Installation Tips?

[ivanvcouso]

Hello,

 

I'm back on Funtoo, my last experience didn't went really well. One year and half ago, I tried a pure UEFI install in a Macbook 6.1. Couldn't even get it to boot. Discarded Funtoo in that time because I needed the laptop working for university and job, so I installed Fedora, then CentOS 7. Learned a bit more about Linux and installed Funtoo again two months ago. Since that I learned a lot more and I'm thinking about reinstalling. My system atm is:

* Core i7, 4GB RAM

* Pure EFI Boot with Grub2

* LVM under Luks

* Mate & LXQt Desktops

* Consumer software like Firefox, VLC, Deluge...

* A lot of developer stuff, primary Python & Web, then Java (Wildfly)

* KVM to virtualize Win7 and Funtoo (Yeah, I use it too as test server and learning purposes, trying to work only in terminal+no mouse)

 

The thing is, quite happy until webkit, both gtk and qt stopped compiling, I don't have swap also and I'm thinking that I could use it for hibernation and such (Im always on the move with this laptop), so thinking about reinstalling the following questions came to my mind:

 

* What is the state of btrfs or xfs? Are they mature enough now? Can you hibernate (RAM to Disk) in any of them? I particulary like the snapshot and live features of btrfs, but how is this hit by luks? I dont know If I would leave luks behind.

* What kernel do you recommend and why? Currently I'm running an stripped pf-sources because of BFS, but I don't know if it integrates the same as gentoo-sources, for example.

* Are Hardened sources hard? I mean to learn. This last year in CentOS I learned about SELinux and Firewalld, would be that enough? I mean, I feel dumb having NSA level security at hand and not using it :-|

* Forgot one question: In what affects using a pure64 build? If I understand correctly I would not have multilib packages, then no skype, for example? It's worth it?

* What about going python3 only? I program mainly in it and would be nice if I could leave python 2 behind (less headaches because of different versions of pip and such).

[666threesixes666]

some apps run python 2.x exclusively so you would limit those out....  as it's a laptop id rather make a slim install, no virtualization.  id push that responsibility to a desktop or server.  i use JFS & jfsutils which is like xfs in performance, its from ibm out of the 80s, requiring read only mount @ boot, fsck.jfs every boot, then remount rewrite...  or from live media fsck.jfs /dev/sda1 && mount /dev/sda1......  xfs doesn't have a mature fsck last i checked like 2 years ago or sooner.  again btrfs not being mature 2 years ago or sooner, i wouldn't trust either.  id trust satan with the jfs here....  (just make sure you run the computer a few times, like 10 power cycles before you put critical data on it.  forgetting installing the fsck.jfs will corrupt the drive within this time if you screwed up.)  i have ran jfs for years, my recent "ram problem" posts i've had at least 30 power downs (probably closer to 100) in the last 10 days outside of my control.  running 1 second, power supply off the next, no shutdown, no spin down.  fsck.jfs takes about 20 seconds for my 1tb drive compared to all night and day with ext3....

 

lvm supports snapshots doesn't it?

 

firefox-bin & google-chrome to avoid webkit?  im pretty sure my laptop doesn't have webkit under xfce4.  id drop the mate to ensure the machine runs as quickly as possible, and not pull in webkit.  rather than reinstalling, i would look for a way to avoid webkit.

[j-g-]

* Core i7, 4GB RAM

 

The thing is, quite happy until webkit, both gtk and qt stopped compiling,..

I'm guessing you have MAKEOPTS="-j9" also, I'd say your ram is being the bottleneck, does it fail with an out of memory message? , these packages take a lot of ram when compiling, and that many jobs wouldn't fit in your ram, I even log out of gnome when upgrading webkit, and I only run with -j4, I also have 4GB RAM.

You might want to get more RAM, or you could make those packages run with less jobs at the cost of more compile time, using package.env you would need to do something like:

 

# echo MAKEOPTS="-j3" > /etc/portage/env/limitjobs
# echo net-libs/webkit-gtk limitjobs >> /etc/portage/package.env

* What is the state of btrfs or xfs? Are they mature enough now? Can you hibernate (RAM to Disk) in any of them? I particulary like the snapshot and live features of btrfs, but how is this hit by luks? I dont know If I would leave luks behind.

* What kernel do you recommend and why? Currently I'm running an stripped pf-sources because of BFS, but I don't know if it integrates the same as gentoo-sources, for example.

XFS is mature in the kernel, but does it fit what you need? , I'm running with BTRFS right now and it has handled well a few unexpected power downs, but I'm prepared to have trouble with it, are you prepared to deal with unexpected FS issues? if not, go with the already very much tested ext4.

About what kernel, if vanilla, debian or gentoo-ources(which is mainly some configuration patches) have what you need use one of those, or even better have two of them around, In case you have problems with newer ones, you can go back to a previous version, and even another patch-set, nothing stops you from having many kernels compiled, you just have to choose one as default.

[linuxbigot]

 installed Funtoo again two months ago. Since that I learned a lot more and I'm thinking about reinstalling

 

nonsense!!!

 

 

I don't have swap

 

Me neither,and only 2gb, this lappy is as quick as lightning, and I can hibernate and suspend...

[sputnik]

I run xfs here and hibernate just fine.  I don't quite agree with threesixes about the fsck being immature, although I can understand how he gets that impression.  It has it's own checking program, xfs_repair, to just check without modifying you run xfs_repair -n <partition>.  But it's definitely less descriptive as to errors, or maybe they are just arcane to me.  I've been running xfs for about 3 years now and no serious issues, however, it is touchy about things like abrupt power failures.  But running the check facility immediately after seems to make them happy, again no issues here in 3 years.

My last experience with btrfs was about that time, about 3 years ago, it was a wild adventure!  But I don't know where it's at today.  I think all of it really boils down to how fast do you need your disks to operate?  Are they being accessed alot with the way you use your machine or not?  Use huge files alot?  If none of that seems to be you then even ext4 will probably suit you just fine.

Yes, lvm supports snapshots too and you are already running it.  And ZFS is quite popular around here, it has really outstanding snapshot capabilities.

I believe the only thing you buy with pure64 setup is saving some disk space, but I've never seriously looked into it, as you say, skype and some others would be unhappy.  Same with the Python 3 idea, only more so, there are many, many programs still using Python 2.  There may be some headaches but I don't think you have a choice.

That's a pretty speedy machine, you won't have any problem with virtualization, although you could certainly use more memory.  I'm using a core 2 duo laptop here with 4G and I run virtualbox just fine.  qemu is pretty slow though, hmm, I'll have to check that.

Webkit & GTK are pretty intensive compiles but without more info we could only guess about that.  j-g- has good suggestions, especially since you have no swap.  You can of course, easily add swap without reinstalling.