GWN: Automated kernel configuration?

broschi · Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2003 12:11 am Post subject:

This is not like Dubya wants us to believe. We don't need to either be with one evil or the other, we can have both! A gui is merely an interface to some basic tools that will always be avalaible no matter how much eye candy you shove in.

Can somebody stop using the same old irrational argument.
_________________
"Is this type of thing going to happen every time we switch to improbability drive?" "Very probably I'm afraid."

guero61 · l33t Joined: 14 Oct 2002 Posts: 811 Location: Behind you

"Somebody", gee... Why can't you come out and say, "guero61, I think your argument is flawed, and this is why..."? Do you not have any reasons, or do you just like being catty and petty?

--edit--
I was a little over the top on this second part. Suffice it to say it reiterated the above in much stronger terms. If you have valid points to make instead of making asinine comments and being a general... Just make them. Save the cattiness for someone who can slap you when you need it.

ebrostig · Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2003 12:52 am Post subject:

One poster wrote along the lines of: "Don't take away the tools we love etc". Where the heck have you seen any information saying that the old way of installing and configuring Gentoo was going away?
Let me answer my own question with one word: Nowhere!

Now stop acting like spoiled kids that get their candy taken away. Nothing is going away, something may be added to Gentoo, to make it more attractive to a larger audience. Please explain why that is a bad thing?

This is like Bill Gates saying "Nobody will ever need more than 640k RAM" back in the early 80's when asked about MS-DOS memory management and limitations.

Saying that a new installer and a kernel configrator is not necessary, is beeing reactionary. Start understanding that progress is not necessarily about you personally, but what is good for the masses. Elitists will always complain about their own domain beeing invaded by the hords. Reminds me too much about Nazi-Germany, old Soviet Russia and nowadays, about Saddams Iraq.

Rant mode is over, back to work! :twisted:

Erik
_________________
'Yes, Firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'

handsomepete · Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2003 1:06 am Post subject:

Bring on the graphical installer! Bring on the kernel autoconfig! Dub it gentoo-ez and distribute it as a separate ISO and install path. Then we can all have it however we want and move on. Sound fair?

gsfgf · Veteran Joined: 08 May 2002 Posts: 1266

I think it's good. if menuconfig goes away i'm gonna shoot someone, but since i doubt that's gonna happen i'm excited. Making it dump into an xconfig or menuconfig does sound like a good idea, though. Go gentoo devs. Another good thing would be to use a more minimalist kernel. I bet ther's stuff in my kernel i don't need, but don't know about. Oh, and for god's sake have devfs selected by default (it may be now i haven't installed in a looong time) because that leaves the use w/ a semi-scary error.
_________________
Aim:gsfgf0

guero61 · l33t Joined: 14 Oct 2002 Posts: 811 Location: Behind you

I'm hot, you're hot, we're all hot. We'll all cool down in a bit, but...

Overreaction. Both sides. Yes, we know our tools and process are going nowhere (that was my post, by the way) for the moment, but there may be a fear creeping in that as we go toward these other paradigms the ones we currently use will be seen as "outdated" and eventually not necessary. We're not RedHat, but that's precisely what they did. Paranoia at its greatest

Becoming more attractive to a larger audience is not a bad thing; it's good, but at least I have the feeling that it must be kept somewhat in rein. Right now, the decisions we make about autoconfiguration and installation procedures may seem trivial and wonderful, but what magnifying effect will the years have on those moves? Who's to say we'll remain the most optimized, powerful Linux? Again, paranoia, but it's potentially threatening to something this little subset of current users really likes.

On the other side of the tracks, the overreaction is to call us "ponytailed elitists", making allusions to dictatorial regimes, and telling us we're holding the future of Linux back, all for our cautionary stance. We all want linux to move forward in the world.

