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* [gentoo-user] [OT] Six non-Gentoo installs
@ 2014-10-14 22:36 Grant Edwards
  2014-10-15  0:17 ` Alec Ten Harmsel
                   ` (2 more replies)
  0 siblings, 3 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: Grant Edwards @ 2014-10-14 22:36 UTC (permalink / raw
  To: gentoo-user

In order to do some software testing (having mostly to do with
different init systems), I installed 6 distros yesterday and this
morning (I already had both 32 and 64 bit Gentoo/Openrc systems
installed).  These were all on a single 1TB drive with a bunch of
100GB partitions that contain a Windows system and eight Linux
systems.  [There's a "master" installation of Grub legacy that
chainloads any one of the 9 OS partitions.]

My 6 latest installs were:

   Xubuntu 12.04
   Xubuntu 13.10
   Xubuntu 14.04
   CentOS   5.11
   CentOS   6.5
   CentOS   7.0

CentOS 5.11 was the only downloaded ISO that wouldn't boot directly
from a USB flash drive and required that a CD be burned.

The first five were all quick and uneventful and took a total of maybe
3-4 hours (including downloading the ISO images).  At each step of the
installs it was obvious what to do.  They all allowed me to use the
existing partitioning table and install both OS and bootloader into an
existing partition.  They all recognized both Ethernet adapters, and
all booted fine when "chainloaded" by my master copy of Grub legacy.

CentOS 7.0, however, was a mess.

It took three attempts and almost an entire day of work.

My first attempt was to use the "minimal" ISO image so that I would
have the option of burning a CD if needed (I can't burn DVDs at the
moment).  That was a mistake.  It was too minimal, and I couldn't get
the network working to the point where I could configure repositories
and install other stuff. Since the CentOS 7 ISO images all boot from
USB flash drive anyway, staying under the 700MB CD size limit was moot
anyway.

Next I tried the net install ISO.  I'm guessing I could have burned
the DVD image to USB drive, but all I want is a minimal desktop
system, so I figured why wait for a download of 3.5GB of stuff I don't
care about.

It still didn't recognize the NVidia Ethernet controller on my
5-year-old motherboard. After some cable swapping and futzing around,
I got the netinstall going using the Realtek NIC.

Maybe I just got unlucky and picked a slow mirror site, but once I got
the install going, it ran for over 3 hours when installing a vanilla
Gnome desktop system.  Compare that with a 15 minute download time for
a 700MB Xubuntu CD and then a 15 minute install.

CentOS 7 refused to install the bootloader in a partition: your only
choices are MBR or nothing.  When I manually installed grub legacy it
failed because I had stupidly allowed CentOS to use ext4, and the
build of Grub I had laying around didn't grok ext4.

So I re-do the whole net install again using ext3 instead.

Now, after manually installing Grub legacy in the CentOS 7 partition,
it boots up.

The next problem is that the Gnome Shell is burning 100% of the CPU
time, and a terminal window can't even keep up with my typing.  Forget
that: I can do what I want via ssh, so just disable X11.

CentOS still doesn't recognize the NVidia motherboard Ethernet
controller.  After Google finds me a pages full of links to other
people complaining about the exact same thing, I find out RedHat
decided that the NVidia forcedeth driver wasn't widely used enough to
deserve inclusion on an ISO image that was already 360+ MB.  Thanks
for that, RedHat.  So it takes another 45 minutes of faffing around
finding a third party src.rpm file for the forcedeth module and
installing it.  [It was either that or build a kernel and initrd.]

After about 7 hours I got a usable CentOS 7 system running (as long as
I don't try to use the Gnome desktop).

I'm more convinced than ever that Gentoo is the way to go for my
"real" systems...

-- 
Grant Edwards               grant.b.edwards        Yow! I feel partially
                                  at               hydrogenated!
                              gmail.com            



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread

* Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Six non-Gentoo installs
  2014-10-14 22:36 [gentoo-user] [OT] Six non-Gentoo installs Grant Edwards
@ 2014-10-15  0:17 ` Alec Ten Harmsel
  2014-10-15  2:39   ` [gentoo-user] " Grant Edwards
  2014-10-15  1:08 ` James
  2014-10-16 14:21 ` [gentoo-user] " Tom H
  2 siblings, 1 reply; 11+ messages in thread
From: Alec Ten Harmsel @ 2014-10-15  0:17 UTC (permalink / raw
  To: gentoo-user


