Personal Time Administration with Gentoo

[ruivilela]

Hi. Question about personal time administration.

I have 4 laptops at home (desktops):

Lenovo Y530 (2009)

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Linux Zephir 2.6.30-gentoo-r2 #16 SMP PREEMPT Wed Aug 19 18:44:07 CEST 2009 i686 Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU P7350 @ 2.00GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

Toshiba Qosmio F-30 (2007) (home brick with 4KG)

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Linux Calypsa 2.6.30-gentoo-r4 #3 SMP PREEMPT Tue Aug 25 12:54:26 CEST 2009 i686 Genuine Intel(R) CPU T2400 @ 1.83GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

Toshiba Satellite 2450-201 (wife, 2003)

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Linux Daphnis 2.6.27-gentoo-r8 #7 PREEMPT Thu Apr 30 16:25:21 CEST 2009 i686 Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

The EEE 701 has default Xandros with extra repositories. I Will not switch to Gentoo because of too "much time" to setup it ... lazyness ... had also problems with other eeeDistroClones , and my wife loves the interface, and I have sshd, subversion, perl, emacs etc ... Maybe I will never update .

To add to this, in near future ...

I ordered a Sheeva Plug (ARM) recently, to install Gentoo... Later Next month...

I'm thinking on making a small hosting company and buy a Server (and putting gentoo). Maybe in 3 months ...

All have distcc (-j6), tmpfs, ccache ... No NFS portage because they are "laptops", and I still lack a server. Main question: How you people handle time with multiple hosts with different hardware running Linux Gentoo? Because I notice there is too much things to think and do. I have separated backups of configurations of that laptops and they took really a lot of time to configure. and an "emerge --sync" in 3 different machines can be painfull in time. Spicing all this, is my locale on hosts changing beetween PT, PL, EN...

I love Gentoo but I have a life inside and outside of home also. Can someone tell me how they handle it?

[DawgG]

I love Gentoo but I have a life inside and outside of home also.

How true! FULL ACK! :D
my wife's and similar computers all have one installation with a binary out-of-the-box distro (ubuntu) for the daily stuff. in my experience it's faster and simpler to set up, but when sth is messed up it's in an major way. i always keep additional installations of gentoo on them for my personal use (gameserver etc.) which i update when i have time (or not at all :cry: ) - a lot can be done inside a chroot and remotely.
another way would be to set up a binhost with a very generic installation inside a chroot on a powerful server, but there are some limits as in client hardware and useflags.

[slackline]

and an "emerge --sync" in 3 different machines can be painfull in time.

Not only that, but etiquette asks that you only sync once a day, so unless you're using different rsync mirrors you're going to get banned if you're not careful.

The solution is to use a centralised portage that is mounted over NFS on the other machines.

You can get this to sync overnight using an appropriate cron job too so you get up in the morning and then update each syste.

You could conceivably setup cron jobs to updated too, but its not advisable because you can get bitten if packages fail or you don't update config files. Best done "manually" IMO.

slack

[blotto]

Hi I have it easier cos I took early retirement so I do run Gentoo on everything.

All run KEYWORDS ="~"

1. AMD X2 4200+ runs KDE4 and Xfce4.6

2. Acer aspire laptop Turion64 runs KDE4 and Xfce4.6

3. AMD Athlon mobile 2600+ barton on desktop M/B runs KDE4 and Xfce4.6 Http-replicator and rsync mirror for others. Also set up in dual seat mode, one user is freevo media centre streams dvds music recorded TV etc over a wireless AV transmitter/reciever setup. The other seat is availble for regular users.

4. Acer Aspire One Intel Atom runs just Xfce4.6 (for now)

As already stated there is a network rsync (box 2.) so this unit is only synced once daily for the whole net. It also uses Http-replicator to share the downloaded source packages across the LAN.

