[gentoo-user] Re: Profile listings

[James <wireless@tampabay.rr.com>]

Neil Bothwick <neil <at> digimed.co.uk> writes:


> > I think all possible profiles for each and every type of gentoo install
> > should either be readily available on any installed gentoo system, or
> > on theet or otherwise easy to parse.

> They already are, profiles are part of the portage tree. For example, on
> this amd64 box
> 
> % PORTAGE_PROFILE=/var/portage/profiles/default/linux/arm/13.0/armv7a eix
-c --system

> Found 42 matches.

I get that all the defaults, regardless of arch, have the same 42 list
of packages (at least what I have checked), even default for the arm
variants which are usually thought of as embedded. I get what Andreas
wrote finally where inheritance picks up other packages.


> The nil return before was caused by search in one of the arch
> directories, which are not complete profiles but data to be used by
> profiles. It is a little confusing, but if you stick to profiles under
> default/linux you should get useful information.

/usr/portage/profiles/embedded/packages shows:
*>=sys-apps/busybox-0.60.5-r1

I guess that busybox is the only package that all (gentoo) embedded profiles
require. Granted I have not looked at all the variants of profile, including
embedded for the different arches found in gentoo.


I just think there should be a cleaner and quicker way to see these lists,
and I think there should be a 'standard way' to migrate between embedded
and default, for each and every arch variant. It's not been a clean nor easy
thing to ferret out, imho. Little documentation. I do appreciate your
efforts and the information provided by the others too. I think in the
new world of clusters running on  bare metal to full, bloated distros,
gentoo should have a way to move between profiles, is a good idea. YMMV.
Granted workstations might not want to be part of this changing of profiles,
but for servers and focused, single purpose machines, moving from profile to
profile, should not be that big of a deal. This is all a work in progress
for me. The more I learn about clusters, the more it radically
changes what I have seen in the past of embedded systems and *nix systems.


Last, I'd just like share another insight. Clusters build on minimal or
embedded systems will be far easier to secure, because there's just less
to monitor for unauthorized changes. The biggest issue with Clusters and
Clouds, that nobody  big talks about, are the rampant security problem therein.


Thanks,
James