Advice for a specific setup...

The_Great_Sephiroth · Posted: Mon Nov 10, 2014 5:20 pm Post subject:

Alright, so I installed again and followed the guide (I did customize the kernel by removing all net/wifi drivers that weren't on my system) and am in the chroot. The only step I skipped was emerging dhcpcd since I want to use netwokrmanager. GRUB2 is installed and everything looks good, but whenever I try emerging NM, it tries pulling in X, KDE and more.

Is it possible top install Gentoo without dhcpcd and instead use NM? This is where I am at now, and reading over everything I can find, I cannot figure out how to do the Debian equivalent of not pulling suggested or recommended packages. Maybe I am missing something, but I cannot figure out what. Normally NM works without a desktop. I even have it on a few shell-only Debian servers for remote connectivity, but it refuses to install here. Currently my USE flags contain "-systemd -gtk -gnome bindist mmx sse sse2 ssse3". Now "emerge --info" shows loads of USE flags, but I am guessing those are from the live CD, not my chroot?

*EDIT*

Alright, I may have just figured something out. If I create "package.use" and enter the line "net-misc/networkmanager -kde -qt4 -X", it should create it without pulling KDE down, right? If so, would it work later on when I install KDE4 and use the NM applet?

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Mon Nov 10, 2014 7:56 pm Post subject:

The_Great_Sephiroth,

There is no point in setting or unsetting flags an a package if the package does not use them. They will be ignored.
Looking at emerge -pv networkmanager, I get.

The_Great_Sephiroth · Posted: Mon Nov 10, 2014 10:34 pm Post subject:

Thanks, I will post it the next time I get to the laptop. I am off tomorrow and intend on riding one of my motorcycles all day, since it may be my last ride before cold weather hits. I might get to it tonight if I can.

Jaglover · Posted: Mon Nov 10, 2014 10:50 pm Post subject:

OTOH, why you even need the networkmanager during installation? You can install the base system, reboot into your Gentoo, configure the network by hand (it takes two simple commands) and carry on finalizing your installation. Networkmanager is handy when you travel, you really do not need it to connect to the internet, though.
_________________
My Gentoo installation notes.
Please learn how to denote units correctly!

The_Great_Sephiroth · Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2014 4:29 am Post subject:

We use NM due to the nature of our business. I am the head guy at an IT firm. We have laptops which travel and need various VPN connectivity. The stationary desktops have a static IP, but they still use the various VPN technology. Not all techs are VPN pros, so it is best if they don't have to go hand-editing config files in nano or kwrite. NM is a GREAT tool and we even have clients who switched from Windows to Linux (Debian right now) that use it without much hassle.

Jaglover · Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2014 4:35 am Post subject:

Right, but why do you need NM during early installation stage? Get your base install working and build on it whatever you like, NM is not a prerequisite here.

Edit: Once upon time I wrote up this: http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/gentoo-linux/170079-setting-up-make-conf.html because they had a terribly incompetent sticky about USE flags and the only way to get rid of this misinformation was to write another sticky. However, their forum software does not allow editing posts after a week or so and this sticky is now somewhat outdated. Yet, you may find it a good starting point.
_________________
My Gentoo installation notes.
Please learn how to denote units correctly!

The_Great_Sephiroth · Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2014 4:54 am Post subject:

I don't need NM for the install. The way this works in my head is this. I install the base system, build the kernel, and then install my networking stuff. I reboot, and I can go online because I have my networking stuff. I assume that if I do not install dhcpcd or NM or wicd, etc I will have no network after reboot, despite having my NIC detected. I know I could do a static IP, but I am not sure how to do it in Gentoo. Wait, it just hit me. I am a dumby. I can use ifconfig to set a static IP and go. Try not to laugh too hard. It has been eons since I had to use ifconfig for that by hand. I have been spoiled by Debian.

*EDIT*

I see that I can set the video card type thanks to your post. I was wondering where to set it. How do I set the ALSA stuff? I would only need snd_hda_intel on the laptop in question.

Jaglover · Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2014 5:02 am Post subject:

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-x86-quickinstall.xml

See Code Listing 2.4 for reference ... just in case.
_________________
My Gentoo installation notes.
Please learn how to denote units correctly!

