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List:       gentoo-dev
Subject:    [gentoo-dev] Re: rfc: oldnet scripts splitting out from OpenRC
From:       Duncan <1i5t5.duncan () cox ! net>
Date:       2013-04-25 22:15:44
Message-ID: pan$7a4fd$c6e2baff$420f5b90$7c72b720 () cox ! net
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Carlos Silva posted on Thu, 25 Apr 2013 17:13:56 +0000 as excerpted:

> On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 4:58 PM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:
> 
>> It it isn't necessary for a system to have support for either oldnet or
>> newnet.  Sure, it is rare these days, but networking support should be
>> a default, not a requirement.
> 
> Care to explain how will the installation be done if "networking" isn't
> requirement? Maybe I missed the news about gentoo being and
> offline-instalable :X

Similar but not identical to Peter, when I installed gentoo on my (32-bit-
only gen-1.5) netbook (which contrary to the name I use almost entirely 
in "off-net" mode), I built it in a 32-bit chroot on my amd64 system, 
slightly expanding from the gentoo/amd64 32-bit chroot guide to install a 
full system instead of just the 32-bit stub in the chroot, thus making it 
my "32-bit buildroot", 

I then partitioned and mkfsed a USB thumbdrive, and copied the buildroot 
into the various appropriate thumbdrive partitions, and tried booting the 
netbook off it.  Iterate additional packages and changed config, plus 
rsyncing buildroot-to-thumbdrive until I got the netbook booting and 
ultimately operational.

Eventually I setup (ethernet-only) networking and sshd on the netbook, 
plus an ssh client on my main amd64 machine, thus allowing me to turn on 
the network and sshd on the netbook, and ssh in for administration from 
the main machine, rsyncing directly in ordered to substantially reduce 
the hassle of the former plug thumbdrive into the main machine and mount, 
rsync to thumbdrive, unmount and unplug, plug into netbook, mount and 
rsync, unmount, procedure I had used in for the original bootstrap and 
early maintenance.

But since I normally run the netbook in offline mode anyway, and I 
already had the thumbdrive "sneakernet" (that's an old one!) working, I 
would have been and was entirely fine without networking in the chroot or 
on the netbook at all, should I have wished to continue that way.

BTW, the netbook doesn't have a portage tree at all.  Those are on the 
main machine, bind-mounted into the 32-bit buildroot to update it.  
Installation and original maintenance on the netbook was via sneakernet, 
no network or portage tree required on the netbook at all.  While the 
netbook now has ethernet-networking and sshd setup in one runlevel in 
ordered to avoid the sneakernet hassle, it still doesn't have nor need a 
portage tree.  While my gen-1.5 netbook was one of the first with a full 
SATA drive (the reason I got it), 120 gig, many netbooks of that era run 
with an 8 gig or smaller SSD, which my installation would fit on.  It'd 
fit on a 4-gig, altho there wouldn't be much room for anything other than 
the OS.  Obviously you aren't going to want the portage tree on that, nor 
are you really going to want to actually build on the netbook given its 
speed (tho it's certainly possible to do so in a pinch), thus the chroot/
buildroot method.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman


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