[gentoo-user] OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[gentoo-user] OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Dale]

Howdy,

I finally got through with my backup restore.  I had shutdown the NAS
box with Ubuntu on it since I was done with it.  I wanted to do some
updates and check some other stuff, still learning how Ubuntu works, so
I rebooted it.  I didn't hook up the drives with my backups on them
since I don't need them to update and such.  The network not only
doesn't come up, it is just plain dead.  The LEDs on the card are out,
the router shows no connection either, not even as inactive.  I did a
LOT of searching.  Found others with similar problems but nothing
helped.  I found one thread that was recent and exactly my problem.  It
appears that after some attempts to figure it out, the guru trying to
help ran out of ideas.  I'll post a link below.  [1]  It's kinda hard to
post info since I have no way to get it from the NAS box to my main rig
since the network isn't working.  That said, when I run lshw -C network,
it shows it as being disabled.  It looks just like the thread linked below.

Since this is a built in network port and there is a history of issues
with those things with me, I installed a PCIe network card.  It shows up
the same way, disabled.  I rebooted the router just in case.  I also
checked the BIOS to be sure it was enabled there, some glitch or
something could have disabled it.  It shows up as enabled.  I checked
the cable but then I thought of a way to rule out hardware.  I booted a
Knoppix system that I have on the Ventoy USB stick.  I still love that
thing.  :-D  The network came up and worked just fine without me doing a
single thing.  I tried another image, can't recall which, and the
network worked in it too.  I then said to heck with it, pulled out a
spare hard drive and put it in place of the current drive with Ubuntu on
it.  I then tried to install Debian.  Guess what, the network doesn't
work with it either.  So, boot from USB image, network works.  Boot from
a hard drive, network dead. 

Since the Ubuntu forums are no help, searching didn't help, my last
resort is to ask here, on a Gentoo forum.  :/  I figure there may be a
few people here that use Ubuntu on some system and are familiar with
this.  Given it works on Knoppix and such, it has to be something
related to Ubuntu and I guess Debian as well.  I downloaded both those
images a while back.  My first instinct, the updates broke something. 
What's odd, it doesn't work with the USB Debian/Ubuntu images either and
it worked fine before when I installed from it. 

Anyone here have ideas?  Keep in mind, that thing uses systemd.  I
thought I hated that before.  I truly hate that thing now.  Trying to
figure out how to restart something is like pulling teeth with no pain
meds.  Heck, I have to google just to find out what the name of the
service is because most make no sense.  Still, I'd like to get it
working.  If not, the 770T may end up with Gentoo yet.

[1]  https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2483647

Thanks.

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Wols Lists]

On 16/10/2023 08:51, Dale wrote:
> Anyone here have ideas?  Keep in mind, that thing uses systemd.  I 
> thought I hated that before.  I truly hate that thing now.  Trying to 
> figure out how to restart something is like pulling teeth with no pain 
> meds.

systemctl restart servicename?

I like systemd, but given my battles with other stuff, I feel your pain. 
Having had to WRITE a service file, though, oh I'm so glad I wasn't 
messing with SystemV or stuff like that!

Just be warned - I feel about apt stuff just like you feel about systemd ...


But anyways. Does your hard disk kernel have the appropriate module for 
the network card loaded? I can't remember the name of the systemd 
networking service, but did you "systemctl enable" it?

Oh, and I think it fires up DHCP by default so you don;'t need to enable 
any of that stuff.

Hopefully those tips will get you somewhere - this is what I remember 
from enabling systemd on gentoo...

Cheers,
Wol

Re: [gentoo-user] OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Dale]

Wols Lists wrote:
> On 16/10/2023 08:51, Dale wrote:
>> Anyone here have ideas?  Keep in mind, that thing uses systemd.  I
>> thought I hated that before.  I truly hate that thing now.  Trying to
>> figure out how to restart something is like pulling teeth with no
>> pain meds.
>
> systemctl restart servicename?
>
> I like systemd, but given my battles with other stuff, I feel your
> pain. Having had to WRITE a service file, though, oh I'm so glad I
> wasn't messing with SystemV or stuff like that!
>
> Just be warned - I feel about apt stuff just like you feel about
> systemd ...
>
>
> But anyways. Does your hard disk kernel have the appropriate module
> for the network card loaded? I can't remember the name of the systemd
> networking service, but did you "systemctl enable" it?
>
> Oh, and I think it fires up DHCP by default so you don;'t need to
> enable any of that stuff.
>
> Hopefully those tips will get you somewhere - this is what I remember
> from enabling systemd on gentoo...
>
> Cheers,
> Wol
>
>

I tried to restart a couple things I found during my searches but most
of them no longer exist.  It seems they change names pretty often.  I've
tried to find anything that looks like network to restart but I can't
tell what is what.  I found out it has netplan installed.  I tried a few
things with it but thing is, since it shows as disabled, there's no
device to restart or even start to begin with. 

I looked, the modules are loaded.  I checked both cards and they are
there.  I used lspci -k to get the module names and then lsmod and grep
to see if they listed as loaded.

To be honest, the network has worked fine ever since the install.  Heck,
for a while, the NAS box didn't even have a monitor or keyboard.  I just
power it up, wait a little while, ssh in from my main rig.  From there I
could do anything I needed to.  This time, I had to drag out the monitor
and keyboard to see what is going on. 

I'm kinda stuck.  Since it doesn't work when booting the USB install
image, I can't even just reinstall and start over.  This is plenty odd. 

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Tsukasa Mcp_Reznor]

Well, you're probably gonna have to spam us some more info.

On the working knoppix boot, spam lspci showing what driver is loaded.  then spam it on ubuntu to verify if it's loaded there as well.

dmesg for the relevant parts on both would also help.

I'd make sure ubuntu has linux-firmware installed, could simply be failing if it's missing.

ifconfig could show if it is loaded and just doesn't have an ip assigned, if the mac address says 00:00:00:00:00 that'd be a different problem.

I've used ubuntu quite a bit, mostly it's just fancy wrappers to simplify things that usually work, only real problems I've had are things always being behind which made out of tree packages need lots of other things manually updated which gets annoying pretty fast when those then need updated.  Adding sources that hopefully get updated is much better than trying to manually compile, so try to keep that in mind.

Maybe try a live ubuntu of a different version could help.

________________________________________
From: Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, October 16, 2023 4:28 AM
To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org
Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

Wols Lists wrote:
> On 16/10/2023 08:51, Dale wrote:
>> Anyone here have ideas?  Keep in mind, that thing uses systemd.  I
>> thought I hated that before.  I truly hate that thing now.  Trying to
>> figure out how to restart something is like pulling teeth with no
>> pain meds.
>
> systemctl restart servicename?
>
> I like systemd, but given my battles with other stuff, I feel your
> pain. Having had to WRITE a service file, though, oh I'm so glad I
> wasn't messing with SystemV or stuff like that!
>
> Just be warned - I feel about apt stuff just like you feel about
> systemd ...
>
>
> But anyways. Does your hard disk kernel have the appropriate module
> for the network card loaded? I can't remember the name of the systemd
> networking service, but did you "systemctl enable" it?
>
> Oh, and I think it fires up DHCP by default so you don;'t need to
> enable any of that stuff.
>
> Hopefully those tips will get you somewhere - this is what I remember
> from enabling systemd on gentoo...
>
> Cheers,
> Wol
>
>

I tried to restart a couple things I found during my searches but most
of them no longer exist.  It seems they change names pretty often.  I've
tried to find anything that looks like network to restart but I can't
tell what is what.  I found out it has netplan installed.  I tried a few
things with it but thing is, since it shows as disabled, there's no
device to restart or even start to begin with.

I looked, the modules are loaded.  I checked both cards and they are
there.  I used lspci -k to get the module names and then lsmod and grep
to see if they listed as loaded.

To be honest, the network has worked fine ever since the install.  Heck,
for a while, the NAS box didn't even have a monitor or keyboard.  I just
power it up, wait a little while, ssh in from my main rig.  From there I
could do anything I needed to.  This time, I had to drag out the monitor
and keyboard to see what is going on.

I'm kinda stuck.  Since it doesn't work when booting the USB install
image, I can't even just reinstall and start over.  This is plenty odd.

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Michael]

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On Monday, 16 October 2023 10:15:03 BST Tsukasa Mcp_Reznor wrote:
> Well, you're probably gonna have to spam us some more info.
> 
> On the working knoppix boot, spam lspci showing what driver is loaded.  then
> spam it on ubuntu to verify if it's loaded there as well.
> 
> dmesg for the relevant parts on both would also help.
> 
> I'd make sure ubuntu has linux-firmware installed, could simply be failing
> if it's missing.
> 
> ifconfig could show if it is loaded and just doesn't have an ip assigned, if
> the mac address says 00:00:00:00:00 that'd be a different problem.
[snip ...]

From what I recall Ubuntu has been chopping & changing its network scripts on 
a regular basis.  So in the first instance check what you're running on this 
system:

systemctl status systemd-networkd

or 

systemctl status NetworkManager 

I think the server version does not have NetworkManager and as your thread 
says, netplan is now (since early 2023?) used to configure the network 
connections:

netplan status

If netplan is running with renderer networkd, check the contents of your /etc/
netplan/01-netcfg.yaml, which you list your ethernet NIC and include "dhcp4: 
yes", then run:

sudo netplan generate
sudo netplan apply

You may have to also restart networkd service:

sudo systemctl restart systemd-networkd

If the above does not work, you'll need to fish for error messages in dmesg 
and by running journalctl.

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Re: [gentoo-user] OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Dale]

Michael wrote:
> On Monday, 16 October 2023 10:15:03 BST Tsukasa Mcp_Reznor wrote:
>> Well, you're probably gonna have to spam us some more info.
>>
>> On the working knoppix boot, spam lspci showing what driver is loaded.  then
>> spam it on ubuntu to verify if it's loaded there as well.
>>
>> dmesg for the relevant parts on both would also help.
>>
>> I'd make sure ubuntu has linux-firmware installed, could simply be failing
>> if it's missing.
>>
>> ifconfig could show if it is loaded and just doesn't have an ip assigned, if
>> the mac address says 00:00:00:00:00 that'd be a different problem.
> [snip ...]
>
> >From what I recall Ubuntu has been chopping & changing its network scripts on 
> a regular basis.  So in the first instance check what you're running on this 
> system:
>
> systemctl status systemd-networkd
>
> or 
>
> systemctl status NetworkManager 
>
> I think the server version does not have NetworkManager and as your thread 
> says, netplan is now (since early 2023?) used to configure the network 
> connections:
>
> netplan status
>
> If netplan is running with renderer networkd, check the contents of your /etc/
> netplan/01-netcfg.yaml, which you list your ethernet NIC and include "dhcp4: 
> yes", then run:
>
> sudo netplan generate
> sudo netplan apply
>
> You may have to also restart networkd service:
>
> sudo systemctl restart systemd-networkd
>
> If the above does not work, you'll need to fish for error messages in dmesg 
> and by running journalctl.


This is the problem.  The only place it shows up is where it shows it is
disabled.  I can't get a status or anything of it anywhere else because
it doesn't exist.  I didn't see anything in dmesg, since it doesn't
exist, nor can I check it with netplan, again, since it doesn't exist. 
At that point, it's as if the network isn't even there at all as
hardware.  I did look in the netplan config file, it looks just like
what others have posted except that since it finds no network card, it
lists no device as being found.  I did remember and had installed
ifconfig.  It showed nothing but the lo network.  Nothing else.

Here's another interesting point.  Before I went to take a nap, I
shutdown the rig.  Just a normal shutdown.  After I read the replies
here, I booted the machine back up.  Guess what, the network is working
again.  So, now I can login and copy and paste some info.  Here goes.


root@nas:~# cat /etc/netplan/00-installer-config.yaml
# This is the network config written by 'subiquity'
network:
  ethernets:
    enp3s0:
      dhcp4: true
  version: 2
root@nas:~#


I don't recall the enp3s0 being listed when it was not working.  I
assume it gets added when it detects it during the boot process.  The
rest looks the same.