On 10/14/2014 06:36 PM, Grant Edwards wrote:
> CentOS 7.0, however, was a mess.
> It took three attempts and almost an entire day of work.
I run it on my home server. It works pretty well for me.
> My first attempt was to use the "minimal" ISO image so that I would
> have the option of burning a CD if needed (I can't burn DVDs at the
> moment).  That was a mistake.  It was too minimal, and I couldn't get
> the network working to the point where I could configure repositories
> and install other stuff. Since the CentOS 7 ISO images all boot from
> USB flash drive anyway, staying under the 700MB CD size limit was moot
> anyway.
>
> Next I tried the net install ISO.  I'm guessing I could have burned
> the DVD image to USB drive, but all I want is a minimal desktop
> system, so I figured why wait for a download of 3.5GB of stuff I don't
> care about.
>
> It still didn't recognize the NVidia Ethernet controller on my
> 5-year-old motherboard. After some cable swapping and futzing around,
> I got the netinstall going using the Realtek NIC.
>
> Maybe I just got unlucky and picked a slow mirror site, but once I got
> the install going, it ran for over 3 hours when installing a vanilla
> Gnome desktop system.  Compare that with a 15 minute download time for
> a 700MB Xubuntu CD and then a 15 minute install.
>
> CentOS 7 refused to install the bootloader in a partition: your only
> choices are MBR or nothing.  When I manually installed grub legacy it
> failed because I had stupidly allowed CentOS to use ext4, and the
> build of Grub I had laying around didn't grok ext4.
>
> So I re-do the whole net install again using ext3 instead.
>
> Now, after manually installing Grub legacy in the CentOS 7 partition,
> it boots up.
>
The main problem (imnho) is that you think CentOS cares about
configurability/multiple ways of doing things. They do not. They have
their packages and their way of doing things, following TUV so that the
distro is easily supportable. When installing, you just have to keep
clicking next like a robot.
> I'm more convinced than ever that Gentoo is the way to go for my
> "real" systems...
>
Definitely agree; any systems that I spend a substantial amount of time
using run Gentoo. Nothing else is equal. I mostly run it on my home
server because I want it to Just Work (tm) without any work on my part.
It also prevents me from playing around too much with USE and other
things, which is another bonus as I get more work done ;)

Alec


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread

* [gentoo-user] Re: [OT] Six non-Gentoo installs
  2014-10-14 22:36 [gentoo-user] [OT] Six non-Gentoo installs Grant Edwards
  2014-10-15  0:17 ` Alec Ten Harmsel
@ 2014-10-15  1:08 ` James
  2014-10-15  2:43   ` Grant Edwards
  2014-10-16 14:21 ` [gentoo-user] " Tom H
  2 siblings, 1 reply; 11+ messages in thread
From: James @ 2014-10-15  1:08 UTC (permalink / raw
  To: gentoo-user

Grant Edwards <grant.b.edwards <at> gmail.com> writes:


> In order to do some software testing (having mostly to do with
> different init systems), I installed 6 distros yesterday and this
> morning (I already had both 32 and 64 bit Gentoo/Openrc systems
> installed).  

> I'm more convinced than ever that Gentoo is the way to go for my
> "real" systems...

You might find this page interesting, if You have not seen it before:

http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Comparison_of_init_systems


James







^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread

* [gentoo-user] Re: [OT] Six non-Gentoo installs
  2014-10-15  0:17 ` Alec Ten Harmsel
@ 2014-10-15  2:39   ` Grant Edwards
  2014-10-15  3:14     ` Rich Freeman
  2014-10-15  3:47     ` Alec Ten Harmsel
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: Grant Edwards @ 2014-10-15  2:39 UTC (permalink / raw
  To: gentoo-user

On 2014-10-15, Alec Ten Harmsel <alec@alectenharmsel.com> wrote:

> The main problem (imnho) is that you think CentOS cares about
> configurability/multiple ways of doing things.

Oh, I don't think that -- it's pretty obvious that in the RedHat
world, choice is not an option.  It's one prix fixe menu, and you can
either eat what's set in front of you or go hungry.

> They do not. They have their packages and their way of doing things,
> following TUV so that the distro is easily supportable. When
> installing, you just have to keep clicking next like a robot.

