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Moriah Advocate
Joined: 27 Mar 2004 Posts: 2366 Location: Kentucky
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Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2009 8:57 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks, Neddy! It boots clean now.
Now to learn how to use wifi on a gentoo laptop. I've never done wifi under gentoo before. Where's the best place to start?
The ultimate goal is to have a laptop running gentoo with working ethernet, wifi, bluetooth, and a fully encrypted hard drive with a usb boot token, and to have that system running a virtual machine that has various os's as a guest. Since it is a laptop, I will need all those little frills that I never bothered with on servers, like audio, wifi, bluetooth, sleep, hibernate, etc.
This machine (HP nw8240 2 Ghz 1 core 2 GB ram) is the test case. If I get all this to work, then I will do the same thing on my Lenovo W500 (2.6 GHz 2 core 4 GB ram). If all that works, then I will switch from the current 320 GB SATA drive to a 250 GB flash SATA drive. That will then be my portable consulting box. _________________ The MyWord KJV Bible tool is at http://www.elilabs.com/~myword
Foghorn Leghorn is a Warner Bros. cartoon character. |
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NeddySeagoon Administrator
Joined: 05 Jul 2003 Posts: 54306 Location: 56N 3W
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Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2009 9:43 pm Post subject: |
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Moriah,
To learn to set up your wifi, look in the handbook
I want my netbook install to be like you are planning for your laptop. Its missing the crypto and hibernate at the moment. _________________ Regards,
NeddySeagoon
Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail. |
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Moriah Advocate
Joined: 27 Mar 2004 Posts: 2366 Location: Kentucky
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Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2009 10:08 pm Post subject: |
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Are you running bluetooth?
Virtual machine?
I have not yet decided whether to use the Linux virtual machine approach, or to purchase a license for the new vmware workstation 7.0. I have been running gentoo and rhel5 under vmware workstation 6.x for a couple of years, with XP as the host os, and it works very well. I will have to see how I like the linux vm approach before I decide which to do. _________________ The MyWord KJV Bible tool is at http://www.elilabs.com/~myword
Foghorn Leghorn is a Warner Bros. cartoon character. |
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Moriah Advocate
Joined: 27 Mar 2004 Posts: 2366 Location: Kentucky
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Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2009 10:40 pm Post subject: |
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This wireless stuff is a mess! What I want is:
1. The ability to see, by manually invoking a command, what access points are available and broadcasting an SSID, and what their encryption and signal strength is.
2. To choose which one to connect to, and using which encryption, and whether to use DHCP or a static IP.
3. A single default SSID to automatically connect to with a predefined encryption and IP or DHCP, but only if this SSID is available.
In other words, unless I am at my own network, I do not want to automatically connect to anything! I want to see what my choices are, and then to manually make my choice.
To do anythink else on a roaming laptop in a metro area in the US today is foolish.
So it looks tome like both wpa_supplicant and wireless-tools are controlled entirely by configuration files. This might be nice if you don't travel around with your laptop, or if you work for a big corporation and they own the laptop and they only allow you to connect to access points they pre-configure, but that is extremely restrictive for a laptop that needs to work at the coffee shop, bookstore, hotel, burger king, multiple clients' locations, as well as at the home network. In fact, it is totally useless!
Is there some other way to configure wifi, or do these tools have command line options that make them useful interactively? _________________ The MyWord KJV Bible tool is at http://www.elilabs.com/~myword
Foghorn Leghorn is a Warner Bros. cartoon character.
Last edited by Moriah on Sat Oct 31, 2009 10:42 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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NeddySeagoon Administrator
Joined: 05 Jul 2003 Posts: 54306 Location: 56N 3W
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Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2009 10:42 pm Post subject: |
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Moriah,
Gentoo runs vmware-server and its not running bluetooth now.
I have had bluetooth running a few years ago as I needed to dump the content of a mobile phone but I only used it the once.
It was fairly painless to set up. _________________ Regards,
NeddySeagoon
Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail. |
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NeddySeagoon Administrator
Joined: 05 Jul 2003 Posts: 54306 Location: 56N 3W
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Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2009 10:46 pm Post subject: |
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Moriah,
wireless tools can be used interactively from the command line but it only supports WEP
I've never tried wpa_supplicant that way _________________ Regards,
NeddySeagoon
Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail. |
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Moriah Advocate
Joined: 27 Mar 2004 Posts: 2366 Location: Kentucky
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Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2009 10:46 pm Post subject: |
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I need bluetooth for my mouse, and for wireless headset for conferencing, and for stereo audio for my tunes.