This is from dmesg, using grep to narrow the info down a bit. 


root@nas:~# dmesg | grep enp3
[    2.603140] r8169 0000:03:00.0 enp3s0: renamed from eth0
[  103.795108] r8169 0000:03:00.0 enp3s0: Link is Down
[  106.016319] r8169 0000:03:00.0 enp3s0: Link is Up - 1Gbps/Full - flow
control rx/tx
[  106.016353] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): enp3s0: link becomes ready
root@nas:~#


When I looked for that before, it returned nothing.  I even dropped down
to only looking for 'enp' to see if it saw either card since I installed
a PCIe card.  It didn't.  I didn't know you could run 'netplan status'
and not specify a device so I never ran that.  I'll try to remember that
because I suspect this could happen again.  I guess that is like ifconfig. 

Mark, the command nmcli you listed isn't installed on this machine as it
uses netplan.  It seems netplan is new so maybe it is a little buggy
right now.  I read that if I have netplan, I shouldn't install other
network managers, tools like ifconfig to see things is OK but don't use
those to "manage" the network.  The use of two network managers can and
likely will cause a clash.  That said, I do have ip and route
installed.  Given it is working now, well, no need posting the working
results.  ;-)  Since Michael mentioned that netplan is new, that
explains why I wasn't getting many hits when searching.  It's new. 
There likely isn't many hits to find when searching, yet. 

Anyway, at the moment it is working but given this development, I may
install Gentoo when I get a chance.  I need something that I can work
with when it isn't working.  If nothing else, I need to be able to get
info so I can get help.  Heck, when it didn't work, I didn't even know
what tool it used to manage the network at all.  It took me hours just
to find that out.  Add in the systemd thingy, I'm not real pleased.  I
do like that it only takes a few minutes to install, update and such
tho.  Plus, I may be able to get the encryption stuff to work better. 
I'll be making my own kernel. 

Thanks for the help.  I suspect it just may stop working again tho.  I'm
not to trusting.

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Mon, 16 Oct 2023 11:56:27 -0500, Dale wrote:

> This is the problem.  The only place it shows up is where it shows it is
> disabled.  I can't get a status or anything of it anywhere else because
> it doesn't exist.  I didn't see anything in dmesg, since it doesn't
> exist, nor can I check it with netplan, again, since it doesn't exist. 

Try "journalctl -b -p err". If that doesn't help, try "journalctl -b" but
that will have a lot of info.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Walk softly and carry a fully charged phazer.

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Re: [gentoo-user] OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Mark Knecht]

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On Mon, Oct 16, 2023 at 9:56 AM Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:
<SNIP>
> Mark, the command nmcli you listed isn't installed on this machine as it
> uses netplan.  It seems netplan is new so maybe it is a little buggy
> right now.  I read that if I have netplan, I shouldn't install other
> network managers, tools like ifconfig to see things is OK but don't use
> those to "manage" the network.  The use of two network managers can and
> likely will cause a clash.  That said, I do have ip and route
> installed.  Given it is working now, well, no need posting the working
> results.  ;-)  Since Michael mentioned that netplan is new, that
> explains why I wasn't getting many hits when searching.  It's new.
> There likely isn't many hits to find when searching, yet.
<SNIP>

netplan isn't new. It's been in Ubuntu since 16.04 LTS which was
2015. What is new is making it the default way of handling
networks. I don't find it buggy and I don't know why you cannot find
help in Google. I'm finding 100's of things to look at without going
to 'Ask Ubuntu'

netplan status is nice because it shows who rendered a network
whether netplan did it or not.

It is possible to have multiple renderers on the machine but you
do have to configure things so they don't collide. I do not
recommend you do anything like that.

For my Kubuntu desktops I actually use System Settings to
set fixed ip addresses but I do agree that cli configuration
for Ubuntu Server can be confusing. However, complaining
about systemd in this day and age seems pointless. It's here
and it isn't going away.

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Re: [gentoo-user] OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Dale]

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Mark Knecht wrote:
>
>
> On Mon, Oct 16, 2023 at 9:56 AM Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com
> <mailto:rdalek1967@gmail.com>> wrote:
> <SNIP>
> > Mark, the command nmcli you listed isn't installed on this machine as it
> > uses netplan.  It seems netplan is new so maybe it is a little buggy
> > right now.  I read that if I have netplan, I shouldn't install other
> > network managers, tools like ifconfig to see things is OK but don't use
> > those to "manage" the network.  The use of two network managers can and
> > likely will cause a clash.  That said, I do have ip and route
> > installed.  Given it is working now, well, no need posting the working
> > results.  ;-)  Since Michael mentioned that netplan is new, that
> > explains why I wasn't getting many hits when searching.  It's new.
> > There likely isn't many hits to find when searching, yet.
> <SNIP>
>
> netplan isn't new. It's been in Ubuntu since 16.04 LTS which was 
> 2015. What is new is making it the default way of handling 
> networks. I don't find it buggy and I don't know why you cannot find
> help in Google. I'm finding 100's of things to look at without going
> to 'Ask Ubuntu' 
>
> netplan status is nice because it shows who rendered a network
> whether netplan did it or not.
>
> It is possible to have multiple renderers on the machine but you 
> do have to configure things so they don't collide. I do not 
> recommend you do anything like that.
>
> For my Kubuntu desktops I actually use System Settings to 
> set fixed ip addresses but I do agree that cli configuration
> for Ubuntu Server can be confusing. However, complaining 
> about systemd in this day and age seems pointless. It's here
> and it isn't going away.


When I was searching for the problem I was having, I think I only found
one or two that mentioned netplan.  The rest were about other older
tools that I didn't have installed.  The bad thing, without a network, I
couldn't install anything.  Since I couldn't find info on what tools I
did have, I asked here. 

I still recall when systemd first started.  There was and likely still
is a lot of people who don't like, even if they're forced to use it.  I
did read up on it some.  To me, it sound like a mess.  Having had to
deal with it first hand, it's worse.  I'm not putting my true feelings
on it on the internet.  Let's just say I don't like it.  It comes close
to hal.  Older users of this list might remember that.  I got trees and
ropes, at the time, I just needed the dev that created hal.  When that
thing died, the only thing that could have made me happier, winning a
massive lottery and/or someone finding a cure for cancer. 

While I'm sure systemd is here to stay, I still have options.  I'm
seriously thinking of installing Gentoo on that thing.  At least then if
it breaks, I can post a thread that isn't off topic. o_O  I also just
put a pretty large CPU cooler on that thing.  Should compile without so
much as a mild fever. 

I'm going to boot it up here shortly.  Just to see if the network
works.  If not, I'm 100% sure Gentoo is coming quick.  All I have to do
is swap to a different drive. 

Neil, I tired that command journalctl but not sure about the options. 
It either returned a lot or nothing related.  I'll make note of the
systemctl command.  If Ubuntu survives, I may need it one day.  ;-) 
That's a big if tho. 

Thanks to all for the help. 

Dale

:-)  :-) 

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Re: [gentoo-user] OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Mon, 16 Oct 2023 19:34:09 -0500, Dale wrote:

> While I'm sure systemd is here to stay, I still have options.  I'm
> seriously thinking of installing Gentoo on that thing.  At least then if
> it breaks, I can post a thread that isn't off topic. o_O  I also just
> put a pretty large CPU cooler on that thing.  Should compile without so
> much as a mild fever.

You could have compiled the whole system several times over in the time
you've been trying to fix this. Even when you do fix it, you'll still
have an unfamiliar experience. Sticking with what you know is often best,
unless you treat it as a learning experience.

> Neil, I tired that command journalctl but not sure about the options. 
> It either returned a lot or nothing related.  I'll make note of the
> systemctl command.  If Ubuntu survives, I may need it one day.  ;-) 

If it returned nothing with  -p err, nothing logged an error since the
last boot, which is odd considering something is broken. without -p err,
you get everything from the system log, it's like doing "cat
/var/log/messages" but only since the last reboot. You could pipe that
through grep, searching for the name of your network interface.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Snacktrek, n.:
 The peculiar habit, when searching for a snack, of constantly
 returning to the refrigerator in hopes that something new will have
 materialized.

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Re: [gentoo-user] OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Dale]

Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Mon, 16 Oct 2023 19:34:09 -0500, Dale wrote:
>
>> While I'm sure systemd is here to stay, I still have options.  I'm
>> seriously thinking of installing Gentoo on that thing.  At least then if
>> it breaks, I can post a thread that isn't off topic. o_O  I also just
>> put a pretty large CPU cooler on that thing.  Should compile without so
>> much as a mild fever.
> You could have compiled the whole system several times over in the time
> you've been trying to fix this. Even when you do fix it, you'll still
> have an unfamiliar experience. Sticking with what you know is often best,
> unless you treat it as a learning experience.
>

Well, the 770T now has Gentoo on it.  As usual, my fresh built kernel
booted the very first time without error and every thing worked. 
Sometimes, things go right.  ROFL  I have to say tho, I wish they would
split the install docs into two parts.  One for old BIOS and one for the
efi thingy.  It was confusing in a couple places but I got there.  Maybe
some color coding would help???


>> Neil, I tired that command journalctl but not sure about the options. 
>> It either returned a lot or nothing related.  I'll make note of the
>> systemctl command.  If Ubuntu survives, I may need it one day.  ;-) 
> If it returned nothing with  -p err, nothing logged an error since the
> last boot, which is odd considering something is broken. without -p err,
> you get everything from the system log, it's like doing "cat
> /var/log/messages" but only since the last reboot. You could pipe that
> through grep, searching for the name of your network interface.
>
>


Well, I didn't search for err.  I followed some other advice I found
while searching.  It should have found the network device but didn't. 
It's almost like the network was disabled as soon as grub got done.  I
even thought it was disabled in the BIOS somehow but it wasn't when I
checked.  There didn't seem to be any mention of it anywhere except that
one spot that showed it as disabled. It was weird.  I never did find a
solution.  In my case, it just decided to work again.  It is most likely
a bug but given my lack of knowledge on the way Ubuntu works, I have no
idea how to find the root cause. 

Anyway, the thing has Gentoo on it now.  I have not connected my backup
drives yet and mounted them or tried to backup anything.  I got some
fresh stuff to backup as soon as I organize it.  I just got the install
done.  I'll hook the drives up later and do some testing.  Maybe it will
transfer files faster too.  One can hope.

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Mark Knecht]

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On Tue, Oct 17, 2023 at 9:41 AM Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:
<SNIP>
>
> Well, the 770T now has Gentoo on it.  As usual, my fresh built kernel
> booted the very first time without error and every thing worked.
> Sometimes, things go right.  ROFL  I have to say tho, I wish they would
> split the install docs into two parts.  One for old BIOS and one for the
> efi thingy.  It was confusing in a couple places but I got there.  Maybe
> some color coding would help???
>
<SNIP>

Congrats. I hope it goes well.

There are still times I wish I was running Gentoo - the documentation,
camaraderie and deep technical knowledge of the group, but I just
don't have time or patience to iron out issues with applications when
Gentoo isn't a supported distro. Still, for something like a NAS box it
makes sense if everything you run is sour\ce code coming from the
Gentoo code stores.

Cheers,
Mark

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Re: [gentoo-user] OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Dale]

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Mark Knecht wrote:
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 17, 2023 at 9:41 AM Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com
> <mailto:rdalek1967@gmail.com>> wrote:
> <SNIP>
> >
> > Well, the 770T now has Gentoo on it.  As usual, my fresh built kernel
> > booted the very first time without error and every thing worked.
> > Sometimes, things go right.  ROFL  I have to say tho, I wish they would
> > split the install docs into two parts.  One for old BIOS and one for the
> > efi thingy.  It was confusing in a couple places but I got there.  Maybe
> > some color coding would help???
> >
> <SNIP>
>
> Congrats. I hope it goes well.
>
> There are still times I wish I was running Gentoo - the documentation,
> camaraderie and deep technical knowledge of the group, but I just
> don't have time or patience to iron out issues with applications when
> Gentoo isn't a supported distro. Still, for something like a NAS box it
> makes sense if everything you run is sour\ce code coming from the
> Gentoo code stores.
>
> Cheers,
> Mark


It is basically a base system with nfs, encryption and LVM added.  I'm
not adding a whole lot of stuff.  At this point, it is console only.  I
had the same with Ubuntu.  Since I'll remove the monitor and keyboard
later, all I need is to be able to ssh in when it gets booted up.  It
boots fast too.  Ubuntu had a few points where it waited for a while.  A
couple times, it had a two minute wait which makes the boot time pretty
long.  I think the Gentoo install boots in less than a minute.  It might
be more than a minute but if it is, it isn't by much.  I figure if I hit
the power button and wait 3 minutes, it should be booted and giving me
the evil eye for making it wait.  It's a lot faster than Ubuntu.

