Linux servers, a personal rant

[ProviaFan]

What's a great way to waste all of a Sunday afternoon and evening, and then all of the free time (e.g. not taken up by that thing called an "educashun") on Monday? Installing Gentoo over Windows 2003 Server on a crappy little 500MHz Celeron system that performs print, file, NAT, http, and other services for the home network (and crunches F@H in its spare time), of course.

Mistake #1: trying to run LVM and udev. Oops! Several hours and countless almost inaudible "irregular expressions" later, I got that one fixed (no thanks to the incomplete documentation) by installing the device-mapper into the kernel instead of as a module. Mistake #2: compiling iptables into the kernel instead of as a module (sensing a trend here?). Why the $#@& the iptables utility can't detect it unless it's not in the freaking kernel I have no idea, but that's $#%*ing insane anyway! Numerous mistakes and more numerous wasted hours later, I now have a partially-working server, at the expense of much forum time and lost F@H production (as if...).

Ok, to get this back on topic, I might try to write a TeAm-specific (heh, using our team number ) F@H-on-Linux tutorial once these 40+ MB worth of printer drivers and necessary other stuff get done compiling... Perhaps they'll be done by my birthday (late November). :roll:

 

[GLeeM]

Glad to see Linux install is getting easier than it was eight years ago

I might have to try it again.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: GLeeM
Glad to see Linux install is getting easier than it was eight years ago

I might have to try it again.

Gentoo is a freak of nature. Take anything said by a gentoo user with a bag'o'salt.

 

[kloostec]

Bah, Gentoo's great. It did take me a couple of days to install (compiling everything from scratch does that to you), but now that it's set up, portage is the best package management system available, hands down. My system is totally up to date (I run ~x86), and things seldom (if ever) break.

I have enough confidence in the build that I've made my workstation into a workstation + home server (http, imap, smtp, mysql, ssh, samba, cups, shoutcast, dhcp, dns, ntp, proxy) + router combo!

Best of all, I can type 'emerge foldingathome' or 'emerge setiathome' or a number of other projects and start running them within a couple of seconds.

But yeah, if you're looking for a super simple install, can't go wrong with Mandrake or Fedora... Even Debian (the testing version with the new installer) is getting there. I've had systems up and running with all three of those distros in less than 30 minutes.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: kloostec
Bah, Gentoo's great. It did take me a couple of days to install (compiling everything from scratch does that to you), but now that it's set up, portage is the best package management system available, hands down. My system is totally up to date (I run ~x86), and things seldom (if ever) break.

I have enough confidence in the build that I've made my workstation into a workstation + home server (http, imap, smtp, mysql, ssh, samba, cups, shoutcast, dhcp, dns, ntp, proxy) + router combo!

Best of all, I can type 'emerge foldingathome' or 'emerge setiathome' or a number of other projects and start running them within a couple of seconds.

But yeah, if you're looking for a super simple install, can't go wrong with Mandrake or Fedora... Even Debian (the testing version with the new installer) is getting there. I've had systems up and running with all three of those distros in less than 30 minutes.

I can do an ftp install of OpenBSD, latest snapshot and all, in 30 minutes. No compiling necessary

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
I can do an ftp install of OpenBSD, latest snapshot and all, in 30 minutes. No compiling necessary

Gentoo is about choice, or so they say, so a stage 3 install has everything precompiled that you don't have a choice about. System utilities that come in different "flavors" such as the system logger, must be compiled, and configuration files must be edited. There is no "automated installer" as such.

My problems in this case come from trying to run an untested and not terribly popular configuration (LVM2 + udev). I suppose if I had searched the gentoo forums for 6 hours before starting the installation, I might have found a few random notes that LVM2 is best left with devfs, but who would have thought? The iptables stuff probably is in more standard documentation, but when you're limited to browsing with lynx (this being the NAT system, no other system had net access), you don't just go browsing around looking for random stuff without a major reason - or at least I don't, having been spoiled by graphical browsers for the past, um, many years.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: ProviaFan

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
I can do an ftp install of OpenBSD, latest snapshot and all, in 30 minutes. No compiling necessary

Gentoo is about choice, or so they say, so a stage 3 install has everything precompiled that you don't have a choice about. System utilities that come in different "flavors" such as the system logger, must be compiled, and configuration files must be edited. There is no "automated installer" as such.

