Jackass! 2005.2 Support Group

Message

96140 · Post by **96140** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 7:16 am

Bob P wrote:which reminds me of another Jackass!-related idea. somebody had asked me if i would consider building a Jackass! equivalent version of the Gentoo Packages CD -- a pre-compiled binary CD that is built for the specific Jackass! architecture using the appropriate Jackass! toolkit. so there would be a pentium3 Jackass! GRP CD where all of the packages are built withthe Jackass! Pentium 3 CFLAGS, a pentium4 Jackass! GRP, an Athlon XP Jackass! GRP, etc.

one the one hand, it sounds like a great idea. on the other hand, it sounds like an awful lot of work.

I mentioned this a long time ago, back when we first started putting together Jackass ideas. Check the first page of the original development thread.

It would be amazingly nice. I was just on #gentoo-doc and was chatting with another user about the sheer, mindnumbing joy that is the Packages CD for GRP installs. Such a timesaver. And I'm fairly sure that the existing Packages CD can be used for grabbing the binaries, though they wouldn't have the extensive optimizations provided by Jackass! until the next emerge -e world series.

However, maintaining several different CDs would be a good-sized headache. And the bandwidth/stress on the servers would skyrocket. But, it might be worth it. IIRC, Koraraa does something similar. Since the old architectures--anything pre-Pentium3--aren't used that much, we could do what we discussed and mostly drop them from future releases? And instead make available a Jackass! Packages CD tailored for the new lowest common denominator: the Pentium3. It'd work with the other arches, too. Build with -march=i686 instead of -march=<specific_processor> while retaining the other CFLAGs. That way, we avoid generating P3 code that might not work as well on AthlonXP; remember the differences between CPUs comprise more than just instruction flags, but also pipeline & other dissimilarities.

And since we have only one CD (or at most two), we avoid having to maintain several more things. Of course, there's always the chance that users will clamor for more features, or ask "Is it okay if i use the binary packages, then recompile them all with my SSE2/SSE3/MMX2 CFLAGs? I want .00005% more performance!" Then again, if we offer an "extended series" of additional arches, we could make those available only with a small donation, as with the Pentium-M CD/tarball.

* PM me or email me for more. I'm already running quickpkg on things like Xorg-X11. I think Jackass! could use these kinds of enhancements; they're good ideas on the surface. In theory. At first glance. Etc.

Bob P · Post by **Bob P** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 8:32 am

nightmorph wrote:I mentioned this a long time ago, back when we first started putting together Jackass ideas. Check the first page of the original development thread.

yeah, i remember the conversation way back when... and i remember the day that i threw in the towel and decided that the small group of packages used in the standard Jackass! install wouldn't be included either.

I also discussed this idea with Chris Smart in some PMs that went back and forth about Kororaa. I prefered the GRP approach over giving the user KDE by default, like he did with Kororaa 2005.1 B1.

i think he might be considering such an approach with 2005.1 B2. (as a side note, i think the first release of a project should be enumerated as 2005.0 instead of 2005.1, but that's just me.)

back to GRP: the Packages CD for one arch would take an awful lot of time to build, so i had thought that the first one would be a P3 build.

huge .ISO images like that are just prohibitively large to be served by our volunteer mirroring system. i sincerely doubt that they can afford the bandwidth, so i think it would have to be a CD-only project.

instead of taking the support thread off into the realm of development, we should take this to email. my PM box is always overflowing.

RobNyc wrote:Your right I apologize . please remove my post

the problem is that i can't do that. once you enter a post, its stuck in the forums forever. (unless we bother the mods). in a situation like this, you and i both need to go back and delete the text from our our off-topic posts to take care of the problem.

RobNyc · Post by **RobNyc** » Mon Oct 24, 2005 8:31 pm

I downloaded the p4.tar.bz2 file and I tried extracting it in windows and i got an error after it was done, I couldnt find no iso to make vmware run from it so how do i do this im not understanding

96140 · Post by **96140** » Mon Oct 24, 2005 9:47 pm

RobNyc wrote:I downloaded the p4.tar.bz2 file and I tried extracting it in windows and i got an error after it was done, I couldnt find no iso to make vmware run from it so how do i do this im not understanding

I know.

