[gentoo-user] Re: VMware - Linux kernel yield() functionality is disabled.

[Nikos Chantziaras <realnc@arcor.de>]

On 11/04/2010 09:03 PM, Mark Knecht wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 4, 2010 at 11:54 AM, Nikos Chantziaras<realnc@arcor.de>  wrote:
>> On 11/04/2010 06:43 PM, Mark Knecht wrote:
>>>  [...]
>>>     Looking around at VMware's site they recommend changing
>>> /etc/sysctl.conf to enable the feature:
>>>  [...]
>>>     I can do that but I'm pretty sure that if I edit that file then
>>> I'll lose the edits some day when doing etc-update's.
>>
>> Gentoo will never overwrite your /etc config files.  New files are created
>> with an "._" prefix.  When that happens, portage tells you that "N files in
>> /etc/ need updating."  At that point, you either manually merge the changes
>> or use a tool like "dispatch-conf" (I recommend this one) or "etc-update".
>>   And until you do so, the old files will be used.
>
> Yes, thanks Nikos. I do understand that part.
>
> I tried dispatch-conf years ago and couldn't get the hang of it. It
> was not clear to me what was old/new and all the rest of that.
>
> My worry with etc-update is that I know, for the most part, all the
> files I modify when doing an install so I know what to look for when
> I'm selecting files to replace myself. However with that tool there's
> a point where you might have 20 files that need updating, you look at
> the list and nothing looks like what I changed and you hit -5 to tell
> it to do everything. I know I'm going to overwrite sysctl.conf that
> way because it's not in my mental list.

Specifically for sysctl.conf, when you open it, you will see this at the 
bottom of it:

   # YOUR OWN CUSTOM STUFF BELOW

That means it's very easy to copy whatever you inserted at the end, do 
the update, and then paste it back.

Also, I have a modified sysctl.conf too (a swapiness tweak), but 
updating baselayout (the package that owns that file) didn't actually 
install a new copy of it, presumably because all my changes were below 
the "YOUR OWN STUFF" line.  Many ebuilds are smart about updating /etc 
files; and sometimes, they don't install new ones, but directly modify 
existing ones to selectively add or remove stuff.