I did have a small battle with dracut and getting Grub to see both the
kernel and init thingy.  Once I got that sorted, it went fairly easy. 
Oh, I got to remember to add -1 to make.conf too.  I knew I forgot
something. 

I to find Gentoo to be much better documented.  There were places where
the old BIOS and efi info got a little confusing but eventually I
figured it out.  I been trying to think of a way to color code the docs
but I can't figure out a sensible way.  You got BIOS and efi, openrc and
systemd and several other smaller things that one has to decide on and
take different steps.  One would run out of colors or the colors
themselves would get confusing. I can't think of a better way. 

Anyway, back to working on my fuel drums.  I don't have a lot of energy
today so may not finish.  I didn't finish yesterday either. 

Dale

:-)  :-) 

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[gentoo-user] Re: OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Grant Edwards]

On 2023-10-17, Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:

> I to find Gentoo to be much better documented. There were places where
> the old BIOS and efi info got a little confusing but eventually I
> figured it out. I been trying to think of a way to color code the docs
> but I can't figure out a sensible way. You got BIOS and efi, openrc and
> systemd and several other smaller things that one has to decide on and
> take different steps. One would run out of colors or the colors
> themselves would get confusing. I can't think of a better way.

In theory, a wee bit of CSS and Javascript along with some radio
buttons would allow the reader to make a few choices and then see
an installation manual that only shows the relevent sections.

I still miss being able to view the installation manual as a single
HTML page. I find the "chopped up" format difficult to use: I can't
easily search for things, and the bit I'm looking for never seems to
be in the section where I think it's going to be.

--
Grant

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Dale]

Grant Edwards wrote:
> On 2023-10-17, Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I to find Gentoo to be much better documented. There were places where
>> the old BIOS and efi info got a little confusing but eventually I
>> figured it out. I been trying to think of a way to color code the docs
>> but I can't figure out a sensible way. You got BIOS and efi, openrc and
>> systemd and several other smaller things that one has to decide on and
>> take different steps. One would run out of colors or the colors
>> themselves would get confusing. I can't think of a better way.
> In theory, a wee bit of CSS and Javascript along with some radio
> buttons would allow the reader to make a few choices and then see
> an installation manual that only shows the relevent sections.
>
> I still miss being able to view the installation manual as a single
> HTML page. I find the "chopped up" format difficult to use: I can't
> easily search for things, and the bit I'm looking for never seems to
> be in the section where I think it's going to be.
>
> --
> Grant

The question is, do they have those tools available for those pages? 
They might, I have no idea.  That would be a good idea.  That way one
could view the whole thing, just certain parts or whatever.  If they
have a way to select several options, that would be good.  Have one spot
to select BIOS or efi.  Another spot to select openrc and systemd. 
Kinda like they do on sites where they help you build a puter.  Select
CPU is usually first, then mobo, then memory and so on.  That number of
options would help the docs a lot. 

I miss that too.  To be honest, I thought about copying each page and
pasting them into a LOo document.  Then I can print it or just view it
as one page.  I've done things like that for other sites as well.  It
also allows me to edit out things I'll never need.  Make it printer
friendly even if the page isn't. 

I just realized, my new rig will almost certainly be efi.  I kinda dread
that.  At least it is well documented tho.  Should be easy enough.  I
hope.  o_O

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Tue, 17 Oct 2023 13:54:47 -0500, Dale wrote:

> I just realized, my new rig will almost certainly be efi.  I kinda dread
> that.  At least it is well documented tho.  Should be easy enough.  I
> hope.  o_O

EFI is much simpler to work with. for one thing, you don't need the
monster that GRUB has become.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

"Do you reply to our surveys.?"
[X]Never [ ]Always [ ]Sometimes

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Dale]

Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Tue, 17 Oct 2023 13:54:47 -0500, Dale wrote:
>
>> I just realized, my new rig will almost certainly be efi.  I kinda dread
>> that.  At least it is well documented tho.  Should be easy enough.  I
>> hope.  o_O
> EFI is much simpler to work with. for one thing, you don't need the
> monster that GRUB has become.
>
>


While I kinda dread it, it does seem that quite a while ago, it has
become much easier.  I noticed as I went through the install of Gentoo,
there didn't seem to be a lot of stuff to do with efi.  One might could
think it is quicker and simpler as you say.  I recall when it first came
out.  It was complicated but I think most of that was because it was new
and the documentation was not quite there yet.  After all this time tho,
that shouldn't be a problem. 

It's a bridge I'll have to cross tho.  It looks easy enough.  Biggest
thing is partitioning the drive differently.  Gotta remember that.  O_O 

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Tue, 17 Oct 2023 21:50:35 -0500, Dale wrote:

> > EFI is much simpler to work with. for one thing, you don't need the
> > monster that GRUB has become.

> While I kinda dread it, it does seem that quite a while ago, it has
> become much easier.  I noticed as I went through the install of Gentoo,
> there didn't seem to be a lot of stuff to do with efi.  One might could
> think it is quicker and simpler as you say.  I recall when it first came
> out.  It was complicated but I think most of that was because it was new
> and the documentation was not quite there yet.  After all this time tho,
> that shouldn't be a problem. 
> 
> It's a bridge I'll have to cross tho.  It looks easy enough.  Biggest
> thing is partitioning the drive differently.  Gotta remember that.  O_O 

If you usually use a separate partition for /boot, all you need to do
differently is set its partition type to EF00 and format it with FAT
instead of ext2.

Oh, and if you use GPT, you no longer need the MBR compatibility
partition, or whatever its called. I no longer need it so I can't
remember the exact name.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

leep is an excellent way of listening to an opera. - James Stephens
(1882-1950)

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Michael]

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On Wednesday, 18 October 2023 08:36:06 BST Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Tue, 17 Oct 2023 21:50:35 -0500, Dale wrote:
> > > EFI is much simpler to work with. for one thing, you don't need the
> > > monster that GRUB has become.
> > 
> > While I kinda dread it, it does seem that quite a while ago, it has
> > become much easier.  I noticed as I went through the install of Gentoo,
> > there didn't seem to be a lot of stuff to do with efi.  One might could
> > think it is quicker and simpler as you say.  I recall when it first came
> > out.  It was complicated but I think most of that was because it was new
> > and the documentation was not quite there yet.  After all this time tho,
> > that shouldn't be a problem. 
> > 
> > It's a bridge I'll have to cross tho.  It looks easy enough.  Biggest
> > thing is partitioning the drive differently.  Gotta remember that.  O_O 

It is a relatively simple bridge to cross.  Use gdisk to partition the drive, 
which if you've used fdisk before you'll find it quite similar.  If you prefer 
it fdisk will work too, but make sure first you create a GUID Partition Table 
(GPT) and not an MBR table.

You can also use sgdisk to create a 1GB EFI System Partition (type 0xEF00) in 
a single command, as your first partition in an empty disk; e.g.:

sgdisk -n 1:2048:2068470 -t 1:ef00 -c 1:"ESP-Boot" /dev/sda

Then format it:

mkfs.fat -v -F 32 -n ESP /dev/sda1

mount it as mnt/gentoo/boot and 'mkdir /mnt/gentoo/boot/EFI', to store at a 
later stage your kernel/initrd in it, before you continue with the rest of 
your installation.  That's all there is to it.


> If you usually use a separate partition for /boot, all you need to do
> differently is set its partition type to EF00 and format it with FAT
> instead of ext2.
> 
> Oh, and if you use GPT, you no longer need the MBR compatibility
> partition, or whatever its called. I no longer need it so I can't
> remember the exact name.

Man pages of partitioning tools refer to it as "Protective MBR", although I've 
seen it mentioned in the interwebs as "protective GPT", which I think is more 
accurate.  It uses the first sector (LBA 0) to store an MBR table showing the 
whole disk, or 2TB if smaller, as an MBR partition.  This is the first 
partition on the disk, typically 1 MiB in size.  It is meant to stop 20 year 
old partitioning tools from messing up a GPT partitioning scheme because they 
can't see it.  Arguably nobody uses Windows 98 these days, so it should be 
safe to not have a protective MBR on your GPT disks.


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[gentoo-user] Re: OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Grant Edwards]

On 2023-10-18, Michael <confabulate@kintzios.com> wrote:

>> Oh, and if you use GPT, you no longer need the MBR compatibility
>> partition, or whatever its called. I no longer need it so I can't
>> remember the exact name.
>
> Man pages of partitioning tools refer to it as "Protective MBR", although I've 
> seen it mentioned in the interwebs as "protective GPT", which I think is more 
> accurate.  It uses the first sector (LBA 0) to store an MBR table showing the 
> whole disk, or 2TB if smaller, as an MBR partition.  This is the first 
> partition on the disk, typically 1 MiB in size.  It is meant to stop 20 year 
> old partitioning tools from messing up a GPT partitioning scheme because they 
> can't see it.  Arguably nobody uses Windows 98 these days, so it should be 
> safe to not have a protective MBR on your GPT disks.

The protective MBR and the BIOS boot partition are two different,
unrelated things. The BIOS boot partition is a real partition (usually
1-2MB in size) that's present in the GPT parition table. It's used by
Grub as a place to store its files. It must be the first partition,
and it doesn't have a real filesystem (grub uses some sort of private
filesystem):

    $ sudo fdisk -l /dev/nvme0n1
    Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 465.76 GiB, 500107862016 bytes, 976773168 sectors
    Disk model: Samsung SSD 980 PRO 500GB               
    Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
    Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
    I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
    Disklabel type: gpt
    Disk identifier: E81DD16A-A5AE-3C4A-AD3C-26DF2985827A
    
    Device             Start       End   Sectors   Size Type
    /dev/nvme0n1p1      2048      6143      4096     2M BIOS boot
    /dev/nvme0n1p2      6144 134219775 134213632    64G Linux filesystem
    /dev/nvme0n1p3 134219776 976773134 842553359 401.8G Linux filesystem

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Dale]

Grant Edwards wrote:
> On 2023-10-18, Michael <confabulate@kintzios.com> wrote:
>
>>> Oh, and if you use GPT, you no longer need the MBR compatibility
>>> partition, or whatever its called. I no longer need it so I can't
>>> remember the exact name.
>> Man pages of partitioning tools refer to it as "Protective MBR", although I've 
>> seen it mentioned in the interwebs as "protective GPT", which I think is more 
>> accurate.  It uses the first sector (LBA 0) to store an MBR table showing the 
>> whole disk, or 2TB if smaller, as an MBR partition.  This is the first 
>> partition on the disk, typically 1 MiB in size.  It is meant to stop 20 year 
>> old partitioning tools from messing up a GPT partitioning scheme because they 
>> can't see it.  Arguably nobody uses Windows 98 these days, so it should be 
>> safe to not have a protective MBR on your GPT disks.
> The protective MBR and the BIOS boot partition are two different,
> unrelated things. The BIOS boot partition is a real partition (usually
> 1-2MB in size) that's present in the GPT parition table. It's used by
> Grub as a place to store its files. It must be the first partition,
> and it doesn't have a real filesystem (grub uses some sort of private
> filesystem):
>
>     $ sudo fdisk -l /dev/nvme0n1
>     Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 465.76 GiB, 500107862016 bytes, 976773168 sectors
>     Disk model: Samsung SSD 980 PRO 500GB               
>     Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
>     Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
>     I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
>     Disklabel type: gpt
>     Disk identifier: E81DD16A-A5AE-3C4A-AD3C-26DF2985827A
>     
>     Device             Start       End   Sectors   Size Type
>     /dev/nvme0n1p1      2048      6143      4096     2M BIOS boot
>     /dev/nvme0n1p2      6144 134219775 134213632    64G Linux filesystem
>     /dev/nvme0n1p3 134219776 976773134 842553359 401.8G Linux filesystem
>
>
>
>
>


I usually use cgdisk, or cfdisk, but they all do the same thing.  Just a
different interface.  As long as all this is documented, I'll just
follow it and it should work.  After all, efi has been around for a long
while now.  I'm sure millions of people have it installed, likely
billions. 

