Re: [gentoo-user] [~amd64] Some possibly (?) helpful hints re the big gnome-3.8 update

["Canek Peláez Valdés" <caneko@gmail.com>]

On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 8:31 PM,  <gottlieb@nyu.edu> wrote:
> First and foremost, thank you Canek.
>
> On Tue, Jul 30 2013, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:
>
>> On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 7:56 PM,  <gottlieb@nyu.edu> wrote:
>>
>>> I am a gnome-3 user, who wants to continue with gnome-3.
>>> [ I described my current state--beginning of wiki ]
>>
>> Sounds reasonable.
>>
>>> [ I asked about /etc/mtab and /proc/self/mounts
>>
>> If you switch to systemd, you will need to make /etc/mtab a symlink to
>> /proc/self/mounts.
>
> Done.
>
>>> After that comes the big one
>>>
>>> emerge systemd
>>> USE="... systemd ..."
>>> emerge --newuse ...  [ a change from previous msg ]
>>> /etc/init.d/udev restart
>>>
>>> Can the system be rebooted at this point (I realize init will still not
>>> use systemd) or must the entire conversion (including changing init) be
>>> completed before the system is bootable?  I am hoping it is the former.
>>
>> If you reboot [now], I don't believe there is any chance your system
>> will boot up correctly.
>
> I see.
>
>> /etc/init.d/udev is installed by sys-fs/udev; sys-apps/systemd doesn't
>> provide anything similar.
>
> I don't understand.  *After* installing systemd (and setting the USE and
> executing the emerge --newuse ...), the wiki tells you to
>    /etc/init.d/udev restart
> Emerging systemd unmerges udev so how can I do the restart?

The wiki is wrong. The script /etc/init.d/udev is part of sys-fs/udev,
which you need to uninstall before installing systemd. Perhaps it's
CONFIG_PROTECT'd, but anyway sys-fs/udev and sys-apps/systemd install
the udev binary in different directories, so the script is basically
useless after the switch.

>> I recommend installing everything necessary (and uninstalling
>> everything that is not) before trying the reboot.
>
> How far do I have to get in the wiki?  I am hoping to do smaller chunks
> so that if I have to back out a step (using a bootable CD) to restore
> "bootability" to the system, it won't take too long.

I thing you should do it all in one big step. sys-fs/udev and
sys-apps/systemd conflict each other pretty badly, and the latter
changes the init program; also, several programs can work with OpenRC,
or systemd, but not both.

Doing it in "smaller chunks" seems to me a great recipe to making your
system unbootable.

> In particular do I have to switch init to /usr/lib/systemd/systemd
> before I can boot.

Yeah, I believe you have to.

> I know you have had systemd installed for a long time.  Did you always
> have the init= line or were you for a while running openrc with systemd
> installed?

No, I did the switch and almost immediately started to work in the
gentoo-systemd-only overlay[1], which I just deprecated. At the very
beggining having OpenRC could wreck the whole boot, since some stuff
(barely documented at the time) called scripts in /etc/init.d
seemingly at random, and at the time OpenRC scripts didn't even
consider that the machine was not being booted with OpenRC.

I do have an old server *running* with systemd and with OpenRC still
installed; it's my last machine waiting to switch to the new
service-manager virtual.

>> Also, I would do the whole shebang in a one step, removing all the
>> masked packages you did. You can try to boot to multi-user.target
>> instead of graphical.target, if you want to test that systemd works
>> correctly independently of GNOME.
>
> I am not so worried about gnome coming up.  If the system boots and I
> can get the 6 text terminals, I can survive for quite a while with emacs
> and gnus.

GNUS? Damn, that brings back some memories. I stopped using it for
reading email in 2002 or 2003, when Evolution become mature enough.

If you are comfortable with only a console, do the switch from a VT. A
lot of stuff will stopping working *during* the transition, and will
not become functional again until you reboot.

Regards.
-- 
Canek Peláez Valdés
Posgrado en Ciencia e Ingeniería de la Computación
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México