Would it do any good to run hdparm on my linode?

If so, what would I need to watch out for so I don't screw up anything?

If not, would I be safe in removing it from my system (I'm running Gentoo, but I don't think the distro matters).

Good question -- although you've already guessed what the answer is likely to be.

Not much of a point to running hdparm because Linode is (currently) a UML environment -- which makes device access virtual.

The "disk device" is, in reality, just a file on the host system, rather than an actual physical device with knobs you can tweak (DMA and stuff).

So... no, no benefit to hdparm on a Linode. I also run Gentoo, and it's not a problem to remove it, even if it screams bloody murder about it.

It's there because the systemwide profile mandates its presence. (Gentoo normally runs on non-UML hosts, so this is a reasonable choice. Just doesn't make sense with Linodes.)

That's what I thought ... and I believe I can modify the profile to not require hdparm.

Hmmm ... that might be a good idea; create a Linode specific profile.

You can. Or do what I did -- I unmerged hdparm even though it complained.

It let me do that. Haven't seen problems since then.

but I'm a neat freak ... plus, it'd probably try to re-emerge it when I did a deep newuse update, or a revdep-rebuild. Both of which I do on a regular basis.