I do wonder, can one still put things like memtest, Knoppix and such in
that thing?  I'm sure it can be done but never seen it mentioned.  I
started to put it on the old 770T but didn't now that I have that Ventoy
USB thing. 

It's going to be a while before I have to do this.  I still haven't
found a mobo.  Not one I really like anyway. 

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Wed, 18 Oct 2023 12:49:34 -0500, Dale wrote:

> I usually use cgdisk, or cfdisk, but they all do the same thing.  Just a
> different interface.  As long as all this is documented, I'll just
> follow it and it should work.  After all, efi has been around for a long
> while now.  I'm sure millions of people have it installed, likely
> billions. 
> 
> I do wonder, can one still put things like memtest, Knoppix and such in
> that thing?  I'm sure it can be done but never seen it mentioned.  I
> started to put it on the old 770T but didn't now that I have that Ventoy
> USB thing. 

Do you mean booting from the ISO images? That's a GRUB thing, it doesn't
matter how it is loaded, EFI or MBR.

However, being able to do away with GRUB is, to me, a bigger benefit than
not being able to boot ISOs is a drawback. Use either systemd-boot (it
doesn't need systemd) or rEFInd.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

"Of course, I could switch back to Windows. At least there, if I have a
problem, I don't suffer under the illusion that I could ever fix it." -
Unknown (paraphrased)

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Dale]

Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Wed, 18 Oct 2023 12:49:34 -0500, Dale wrote:
>
>> I usually use cgdisk, or cfdisk, but they all do the same thing.  Just a
>> different interface.  As long as all this is documented, I'll just
>> follow it and it should work.  After all, efi has been around for a long
>> while now.  I'm sure millions of people have it installed, likely
>> billions. 
>>
>> I do wonder, can one still put things like memtest, Knoppix and such in
>> that thing?  I'm sure it can be done but never seen it mentioned.  I
>> started to put it on the old 770T but didn't now that I have that Ventoy
>> USB thing. 
> Do you mean booting from the ISO images? That's a GRUB thing, it doesn't
> matter how it is loaded, EFI or MBR.
>
> However, being able to do away with GRUB is, to me, a bigger benefit than
> not being able to boot ISOs is a drawback. Use either systemd-boot (it
> doesn't need systemd) or rEFInd.
>
>


On my main rig, BIOS type, in my /boot I have memtest.  Grub adds a
entry for it.  I guess I could also but Knoppix or something in there as
well.  I was just wondering if that is still a option with efi.  I'd
think it is.  After all, it's like like being able to boot either Linux
or windoze.  Lots of people dual boot and I'm sure efi hasn't changed
that. 

I kinda like grub myself.  Sort of miss the old one but still.  It does
work well even if it does install a lot of kitchen appliances.  ;-) 

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Wed, 18 Oct 2023 18:24:41 -0500, Dale wrote:

> > Do you mean booting from the ISO images? That's a GRUB thing, it
> > doesn't matter how it is loaded, EFI or MBR.
> >
> > However, being able to do away with GRUB is, to me, a bigger benefit
> > than not being able to boot ISOs is a drawback. Use either
> > systemd-boot (it doesn't need systemd) or rEFInd.

> On my main rig, BIOS type, in my /boot I have memtest.  Grub adds a
> entry for it.  I guess I could also but Knoppix or something in there as
> well.  I was just wondering if that is still a option with efi.  I'd
> think it is.  After all, it's like like being able to boot either Linux
> or windoze.  Lots of people dual boot and I'm sure efi hasn't changed
> that. 

Oh yes, you can boot memtest because that's a ramdisk image, it's only
ISOs that are restricted to Grub. Having said that, many live distros can
be booted from any bootloader if you copy the files from the ISO. I
always have SystemRescue in my /boot partition.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Linux users do it without paying a Bill

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Dale]

Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Wed, 18 Oct 2023 18:24:41 -0500, Dale wrote:
>
>>> Do you mean booting from the ISO images? That's a GRUB thing, it
>>> doesn't matter how it is loaded, EFI or MBR.
>>>
>>> However, being able to do away with GRUB is, to me, a bigger benefit
>>> than not being able to boot ISOs is a drawback. Use either
>>> systemd-boot (it doesn't need systemd) or rEFInd.
>> On my main rig, BIOS type, in my /boot I have memtest.  Grub adds a
>> entry for it.  I guess I could also but Knoppix or something in there as
>> well.  I was just wondering if that is still a option with efi.  I'd
>> think it is.  After all, it's like like being able to boot either Linux
>> or windoze.  Lots of people dual boot and I'm sure efi hasn't changed
>> that. 
> Oh yes, you can boot memtest because that's a ramdisk image, it's only
> ISOs that are restricted to Grub. Having said that, many live distros can
> be booted from any bootloader if you copy the files from the ISO. I
> always have SystemRescue in my /boot partition.
>
>


I think it was Frank that posted about Ventoy.  When I was installing
stuff on the 770T, I used that.  I got Knoppix, Ubuntu, Debian, memtest,
a couple Gentoo thing, CRC which I think replaced Systemrescue and
Systemrescue itself.  I really like that thing.  It's awesome. 

Still, when I build the new rig, I'm going to try to make /boot around 6
or 8GBs.  That should be big enough for several images and remain large
enough as they grow. 

Options.  So many options.  lol 

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Michael]

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On Wednesday, 18 October 2023 14:57:51 BST Grant Edwards wrote:
> On 2023-10-18, Michael <confabulate@kintzios.com> wrote:
> >> Oh, and if you use GPT, you no longer need the MBR compatibility
> >> partition, or whatever its called. I no longer need it so I can't
> >> remember the exact name.
> > 
> > Man pages of partitioning tools refer to it as "Protective MBR", although
> > I've seen it mentioned in the interwebs as "protective GPT", which I
> > think is more accurate.  It uses the first sector (LBA 0) to store an MBR
> > table showing the whole disk, or 2TB if smaller, as an MBR partition. 
> > This is the first partition on the disk, typically 1 MiB in size.  It is
> > meant to stop 20 year old partitioning tools from messing up a GPT
> > partitioning scheme because they can't see it.  Arguably nobody uses
> > Windows 98 these days, so it should be safe to not have a protective MBR
> > on your GPT disks.
> 
> The protective MBR and the BIOS boot partition are two different,
> unrelated things. The BIOS boot partition is a real partition (usually
> 1-2MB in size) that's present in the GPT parition table. It's used by
> Grub as a place to store its files.

Yes, this is needed on GPT disks when installed on BIOS MoBos.


> It must be the first partition,
> and it doesn't have a real filesystem (grub uses some sort of private
> filesystem):

I'm not sure it uses any filesystem.  I understood it uses a raw sector jump 
from the MBR to the GPT partition type 0xEE.

>     $ sudo fdisk -l /dev/nvme0n1
>     Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 465.76 GiB, 500107862016 bytes, 976773168 sectors
>     Disk model: Samsung SSD 980 PRO 500GB
>     Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
>     Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
>     I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
>     Disklabel type: gpt
>     Disk identifier: E81DD16A-A5AE-3C4A-AD3C-26DF2985827A
> 
>     Device             Start       End   Sectors   Size Type
>     /dev/nvme0n1p1      2048      6143      4096     2M BIOS boot
>     /dev/nvme0n1p2      6144 134219775 134213632    64G Linux filesystem
>     /dev/nvme0n1p3 134219776 976773134 842553359 401.8G Linux filesystem

This links explains the combos of BIOS vs. EFI MoBos and MBR vs. GPT partition 
table schemes:

https://askubuntu.com/questions/500359/efi-boot-partition-and-biosgrub-partition

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[gentoo-user] Re: OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Grant Edwards]

On 2023-10-18, Michael <confabulate@kintzios.com> wrote:
>
>> The protective MBR and the BIOS boot partition are two different,
>> unrelated things. The BIOS boot partition is a real partition (usually
>> 1-2MB in size) that's present in the GPT parition table. It's used by
>> Grub as a place to store its files.
>
> Yes, this is needed on GPT disks when installed on BIOS MoBos.

There is a way to install Grub on GPT disks without it, but it takes
extra work and isn't worth it. You have to lock certain files in place
under /boot/grub so that block-lists can be embedded in sector 0.

All of the disk label utilities I've seen recently will, by default,
leave a sizable empty space between the primary GPT table and the
start of the first partition (which typically starts at a 1MB offset
from the start of the disk).  I've never understood why Grub won't use
that space they way it will use the empty space between an MBR and the
first partition.

>> It must be the first partition, and it doesn't have a real
>> filesystem (grub uses some sort of private filesystem):
>
> I'm not sure it uses any filesystem.  I understood it uses a raw sector jump 
> from the MBR to the GPT partition type 0xEE.

I've read a couple vague but differing descriptions of it. One
description specifically referred to "files" (plural) and some sort of
grub-private-internal filesystem.  However, it could be that it's
nothing but a single "file" starting at block 0 in that partition.
Whatever it is, it seems to be "opaque" in that Grub puts stuff in
that partition, Grub later uses that stuff, and nobody else needs to
know or care what it is or how it's organized. I haven't looked
through the Grub source code to try to see inside the black box...

--
Grant

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Dale]

Grant Edwards wrote:
> On 2023-10-18, Michael <confabulate@kintzios.com> wrote:
>>> The protective MBR and the BIOS boot partition are two different,
>>> unrelated things. The BIOS boot partition is a real partition (usually
>>> 1-2MB in size) that's present in the GPT parition table. It's used by
>>> Grub as a place to store its files.
>> Yes, this is needed on GPT disks when installed on BIOS MoBos.
> There is a way to install Grub on GPT disks without it, but it takes
> extra work and isn't worth it. You have to lock certain files in place
> under /boot/grub so that block-lists can be embedded in sector 0.
>
> All of the disk label utilities I've seen recently will, by default,
> leave a sizable empty space between the primary GPT table and the
> start of the first partition (which typically starts at a 1MB offset
> from the start of the disk).  I've never understood why Grub won't use
> that space they way it will use the empty space between an MBR and the
> first partition.
>
>>> It must be the first partition, and it doesn't have a real
>>> filesystem (grub uses some sort of private filesystem):
>> I'm not sure it uses any filesystem.  I understood it uses a raw sector jump 
>> from the MBR to the GPT partition type 0xEE.
> I've read a couple vague but differing descriptions of it. One
> description specifically referred to "files" (plural) and some sort of
> grub-private-internal filesystem.  However, it could be that it's
> nothing but a single "file" starting at block 0 in that partition.
> Whatever it is, it seems to be "opaque" in that Grub puts stuff in
> that partition, Grub later uses that stuff, and nobody else needs to
> know or care what it is or how it's organized. I haven't looked
> through the Grub source code to try to see inside the black box...
>
> --
> Grant
>

I used cgdisk and GPT for my disk even tho it is small, only 300GBs or
so, mostly out of habit.  The grub install failed and I did a search.  I
found this and it worked. 



grub-install fails with "grub-install: warning: this GPT partition label
contains no BIOS Boot Partition; embedding won't be possible."  Using
parted command.

# parted /dev/sda
# set 1 boot off
# set 1 bios_grub on
# q

# then install grub.  This happens on drives where GPT is used instead
of MBR.



This may be something you want to make note of.  I guess it changes the
way grub sees it or something.  Anyway, it worked fine after that so may
be worth making a note of in case one of you ever needs it. 