We have not said no, we have not said never; we have said "branch, make it not mandatory, or something of the such." That will protect my little pet interests and everyone else's as well. We cannot make everybody absolutely happy with one install CD, one setup. If we could, we'd be gods :lol:

--edit--
That's it, I'm done. The thread is out of hand, and I have a good deal to do with that. I'll read the rest of the comments, but I've said my piece. No postee for me!

handsomepete · Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2003 1:19 am Post subject:

guero61 · l33t Joined: 14 Oct 2002 Posts: 811 Location: Behind you

KiTaSuMbA · Guru Joined: 28 Jun 2002 Posts: 430 Location: Naples Italy

gsfgf: Nobody is taking away menuconfig... Even with the fresh X interface I believe already implemented in the 2.5.x series (I recall reading about it on kerneltrap) there would roll many heads if somebody suggested that. The autoconfig would simply be an extra "layer" that you might or might not use to form a .config without having to know everything about the machine (hardware autodetection and basic questions kind of thing I imagine).
Now that might sound completely useless to you or even me but building a correct kernel (read: it doesn't just boot but it actually lets you do what needs to be done) is often a show-stopper even for people that are not absolute linux newbies.
_________________
Need to flame people LIVE on IRC? Join #gentoo-otw on freenode!

luap · Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2003 7:28 pm Post subject: compromise and redirect

hi,
i am a linux lemming, a linux installer, a pre newb. i do want to learn, and become a linux user, and who knows even a linux contributor.
so i am trying a stage2 1.4-rc4 install ,gentoo-sources(sic)
my take on this - i could do without what i think is an auto-menuconfig?
i've found the gentoo install doc to be pretty good- so why not enhance
it with a menuconfig guide? thats where i am stuck, and probably where
many get stuck. it looks like something along these lines is already started by some gentoo folks(see FAQ #11?) .
if there was something that sort of explained the options and how they work or when they are needed, could that be a bad thing for gurus or the unworthy?
so at the risk of seeming to be ungrateful or unappreciative of the coding effort thats gone in to gentoo, my suggestion is to put the time
into more documentation.
could you copy out a menuconfig, place it in a wikiwiki or sandbox page
(by now you have guessed that i'm not a true pc techie), and invite
all knowledgable folk to contribute descriptions or definitions of options?
i've learned more from failing to get a gentoo install than i have from installing rh, md, suse,libranet, stormix. i intend to continue to try. and learn.
so here's a newb saying dont make it easier, just make it clearer?

telex4 · l33t Joined: 21 Sep 2002 Posts: 704 Location: Reading, UK

luap, would a program that automatically configured some of the kernel (so you knew you were at least safe), and displayed more thorough documentation be useful to you? We're not sure what the developers are actually creating, but I'm sure that if good ideas comes from the forums they'll work their way into the code.

The Khan Artist · Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2003 8:01 pm Post subject:

Disregarding everything said so far (because I didn't read most of it

), I think having an auto-config would be excellent. Run auto-config, tweak the resulting config by hand, and fly. I don't like spending an hour setting up my kernel. OTOH, I will never 100% trust an autoconfig tool for something as important as the kernel.

If it saves time, excellent.

herring · Apprentice Joined: 22 Jul 2002 Posts: 187 Location: Norway

I prefer making my .config files by hand using vi or emacs
cd /usr/src/linux
vi .config
#
# Handmade config: please edit
#
CONFIG_X86=y
:!:

luap · Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2003 8:41 pm Post subject:

hi,
i am not against an auto installer, but i think i could learn more about the kernel and configging it if , say, as i got in to menuconfig, i could see comments like " check this if you want to use gizmo x" or "you need this if you chose widget a".. my personal glitch seems to be picking all the right stuff for netfilter. newbs can learn this stuff with good doc.
if the gentoo devs could go this route, experts wouldnt ultimately lose out to auto everything, and newbs could absorb , and gentoo could stay unique. probably lfs would be better for learning, but i like the idea of eventually having a (sort of) customized system with portage.
i want the satisfaction of succeeding in getting the kernel compiled. i want to step thru getting gentoo installed, and maybe on the 4th or 5th
install i'll be doing it cause i understand it , not cause i'm "copying" it.

ebrostig · Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2003 9:17 pm Post subject:

I think one point that most people tend to forget is:

This is not either or, it is both.