The compiling is done using DISTCC and crossdev so all machines lend a hand. Obviously this pays biggest dividends for the slower machines, but all said and done it does take a bit work but if you find a rhythm it tends to come as second nature.

Besides running ~x86/~amd64 on the boxes I have recently created a second partion on them all and installed - Funtoo......
I am now basically running Funtoo all the time on all boxes and as a result of the Funtoo portage incorporating the sunrise overlay I now dont bother with layman and mainting that also. Funtoo of course can (and I do) use git for "rsyncing" the system so to allow updating across the LAN for the other system I exclude the .git directories in the rsyncd conf file, so I only need to update once per day with Funtoo git reositories.

Have done and regularily do try the other distro's but none ever get to occupy a partion, well apart from the netbook which has a spare partition to try moblin etc.

Hopelessly addicted,

Al

[slackline]

As already stated there is a network rsync (box 2.) so this unit is only synced once daily for the whole net. It also uses Http-replicator to share the downloaded source packages across the LAN.

Not sure why you'd need to do the http-replicator as unless you've done something quirky then it doesn't matter what machine you're on, they should all download files to /usr/portage/distfiles which will already be mounted as part of your NFS portage tree, so if you install a new package (or version of a package) on one computer it will download the source tar-ball and it will already be available for all other machines that mount portage over NFS.



slack

[blotto]

Not sure why you'd need to do the http-replicator

I have never used the NFS set up never considered it, suppose I just liked the look of the local rsync server and http-replicator setup been using it for a while.

What happens with the NFS setup if 2 clients start to download the same package at the same time? http-replicator downloads and serves to any clients at the same time.

[slackline]

What happens with the NFS setup if 2 clients start to download the same package at the same time? http-replicator downloads and serves to any clients at the same time.

Don't know, I've never encountered that situation.

[ruivilela]

I eix-sync ~15 in 15 days or more, at least two times or three, so I hope I don't get banned (3 times in a day)! I know NFS. I once had it (When I only had 1 laptop and 2 hosts available at job). Problem: When I need an ebuild, I didn't have the portage tree on the same network. Http-replicator seems interesting to check it.

I use distcc, but migrating code of the fastest hosts to compile on the "slowest" host (daphnis) suspends a little the compiling process according to data on distccmon-text (it has also a wifi 10Mb/s card) while all others have wifi 54Mb/s.

Still didn't use crossdev, but for sure with the "sheeva plug" I will have to look on it. (future home server?)

I didn't know funtoo. But to see it I need even more time

[ruivilela]

I use fluxbox in all gentoo hosts except in my wife computer (gnome). But I'm thinking in migrating her desktop to Fluxbox ... (can be a very agressive move, as she doesn't like the shell). I will still need ivman for auto-mounting, (desktop icons of ~/Desktop), and a file manager (rox?) ... Maybe Xfce4 would be better, she only uses firefox, and ooffice. (the objective: less time compiling on updates?)

[slackline]

If you're objective is to minimise compiling time then switching your wife to Funtoo would be a sensible step (since its based on binaries and not source).

I have my wife on Xfce4 (under Xubuntu as she can handle updates herself and she has no problems using it (and doesn't even know what a CLI/terminal is other than is the boxes with all the text in that I have everywhere on my desktops!).

You could prevent the problem of not having NFS portage available when on a different network by rsyncing your NFS to a separate /usr/portage/ partition mount this at say /tmp/usr/portage when on your home network (and then have the rsync run to keep it up to date) and then when you're not on your home network mount it at /usr/portage/ (and then sync if its been a while).

Probably more complicated than it needs to be and I expect there are simpler solutions!

slack

[disi]

I use fluxbox in all gentoo hosts except in my wife computer (gnome). But I'm thinking in migrating her desktop to Fluxbox ... (can be a very agressive move, as she doesn't like the shell). I will still need ivman for auto-mounting, (desktop icons of ~/Desktop), and a file manager (rox?) ... Maybe Xfce4 would be better, she only uses firefox, and ooffice. (the objective: less time compiling on updates?)