Dale

:-)  :-) 

P. S.  My off topic Ubuntu thread is covering a lot of strange things. 
LOL 

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Wed, 18 Oct 2023 17:27:28 -0500, Dale wrote:

> I used cgdisk and GPT for my disk even tho it is small, only 300GBs or
> so, mostly out of habit.  The grub install failed and I did a search.  I
> found this and it worked. 
> 
> 
> 
> grub-install fails with "grub-install: warning: this GPT partition label
> contains no BIOS Boot Partition; embedding won't be possible." 

Simple answer, don't use GRUB :-)

Seriously, GRUB is a bootloader, EFI is a bootloader. You are using one
bootloader to load another bootloader before booting the system.

rEFIind and systemd-boot are both boot managers, they work with the EFI
bootloader - or you can boot a kernel directly without a boot manager,
but I prefer not to do that as it gives no opportunity to edit options
when booting.

If you like simple, here is a config file I use with systemd-boot

version 6.1.57-gentoo
linux   /vmlinuz-6.1.57-gentoo
options root=/dev/sda3 panic=10 net.ifnames=0 i915.enable_ips=0

That's it! There is a separate file for each menu entry, but they are
this simple. There's also a global loader.conf, that runs to a massive 2
lines here!


-- 
Neil Bothwick

If you catch an exploding manhole cover, you can keep it.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help: boot loader info

[Dale]

Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Wed, 18 Oct 2023 17:27:28 -0500, Dale wrote:
>
>> I used cgdisk and GPT for my disk even tho it is small, only 300GBs or
>> so, mostly out of habit.  The grub install failed and I did a search.  I
>> found this and it worked. 
>>
>>
>>
>> grub-install fails with "grub-install: warning: this GPT partition label
>> contains no BIOS Boot Partition; embedding won't be possible." 
> Simple answer, don't use GRUB :-)
>
> Seriously, GRUB is a bootloader, EFI is a bootloader. You are using one
> bootloader to load another bootloader before booting the system.
>
> rEFIind and systemd-boot are both boot managers, they work with the EFI
> bootloader - or you can boot a kernel directly without a boot manager,
> but I prefer not to do that as it gives no opportunity to edit options
> when booting.
>
> If you like simple, here is a config file I use with systemd-boot
>
> version 6.1.57-gentoo
> linux   /vmlinuz-6.1.57-gentoo
> options root=/dev/sda3 panic=10 net.ifnames=0 i915.enable_ips=0
>
> That's it! There is a separate file for each menu entry, but they are
> this simple. There's also a global loader.conf, that runs to a massive 2
> lines here!
>
>


Right now, I'm still using BIOS type boot.  I've read where you and a
couple others use something else and they do sound good but I just
haven't got the nerve up to switch.  When I build a new rig, I'll likely
get into some other boot manager.  In a way I kinda dread it but on the
other hand, I just might like it.  You and several others make the other
options sound really good. 

That config kinda reminds me of the old grub.  A title line, location of
kernel and then options.  Sounds easy enough.  The new grub config is
almost impossible to config by hand.  They had to make a tool to do it. 
That says a lot there.  ;-) 

I wish I could build the new rig tomorrow.  Gotta buy the stuff first
tho.  Well, first, I gotta find a good mobo I like.  I got a CPU cooler
in.  I got video cards, cables and such in route.  Next month, case. 
Next month, likely a power supply and maybe a couple other small
things.  Then comes the big things.  Mobo, CPU and memory.  Ka ching.  $$$$

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help: boot loader info

[Michael]

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On Thursday, 19 October 2023 05:49:25 BST Dale wrote:
> Neil Bothwick wrote:
> > On Wed, 18 Oct 2023 17:27:28 -0500, Dale wrote:
> >> I used cgdisk and GPT for my disk even tho it is small, only 300GBs or
> >> so, mostly out of habit.  The grub install failed and I did a search.  I
> >> found this and it worked. 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> grub-install fails with "grub-install: warning: this GPT partition label
> >> contains no BIOS Boot Partition; embedding won't be possible." 

If you are booting a BIOS MoBo, or an EFI MoBo in 'BIOS Legacy' mode, from a 
disk which contains a GPT partitioning scheme, then you will need a separate  
partition created as type 'BIOS Boot Partition' for GRUB to install its 
core.img:

GRUB's Stage 1 boot.img is still installed in sector 0 on a GPT disk, same as 
on a disk with an MBR partition table.  However, on a GPT disk GRUB's Stage 
1.5 core.img with all its filesystem drivers has to be installed in a 
partition of its own, because unlike an MBR disk sectors 1 to 62 are not empty 
but contain the GPT header and the GPT partition list.  Without its filesystem 
drivers GRUB won't be able to access its modules in its Stage 2 filesystem, 
which is stored in the OS /boot/ partition, or its grubx64.efi UEFI 
executable.

It helps to get straight before you start an installation what combo of MoBo 
and type of disk partition tables you intend to use:

BIOS Vs EFI
MBR Vs GPT


> > Simple answer, don't use GRUB :-)
> > 
> > Seriously, GRUB is a bootloader, EFI is a bootloader. You are using one
> > bootloader to load another bootloader before booting the system.
> > 
> > rEFIind and systemd-boot are both boot managers, they work with the EFI
> > bootloader - or you can boot a kernel directly without a boot manager,
> > but I prefer not to do that as it gives no opportunity to edit options
> > when booting.

I like rEFIind, but I recall it needs/needed a separate /boot partition if you 
are running LVM/RAID.


> > If you like simple, here is a config file I use with systemd-boot
> > 
> > version 6.1.57-gentoo
> > linux   /vmlinuz-6.1.57-gentoo
> > options root=/dev/sda3 panic=10 net.ifnames=0 i915.enable_ips=0
> > 
> > That's it! There is a separate file for each menu entry, but they are
> > this simple. There's also a global loader.conf, that runs to a massive 2
> > lines here!
> 
> Right now, I'm still using BIOS type boot.  I've read where you and a
> couple others use something else and they do sound good but I just
> haven't got the nerve up to switch.  When I build a new rig, I'll likely
> get into some other boot manager.  In a way I kinda dread it but on the
> other hand, I just might like it.  You and several others make the other
> options sound really good. 
> 
> That config kinda reminds me of the old grub.  A title line, location of
> kernel and then options.  Sounds easy enough.  The new grub config is
> almost impossible to config by hand.  They had to make a tool to do it. 
> That says a lot there.  ;-) 

Not really, the GRUB developers were trying to make maintaining a boot manager 
simpler by scripting the process and offering to hook it up from binary 
distros' kernel install scripts.  Anyway, you can still write the 
configuration by hand if you follow the GRUB2 syntax.  You do not need to run 
GRUB's grub-mkconfig script to automatically update the grub.cfg file if you 
prefer to do it manually, but it is certainly simpler to use it since it is 
already there for you.


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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help: boot loader info

[Dale]

Michael wrote:
> On Thursday, 19 October 2023 05:49:25 BST Dale wrote:
>> Neil Bothwick wrote:
>>> On Wed, 18 Oct 2023 17:27:28 -0500, Dale wrote:
>>>> I used cgdisk and GPT for my disk even tho it is small, only 300GBs or
>>>> so, mostly out of habit.  The grub install failed and I did a search.  I
>>>> found this and it worked. 
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> grub-install fails with "grub-install: warning: this GPT partition label
>>>> contains no BIOS Boot Partition; embedding won't be possible." 
> If you are booting a BIOS MoBo, or an EFI MoBo in 'BIOS Legacy' mode, from a 
> disk which contains a GPT partitioning scheme, then you will need a separate  
> partition created as type 'BIOS Boot Partition' for GRUB to install its 
> core.img:
>
> GRUB's Stage 1 boot.img is still installed in sector 0 on a GPT disk, same as 
> on a disk with an MBR partition table.  However, on a GPT disk GRUB's Stage 
> 1.5 core.img with all its filesystem drivers has to be installed in a 
> partition of its own, because unlike an MBR disk sectors 1 to 62 are not empty 
> but contain the GPT header and the GPT partition list.  Without its filesystem 
> drivers GRUB won't be able to access its modules in its Stage 2 filesystem, 
> which is stored in the OS /boot/ partition, or its grubx64.efi UEFI 
> executable.
>
> It helps to get straight before you start an installation what combo of MoBo 
> and type of disk partition tables you intend to use:
>
> BIOS Vs EFI
> MBR Vs GPT
>

When I did the install on the old 770T, I used GPT, out of habit to be
honest.  I have very few small drives here.  Heck, I'm up to buying 18TB
drives now.  Anyway, grub gave me a error when I tried to install it.  I
searched and found the sequence of commands that I posted in another
reply.  It uses parted.  Anyway, it worked after that.  Thing is, by the
time you get to the part about installing grub, you have also installed
most of the OS.  Going back and using MBR means reinstalling.  I plan to
check into those parted commands and see what it does and if I can grasp
it.  :/


>>> Simple answer, don't use GRUB :-)
>>>
>>> Seriously, GRUB is a bootloader, EFI is a bootloader. You are using one
>>> bootloader to load another bootloader before booting the system.
>>>
>>> rEFIind and systemd-boot are both boot managers, they work with the EFI
>>> bootloader - or you can boot a kernel directly without a boot manager,
>>> but I prefer not to do that as it gives no opportunity to edit options
>>> when booting.
> I like rEFIind, but I recall it needs/needed a separate /boot partition if you 
> are running LVM/RAID.
>

I have /boot on ext2, / on ext4 and rest on LVM on my main system.  On
the 770T rig, I have /boot on ext2 I think and everything else on ext4. 
I don't think I used LVM on it.  I even put /usr and /var on the /
partition.  I didn't get fancy or anything.  I did put /home on its own
partition.  I'm not sure why really. 

I'll look into rEFIind then.  If you like it, it has to be good.  ;-) 


>>> If you like simple, here is a config file I use with systemd-boot
>>>
>>> version 6.1.57-gentoo
>>> linux   /vmlinuz-6.1.57-gentoo
>>> options root=/dev/sda3 panic=10 net.ifnames=0 i915.enable_ips=0
>>>
>>> That's it! There is a separate file for each menu entry, but they are
>>> this simple. There's also a global loader.conf, that runs to a massive 2
>>> lines here!
>> Right now, I'm still using BIOS type boot.  I've read where you and a
>> couple others use something else and they do sound good but I just
>> haven't got the nerve up to switch.  When I build a new rig, I'll likely
>> get into some other boot manager.  In a way I kinda dread it but on the
>> other hand, I just might like it.  You and several others make the other
>> options sound really good. 
>>
>> That config kinda reminds me of the old grub.  A title line, location of
>> kernel and then options.  Sounds easy enough.  The new grub config is
>> almost impossible to config by hand.  They had to make a tool to do it. 
>> That says a lot there.  ;-) 
> Not really, the GRUB developers were trying to make maintaining a boot manager 
> simpler by scripting the process and offering to hook it up from binary 
> distros' kernel install scripts.  Anyway, you can still write the 
> configuration by hand if you follow the GRUB2 syntax.  You do not need to run 
> GRUB's grub-mkconfig script to automatically update the grub.cfg file if you 
> prefer to do it manually, but it is certainly simpler to use it since it is 
> already there for you.
>

The one thing I like about the new grub, if the kernel is named wrong,
the init thingy is named wrong or some other problem with the config, it
will tell you when you run the script.  I always check to make sure it
finds both the kernel and init thingy in sets.  I have three kernels I
think and one init thingy for each.  They should list in pairs.  If I
name one wrong, it will miss it.  With the old grub, you found out you
messed up when you rebooted and it fails to load. 

I need to search youtube and check into some of this new stuff. 

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help: boot loader info

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Thu, 19 Oct 2023 09:45:10 -0500, Dale wrote:

> > I like rEFIind, but I recall it needs/needed a separate /boot
> > partition if you are running LVM/RAID.
> >  
> 
> I have /boot on ext2, / on ext4 and rest on LVM on my main system.  On
> the 770T rig, I have /boot on ext2 I think and everything else on ext4.