If you don't want to use a GUI based installer, don't! Use the normal method that we use today. Nobody will be forcing anyone to use the GUI based installer, if and when it is made available.

The same goes for a kernel configurator. Use vi or Emacs to edit the .config file if you like. The end result will (hopefully) be the same.

This is about giving people alternatives, not about taking away from the rest of us.
If giving an alternative is a bad thing, then I'm done with Gentoo.

Erik
_________________
'Yes, Firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'

StrCrssd · Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2003 11:25 pm Post subject: Alternatives...

I'm not against giving the newbies something like a vanilla kernel, or a program that pre-loads their kernel with all relevant drivers, or perhaps a program that checks their .config file for all things that are required by gentoo to function properly. My problem is that this path will quickly lead to just installing a binary kernel for the user, without the user ever having to configure his or her own kernel (or even look at menuconfig or config).

I think this will lead to a rash of users who don't know what they are doing asking why their performance is so slow, or why feature Y doesn't work. It is much more difficult to troubleshoot performance problems like that when they already have X up and running and several layers of complexity added than if they simply can't figure out how to configure their kernel (many times they get stuck and come to the forums, and we help them get it figured out).

Responding to someone else's question from back in this thread, I set up a kernel the first time I ran linux. I needed SMP support and my Suse kernel did not include it, I very rapidly became familiar with the command line and the kernel configuration as a result. I've done the same in FreeBSD and all my firewalls run a custom OpenBSD kernel. I learned how to do all these with just documentation, not some automagical-configurator.
_________________
StrCrssd

Give a man enough rope, he'll hang himself. Teach a man to make rope, he'll hang other people.

telex4 · l33t Joined: 21 Sep 2002 Posts: 704 Location: Reading, UK

broschi · Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2003 11:36 pm Post subject:

Take for granted that X is very complicated to compile and if it wasn't for distro packages I doubt many people could install it in the first place. The default values used by developpers for us don't make X crappy, it is often slow and instable but that's mostly because of heavy weight software or buggy hardware.

If the auto-config tool is well written, noobs will be able to do whatever it is that they wan't to do. It didn't detect SMP? Well a decent tool should give you the choice to force that option. Again, if a good gui has been designed maybe they will find it themselves and will actually result in a decreased newbi flow in the forums. Who knows really?
_________________
"Is this type of thing going to happen every time we switch to improbability drive?" "Very probably I'm afraid."

Genone · Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2003 12:25 am Post subject:

I just found out that the kernel autoconfig tool is in portage already. It's in sys-kernel/genkernel.
The good thing is that it is a CLI tool. The bad thing is that the documentation is somewhat lacking, there is only a README file with no useful information. I'm currently trying it out.

Edit: So, I just tried it on gentoo-sources-2.4.20-r2 and I must say that I'm very disappointed if this really is the tool we were discussing.
It doesn't do any configuration but simply uses a provided config file which builds a redhat-like kernel (nearly everything compiled in or as modules, excluding some important things such as netfilter). By default it emerges a given kernel package (even if it is already installed), copies the config file over and then compiles and installs the kernel. It can be tweaked with some options, but with this default behavior you can use a binary kernel as well.

captjack · n00b Joined: 16 Mar 2003 Posts: 29 Location: Japan

Well, I don't post much because half the time I don't have a gui and I don't have any experience with non-gui web browsers.