>> I'm more convinced than ever that Gentoo is the way to go for my
>> "real" systems...
>
> Definitely agree; any systems that I spend a substantial amount of time
> using run Gentoo. Nothing else is equal. I mostly run it on my home
> server because I want it to Just Work (tm) without any work on my part.
> It also prevents me from playing around too much with USE and other
> things, which is another bonus as I get more work done ;)

And you avoid being forced every couple years to choose between a
major version upgrade (which invariably turns into to a minor
disaster) or reinstall from scratch (which usually turns out a little
better, but requires that normal work stop for several days).

-- 
Grant



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread

* [gentoo-user] Re: [OT] Six non-Gentoo installs
  2014-10-15  1:08 ` James
@ 2014-10-15  2:43   ` Grant Edwards
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: Grant Edwards @ 2014-10-15  2:43 UTC (permalink / raw
  To: gentoo-user

On 2014-10-15, James <wireless@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
> Grant Edwards <grant.b.edwards <at> gmail.com> writes:
>
>
>> In order to do some software testing (having mostly to do with
>> different init systems), I installed 6 distros yesterday and this
>> morning (I already had both 32 and 64 bit Gentoo/Openrc systems
>> installed).  
>
>> I'm more convinced than ever that Gentoo is the way to go for my
>> "real" systems...
>
> You might find this page interesting, if You have not seen it before:
>
> http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Comparison_of_init_systems

No, I hadn't.  For the immediate future, it looks like I'm going to
have to support upstart, systemd, openrc and "generic sys V init".  A
lot of distros manage to maintain some level of backwards
compatibility with sys V init scripts, but that level seems to be
falling.

-- 
Grant



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread

* Re: [gentoo-user] Re: [OT] Six non-Gentoo installs
  2014-10-15  2:39   ` [gentoo-user] " Grant Edwards
@ 2014-10-15  3:14     ` Rich Freeman
  2014-10-15 12:14       ` thegeezer
  2014-10-15 14:37       ` Grant Edwards
  2014-10-15  3:47     ` Alec Ten Harmsel
  1 sibling, 2 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: Rich Freeman @ 2014-10-15  3:14 UTC (permalink / raw
  To: gentoo-user

On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 10:39 PM, Grant Edwards
<grant.b.edwards@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2014-10-15, Alec Ten Harmsel <alec@alectenharmsel.com> wrote:
>
>> The main problem (imnho) is that you think CentOS cares about
>> configurability/multiple ways of doing things.
>
> Oh, I don't think that -- it's pretty obvious that in the RedHat
> world, choice is not an option.  It's one prix fixe menu, and you can
> either eat what's set in front of you or go hungry.
>

I can see the potential benefits of that.  It sounds a bit like the
whole convention over configuration approach.  As long as the
convention works, it does greatly simplify things.

One thing I do like is the trend towards putting default configs in
/usr and using /etc more for overrides.  If everything went that way
(and we stuck stuff like /var/lib/portage/world in /etc) then you
could have an /etc with 20 short files in it that reflected all the
tweaking you did to a system from a generic install.  Sure, I love
config protection and etc-keeper and the like, but I'd like it still
better if etc wasn't such a mix.

I'd really love it if I could dump 20 files in /etc and run emerge
-uDNv world and end up with a system identical to the one those 20
files were copied from.

--
Rich


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread

* Re: [gentoo-user] Re: [OT] Six non-Gentoo installs
  2014-10-15  2:39   ` [gentoo-user] " Grant Edwards
  2014-10-15  3:14     ` Rich Freeman
@ 2014-10-15  3:47     ` Alec Ten Harmsel
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: Alec Ten Harmsel @ 2014-10-15  3:47 UTC (permalink / raw
  To: gentoo-user


On 10/14/2014 10:39 PM, Grant Edwards wrote:
> On 2014-10-15, Alec Ten Harmsel <alec@alectenharmsel.com> wrote:
>
>> The main problem (imnho) is that you think CentOS cares about
>> configurability/multiple ways of doing things.
> Oh, I don't think that -- it's pretty obvious that in the RedHat
> world, choice is not an option.  It's one prix fixe menu, and you can
> either eat what's set in front of you or go hungry.

Wasn't trying to talk down to you; you were just trying something
"exotic". But yeah, it's the RedHat way or the highway which, as Rich
mentioned, is great if you're looking for consistency and a support
contract.