If you are using EFI, you need a FAT partition as the ESP, so you may as
well make that /boot to keep things simple.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

An expert is nothing more than an ordinary person away from home.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help: boot loader info

[Dale]

Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Thu, 19 Oct 2023 09:45:10 -0500, Dale wrote:
>
>>> I like rEFIind, but I recall it needs/needed a separate /boot
>>> partition if you are running LVM/RAID.
>>>  
>> I have /boot on ext2, / on ext4 and rest on LVM on my main system.  On
>> the 770T rig, I have /boot on ext2 I think and everything else on ext4.
> If you are using EFI, you need a FAT partition as the ESP, so you may as
> well make that /boot to keep things simple.
>
>


Yea.  I read somewhere that is the correct way.  I think that is picked
because everything, including Linux, can read that file system.  I think
I read somewhere that the mobo has to be able to read that and it's not
like mobos on their own have a lot of space for BIOS stuff or whatever
what EFI mobos use is called. 

I'll likely watch some youtube videos and read some howtos shortly
before the mobo, CPU and such start coming in.  No need doing that now. 
I have trouble remembering what I went to the kitchen for.  :/

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help: boot loader info

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Wed, 18 Oct 2023 23:49:25 -0500, Dale wrote:

> That config kinda reminds me of the old grub.  A title line, location of
> kernel and then options.  Sounds easy enough.  The new grub config is
> almost impossible to config by hand.  They had to make a tool to do it. 
> That says a lot there.  ;-) 

GRUB2 was designed to be able to create a config for anything
automatically, such as from an installer. It does that very well, but is
total overkill for Gentoo-like people that like to stay in control.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Keep your words soft and sweet in case you have to eat them.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help: boot loader info

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Thu, 19 Oct 2023 12:55:43 +0100, Neil Bothwick wrote:

> > That config kinda reminds me of the old grub.  A title line, location
> > of kernel and then options.  Sounds easy enough.  The new grub config
> > is almost impossible to config by hand.  They had to make a tool to
> > do it. That says a lot there.  ;-)   
> 
> GRUB2 was designed to be able to create a config for anything
> automatically, such as from an installer. It does that very well, but is
> total overkill for Gentoo-like people that like to stay in control.

Incidentally, systemd-boot can also generate and update boot menu entries
automatically with "bootctl install" and "bootctl update" although I have
never tried either.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

STATUS QUO is Latin for "the mess we're in."

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help: boot loader info

[Peter Humphrey]

On Thursday, 19 October 2023 12:59:06 BST Neil Bothwick wrote:

> Incidentally, systemd-boot can also generate and update boot menu entries
> automatically with "bootctl install" and "bootctl update" although I have
> never tried either.

Yes, that's what I use. Once your kernel is complete, with ramdisk etc., make 
a copy of /boot somewhere, then "bootctl install", copy the loader.conf from 
your copy, then "bootctl update".

Older versions of bootctl used to create a /boot/<nn>/ directory, where nn was 
a 32-digit hex number, in which we were supposed to put our boot entries: far 
too complex for Gentoo, so I just deleted that directory.

-- 
Regards,
Peter.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help: boot loader info

[Wols Lists]

On 19/10/2023 12:55, Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Wed, 18 Oct 2023 23:49:25 -0500, Dale wrote:
> 
>> That config kinda reminds me of the old grub.  A title line, location of
>> kernel and then options.  Sounds easy enough.  The new grub config is
>> almost impossible to config by hand.  They had to make a tool to do it.
>> That says a lot there.  ;-)
> 
> GRUB2 was designed to be able to create a config for anything
> automatically, such as from an installer. It does that very well, but is
> total overkill for Gentoo-like people that like to stay in control.
> 
> 
Such a shame it doesn't work. :-)

I tried to install SUSE dual boot, and it broke the installer - NOTHING 
would boot. I needed a rescue disk to fix the mess ...

Cheers,
Wol

RE: [gentoo-user] Re: OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help: boot loader info

[Laurence Perkins]

>
>That config kinda reminds me of the old grub.  A title line, location of kernel and then options.  Sounds easy enough.  The new grub config is almost impossible to config by hand.  They had to make a tool to do it. That says a lot there.  ;-) 


>
>Dale
>

You can still write that kind of config for the new grub if you want.  Load what drivers you need, and then a menuentry with title, kernel, initramfs, etc.  The rest of the boilerplate is to support dynamically finding the boot drive if something changes with your disks and to enable tools like grub-reboot.  Handy features, and the grub-mkconfig is quicker and easier than editing even a simple config by hand.  But if you really want to do it yourself that still works.

LMP

[gentoo-user] Re: OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help: boot loader info

[Grant Edwards]

On 2023-10-19, Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:

> That config kinda reminds me of the old grub.  A title line, location of
> kernel and then options.  Sounds easy enough.  The new grub config is
> almost impossible to config by hand.  They had to make a tool to do it. 
> That says a lot there.  ;-) 

Manually configuring Grub2 for a single OS is pretty trivial.  Here's
a typical grub.cfg file:

-----------------------------grub.cfg------------------------------------
timeout=10
default=0

root (hd0,0)

menuentry vmlinuz-5.15.135-gentoo {
linux /boot/vmlinuz-5.15.135-gentoo root=/dev/sda1
}

menuentry vmlinuz-5.10.76-gentoo-r1 {
  linux /boot/vmlinuz-5.10.76-gentoo-r1 root=/dev/sda1
}
------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you want to get fancy and use labels and UUIDs, it looks like this

------------------------------grub.cfg----------------------------------
search --no-floppy --label ROOT --set root

timeout=10
default=0

menuentry vmlinuz-5.15.135-gentoo {
linux /boot/vmlinuz-5.15.135-gentoo root=PARTUUID=fd96ac2d-5521-c043-9fdb-5067b48fb063
}

menuentry vmlinuz-5.15.127-gentoo {
linux /boot/vmlinuz-5.15.127-gentoo root=PARTUUID=fd96ac2d-5521-c043-9fdb-5067b48fb063
}
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Most distros add 2 or 3 layers of obsfucation on top of grub.cfg with
scripts upon scripts upon scripts that read a dozen or so config files
and automagically detect kernels and initrds and other OSes and then
generate a grub.cfg file containing many hundreds of lines of stuff.

If you just boot one OS with a "main" kernel and a "backup" kernel,
then all you need is what you see above.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Peter Humphrey]

On Thursday, 19 October 2023 00:06:43 BST Neil Bothwick wrote:

> If you like simple, here is a config file I use with systemd-boot
> 
> version 6.1.57-gentoo
> linux   /vmlinuz-6.1.57-gentoo
> options root=/dev/sda3 panic=10 net.ifnames=0 i915.enable_ips=0
> 
> That's it! There is a separate file for each menu entry, but they are
> this simple. There's also a global loader.conf, that runs to a massive 2
> lines here!

Just to expand this in case it helps someone, and because the wiki article on 
systemd-boot is not very helpful:

I like to keep one recent kernel along with the current one, as fallback. I 
also have a small rescue partition on the same disk, and that also has two 
kernels.

The main system has a choice of three boot options: standard, no X and no 
network, and the rescue system the same but without the no-X.

That gives the following structure on this machine:

# ls -1 /boot/v*
/boot/vmlinuz-6.1.46-gentoo
/boot/vmlinuz-6.1.46-gentoo-rescue
/boot/vmlinuz-6.1.57-gentoo
/boot/vmlinuz-6.1.57-gentoo-rescue

# tree -L 3 /boot/loader
/boot/loader
├── entries
│   ├── 06-gentoo-rescue-6.1.46.conf
│   ├── 07-gentoo-rescue-6.1.46.nonet.conf
│   ├── 08-gentoo-rescue-6.1.46.conf
│   ├── 09-gentoo-rescue-6.1.46.nonet.conf
│   ├── 30-gentoo-6.1.57.conf
│   ├── 32-gentoo-6.1.57.nox.conf
│   ├── 34-gentoo-6.1.57.nonet.conf
│   ├── 40-gentoo-6.1.46.conf
│   ├── 42-gentoo-6.1.46.nox.conf
│   └── 44-gentoo-6.1.46.nonet.conf
├── loader.conf
└── random-seed

The random seed was put there by systemd-boot.

I think I have most eventualities covered. (Hah!)

-- 
Regards,
Peter.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Wed, 18 Oct 2023 10:23:23 +0100, Michael wrote:

> > Oh, and if you use GPT, you no longer need the MBR compatibility
> > partition, or whatever its called. I no longer need it so I can't
> > remember the exact name.  
> 
> Man pages of partitioning tools refer to it as "Protective MBR",
> although I've seen it mentioned in the interwebs as "protective GPT",
> which I think is more accurate.  It uses the first sector (LBA 0) to
> store an MBR table showing the whole disk, or 2TB if smaller, as an MBR
> partition.  This is the first partition on the disk, typically 1 MiB in
> size.  It is meant to stop 20 year old partitioning tools from messing
> up a GPT partitioning scheme because they can't see it.  Arguably
> nobody uses Windows 98 these days, so it should be safe to not have a
> protective MBR on your GPT disks.

You need it if your hardware doesn't support EFI booting.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

The human mind ordinarily operates at only ten per cent of its capacity
... the rest is overhead for the operating system.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Michael]

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On Wednesday, 18 October 2023 18:45:27 BST Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Wed, 18 Oct 2023 10:23:23 +0100, Michael wrote:
> > > Oh, and if you use GPT, you no longer need the MBR compatibility
> > > partition, or whatever its called. I no longer need it so I can't
> > > remember the exact name.
> > 
> > Man pages of partitioning tools refer to it as "Protective MBR",
> > although I've seen it mentioned in the interwebs as "protective GPT",
> > which I think is more accurate.  It uses the first sector (LBA 0) to
> > store an MBR table showing the whole disk, or 2TB if smaller, as an MBR
> > partition.  This is the first partition on the disk, typically 1 MiB in
> > size.  It is meant to stop 20 year old partitioning tools from messing
> > up a GPT partitioning scheme because they can't see it.  Arguably
> > nobody uses Windows 98 these days, so it should be safe to not have a
> > protective MBR on your GPT disks.
> 
> You need it if your hardware doesn't support EFI booting.

Yes, quite right, a 4TB disk on a BIOS MoBo would need a GPT partitioning 
scheme to access all 4TB, but with an old MoBo you'd use a BIOS Boot Partition 
and GRUB as mentioned by Grant.

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Re: [gentoo-user] OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Mark Knecht]

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On Tue, Oct 17, 2023 at 11:07 AM Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Mark Knecht wrote:
>
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 17, 2023 at 9:41 AM Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:
> <SNIP>
> >
> > Well, the 770T now has Gentoo on it.  As usual, my fresh built kernel
> > booted the very first time without error and every thing worked.
> > Sometimes, things go right.  ROFL  I have to say tho, I wish they would
> > split the install docs into two parts.  One for old BIOS and one for the
> > efi thingy.  It was confusing in a couple places but I got there.  Maybe
> > some color coding would help???
> >
> <SNIP>
>
> Congrats. I hope it goes well.
>
> There are still times I wish I was running Gentoo - the documentation,
> camaraderie and deep technical knowledge of the group, but I just
> don't have time or patience to iron out issues with applications when
> Gentoo isn't a supported distro. Still, for something like a NAS box it
> makes sense if everything you run is sour\ce code coming from the
> Gentoo code stores.
>
> Cheers,
> Mark
>
>
>
> Ubuntu had a few points where it waited for a while.  A couple times, it
had a two minute wait which makes the boot time pretty long.

I suspect that's a bit of a red herring. Ubuntu's default kernel builds
support for pretty much everything in the Linux hardware universe so
there's a lot of probing around for hardware you don't have and then a
whole lot of modules once you're up and running. My desktop machine has 115
modules showing up in lsmod. If you put a little bit of time into your
kernel development then I suspect the boot time would become much closer to
what you see on Gentoo.

After all, the kernel is the kernel. It doesn't belong to Gentoo or Ubuntu.
We're all running, more or less, the same kernel source code and I suspect,
by the time it gets to machine code, pretty much the same bits for
identical hardware.

None the less I'm happy you're up and running.