It isn't an iso. ISO files end in a .iso extension. What you downloaded is a tarball. That's just a Stage 3 tarball, similar to the Stage 3 tarballs that exist on the official Gentoo mirrors. It's not a LiveCD image to install a system from. From what I can tell, your only prior experience with Gentoo was installing it entirely from a LiveCD (Koraraa). Real Gentoo installs generally aren't like that; you usually have a separate LiveCD, then download a system tarball from one of the Gentoo mirrors, and you follow the Official Gentoo Installation Handbook to install.

You need to know these Gentoo fundamentals. You can't just install Jackass! without some sort of media to boot your computer with, and that includes trying to use VMware; you need a regular Gentoo LiveCD. Then you can download the Pentium4 tarball and begin your installation.

I suggest you read this, these installation tips, and the official Gentoo FAQ. You need to know this stuff if you want to try to successfully install and run Gentoo. Jackass! follows the normal Gentoo installation procedure; it doesn't use a set of scripts to automatically copy/setup the contents of a LiveCD (like Koraraa) to your hard drive. You have to actually install Gentoo the "real" way.

Lastly, follow the Jackass! Installation Instructions. Remember that we don't support installation by any other method. If you run into problems because you're not following the guide, we can't help you. All I can say is that you have to figure out VMware on your own. If you get VMware working and then follow the Jackass! installation instructions, great. But we don't support extremely nonstandard installation procedures. You have to figure out and set up VMware on your own.

RobNyc · Post by **RobNyc** » Mon Oct 24, 2005 10:35 pm

nightmorph wrote:
RobNyc wrote:I downloaded the p4.tar.bz2 file and I tried extracting it in windows and i got an error after it was done, I couldnt find no iso to make vmware run from it so how do i do this im not understanding
I know.

It isn't an iso. ISO files end in a .iso extension. What you downloaded is a tarball. That's just a Stage 3 tarball, similar to the Stage 3 tarballs that exist on the official Gentoo mirrors. It's not a LiveCD image to install a system from. From what I can tell, your only prior experience with Gentoo was installing it entirely from a LiveCD (Koraraa). Real Gentoo installs generally aren't like that; you usually have a separate LiveCD, then download a system tarball from one of the Gentoo mirrors, and you follow the Official Gentoo Installation Handbook to install.

You need to know these Gentoo fundamentals. You can't just install Jackass! without some sort of media to boot your computer with, and that includes trying to use VMware; you need a regular Gentoo LiveCD. Then you can download the Pentium4 tarball and begin your installation.

I suggest you read this, these installation tips, and the official Gentoo FAQ. You need to know this stuff if you want to try to successfully install and run Gentoo. Jackass! follows the normal Gentoo installation procedure; it doesn't use a set of scripts to automatically copy/setup the contents of a LiveCD (like Koraraa) to your hard drive. You have to actually install Gentoo the "real" way.

Lastly, follow the Jackass! Installation Instructions. Remember that we don't support installation by any other method. If you run into problems because you're not following the guide, we can't help you. All I can say is that you have to figure out VMware on your own. If you get VMware working and then follow the Jackass! installation instructions, great. But we don't support extremely nonstandard installation procedures. You have to figure out and set up VMware on your own.

Thanks I'm gonna read that. Ok So I understand now. I gotta get the gentoo livecd then follow everything it tells me in the jackass guide thread here in gentoo and then I wanted to know where does the jackass tarball part comes in, and keep using the gentoo handbook of course But I'll check out the links.

RobNyc · Post by **RobNyc** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 3:05 am

http://jackass.homelinux.org/doc.html

I've seen that doc and its not doc, it just gives disclaimers and stuff like that and i thought that was the guide

96140 · Post by **96140** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 4:30 am

Read the 2005.0 doc: the installation instructions haven't changed.