DONAHUE · Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2014 5:06 am Post subject:

you have not yet said if ifconfig -a shows interfaces and if it does under what names.
if it does enter the chroot and run emerge -1 dhcpcd
exit and reboot to the installed system and run dhcpcd <ethernet interface name> (ifconfig <ethernet interface name> followed by dhcpcd <ethernet interface name> ; if necessary) ping -c2 google.com to check connection.
_________________
Defund the FCC.

Jaglover · Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2014 5:22 am Post subject:

The_Great_Sephiroth · Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2014 7:46 pm Post subject:

Sorry, I have not been back to the laptop yet. I just got back from my ride. I now plan on cleaning my house and maybe doing some C++ before this evening. Oh, and I have to clean the bike so it shines the next time I ride. I will post the output of ifconfig -a as soon as I get back to the laptop. It is actually at my office right now.

The_Great_Sephiroth · Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2014 3:29 pm Post subject:

Woohoo! making progress! Now, I have an intel 82801I ICH9 audio card on this laptop. What kernel options should I select for it? In fact, I have a few things I have questions about. I will list them below.

Audio - Intel 82801I ICH9
Video - Intel Mobile 4 Series Rev07
USB - Intel 82801I ICH9 UHCI and EHCI
SATA - Intel 82801IBM/IEM (ICH9M/ICH9M-E) AHCI

I also have an integrated webcam but do not see it under lspci. My guess is that it is connected via USB, but I do not yet have lsusb so I cannot figure it out. I will get to it later. For now I will include the default V4L stuff. I can cut the extras out later, or convert them to modules.

So what should I select to support this hardware in-kernel? I will keep poking through the menu configuration in the meantime.

The_Great_Sephiroth · Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2014 5:56 pm Post subject:

I believe I got it. I just booted into the system and it appears to be good. Now I ran "emerge --info" and I have a ton of USE flags not set in my make.conf file. I believe I need some explanation on how this works. I also have some strange names when I do "ifconfig -a". I have "enp3s0" which I believe is eth0 and "sit0" which is new to me. I have not emerged the wireless stuff yet due to being curious about the USE flags. My USE flags are "bindist mmx sse sse2 ssse3 sse4_1" but "emerge --info" shows things like X, acl, etc etc. Call me thick, but can somebody explain this phenomenon to me?

DONAHUE · Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2014 7:29 pm Post subject:

the profile contains a set of use flags chosen by the developers to implement a basic design suggested by the profile's title.
that set is modified by the make.conf USE= to give the list shown by emerge --info.
that set may be modified for specific packages by entries in /etc/portage/package.use when that specific package is to be merged.
udev changes the kernel assigned interface names to ,purportedly, "persistent device names".
_________________
Defund the FCC.

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2014 7:42 pm Post subject:

The_Great_Sephiroth,

USE flags are inherited from your profile. Try various random profiles and see what emerge --info produces.
Looking like this is harmless but don't build anything.

The idea behind a profile is that if you choose the right one, its a good starting point for adding and subtracting USE flags for your own system.
If you prefer, you can choose any profile you want, then turn off all the preset USE flags. There is a special USE flag for that.
Then its all up to you.

You set/unset USE flags globally in make.conf or on a package by package basis in /etc/portage/package.use.

enp3s0 was for a few seconds, eth0. Thats udev 'persistant device names' for you. You can tell udev to keep its hands off network device names if you want to.
For most people, as long as you pick a standard, it will work. Just don't mix them.
If you look in dmesg, you will see eth0 being renamed.

sit0 is not a real interface. Its provided free with IPv6 in the kernel. Its an IPv6 over IPv4 tunnel endpoint.
You will use it if you want to play with IPv6 but your ISP only provides IPv4.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

The_Great_Sephiroth · Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2014 7:51 pm Post subject:

I know all about IPv6. I created a virtual IPv6 network at the office once (XenServer hosts, VBox systems on my laptop as clients) and disliked it. Much more complex for me, and I still do not see it being used anywhere.

How would I tell udev to leave my NIC names alone? In Debian we have "/etc/udev/rules.d/<x>-persistent-net.rules" and in there it has the interface name and MAC address. This way the name is reserved for the device with that MAC. If you change NICs, you delete the line from that file that has the old MAC and the name gets assigned again.

Finally, I selected the kde (non-systemd) profile, which explains everything. This system will have KDE on it, so it is fine. I was confused as to where the flags were coming from. This makes total sense now. I could choose the default, but then I would have to manually set flags like X, KDE, etc, correct? I am happy with the flags. I also have the wired NIC working and now that I understand these flags being pulled from my profile, I am ready to proceed with installing my stuff.