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Re: [gentoo-user] OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Dale]

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Mark Knecht wrote:
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 17, 2023 at 11:07 AM Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com
> <mailto:rdalek1967@gmail.com>> wrote:
> >
> > Mark Knecht wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Oct 17, 2023 at 9:41 AM Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com
> <mailto:rdalek1967@gmail.com>> wrote:
> > <SNIP>
> > >
> > > Well, the 770T now has Gentoo on it.  As usual, my fresh built kernel
> > > booted the very first time without error and every thing worked.
> > > Sometimes, things go right.  ROFL  I have to say tho, I wish they
> would
> > > split the install docs into two parts.  One for old BIOS and one
> for the
> > > efi thingy.  It was confusing in a couple places but I got there. 
> Maybe
> > > some color coding would help???
> > >
> > <SNIP>
> >
> > Congrats. I hope it goes well.
> >
> > There are still times I wish I was running Gentoo - the documentation,
> > camaraderie and deep technical knowledge of the group, but I just
> > don't have time or patience to iron out issues with applications when
> > Gentoo isn't a supported distro. Still, for something like a NAS box it
> > makes sense if everything you run is sour\ce code coming from the
> > Gentoo code stores.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Mark
> >
> >
> >
> > Ubuntu had a few points where it waited for a while.  A couple
> times, it had a two minute wait which makes the boot time pretty long.
>
> I suspect that's a bit of a red herring. Ubuntu's default kernel
> builds support for pretty much everything in the Linux hardware
> universe so there's a lot of probing around for hardware you don't
> have and then a whole lot of modules once you're up and running. My
> desktop machine has 115 modules showing up in lsmod. If you put a
> little bit of time into your kernel development then I suspect the
> boot time would become much closer to what you see on Gentoo.
>
> After all, the kernel is the kernel. It doesn't belong to Gentoo or
> Ubuntu. We're all running, more or less, the same kernel source code
> and I suspect, by the time it gets to machine code, pretty much the
> same bits for identical hardware.
>
> None the less I'm happy you're up and running.


This wasn't the kernel.  It was doing something else.  I googled for it
and others had the same issue but I never found where there was a fix. 
Odd thing is, it didn't do it every time.  Just most of the time.  When
I was having network problems, it added a few more wait times.  Once it
took about 5 minutes from grub to a login prompt. 

Yea, binary distros that come with their own kernels, they throw in the
kitchen sink, bath tub and likely even a toilet.  If you have hardware
that it doesn't recognize, you got a problem.  It could be the correct
driver doesn't even exist if it is something really new. 

There is pluses for Ubuntu but there are minuses too.  Ubuntu installs
in mere minutes.  Gentoo takes a couple hours at least.  Ubuntu updates
are really fast, no compiling, but also difficult to customize since no
USE flags.  Gentoo takes a while but you can build exactly what you want
with USE flags.  What is a plus or minus depends on the person I guess. 
Some people just want it to come on and go to fakebook and could care
less about anything else, including updates until fakebook doesn't work
anymore.  ;-)

Yea, I'm glad I got Gentoo on it too.  I can use tools I'm used to and
hopefully it will be rock solid.  I'm thinking I may only update once a
month.  After all, there isn't a whole lot installed anyway. 

Thanks to all.  :-D

Dale

:-)  :-) 

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Re: [gentoo-user] OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Mark Knecht]

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> This wasn't the kernel.  It was doing something else.  I googled for it
and others had the same issue but I never found where there was a fix.  Odd
thing is, it didn't do it every time.  Just most of the time.  When I was
having network problems, it added a few more wait times.  Once it took
about 5 minutes from grub to a login prompt.
>

I get that the installation is gone so we'll likely never know what
happened but that said I would have thought sudo dmesg after a login would
have probably shown if something weird was holding up giving you a login
opportunity.

Strange to me that you didn't investigate it.

I have 4 Ubuntu-based machines here and over the last 6 years I've never
seen a 1 minute delay to login, much less 5 minutes.

When I look in the kernel ring buffer on my desktop machine I see most
everything done in 14 seconds from power-on. After that there are some
delays on the order of 90 seconds for a wireless network I don't actually
use much to be authenticated, and then a few apparmor comments out around 5
minutes, but none of that impairs normal login.

I think you are better off running Gentoo. You do you, right?

I hope the new setup works well for you.

- Mark

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Re: [gentoo-user] OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Dale]

Mark Knecht wrote:
>
> > This wasn't the kernel.  It was doing something else.  I googled for
> it and others had the same issue but I never found where there was a
> fix.  Odd thing is, it didn't do it every time.  Just most of the
> time.  When I was having network problems, it added a few more wait
> times.  Once it took about 5 minutes from grub to a login prompt.
> >
>
> I get that the installation is gone so we'll likely never know what
> happened but that said I would have thought sudo dmesg after a login
> would have probably shown if something weird was holding up giving you
> a login opportunity.
>
> Strange to me that you didn't investigate it. 
>
> I have 4 Ubuntu-based machines here and over the last 6 years I've
> never seen a 1 minute delay to login, much less 5 minutes. 
>
> When I look in the kernel ring buffer on my desktop machine I see most
> everything done in 14 seconds from power-on. After that there are some
> delays on the order of 90 seconds for a wireless network I don't
> actually use much to be authenticated, and then a few apparmor
> comments out around 5 minutes, but none of that impairs normal login.
>
> I think you are better off running Gentoo. You do you, right? 
>
> I hope the new setup works well for you. 
>
> - Mark
>


I recall it said it was waiting on something.  I can't for the life of
me remember what it was tho.  I did look at dmesg but didn't see
anything.  Of course, I wasn't real sure what to look for either.  I
think it was looking for something that wasn't there yet.  Looked at to
much puter stuff to remember now.  :/

Yep.  I started to do this to begin with.  I kinda wanted to see what
Ubuntu was like.  Now I know.  It would be OK for a temporary setup.  I
don't think I'd like it long term tho. 

If I get some files renamed later on, I may try to do a backup and see
if everything works, speed etc.  About out of steam. 

Dale

:-)  :-)

[gentoo-user] Re: OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Grant Edwards]

On 2023-10-17, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:

> I have 4 Ubuntu-based machines here and over the last 6 years I've
> never seen a 1 minute delay to login, much less 5 minutes.

I see it all the time. Two minutes is the most common delay that I run
into, but I've seen longer. The two-minute delay I frequently run into
has usually got something to do with networking. For example, if one
of the links is down, Ubuntu is really fond of waiting a couple
mintues for it to come up before it finishes booting. [If it doesn't
wait for all the network interfaces, how is it going to do all that
cloudy crap nobody really wants?]

People have been complaining about that one for years and years and
years. There have been countless web pages written about it with
almost as many different answers/suggestions.  Here's a recent one:

https://devicetests.com/fix-waiting-for-network-configuration-error-ubuntu-startup

The really fun part is that since the methods used for configuring the
network on Ubuntu change with the seasons, 95% of the suggested fixes
you find are irrelevent even if they were on-target at one point.

I've run into various other (less common) causes of Ubuntu boot
delays, but it's usually waiting for "network configuration".

And then there are the delays during shutdown...

And how about the stupid #@$% "modem manager" that mucks with serial
ports looking for dial-up modems. Yea, that still needs to be
installed and enabled by default on every Ubuntu install on the
planet...

--
Grant

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Wed, 18 Oct 2023 03:15:56 -0000 (UTC), Grant Edwards wrote:

> > I have 4 Ubuntu-based machines here and over the last 6 years I've
> > never seen a 1 minute delay to login, much less 5 minutes.  
> 
> I see it all the time. Two minutes is the most common delay that I run
> into, but I've seen longer. The two-minute delay I frequently run into
> has usually got something to do with networking. For example, if one
> of the links is down, Ubuntu is really fond of waiting a couple
> mintues for it to come up before it finishes booting. [If it doesn't
> wait for all the network interfaces, how is it going to do all that
> cloudy crap nobody really wants?]

There are different ways of waiting for the network to come up in
systemd, depending on your needs. Is lo enough, do you need an external
network connection available, or do you need one up and working, do you
have more than one network connection. It seems like Ubuntu is taking the
safest-for-all approach of waiting for all network interfaces to be fully
configured.

> The really fun part is that since the methods used for configuring the
> network on Ubuntu change with the seasons, 95% of the suggested fixes
> you find are irrelevent even if they were on-target at one point.

But change is good and new is better, no matter what it breaks, isn't it? ;-)


-- 
Neil Bothwick

If you can't be kind, be vague.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Rich Freeman]

On Tue, Oct 17, 2023 at 11:15 PM Grant Edwards
<grant.b.edwards@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> For example, if one
> of the links is down, Ubuntu is really fond of waiting a couple
> mintues for it to come up before it finishes booting. [If it doesn't
> wait for all the network interfaces, how is it going to do all that
> cloudy crap nobody really wants?]

I think the intent is to prevent dependency issues, though IMO that
would be better avoided by just setting dependencies on the systemd
units.  However, many distros try to abstract systemd behind a wall of
distro configuration in part because they wanted to the original
transition to systemd to be seamless.

I have a bunch of ubuntu hosts that have dual NICs and they just love
to take forever to boot.  This is despite having only one entry in
/etc/netplan and having it have "optional: true" set.  networkctl
shows one interface as "configuring" even after the system is up for
days.

Hmm, might even be a systemd-networkd bug.  I see ubuntu created
/run/systemd/network/10-netplan-alleths.network and it contains
"RequiredForOnline=no".

Oh well, I rarely reboot so it just hasn't been on the top of my list
of things to fix.

Honestly, I'd prefer if it just let me configure networkd directly.
I'm sure there is some way to do that, but I feel like if I do then
I'll have to read the release notes every time there is a new release
to make sure it isn't going to break it.  If you're going to run a
distro like Ubuntu I've found it is generally best to just figure out
the "Ubuntu Way" and do it their way.  If that isn't adequate, the
easier solution is to just use a more appropriate distro.

-- 
Rich

[gentoo-user] Re: OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Grant Edwards]

On 2023-10-18, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:

> Oh well, I rarely reboot so it just hasn't been on the top of my
> list of things to fix.

I don't really care much on the Ubuntu servers I maintain because they
are rarely rebooted, and their network interfaces are always up.

A couple weeks ago I was testing/troubleshooting some PCI-express
board prototypes which meant rebooting dozens of times a day.  I threw
Ubuntu server on a spare machine for that, but the 2-minute delay
drove me nuts. After futzing around for a while, I did get Ubuntu to
boot in a timely fashion [but it meant I had to manually configure one
of the network interfaces with 'ip' when I wanted to use it].

However, I never could get the serial console to work acceptably on
Ubuntu.  It worked fine during the kernel boot, but once systemd
started up, the serial console got shut down.  I wasted hours trying
to figure out how to fix that before I gave up on Ubuntu.

I finally ended up installing Gentoo/openrc, and then it only took a
few minutes to figure out how to keep the serial console working.

--
Grant

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Dale]

Rich Freeman wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 17, 2023 at 11:15 PM Grant Edwards
> <grant.b.edwards@gmail.com> wrote:
>> For example, if one
>> of the links is down, Ubuntu is really fond of waiting a couple
>> mintues for it to come up before it finishes booting. [If it doesn't
>> wait for all the network interfaces, how is it going to do all that
>> cloudy crap nobody really wants?]
> I think the intent is to prevent dependency issues, though IMO that
> would be better avoided by just setting dependencies on the systemd
> units.  However, many distros try to abstract systemd behind a wall of
> distro configuration in part because they wanted to the original
> transition to systemd to be seamless.
>
> I have a bunch of ubuntu hosts that have dual NICs and they just love
> to take forever to boot.  This is despite having only one entry in
> /etc/netplan and having it have "optional: true" set.  networkctl
> shows one interface as "configuring" even after the system is up for
> days.
>
> Hmm, might even be a systemd-networkd bug.  I see ubuntu created
> /run/systemd/network/10-netplan-alleths.network and it contains
> "RequiredForOnline=no".
>
> Oh well, I rarely reboot so it just hasn't been on the top of my list
> of things to fix.
>
> Honestly, I'd prefer if it just let me configure networkd directly.
> I'm sure there is some way to do that, but I feel like if I do then
> I'll have to read the release notes every time there is a new release
> to make sure it isn't going to break it.  If you're going to run a
> distro like Ubuntu I've found it is generally best to just figure out
> the "Ubuntu Way" and do it their way.  If that isn't adequate, the
> easier solution is to just use a more appropriate distro.
>


Funny you say that last part.  That's just what I did.  I was fine with
Ubuntu until the network stopped working for no reason.  I certainly
changed nothing.  When I couldn't figure it out, it made me think about
using Gentoo instead.  It went from adequate to needing something else. 