My problems in this case come from trying to run an untested and not terribly popular configuration (LVM2 + udev). I suppose if I had searched the gentoo forums for 6 hours before starting the installation, I might have found a few random notes that LVM2 is best left with devfs, but who would have thought? The iptables stuff probably is in more standard documentation, but when you're limited to browsing with lynx (this being the NAT system, no other system had net access), you don't just go browsing around looking for random stuff without a major reason - or at least I don't, having been spoiled by graphical browsers for the past, um, many years.

I _can_ recompile everything. I choose not to because it's generally a waste of time. Why spend two or three hours compiling an OS (generally about what it takes on my faster systems, IIRC) when I can get something more current in half an hour of downloading?

There are a couple of ports I compile instead of using packages, because not all options are available in package format (stupid licensing issues).

Portage is a young ports system.

IIRC, udev is dead.

I shouldn't have to setup the logger, unless I want extras or customizations. Which I generally don't on my home systems.

There should be man pages for IPTables.

To each their own. I like having a usable system quickly.

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
I _can_ recompile everything. I choose not to because it's generally a waste of time. Why spend two or three hours compiling an OS (generally about what it takes on my faster systems, IIRC) when I can get something more current in half an hour of downloading?

Which is why I went with stage 3, using the least amount of compiling necessary. Next time I might try Debian again, since after fiddling with Gentoo several times in VMWare and then this time on a real system, I'm getting tired of this no-installer, do-everything-manually-from-a-shell-prompt style installation. Or heck, I might try OpenBSD if I can get comfortable with it in VMWare.

There are a couple of ports I compile instead of using packages, because not all options are available in package format (stupid licensing issues).

Portage is a young ports system.

IIRC, udev is dead.

IIRC, devfs is supposedly dying because it requires a half kernel / half userspace implementation, while udev is implemented entirely (or almost entirely?) in userspace. I guess it depends on who you ask...

I shouldn't have to setup the logger, unless I want extras or customizations. Which I generally don't on my home systems.

Right, I'm starting to be convinced of that myself. Which is also why I never tried LFS more than once.

There should be man pages for IPTables.

Of course there is, and I read it. However, it doesn't cover the minute details of how to set up your kernel for NAT and firewalling. That's probably covered in some howto out there on the 'net, but not in the one I was using. My mistake, I guess, was being naive enough to think that the module vs. included-in-kernel decision was simply to be made based on whether you used that feature frequently or not very much (except for stuff like your root filesystem, whose driver must be in the kernel _or else_).

To each their own. I like having a usable system quickly.

Which is understandable, since you have tons of computers, and probably have plenty of other more important things to do besides tweaking a new OS install all week.

 

[BofRA]

I feel a small bit of your pain. I just got done installing Overclockix which is a version of Knoppix that has F@H built into it. I did a hard drive instal vice the default Live CD version and now have three other crunchers net booting to the main "server"

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: ProviaFan

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
I _can_ recompile everything. I choose not to because it's generally a waste of time. Why spend two or three hours compiling an OS (generally about what it takes on my faster systems, IIRC) when I can get something more current in half an hour of downloading?

Which is why I went with stage 3, using the least amount of compiling necessary. Next time I might try Debian again, since after fiddling with Gentoo several times in VMWare and then this time on a real system, I'm getting tired of this no-installer, do-everything-manually-from-a-shell-prompt style installation. Or heck, I might try OpenBSD if I can get comfortable with it in VMWare.

There are a couple of ports I compile instead of using packages, because not all options are available in package format (stupid licensing issues).

Portage is a young ports system.

IIRC, udev is dead.

IIRC, devfs is supposedly dying because it requires a half kernel / half userspace implementation, while udev is implemented entirely (or almost entirely?) in userspace. I guess it depends on who you ask...

Really? Crap, I guess I should either start paying attention to Linux, or just not care. Not caring is easier.

I shouldn't have to setup the logger, unless I want extras or customizations. Which I generally don't on my home systems.

Right, I'm starting to be convinced of that myself. Which is also why I never tried LFS more than once.

LFS is great for the experience I'd imagine, but I can't see maintaining it forever.

There should be man pages for IPTables.

Of course there is, and I read it. However, it doesn't cover the minute details of how to set up your kernel for NAT and firewalling. That's probably covered in some howto out there on the 'net, but not in the one I was using. My mistake, I guess, was being naive enough to think that the module vs. included-in-kernel decision was simply to be made based on whether you used that feature frequently or not very much (except for stuff like your root filesystem, whose driver must be in the kernel _or else_).

I dislike modules. They complicate thing, IMO.

To each their own. I like having a usable system quickly.

Which is understandable, since you have tons of computers, and probably have plenty of other more important things to do besides tweaking a new OS install all week.

No, not really. I just got tired of tweaking to no effect.