RobNyc · Post by **RobNyc** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 4:40 am

nightmorph wrote:Read the 2005.0 doc: the installation instructions haven't changed.

correct me if im wrong but isnt this the guide http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-345229.html ? btw i downloaded both the minimal and universal . now im trying to see where do i need the jackass tarball

well im kinda getting it now, first i gotta get gentoo installed first from handbook guide then jackass gets installed thats what i wanna know, and i want to know if i can use the install-universal-x86 or i have to use the minimal?

96140 · Post by **96140** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 6:44 am

RobNyc wrote:
nightmorph wrote:Read the 2005.0 doc: the installation instructions haven't changed.
correct me if im wrong but isnt this the guide http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-345229.html ? btw i downloaded both the minimal and universal . now im trying to see where do i need the jackass tarball

You are wrong. The Stage 1/3 method and the Jackass! method are two completely different things ... that's why they have two different names?

well im kinda getting it now, first i gotta get gentoo installed first from handbook guide then jackass gets installed thats what i wanna know, and i want to know if i can use the install-universal-x86 or i have to use the minimal?

Sadly, you still haven't got it. Jackass is Gentoo. You don't install it afterward. Just read the 2005.0 Jackass! installation manual (it's the other .PDF file on the website) and follow the instructions.

And you don't quite understand the Gentoo handbook, either: you don't need the Universal and Minimal CDs. Just one or the other will be sufficient to install Jackass. The only reason I suggested that you read the handbook is so that you can start to get a feel for how Gentoo works. How Linux works. If you still don't get it after a lot of trying, then you might want to try some other distribution besides Gentoo, something that's more of a "one click install", like Mandriva or Ubuntu or SUSE or Fedora. Something easier like those. Gentoo really pushes new users to understand how things work and what choices you'll have to make. Better still, since you seem like a Windows user who has little idea of how things can be done in a non-Windows way (don't worry, lots of people start out that way), try Linspire, which is Linux, but is instantly familiar and easy to install, configure, and maintain in a similar manner to Windows.

If you still want to stick with Gentoo, then you need to re-read the handbook so that you understand what a stage tarball is, and how to tell the differences between them. Go read that section, and keep in mind that Jackass! is a Stage 3 tarball. So even though the official Gentoo docs tell you what Stage 3 tarballs are available, you can substitute the Jackass! tarball for any one of the tarballs listed by Gentoo.

However, first try to install using the Jackass! Install Manual on the Jackass! website.

Bob P · Post by **Bob P** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 11:30 am

nightmorph, you may not be aware that the on-line documentation for Jackass! has been revised. The Jackass! documentation on the website has been abbreviated so that it only includes the Introduction (history of Jackass!) and the Appendices (acknowledgement of contributors). The "meat" of the old Jackass! Installation Handbook is no longer availabe for download on the website.

Users who don't know how to perform a Gentoo Install are being advised to follow the Gentoo Installation Handbook. This shouldn't be a problem, insofar as Jackass! is 100% compatible with the GIH.

Looking over the download logs from the server, it seems that about 100,000 people may have downloaded the Jackass! manual just to use it to perform Gentoo installs. I don't have a problem with that really, but I can't see the point of spending so much time maintaining the Jackass! Installation Handbook as an alternative installation manual for Gentoo that is duplicative of the GIH. So I've decided to focus my attention on software rather than documentation. The preliminary Jackass! 2005.1 manual that was provided to the test group has never been released to the public, though it is available on the Jackass! CDs.

Bob P · Post by **Bob P** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 11:44 am

@RobNYC, it appears that you're not at all familiar with Genoo. Maybe this is because you've started-off using a package like Kororaa. Although Kororaa is based on Gentoo, it is NOT Gentoo. Its essential to know the difference between them.

Kororaa was designed as a method of performing a quick installation of Gentoo + KDE. It makes KDE installations quick and dirty for experienced Gentoo users. In some repects, packages that facilitate Gentoo installation are a two-edged sword:

The good side of a package like Kororaa is that it may help people who are thoroughly unfamiliar with Gentoo to install a Gentoo system. The bad side of a package like Kororaa is that it may help people who are thoroughly unfamiliar with Gentoo to install a Gentoo system.