Vmware *SERVER*
I need vmware workstation, which should also run under gentoo,
Do you have any experience with the linux virtual machine stuff? Obviously I am biased towards an open source solution if a good one exists. _________________ The MyWord KJV Bible tool is at http://www.elilabs.com/~myword
Foghorn Leghorn is a Warner Bros. cartoon character. |
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NeddySeagoon Administrator
Joined: 05 Jul 2003 Posts: 54306 Location: 56N 3W
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Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2009 10:50 pm Post subject: |
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Moriah,
vmware-server is free, as in no cost. The main difference between it and -workstation is the lack of 3D accelerated graphics, which is not a problem for me. I've not tried other virtulisation. _________________ Regards,
NeddySeagoon
Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail. |
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Moriah Advocate
Joined: 27 Mar 2004 Posts: 2366 Location: Kentucky
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Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2009 10:53 pm Post subject: |
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Well, since I don't trust *ANY* wifi encryption nowdays, and I am restricted to using only WEP on my network due to an ancient Toshiba laptop that the president refuses to part with (because it has better sounding speakers than her good new HP 710w), I guess I will try wireless_tools first.
I have on the drawing board right now a wifi firewall and vpn tunnel server that will only allow you to connect to the network via a WEP connection with a shared key, and your MAC address must match in the DHCP server's config file so you get a dedicated IP address, and your connection will be thru an openVPN tunnel.
I have everything but the openVPN tunnel working now, and I am using openVPN elsewhere, so its just a matter of finding the time to do it. _________________ The MyWord KJV Bible tool is at http://www.elilabs.com/~myword
Foghorn Leghorn is a Warner Bros. cartoon character. |
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Moriah Advocate
Joined: 27 Mar 2004 Posts: 2366 Location: Kentucky
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Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2009 10:55 pm Post subject: |
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Does the free vmware server have machine snapshots like workstation?
Does it support ACE? _________________ The MyWord KJV Bible tool is at http://www.elilabs.com/~myword
Foghorn Leghorn is a Warner Bros. cartoon character. |
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01allein Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 09 Jun 2009 Posts: 127 Location: AUSTRALIA
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Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2009 11:07 pm Post subject: |
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Thank you very much, I just used kernel 2.26.30-r5 for x86_64 and worked perfectly.
I had to customized some modules like for my tv card kworl, that was all.
Great job. |
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VinzC Watchman
Joined: 17 Apr 2004 Posts: 5098 Location: Dark side of the mood
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Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 9:34 am Post subject: |
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Moriah wrote: | Does the free vmware server have machine snapshots like workstation?
Does it support ACE? |
This is off-topic but if you look for an Open Source virtualization application, there's KVM, which provides guest support for Bluetooth, USB, snapshots plus other cools features. That's my prefered virtualization engine right now. I've tried VMWare and VirtualBox but they're far from offering the same flexibility as KVM. Kvm also has experimental guest support for 3D. KVM is Redhat's number one virtualization tool officially -- XEN comes second.
For what it's worth, you may also find in libvirt GUI tools approximately the same features as VMWare ACE. (A central VM management tool, is that correct?)
Also note that KVM supports VMWare native file format and can convert many virtual file formats. _________________ Gentoo addict: tomorrow I quit, I promise!... Just one more emerge...
1739! |
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Moriah Advocate
Joined: 27 Mar 2004 Posts: 2366 Location: Kentucky
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Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 5:29 pm Post subject: |
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ACE is more than a centralized VM management tool. It lets you encapsulate a VM on a removable filesystem and cryptographically protect its configuration, including network access.
I'll look into KVM. Its unfortunate that they chose an already well known acronym for its name, as most computer savvy people already use KVM to refer to a Keyboard-Video-Mouse switch. Oh well... _________________ The MyWord KJV Bible tool is at http://www.elilabs.com/~myword
Foghorn Leghorn is a Warner Bros. cartoon character. |
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VinzC Watchman
Joined: 17 Apr 2004 Posts: 5098 Location: Dark side of the mood
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Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 5:55 pm Post subject: |
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Moriah wrote: | Its unfortunate that they chose an already well known acronym for its name, as most computer savvy people already use KVM to refer to a Keyboard-Video-Mouse switch. Oh well... |
Kernel Virtual Machine...
I didn't know that until recently in fact. Okay, it has never prevented me from breathing normally, you know... _________________ Gentoo addict: tomorrow I quit, I promise!... Just one more emerge...
1739! |
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pste Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 14 Dec 2004 Posts: 103
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Posted: Wed Nov 04, 2009 10:12 am Post subject: |
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To get beck to the kernel tweak documentation topic, I have a couple of questions about settings in your seeds, perhaps are they a few more relevant examples of the kind of reasoning I asked for earlier... They are perhaps trivial for some of you, but I'd appreciate any kind of information about them.