My take on this subject is in large part attributable to my background with linux. I started back in 98-99 with the early Redhat and Caldera Distros. When Corel came out with their distro I thought I was in heaven, but linux was more of a curiosity for me than a real interest so I went back to M$. A few years ago I came back to linux. I became an avid Mandrake user. It wasn't long before I came across RPM Dependency Hell (RDH) and vowed I would never again use another RPM based distro. So Debian and Gentoo came to mind. I tried Gentoo first (1.2), but it was all (insert language you cant read or speak here) to me. I admit I wasn't very dedicated so I became frustrated and left. So I thought maybe Debian would be another worthy candidate, but couldn't find an ISO so I never got off the ground. Tried a few others with no luck so again I left linux. My first attempt to try again was Gentoo 1.4rc2 and to my suprise I actually got somewhere, it turns out my biggest roadblock to installing 1.2 was that my nic wasn't getting properly configured (and as you experienced users know if your nic isn't working it makes it awfully hard to get anywhere). Can you believe it? The inability to configure my nic prevented me from installing Gentoo when it was 1.2 and it took until 1.4rc2 before I tried again and got it right. Well I struggled through the process and learned a little and now I'm a dedicated Gentoo noob. I mean it took me two weeks just to get my first glimps at a gui. But I'll be honest I dont know a damn thing about CFLAGS really and most people have their opinions on what CFLAGS are best to get an "uber optimised" system. Who cares about that right now? I'm just happy I got that ugly gui the first time i typed startx. And don't ask me about my kernel config, I just know that it works. And ALSA, whats that? How to get sound on with linux the HARD way? I'm trying to learn more so I've been re-compiling the kernel everyday this week and visiting the forums all the time for information. But Gentoo is no walk in the park and is definitely not for those unwilling to learn and try and fail and try again and probably fail then read the Forums then try and maybe succeed.

So based upon those experiences here's my take. Install gui or kernel autoconfiguration? Great! Although I no longer have any need for these tools because I understand (and ENJOY) the Gentoo install process well enough to use the How to Guide and the shell, I would have LOVED these tools when I had tried Gentoo 1.2 the first time.

But I don't understand why a install gui has to be just point and click like every other point and click install. How about one that incorporates the How to Guide? So that each stage of the install is a stage in the install guide, but with a gui you could incorporate more information into the install. So when you get to the point in the install where it tells you to edit your make.conf for USE variables, then you can click on USE in the install and you will get a window that will explain all the different USE variables or better yet you can click on RECOMMEND and users can get a basic recommendation on what USE variables they should look to add to their make.conf. The same concept can be applied to CFLAGS. Click RECOMMEND and you get recommended CFLAGS for your CPU type. Because lets face it not everybody has 2+ computers available for use so that they can check the Gentoo Forums for answers. When you get to kernel config the same level of granularity can be offered. Click RECOMMEND and you get the autoconfigured .config for review, or you can go through the whole process with detailed explaination for each choice and why you would or would not want that option in your kernel.

I understand what I'm saying would require A LOT of documentation. But reality is, most of that documentation already exists in the HOW TO, FAQS and Forums. An install gui that incorporates this wealth of info would just put it all together for a dumb guy like me to get a Gentoo running at 1.2 as opposed to waiting for 1.4rc2.

I understand (not necessarily agree) with what has been termed the "l337" crowd is saying about "watering down Gentoo" (so you get more Gentoo, but with less flavor) with a autoconfig or gui install. I would hate for Gentoo to become the last bastion of linux virgins who aren't willing to put forth 1/4 the effort it took for me to get my first install up and running. But my reality is that Gentoo with an autoconfig and gui install can really really really create more Gentoo, without watering it down. Just think outside the box and not limit Gentoo to what "other" gui installers have done. I mean think about it, how NICE would it be for a noob to install Gentoo AND have access to the Forums? Wouldn't they already have network access to some extent?

Sorry for the verbal diarrhea I don't post much.

WarMachine · Apprentice Joined: 15 Jul 2002 Posts: 181

Don't really care if it was added, I probably wouldn't use it anyway. I don't see menuconfig going away after a GUI config is implimented seeing as the ancient make config still works.

