my standard boot up unless I"m testing out a new kernel build. When I do an update, I add the update to the list without modifying the default until I've verified that the updated kernel is working. Works better under LILO than grub if I recall. > - better partitioning scheme than my current root, boot, home (need > portage on its own, maybe /var as well?) I have taken to putting portage on its own partition to keep from filling up the root partition, which I've done on a few systems more than once. So yes, definately +5. > - best filesystem for portage? something compressed or with small > cluster size maybe. 1. Stay away from reiserfs. Yeah, I know there's a big fan base for it; but it's not so big in the recovery distro area. 2. Ext2/3 are now more than sufficient and supported out-of-the-box by nearly all recovery distros. I haven't tried Ext4 yet, but it seems very able as well. >From various things I've seen, XFS or JFS is about the only real FS to offer benefits where it kind of makes sense. But for the most part, Ext2/3/4 will probably more than suffice for most everyone's need; and when it doesn't - you're typically doing something where you need to find the right one out of numerous for a specialized area of use, in which case, general recommendations don't cut it. (Why care about recovery disks: B/c you never know when you're going to need to access that partition.) > - SSD vs 10000rpm vs big-and-cheap hard drive for rootfs/system files. > I lean toward the latter since RAM caches it anyway. I lean towards just going the standard 10k hard drives with lots of cache; though I typically only buy the middle-line Western Digitals (upper-line being the server hard drives). > - omit/reduce number of reserved-for-root blocks on partitions where > it's not necessary. > - I have never used LVM and don't really know about it. Should I use > it? will it make life easier someday? or more difficult? I tried out LVM (LVM2) thinking it would kind of make sense. I still have one system using it; but I ended up abandoning it. Why? Recovery is a pita when something goes wrong. Not to say it isn't flexible, but for most people LVM is unnecessary, kind of like RAID. > - Is RAID5 still a good balance for disk cost vs usable space vs data > safety? I can't/don't want to pay for full mirroring of all disks. RAID is not really necessary for most people. Save it for sections on doing backups - e.g. setting up a drive to backup to that gets mirrored off - or server support, where RAID is necessary. But most users don't need RAID. > Or any other tips that apply to things which are difficult to change > once the system is in use. KISS. Ben