I'm on another hosted UML account right now, but you guys seem to have it set up much better. I was going to move to a true dedicated server running UML so I could have a test kernel and production kernel, but let's see here.

Can you tell me what would be the pros and cons of having a true dedicated server with UML over some kind of a Linode setup (not sure exactly what that would be) that would allow you to have the two kernels? For example, I read in the FAQ there is some kind of a limit on processes with the Linodes.

Also, the control panel thing you guys have (can't remember the name) sounds nice. I can install Gentoo Linux by submitting a few forms? Can I have an extremelly bare bones system installed that way?

- Grant

Hi,

Under linode you can only use kernels supplied by linode, current 2.4 and 2.6. Although you can switch between these fairly easily by change a setting through the LPM and rebooting.

If you have your own dedi server running UML you would be able to have your own kernels and be able to run mulitple UML instances each running a different kernel.

As for the deploying of a new distro, you can deploy any of the available ones. The barebones one is Debian.

As far as I know, there are no process limits.

Adam

Hi Again,

Ok just looked through the FAQ.

I have not heard of anyone hitting either the process list or the file descriptor limit.

Adam

If you install the Gentoo distro from the Linode Platform Manager you get a system which is just as if you had followed the install guide and got to the part where you copied your new kernel and Sysmap to the boot partition and reboot, with the networking configured to DHCP from the parent server.

Here's what you get (except gentools, I just emerged that):

localhost root # qpkg -I
app-admin/sysklogd *
app-arch/bzip2 *
app-arch/cpio *
app-arch/gzip *
app-arch/ncompress *
app-arch/sharutils *
app-arch/tar *
app-crypt/hashalot *
app-editors/nano *
app-editors/vi *
app-misc/screen *
app-portage/epm *
app-portage/gentoolkit *
app-shells/bash *
app-shells/sash *
dev-lang/perl *
dev-lang/python *
dev-libs/expat *
dev-libs/glib *
dev-libs/openssl *
dev-libs/popt *
dev-python/python-fchksum *
dev-util/dialog *
dev-util/yacc *
net-misc/dhcpcd *
net-misc/iputils *
net-misc/openssh *
net-misc/rsync *
net-misc/wget *
net-misc/whois *
sys-apps/baselayout *
sys-apps/coreutils *
sys-apps/cronbase *
sys-apps/debianutils *
sys-apps/diffutils *
sys-apps/ed *
sys-apps/fbset *
sys-apps/file *
sys-apps/fileutils *
sys-apps/findutils *
sys-apps/gawk *
sys-apps/grep *
sys-apps/groff *
sys-apps/hdparm *
sys-apps/help2man *
sys-apps/kbd *
sys-apps/less *
sys-apps/man *
sys-apps/man-pages *
sys-apps/miscfiles *
sys-apps/modutils *
sys-apps/net-tools *
sys-apps/pam-login *
sys-apps/portage *
sys-apps/procps *
sys-apps/psmisc *
sys-apps/sed *
sys-apps/setserial *
sys-apps/sh-utils *
sys-apps/shadow *
sys-apps/slocate *
sys-apps/tcp-wrappers *
sys-apps/texinfo *
sys-apps/textutils *
sys-apps/util-linux *
sys-apps/which *
sys-devel/autoconf *
sys-devel/automake *
sys-devel/bc *
sys-devel/bin86 *
sys-devel/binutils *
sys-devel/bison *
sys-devel/flex *
sys-devel/gcc *
sys-devel/gcc-config *
sys-devel/gettext *
sys-devel/gnuconfig *
sys-devel/libperl *
sys-devel/libtool *
sys-devel/m4 *
sys-devel/make *
sys-devel/patch *
sys-fs/devfsd *
sys-fs/e2fsprogs *
sys-kernel/linux-headers *
sys-libs/cracklib *
sys-libs/db *
sys-libs/gdbm *
sys-libs/glibc *
sys-libs/libtermcap-compat *
sys-libs/ncurses *
sys-libs/pam *
sys-libs/pwdb *
sys-libs/readline *
sys-libs/slang *
sys-libs/zlib *

Although the minimum image size for this distro is set at 1050 MB, not all of this is used. Fresh install on 1536 MB partition:

localhost root # df
Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/ubd/0             1548709    484389   1064320  32% /

I think the extra size is due to the number of files needed during the build and the current 4k block size on the filesystem.

_________________
/ Peter

With the last Gentoo template update, I switch to 1k block size:

[root@host4 root]# tune2fs -l /vbin/fs/gentoo-1.4-small-1.2 | grep "Block size"
Block size:               1024

But even still, the "max number of files" limit was hit. Perhaps I missed something...

-Chris

Thanks you guys.

pclissold: That list seems really long. All of that is required just to run Gentoo?

So to be able to run separate test and production systems, I'd need two Linode accounts or a dedicated server running UML?

- Grant

Linode.com let's you have multiple distros installed at any one time, but only one can run at once. So, you'd need two Linode accounts.

-Chris

Not much of it is required just to run Gentoo, but nearly all of it is needed to build the rest of your system from scratch and keep it up to date.

It's the compilers, libraries and portage tree that take up the space and we can't do our 'Gentoo thing' without them.

You could un-emerge vi if you like!

_________________
/ Peter