Use pcmanfm of the lxde stuff as file manager, it has a hal use flag and does the mount job for you... I love it and it has tabs^^

[krinn]

if you use distcc, than you have them in a network.
So

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cat /etc/make.conf | grep rsync://
SYNC="rsync://faramir/gentoo-portage"

+

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faramir etc # cat rsyncd.conf 
# /etc/rsyncd.conf

# Minimal configuration file for rsync daemon
# See rsync(1) and rsyncd.conf(5) man pages for help

# This line is required by the /etc/init.d/rsyncd script
pid file = /var/run/rsyncd.pid
use chroot = yes
read only = yes

# Simple example for enabling your own local rsync server
[gentoo-portage]
	path = /usr/portage
	comment = Gentoo Portage tree
	exclude = /distfiles /packages

and you're done

[blotto]

Funtoo would be a sensible step (since its based on binaries and not source).

Not correct Funtoo is a set of stage3 builds for gentoo but uses openrc by default and includes sunrise overly spliced to the normal gentoo overlay its creator is Daniel Robbins - Gentoo's creator.
On his site you will find stable and unstable Gentoo and Funtoo stage3 for the different arches and they are regularily updated.

http://www.funtoo.org/

Worth a look.

[Bill Cosby]

I only use Gentoo because I have time on my hands, every now and then I have to get rid of it quickly and install something that just works (mostly during time of exams ).
Gentoo is first and foremost a toy, and interesting from a hacking perspective, but sometimes, it is just too time wasting, when I have to track bugs, look for personalization I have to do, to get a good working environment etc.

[desultory]

I only use Gentoo because I have time on my hands, every now and then I have to get rid of it quickly and install something that just works (mostly during time of exams ).

If you already have a working system, why get rid of it just to install another system that lacks whatever customizations you have done to the existing system? Just leave the working installed system in place, then update it as time permits.

[Bill Cosby]

I only use Gentoo because I have time on my hands, every now and then I have to get rid of it quickly and install something that just works (mostly during time of exams ).

If you already have a working system, why get rid of it just to install another system that lacks whatever customizations you have done to the existing system? Just leave the working installed system in place, then update it as time permits.

I don't have a working system, and with Linux, most likely never will.
I am still unable to get my Canon MF4320d to work, I am still unsatisfied because I only get years old packages in portage, like GRASS, gnupod, wmii, etc.
Not to mention that OpenOffice is crap in handling .doc files, etc.
I start updating something, and then it breaks, and I have to go searching for errors.
Getting a new Kernel, reading up on all the information, and new additions, etc.
ALL this is VERY time consuming, I do like it as a hobby, but sometimes I simply get pissed, and install windows, where I make clicky clacky, and everything works.

I do like Gentoo, it is the only Linux OS I can bear, and I play with it, but I couldn't even imagine using it, when I have a job

I am not saying that Gentoo can't be used more productive, but I want current packages and software that takes advantage of my hardware, this takesa shit load of time in Gentoo to accomplish.

[Mike Hunt]

It takes me less time and it's easier to maintain my Gentoo box than it takes for other Linux distros.

Gentoo version = Funtoo unstable
PORTAGE_NICENESS="15"
Sane CFLAGS and LDFLAGS

I run eix-sync in the morning - go get my coffee while it finishes.
If there are updates, run emerge -uDN @system @world
emerge @preserved-rebuild (if necessary)
etc-update (if necessary)
emerge --depclean -av
revdep-rebuild
eclean-dist -d

All that runs pretty much in the background because of PORTAGE_NICENESS

So I'm really interacting for about 1 minute a day.

[desultory]

And because it's Funtoo, it's rock solid, without all the portage nonsense that breaks most of the Gentoo boxes.

Do you, by any chance, have any data supporting either side of that assertion?

[Mike Hunt]

No, I'm sorry, I have no data about this.