In bypassing the mechanical aspects of building a Gentoo system, a package like Kororaa automates the process of a Gentoo install to the point that somebody who is totally unfamiliar with Gentoo has a completely installed Gentoo system thrown into their lap. Not having performed the Gentoo install, they're thoroughly unfamiliar with what they have, and they have no idea what to do with it.

For the record, Kororaa is NOT part of Gentoo. Its UNSUPPORTED SOFTWARE. If you need help with it, you need to go to the Kororaa forum and ask questions. You can't ask Kororaa questions anywhwere else. Asking questions anywhere else will likely get you nothing more than "Unsupported" as a response.

I would echo @nightmorph's recommendations that if you want to learn Gentoo, then you should start off at square one by reading the basic Gentoo manuals and performing a Gentoo install. I would add that you should AVOID any of the more advanced methods, whether they be Jackass!, Stage 1/3 or Kororaa. Unfortunately, you're trying to take a shortcut, and you can't do that with a source based distro.

For the sake of getting this thread back on track, no more Kororaa questions, please.

Bob P · Post by **Bob P** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 12:08 pm

SUICIDE MISSION: Stage 1/3 on a Pentium 75:

THIS IS A JOB FOR JACKASS!

96140 · Post by **96140** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 3:42 pm

Bob P wrote:nightmorph, you may not be aware that the on-line documentation for Jackass! has been revised. The Jackass! documentation on the website has been abbreviated so that it only includes the Introduction (history of Jackass!) and the Appendices (acknowledgement of contributors). The "meat" of the old Jackass! Installation Handbook is no longer availabe for download on the website.

Users who don't know how to perform a Gentoo Install are being advised to follow the Gentoo Installation Handbook. This shouldn't be a problem, insofar as Jackass! is 100% compatible with the GIH.

Looking over the download logs from the server, it seems that about 100,000 people may have downloaded the Jackass! manual just to use it to perform Gentoo installs. I don't have a problem with that really, but I can't see the point of spending so much time maintaining the Jackass! Installation Handbook as an alternative installation manual for Gentoo that is duplicative of the GIH. So I've decided to focus my attention on software rather than documentation. The preliminary Jackass! 2005.1 manual that was provided to the test group has never been released to the public, though it is available on the Jackass! CDs.

Hmm, you're right, I hadn't realized it had been revised until I looked through the 2005.1 handbook.

RobNyc · Post by **RobNyc** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 4:12 pm

Well for your information you are right . Most of it . Second I downloaded the 2005.1 universal gentoo cd to install on vmware doing a stage 3. I been reading the guide and so far so good, I' got a lil confused through the make.conf part, and I'm in the kernel part but i dont want to compile my own kernel i want to use livecd kernel so thats where im stuck right now btw if i ever asked any kororaa question here i apologize but i dont recall ever doing so .. anyhow

Bob P · Post by **Bob P** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 7:45 pm

*sigh*

if make.conf confuses you, please do me a favor and don't use Jackass! or the Stage 1/3 Guide.

RobNyc · Post by **RobNyc** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 9:24 pm

Bob P wrote:*sigh*

if make.conf confuses you, please do me a favor and don't use Jackass! or the Stage 1/3 Guide.

no problem **** !!! People like u shouldn't use GEntoo either giving it a bad name, go to slackware

B.marc · Post by **B.marc** » Fri Oct 28, 2005 9:15 am

Bob P (in a private message) wrote:
B.marc wrote: (...) I have a question: I'm using (...) a VIA epia sp 8000E motherboard with a VIA Nehemiah processor, which I plan to use in a multimedia PC. Can I use your toolkit with this architecture? (...)
(...) i don't really know anyting about the other processor, so I have to confess that I may not be able to give you an accurate answer to your question. i've looked up what i could about the processor, but I didn't see very much detail. essentially, i'd have to guess that Jackass! would NOT support it, unless its 100% compatible with one of the Intel processors. if its a 100% pentium-compatible chip (like the AMD K6) then you could use the Pentium or Pentium-MMX tarball, but if its different (like the Winchip) you're going to be out of luck. Based on my lack of experience with your chip, its really hard for me to give you a reliable answer. sorry.

the good news is that even if your chip is not 100% compatible with an intell processor, you can still perform a Stage 1/3 install and build a Jackass-equivalent system. (...)