Pappy states at his kernel-seeds site in the howto section that it is made for a Core2Duo processor - makes me feel comfortable due to me running the same... But it raises the following questions (I've compared my own settings, which are based on the seeds but modified by heart/intuition, with pappys http://www.kernel-seeds.org/seeds/64_bit/gentoo/2.6.31-gentoo-r4-x86_64-07.config):
[1] Why is not CONFIG_MCORE2 set? It is a Core2 processor, isn't it?
[2] Why not use CONFIG_X86_MCE_INTEL?
[3] The reason[s] for not using CONFIG_MTRR_SANITIZER and/or CONFIG_X86_PAT?
[4] The seed has CONFIG_IOMMU_API set but I cannot set it (and there's no info with /IOMMU_API...), is it related to the MCORE2 perhaps?
[5] What are the benefits of using CONFIG_MICROCODE (but pappy has not selected CONFIG_MICROCODE_INTEL, why?)?
[6] Why is CONFIG_NR_CPUS set to 32 with a single Core2 processor, the (naive) straightforward setting is obviously 2?
[7] When I use Processor type and features -> Check for low memory corruption, I get a list in dmesg starting with "modified physical RAM map", which makes me believe that this setting is useful. There are another difference in dmesg output that I assume is related (early_node_map[7] becomes [6] instead). However, inspired by pappy's seed not having this setting I tried removing it and the system seems to work perfectly (naturally also lacking the modified list in dmesg...). Explanations, what should I think about this. The system is a HP HDX16 laptop by the way...
[8] Performance counters? What are they good for, or what are their consequences since being unset in the seeds?
/Yours nosy and demanding want-to-know-it-all... |
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pappy_mcfae Watchman
Joined: 27 Dec 2007 Posts: 5999 Location: Pomona, California.
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Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 5:55 am Post subject: |
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I need to look at that. It looks as if that's completely incorrect. I'll answer as soon as I see what happened.
BB!
P _________________ This space left intentionally blank, except for these ASCII symbols. |
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pappy_mcfae Watchman
Joined: 27 Dec 2007 Posts: 5999 Location: Pomona, California.
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Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 6:18 am Post subject: |
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You misunderstand. The .config in the how-to is not a seed. It is a finished .config that used to run one of my computers. It is used as an example of how to set things up. It began as a seed, but is no longer.
The seeds must be configured to reflect your settings, not mine. That's why they are set to be as neutral as possible, hardware-wise.
pste wrote: |
[1] Why is not CONFIG_MCORE2 set? It is a Core2 processor, isn't it?
[2] Why not use CONFIG_X86_MCE_INTEL?
[3] The reason[s] for not using CONFIG_MTRR_SANITIZER and/or CONFIG_X86_PAT?
[4] The seed has CONFIG_IOMMU_API set but I cannot set it (and there's no info with /IOMMU_API...), is it related to the MCORE2 perhaps?
[5] What are the benefits of using CONFIG_MICROCODE (but pappy has not selected CONFIG_MICROCODE_INTEL, why?)? |
The CPU settings in the actual seeds are set in a neutral state, more or less the minimum CPU required for operation. I don't know what kind of CPU each user has for the machine they wish to set up. Therefore, I use generic settings that should work for most devices.
The benefits of loading the microcode is it loads functions that enable other on-chip functions. Since all the Linux CD's I've used load microcode, I strongly suggest users do as well.
I leave it turned off because, once again, it is up to the user to set up their CPU. Since there are many CPU options (especially for x86), I leave it up to the user to set up their CPU and microcode (if available).
Quote: | [6] Why is CONFIG_NR_CPUS set to 32 with a single Core2 processor, the (naive) straightforward setting is obviously 2? |
I set that to a ridiculously large number to find out who was looking, and who wasn't. Good eyes!
Quote: | [7] When I use Processor type and features -> Check for low memory corruption, I get a list in dmesg starting with "modified physical RAM map", which makes me believe that this setting is useful. There are another difference in dmesg output that I assume is related (early_node_map[7] becomes [6] instead). However, inspired by pappy's seed not having this setting I tried removing it and the system seems to work perfectly (naturally also lacking the modified list in dmesg...). Explanations, what should I think about this. The system is a HP HDX16 laptop by the way... |
I am not a kernel dev. I do not pretend to know the answer to this. I use settings that work for all of my machines. As to the really deep stuff behind it, you'd have to ask a kernel dev.