Alec


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread

* Re: [gentoo-user] Re: [OT] Six non-Gentoo installs
  2014-10-15  3:14     ` Rich Freeman
@ 2014-10-15 12:14       ` thegeezer
  2014-10-15 19:54         ` Rich Freeman
  2014-10-15 14:37       ` Grant Edwards
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 11+ messages in thread
From: thegeezer @ 2014-10-15 12:14 UTC (permalink / raw
  To: gentoo-user

On 15/10/14 04:14, Rich Freeman wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 10:39 PM, Grant Edwards
> <grant.b.edwards@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 2014-10-15, Alec Ten Harmsel <alec@alectenharmsel.com> wrote:
>>
>>> The main problem (imnho) is that you think CentOS cares about
>>> configurability/multiple ways of doing things.
>> Oh, I don't think that -- it's pretty obvious that in the RedHat
>> world, choice is not an option.  It's one prix fixe menu, and you can
>> either eat what's set in front of you or go hungry.
>>
> I can see the potential benefits of that.  It sounds a bit like the
> whole convention over configuration approach.  As long as the
> convention works, it does greatly simplify things.
>
> One thing I do like is the trend towards putting default configs in
> /usr and using /etc more for overrides.  

you should have a look at unionfs or aufs -- what you can do is have an
initram that mounts /etc from lvm-stock-etc and then unionfs with
lvm-custom-etc
this allows you to have a standard lvm layout everywhere and then only
need to rsync the lvm-custom partitions
if you are feeling really fruity could use network locations for the
stock locations and an sd card or small storage for the custom partition

> If everything went that way
> (and we stuck stuff like /var/lib/portage/world in /etc) then you
> could have an /etc with 20 short files in it that reflected all the
> tweaking you did to a system from a generic install.  Sure, I love
> config protection and etc-keeper and the like, but I'd like it still
> better if etc wasn't such a mix.
>
> I'd really love it if I could dump 20 files in /etc and run emerge
> -uDNv world and end up with a system identical to the one those 20
> files were copied from.
>
> --
> Rich
>



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread

* [gentoo-user] Re: [OT] Six non-Gentoo installs
  2014-10-15  3:14     ` Rich Freeman
  2014-10-15 12:14       ` thegeezer
@ 2014-10-15 14:37       ` Grant Edwards
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: Grant Edwards @ 2014-10-15 14:37 UTC (permalink / raw
  To: gentoo-user

On 2014-10-15, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 10:39 PM, Grant Edwards
><grant.b.edwards@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 2014-10-15, Alec Ten Harmsel <alec@alectenharmsel.com> wrote:
>>
>>> The main problem (imnho) is that you think CentOS cares about
>>> configurability/multiple ways of doing things.
>>
>> Oh, I don't think that -- it's pretty obvious that in the RedHat
>> world, choice is not an option.  It's one prix fixe menu, and you can
>> either eat what's set in front of you or go hungry.
>
> I can see the potential benefits of that.  It sounds a bit like the
> whole convention over configuration approach.  As long as the
> convention works, it does greatly simplify things.

The main benefit is it makes the support scripts far simpler to write.
The sooner you can get to "I'm sorry, that's not supported", the
sooner you can hang up and "handle" the next customer.

-- 
Grant Edwards               grant.b.edwards        Yow! Did you move a lot of
                                  at               KOREAN STEAK KNIVES this
                              gmail.com            trip, Dingy?



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread

* Re: [gentoo-user] Re: [OT] Six non-Gentoo installs
  2014-10-15 12:14       ` thegeezer
@ 2014-10-15 19:54         ` Rich Freeman
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: Rich Freeman @ 2014-10-15 19:54 UTC (permalink / raw
  To: gentoo-user

On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 8:14 AM, thegeezer <thegeezer@thegeezer.net> wrote:
> On 15/10/14 04:14, Rich Freeman wrote:
>>
>> One thing I do like is the trend towards putting default configs in
>> /usr and using /etc more for overrides.
>
> you should have a look at unionfs or aufs -- what you can do is have an
> initram that mounts /etc from lvm-stock-etc and then unionfs with
> lvm-custom-etc
> this allows you to have a standard lvm layout everywhere and then only
> need to rsync the lvm-custom partitions
> if you are feeling really fruity could use network locations for the
> stock locations and an sd card or small storage for the custom partition

That could potentially work, but it has some problems:

1.  Updates will get applied to the unionfs, so it will gather
untouched files over time.  That is, unless you unmount the unionfs
before doing updates (which could be difficult if the system is
otherwise operational).
2.  If you modify one line in a file in /etc, the entire file with the
modification will be present in the unionfs.