I tried to look into this myself. Looking at the "save" CFLAGS given at the wiki http://gentoo-wiki.com/Safe_Cflags and comparing the Nehemiah (-march=i686) with the different Pentium settings I would say, that Pentium and Pentium-MMX are not compatible, since they are i586 based (CHOST="i586-pc-linux-gnu").

I don't know, if the Nehemiah could be compatible with other Pentiums (II and up, which i686 based), but since there is a new march option (C3-2, see http://gentoo-wiki.com/Safe_Cflags#Nehe ... _.28Via.29), I think the Nehemiah is not compatible with any Pentium, but I'm a total noob in this area.

Well, so it looks like it will be a complete Stage 1/3 install on my Nehemiah machine.

Marc

Bob P · Post by **Bob P** » Fri Oct 28, 2005 11:23 am

you can run a 586 chost software package on a 686 box, but you can't go the other way.

Pop a live CD into that box and look at the output of cat /proc/cpuinfo. compare the CPU flags for your processor to the standard intel flags.

B.marc · Post by **B.marc** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 8:50 am

Bob P wrote:you can run a 586 chost software package on a 686 box, but you can't go the other way.

Pop a live CD into that box and look at the output of cat /proc/cpuinfo. compare the CPU flags for your processor to the standard intel flags.

Well, I did not use a live CD, since Gentoo is already installed (used epiOS, see http://www.epios.net/, and I got this result:

Code: Select all

marc@mediamachine ~ $ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor       : 0
vendor_id       : CentaurHauls
cpu family      : 6
model           : 9
model name      : VIA Nehemiah
stepping        : 8
cpu MHz         : 800.192
cache size      : 64 KB
fdiv_bug        : no
hlt_bug         : no
f00f_bug        : no
coma_bug        : no
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 1
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr cx8 sep mtrr pge cmov pat mmx fxsr sse rng rng_en ace ace_en
bogomips        : 1568.76

Does it help?
Marc

linux_on_the_brain · Post by **linux_on_the_brain** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 3:22 pm

I have a couple of dumb questions. I've been reading about jackass and I get the idea of what its supposed to do. So I am starting to refresh my home router. I downloaded the tar, extracted it, and so on. If I understand correctly Jackass provides a tar for a specific arch, and is compiled with specific optimizations so I don't have to do all the emerge -e. If this is the case what part do I pick up from in the Gentoo install handbook, and what is the process for updating the software when a new version of glibc is out, in this case 2.3.5-r(whatever it is).

Thanks

Bob P · Post by **Bob P** » Mon Oct 31, 2005 9:27 am

the Jackass! toolkit is 100% Gentoo-compatible. this means that you don't have to treat Jackass! any different than you would treat Gentoo. this includes both installation and maintenance.

HTH.

Bob P · Post by **Bob P** » Mon Nov 07, 2005 9:39 pm

Jackass! 2005.2 Development & Testing Thread

-valheru- · Post by **-valheru-** » Thu Nov 10, 2005 10:13 pm

I'd like to try it but I've searched high and low for the 2005.0 install booklet and can't find it anywhere. I've viewed the 2005.1 pdf on your site.

Any info would be appreciated. Thanks.

I had posted this in the 2005.2 post by mistake. Sorry.

Bob P · Post by **Bob P** » Fri Nov 11, 2005 12:31 am

the outdated version of hte manual had been deprecated. if you follow the gentoo handbook, yoiu'll be fine.

Bob P · Post by **Bob P** » Fri Nov 11, 2005 2:59 pm

i guess my answer wasn't clear enough. in response to your other post in the development thread: Yes, the Jackass! tarballs are 100% Gentoo-Stage-3-compatible. If the situation is still not clear: use them as you would a Gentoo tarball and you'll be fine.

HTH.