Now, in Debian I prefer to install only what I need. For example, I install their package "xserver-xorg-core", which only installs the minimal X stuff. I then install "kde-plasma-desktop", which is the bare minimum KDE stuff. I can then install my individual apps like kuser, kmix, k3b, etc and not get a lot of bloat. Can I do this with emerge? Thanks!

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2014 8:08 pm Post subject:

The_Great_Sephiroth,

/etc/udev/rules.d/<x>-persistent-net.rules has long been abandoned by udev.
Thats not to say you still can't write your own rules to use your own interface names.
Read the Gentoo Wiki

There is no such thing as the default profile

The_Great_Sephiroth · Posted: Thu Nov 13, 2014 1:28 pm Post subject:

Wow, Debian stable (Wheezy) still uses those rules. I had come to rely on them, but I guess it is time to study up again. Thanks for the link. I am still having a ball learning Gentoo and love using it despite my setbacks due to learning. I now have it working in VirtualBox and on an old HP laptop.

Now, I plan on using the global USE flags to specify ONLY things I want in all programs. Things like MMX and SSE*. I will let Gentoo's profiles set the rest accordingly, at least until I know Gentoo the way I know Debian. With that said though, is it possible for me to set the default "amd64/13.0" profile, install my shell utilities, then change the profile to kde and install my desktop? I have been doing a lot of reading and have read several where such a thing has been recommended. Is that an OK thing to do since my shell utilities should not require a desktop? I would rather not have things like 7-Zip not require X. With the kde profile, 7-Zip (p7zip) attempts to pull down X and such. That seems silly, but maybe Gentoo has a GUI for 7-Zip that Debian does not. I am used to using it on the command-line.

*EDIT*

Neddy, I just read your signature. I never thought about it that way. I started using computers in the Atari era. Back then we never did backups and everything lived on 5.25" floppies. My Atari floppies are still good. Do not ask me how. I later moved to an 8086, a 286, a 486, and on up. My 286 still has the original HDD (30MiB) and it is still golden. The first time I had a drive show signs of failure was on a P4/3.2GHz system I built for gaming. It lasted from 2003/04 through 2012. It started failing the year I bought my home. However, I have had a 1TB USB drive (HDD, not flash) that I backed up all of my pictures, music, and videos onto. Before that it was a zip-disk. Why was I backing up since my 486SX (Windows 3.11) days? I was learning Linux (Redhat back then) and partitioning was a scary thought to me back then! Linux teaches good habits, if you read the manual!

steveL · Posted: Thu Nov 13, 2014 3:10 pm Post subject:

The_Great_Sephiroth · Posted: Fri Nov 14, 2014 3:30 am Post subject:

Is there a way to show changes to any and all packages after changing my profile? I just changed it after installing all of my core utilities (cpufrequtils, screen, unrar, unzip, p7zip, etc) and am ready to install X and KDE. I cannot figure out how to show what changes will be done now that I switched profiles.

DONAHUE · Posted: Fri Nov 14, 2014 3:41 am Post subject:

emerge -av world
_________________
Defund the FCC.

The_Great_Sephiroth · Posted: Fri Nov 14, 2014 1:10 pm Post subject:

Alright, thank you. I got X installed last night and am preparing to do KDE. I am amazed how much faster this system boots and runs thus far, and am excited to see KDE on it.

Also, what is the difference between "@world" and just "world"?

mrbassie · l33t Joined: 31 May 2013 Posts: 772 Location: over here

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Fri Nov 14, 2014 9:18 pm Post subject:

The_Great_Sephiroth,

Before portage-2.0 world was correct. Sets were introduced in portage-2.0 and the syntax to refer to a set became @<set>
world is really a set, hence @world, @system and others.

If you want to write the set,

steveL · Posted: Fri Nov 14, 2014 11:30 pm Post subject:

IOW there is no difference between "@world" and just "world"; similarly to "system". Those two are special-cases for the reasons Neddy outlined.

You're going to love KDE; the first time you run your own self-compiled one is a revelation and a delight. ;-)

I feel like I have to add a caveat about semantic-craptop in 4.x+, but if you're coming from a bindist, it shouldn't be an issue.