Quote: | [8] Performance counters? What are they good for, or what are their consequences since being unset in the seeds?
/Yours nosy and demanding want-to-know-it-all... |
This is relatively new code. I have not set it up, so I have no idea what it does. The only thing I do know is the BFS doesn't like performance counters. Since that's the case, it stays off on all my machines. I like BFS. I don't like anything that gets in its way.
Blessed be!
Pappy _________________ This space left intentionally blank, except for these ASCII symbols. |
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pste Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 14 Dec 2004 Posts: 103
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Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 5:51 pm Post subject: |
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Ahh, of course, how stupit can one be... Sure you make the seeds general, that should've been obvious. A little comfort for my stupidity is at least that my diversions from the seeds then seems rather appropriate
Thanks anyway for giving it a thought!
One thing related to [8] is however CONFIG_PROFILING, _TRACEPIONTS and _MARKERS. Although you haven't set perfomance counters, you have set those (which resides in the same config section). Any thoughts behind that?
/pste |
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NeddySeagoon Administrator
Joined: 05 Jul 2003 Posts: 54306 Location: 56N 3W
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Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 7:36 pm Post subject: |
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Microcode is like a lookup table that defines how the CPU operates at a very low level.
CPUs have defualt microcode stored in read only memory that is loaded into a special RAM area in the CPU when the CPU is initialised.
the kernel to overwrite the micocode in RAM, is the CPU vendor has issued an update. You also need the new microcode. Its not provided in the kernel. The microcode is executed from RAM, not ROM as it has to work at the full core clock speed and ROM can't do that,
Whats it used for?
If Intel had had this feature in early P1 CPUs that had the 'Slight Loss of Precision' floating point divide problem, they would have issued new microcode, rather than new CPUs. _________________ Regards,
NeddySeagoon
Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail. |
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Moriah Advocate
Joined: 27 Mar 2004 Posts: 2366 Location: Kentucky
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Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 7:50 pm Post subject: |
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Ditto on the *IF* they had had loadable microcode they could have fixed the 32 bit multiply error in the original 386 chips, instead of commiting a major customer relations blunder trying to say "what are the chances that a real end user would ever see this, considering they all run DOS, which is a 16 bit os. Funny thing: *I* was running 386/ix, a flavor 0of SVR3 Unix back in thos days! _________________ The MyWord KJV Bible tool is at http://www.elilabs.com/~myword
Foghorn Leghorn is a Warner Bros. cartoon character. |
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pste Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 14 Dec 2004 Posts: 103
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Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 8:15 pm Post subject: |
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Well, I understand that (some of) my questions may make me sound more unknowing than I (hopefully) am... I think I know the general idea about microcode. But my (embarrasing) misunderstaning of pappy's natural generality-ambition made me misinterpret the situation. I kind of thought that the microcode was deliberetly omitted due to it being counterproductive for some reason[s]. Hence the question.
I might rephrase the question though: Does anybody know about any particular improvements/bugfixes that intels update [microcode-20090927.tgz] (for Core2Duo mobile - Centrino2) does, i.e. what are the concrete benefits of using it, compared to using the default?
/pste |
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frank56 Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 02 Nov 2009 Posts: 98
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Posted: Sat Nov 07, 2009 10:30 pm Post subject: Question about Pappy Seeds |
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Does one have to have a working operating system or can one install Pappy Seed with a sysrescd that booted ? |
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zyko l33t
Joined: 01 Jun 2008 Posts: 620 Location: Munich, Germany
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Posted: Sat Nov 07, 2009 10:33 pm Post subject: |
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Sysresccd will do.
Merged the question and answer here - NeddySeagoon |
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frank56 Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 02 Nov 2009 Posts: 98
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Posted: Sat Nov 07, 2009 11:41 pm Post subject: |
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zyko wrote: | Sysresccd will do.
Merged the question and answer here - NeddySeagoon |
I have sysrescd going, I type at root@sysresc / root % cd /usr/src-2.6.30-gentoo-r8 and I get, no such file or directory. I have a gentoo system that I got to the reboot stage but stalls at boot., loading drivers.
Basically what steps do i need to follow next ? Frank
I was able to print my output from lspci -n and cpinfo ready to go also. |
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zyko l33t
Joined: 01 Jun 2008 Posts: 620 Location: Munich, Germany
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Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 1:44 am Post subject: |
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Do exactly what you did when you first installed Gentoo:
Mount Gentoo's root partition (for example to /mnt/gentoo) and, if necessary, your boot partition, then chroot into your Gentoo system ("chroot /mnt/gentoo /bin/bash"). Now you should find your kernel sources in /usr/src and be able to fix your config. |
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