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Tue, 17 Oct 2023 11:41:23 -0500, Dale wrote:

> >> Neil, I tired that command journalctl but not sure about the
> >> options. It either returned a lot or nothing related.  I'll make
> >> note of the systemctl command.  If Ubuntu survives, I may need it
> >> one day.  ;-)   
> > If it returned nothing with  -p err, nothing logged an error since the
> > last boot, which is odd considering something is broken. without -p
> > err, you get everything from the system log, it's like doing "cat
> > /var/log/messages" but only since the last reboot. You could pipe that
> > through grep, searching for the name of your network interface.

> Well, I didn't search for err.  I followed some other advice I found
> while searching.

Adding -p err means you only see error messages sent to the system log,
skipping the reams of info stuff. I always run "journalctl -b -p err"
after booting a new kernel, it tells me instantly if I've made a screw up.

Of course, if I screw up really badly, the thing doesn't even boot...

-- 
Neil Bothwick

I am Zaphod of Borg. Now, where's the coolest place to be assimilated...

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Re: [gentoo-user] OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Dale]

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Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Tue, 17 Oct 2023 11:41:23 -0500, Dale wrote:
>
>>>> Neil, I tired that command journalctl but not sure about the
>>>> options. It either returned a lot or nothing related.  I'll make
>>>> note of the systemctl command.  If Ubuntu survives, I may need it
>>>> one day.  ;-)   
>>> If it returned nothing with  -p err, nothing logged an error since the
>>> last boot, which is odd considering something is broken. without -p
>>> err, you get everything from the system log, it's like doing "cat
>>> /var/log/messages" but only since the last reboot. You could pipe that
>>> through grep, searching for the name of your network interface.
>> Well, I didn't search for err.  I followed some other advice I found
>> while searching.
> Adding -p err means you only see error messages sent to the system log,
> skipping the reams of info stuff. I always run "journalctl -b -p err"
> after booting a new kernel, it tells me instantly if I've made a screw up.
>
> Of course, if I screw up really badly, the thing doesn't even boot...

I wish I had that info then.  It may have proved helpful.  To be honest
tho, when it failed the first time and I banged on it pretty good, I
thought the BIOS messed up.  It wouldn't see anything network except in
that one place where it showed disabled.  It was weird. 

I recall when I installed Gentoo for the very first time, first kernel
did the panic thing.  I got back to where I could fix it and rebooted
into a new kernel.  It booted.  Ever since then, even tho I have bad
luck with so much other stuff, I don't recall having a kernel fail to
boot the first time.  I may have to go add some driver for some trivial
thing but it gives me a login so I can work without booting rescue CD,
mounting, chrooting and all that.   Now if everything else would work
that good.  ROFL 

Thanks for the help.  I'm happy now. 

Dale

:-)  :-) 

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Re: [gentoo-user] OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Dale]

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Dale wrote:
> Neil Bothwick wrote:
>> On Tue, 17 Oct 2023 11:41:23 -0500, Dale wrote:
>>
>>>>> Neil, I tired that command journalctl but not sure about the
>>>>> options. It either returned a lot or nothing related.  I'll make
>>>>> note of the systemctl command.  If Ubuntu survives, I may need it
>>>>> one day.  ;-)   
>>>> If it returned nothing with  -p err, nothing logged an error since the
>>>> last boot, which is odd considering something is broken. without -p
>>>> err, you get everything from the system log, it's like doing "cat
>>>> /var/log/messages" but only since the last reboot. You could pipe that
>>>> through grep, searching for the name of your network interface.
>>> Well, I didn't search for err.  I followed some other advice I found
>>> while searching.
>> Adding -p err means you only see error messages sent to the system log,
>> skipping the reams of info stuff. I always run "journalctl -b -p err"
>> after booting a new kernel, it tells me instantly if I've made a screw up.
>>
>> Of course, if I screw up really badly, the thing doesn't even boot...
>
> I wish I had that info then.  It may have proved helpful.  To be
> honest tho, when it failed the first time and I banged on it pretty
> good, I thought the BIOS messed up.  It wouldn't see anything network
> except in that one place where it showed disabled.  It was weird. 
>
> I recall when I installed Gentoo for the very first time, first kernel
> did the panic thing.  I got back to where I could fix it and rebooted
> into a new kernel.  It booted.  Ever since then, even tho I have bad
> luck with so much other stuff, I don't recall having a kernel fail to
> boot the first time.  I may have to go add some driver for some
> trivial thing but it gives me a login so I can work without booting
> rescue CD, mounting, chrooting and all that.   Now if everything else
> would work that good.  ROFL 
>
> Thanks for the help.  I'm happy now. 
>
> Dale
>
> :-)  :-) 


Just a minor update.  I rebooted and tried to mount a encrypted drive. 
It failed.  I went back to the Gentoo dm-crypt howto and checked my
kernel config and sure enough, I left a few options out.  I enabled some
more stuff, rebuilt and then rebooted.  After that, I was able to
decrypt and mount the encrypted drive like usual.

Also, I roughly timed the boot up of the new install.  From the time
BIOS comes up to a login prompt, about 40 seconds.  That's not to bad
for a older rig.  BTW, that rig has 16GBs of memory.  Between the faster
CPU, more memory and such, it should be a bit better.  Just wish it had
a case.  :/  I'll get one somewhere. 

Now I'm kinda looking forward to updating my backups.  lol

Dale

:-)  :-) 

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[OT] Re: [gentoo-user] OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Peter Humphrey]

On Tuesday, 17 October 2023 17:41:23 BST Dale wrote:

> Maybe some color coding would help???

Not only that, but judicious use of colour would help a great deal. Having 
everything in monochrome is no help at all. Neither is showing a numbered list 
of contents but no sign of the numbers in the text, so that the ranking of 
headings and subheadings is lost.

I've tried to raise a bugzilla entry on this but was rebuffed.

-- 
Regards,
Peter.

Re: [OT] Re: [gentoo-user] OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Dale]

Peter Humphrey wrote:
> On Tuesday, 17 October 2023 17:41:23 BST Dale wrote:
>
>> Maybe some color coding would help???
> Not only that, but judicious use of colour would help a great deal. Having 
> everything in monochrome is no help at all. Neither is showing a numbered list 
> of contents but no sign of the numbers in the text, so that the ranking of 
> headings and subheadings is lost.
>
> I've tried to raise a bugzilla entry on this but was rebuffed.
>


It could be that they would have to make use of additional tools and
they don't want too.  It could even be a security thing.  Still, it
needs something because sometimes, you think you still doing one thing
then find out you have went into another step you don't need.  I also
thought I was done with one but later realized I missed a bit.  It's
just not real clear when you switching from one path to another.  Thing
is, there are quite a few paths, the biggest being BIOS or efi, systemd
or openrc but there is some other minor ones. 

On one of the things I missed, I only realized I missed it because I've
installed Gentoo several times. If I was a noobie, I might not have
known until I tried to boot and something didn't work.  I can't recall
what it was tho. 

If you tried and they showed no interest, I guess it isn't going to
happen anytime soon.  :/

Dale

:-)  :-) 

P. S.  Back to working on my fuel drums.  What should be a one day
project is taking me several days.  I need more coal on the fire to
build up steam.

Re: [gentoo-user] OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Mon, 16 Oct 2023 03:28:35 -0500, Dale wrote:

> Wols Lists wrote:
> > On 16/10/2023 08:51, Dale wrote:  
> >> Anyone here have ideas?  Keep in mind, that thing uses systemd.  I
> >> thought I hated that before.  I truly hate that thing now.  Trying to
> >> figure out how to restart something is like pulling teeth with no
> >> pain meds.  
> >
> > systemctl restart servicename?
> >
> > I like systemd, but given my battles with other stuff, I feel your
> > pain. Having had to WRITE a service file, though, oh I'm so glad I
> > wasn't messing with SystemV or stuff like that!
 
> I tried to restart a couple things I found during my searches but most
> of them no longer exist.  It seems they change names pretty often.  I've
> tried to find anything that looks like network to restart but I can't
> tell what is what.

systemctl list-unit-files

will show all unit files installed on the system, although I don't find
that service names change. However, Ubuntu may decide to use a different
service to manage things from time to time.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

System halted - hit any Microsoft employee to continue.

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Re: [gentoo-user] OFF TOPIC Need Ubuntu network help

[Mark Knecht]

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On Mon, Oct 16, 2023 at 12:52 AM Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Howdy,
>
> I finally got through with my backup restore.  I had shutdown the NAS
> box with Ubuntu on it since I was done with it.  I wanted to do some
> updates and check some other stuff, still learning how Ubuntu works, so
> I rebooted it.  I didn't hook up the drives with my backups on them
> since I don't need them to update and such.  The network not only
> doesn't come up, it is just plain dead.  The LEDs on the card are out,
> the router shows no connection either, not even as inactive.  I did a
> LOT of searching.  Found others with similar problems but nothing
> helped.  I found one thread that was recent and exactly my problem.  It
> appears that after some attempts to figure it out, the guru trying to
> help ran out of ideas.  I'll post a link below.  [1]  It's kinda hard to
> post info since I have no way to get it from the NAS box to my main rig
> since the network isn't working.  That said, when I run lshw -C network,
> it shows it as being disabled.  It looks just like the thread linked
below.
>
> Since this is a built in network port and there is a history of issues
> with those things with me, I installed a PCIe network card.  It shows up
> the same way, disabled.  I rebooted the router just in case.  I also
> checked the BIOS to be sure it was enabled there, some glitch or
> something could have disabled it.  It shows up as enabled.  I checked
> the cable but then I thought of a way to rule out hardware.  I booted a
> Knoppix system that I have on the Ventoy USB stick.  I still love that
> thing.  :-D  The network came up and worked just fine without me doing a
> single thing.  I tried another image, can't recall which, and the
> network worked in it too.  I then said to heck with it, pulled out a
> spare hard drive and put it in place of the current drive with Ubuntu on
> it.  I then tried to install Debian.  Guess what, the network doesn't
> work with it either.  So, boot from USB image, network works.  Boot from
> a hard drive, network dead.
>
> Since the Ubuntu forums are no help, searching didn't help, my last
> resort is to ask here, on a Gentoo forum.  :/  I figure there may be a
> few people here that use Ubuntu on some system and are familiar with
> this.  Given it works on Knoppix and such, it has to be something
> related to Ubuntu and I guess Debian as well.  I downloaded both those
> images a while back.  My first instinct, the updates broke something.
> What's odd, it doesn't work with the USB Debian/Ubuntu images either and
> it worked fine before when I installed from it.
>
> Anyone here have ideas?  Keep in mind, that thing uses systemd.  I
> thought I hated that before.  I truly hate that thing now.  Trying to
> figure out how to restart something is like pulling teeth with no pain
> meds.  Heck, I have to google just to find out what the name of the
> service is because most make no sense.  Still, I'd like to get it
> working.  If not, the 770T may end up with Gentoo yet.
>
> [1]  https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2483647
>
> Thanks.
>
> Dale
>
> :-)  :-)

Dale,
   Sorry for your problems. I have a bunch of Kubuntu and
Ubuntu Server machines here so maybe I can help.

   First, I am NOT understanding your situation completely. I
have a suspicion that possibly you didn't configure a status
ip and something has changed it. That happened to me once
with Ubuntu Server and also with Kubuntu

1) Does your Ubuntu machine have a keyboard and monitor?

2) If it does lets try a couple of commands to get a baseline
and have you post results back

ip l show

route -n

ip r

sudo ifconfig

nmcli device

ping www.yahoo.com

(change enp5s0 as needed)
ip l show enp5s0 | grep --color -w UP


Let's start with that and see where it leads.

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