I don't see how not wanting it is elitism. Maybe "linux conservativism" or something like that for wanting to keep it the way it is but this isn't any way meant to keep out new users

KiTaSuMbA · Guru Joined: 28 Jun 2002 Posts: 430 Location: Naples Italy

captjack: you hit the nail right in the head! That would be a perfect installer for n00bs and it wouldn't hide out too much to make the concept of gentoo void.
Let's add some more dream-examples:
CFLAGS: the hw detection found an athlonXP so the recommended set is a permutation based on that.
Kernel: not only find out what runs on the machine with auto-detection but ask the user over "functionality sets" like "PCMCIA? Y/N" and then move to change the .config accordingly to all the fields necessary and 2 extra buttons: help and advanced the latter spitting out the relevant section of the config granularly.
Emerges:
1) clickable ON/OFF on the "expandable" extra USE flags entry on each package (info easily taken from emerge -pv) along with a "what's this" function for each of them as they are defined in the official list of current valid USE flags (you can find it somewhere at the site too)
2) "sticky" flag for a package to either not upgrade or prevent downgrades in following "-u world"s (having a basis of x86 system but also some ~x86 packages I can never do that: just "-pvu world > foo.txt" and then one by one...) Actually, that's not about a gui installer but a feature to add to portage.
_________________
Need to flame people LIVE on IRC? Join #gentoo-otw on freenode!

MathFreak · Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2003 2:01 pm Post subject:

Here's my basic opinion. Gentoo is a great distribution - easily my favorite. As long as they keep all the current tools, they can add whatever they want. I know this point has been said repeatedly, but I have something else to add - my father.

I recently converted him to Gentoo from Debian. He's not a Linux expert by any means, but he's very comfortable using it. I don't think he's ever compiled his own kernel or installed his own distribution - that's the kind of stuff he asks me to do - but he's very happy with Gentoo. Basically, he wants a system that works and is reasonably up-to-date. Gentoo gives him that and frees him from RPM hell.

I didn't go through the Gentoo install only because I gave him my old computer with Gentoo already installed. But will I go through compiling a kernel and installing an OS with him - probably. He's not even near computer illiterate, but for some things you need more than a man page. He also has better and more important things to do than try and figure out every single kernel option (even the ones that don't have help screens) on his own.

Something like a kernel-autoconfiguration tool and a GUI installer would be great. Just keep the more low level tools available for me to fix things (or even for my dad if can ever find the time to learn them). Just because he chooses to spend a sizeable chunk of his free time blacksmithing and doing other things he really enjoys doesn't mean he shouldn't use the best Linux distribution out there.

georgz · Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2003 3:34 pm Post subject:

Add my opinion shamelessly here... ;-)

I think the installation is not the big problem for newbies... Basically it's the part after the installation (mainly configuration of X, printing, wireless cards, Irda, Modem, scanner etc.). A real newbie doesn't have a clue how to do it, what software he has to emerge etc. etc. I think this is the area where Gentoo should improve. I myself, although I love Gentoo, am sometimes tired of searching the forums, web etc. for a configuration like USB scanner. How easy is that with Mandrake, where detection and configuration is done automatically, at least to a point where it basically works.

Why don't we just cooperate with Knoppix etc. Use the hw detection of Knoppix and from that create configuration suggestions (provide an initial configuration). User then just has to copy the config files to the right location and try. When teaming up with Knoppix and others we could join forces and even improve that stuff alot.

Just my 2 cents. I don't need a graphical installer, and I don't think it's needed as long as installation stays good documented. BTW, kernel autoconfiguration seems a good thing to me, because it will help a bunch of people (see all those threads about kernel not booting because of devfs not built etc.etc). The autoconfig could help to avoid this crap and such give those users a better impression of Gentoo in general. And I'm pretty sure that we aren't forced to use this if someone doesn't want to....

Lovechild · Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2003 3:52 pm Post subject:

I'm just trying out genkernel now on the gaming sources 2.4.20-r2, so far it seems like a really good idea, it makes it ultra easy to compile a kernel for even the n00bists moron^h^h^h^h^huser.

-edit-

Argh crap it's broken, it just stops at the point where it says moving bzImage to /kernel-2.4.20-gaming-r2

also... putting kernels in / -- who got that strange idea?