Using the split /usr - /etc approach usually requires application
support as both configuration files need to be sourced, with specific
settings in /etc overriding those in /usr, but any unmodified settings
being taken from /usr.  Many (most?) packages do not support this.

--
Rich


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread

* Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Six non-Gentoo installs
  2014-10-14 22:36 [gentoo-user] [OT] Six non-Gentoo installs Grant Edwards
  2014-10-15  0:17 ` Alec Ten Harmsel
  2014-10-15  1:08 ` James
@ 2014-10-16 14:21 ` Tom H
  2 siblings, 0 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: Tom H @ 2014-10-16 14:21 UTC (permalink / raw
  To: Gentoo User

On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 6:36 PM, Grant Edwards
<grant.b.edwards@gmail.com> wrote:


> CentOS 7.0, however, was a mess.
>
> It took three attempts and almost an entire day of work.
>
> My first attempt was to use the "minimal" ISO image so that I would
> have the option of burning a CD if needed (I can't burn DVDs at the
> moment). That was a mistake. It was too minimal, and I couldn't get
> the network working to the point where I could configure repositories
> and install other stuff. Since the CentOS 7 ISO images all boot from
> USB flash drive anyway, staying under the 700MB CD size limit was moot
> anyway.
>
> Next I tried the net install ISO. I'm guessing I could have burned
> the DVD image to USB drive, but all I want is a minimal desktop
> system, so I figured why wait for a download of 3.5GB of stuff I don't
> care about.
>
> It still didn't recognize the NVidia Ethernet controller on my
> 5-year-old motherboard. After some cable swapping and futzing around,
> I got the netinstall going using the Realtek NIC.
>
> Maybe I just got unlucky and picked a slow mirror site, but once I got
> the install going, it ran for over 3 hours when installing a vanilla
> Gnome desktop system. Compare that with a 15 minute download time for
> a 700MB Xubuntu CD and then a 15 minute install.

AFAIK, the netinstall isn't really meant to be used over the net but
with a local mirror.


> CentOS 7 refused to install the bootloader in a partition: your only
> choices are MBR or nothing. When I manually installed grub legacy it
> failed because I had stupidly allowed CentOS to use ext4, and the
> build of Grub I had laying around didn't grok ext4.
>
> So I re-do the whole net install again using ext3 instead.
>
> Now, after manually installing Grub legacy in the CentOS 7 partition,
> it boots up.

The Anaconda developers have the same design philosophy as the Gnome
developers: fewer options, fewer options, fewer options, fewer
options, ...

In this particular case, they're just following the grub developers'
dislike of block lists; and the ext4 maintainer's described them as
emotionally insecure because of that.


> CentOS still doesn't recognize the NVidia motherboard Ethernet
> controller. After Google finds me a pages full of links to other
> people complaining about the exact same thing, I find out RedHat
> decided that the NVidia forcedeth driver wasn't widely used enough to
> deserve inclusion on an ISO image that was already 360+ MB. Thanks
> for that, RedHat. So it takes another 45 minutes of faffing around
> finding a third party src.rpm file for the forcedeth module and
> installing it. [It was either that or build a kernel and initrd.]

For future reference, elrepo.org is the best repo for RHEL issues like this one.

For RH, dropping forcedeth means cutting its support costs.


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread

end of thread, other threads:[~2014-10-16 14:21 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 11+ messages (download: mbox.gz follow: Atom feed
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2014-10-14 22:36 [gentoo-user] [OT] Six non-Gentoo installs Grant Edwards
2014-10-15  0:17 ` Alec Ten Harmsel
2014-10-15  2:39   ` [gentoo-user] " Grant Edwards
2014-10-15  3:14     ` Rich Freeman
2014-10-15 12:14       ` thegeezer
2014-10-15 19:54         ` Rich Freeman
2014-10-15 14:37       ` Grant Edwards
2014-10-15  3:47     ` Alec Ten Harmsel
2014-10-15  1:08 ` James
2014-10-15  2:43   ` Grant Edwards
2014-10-16 14:21 ` [gentoo-user] " Tom H

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