Sometimes one run is not enough

I mean an emerge run to install a system.

Now that both disks work fine, I finally started reinstalling Gentoo on my Enterprise. This involved creating a new LVM volume, extend the software raid so that the new disks are used, and finally take the stage3 and start the real work.

The real work was quite simplified by the fact that what I lost on the old disks was /usr/lib, mostly, so all the Portage configuration (make.conf and the /etc/portage directory) was still available to me, as well as the kernel configuration (to use as a base, as the kernel version changed on me, I last used .22 and now I’m upgrading to .23), and also the old world file.

I reduced the old world file actually, removing stuff that I installed just as a test, removing Kyocera’s PPD as they changed once again the packaging (and I can’t even find it on the US site, only on the Italian one.. and in a new multiple-language package, that will mean I’ll have to write a totally new ebuild for that), and removing kde-color-schemes that started spawning errors about kde-config.

The result was a single emerge command that installed about 800 packages, basically my whole world with all its dependencies, beside whatever was already in stage3.

Unfortunately there were a few breaks in the middle: the modules obviously failed, for the known buggy interaction between gcc, Linux .23 and sandbox, plus I found an ICE (probably caused by my borderline CFLAGS, I’ll have to investigate), a failure in MySQL (linux-headers related, says my guts), a missing dep on pmount, and yet another case of people using autotools without knowing how they work, mpeg4ip missing a few m4 files.

Anyway, if all goes well, the installation process should be completed in a few days, and then I can return working on Gentoo, cleaning up the PAM mess to begin with, and then starting on lighter stuff for a while, as I need to keep my workload way lighter than it was before, after what I passed in hospital.

At least last night I was able to sleep well, as I finally have the furniture for my room (even though there are a few glitches that will be solved next week) which means I can finally sleep alone, and in a decent bed.

And a note to self: double check the type of outlet you have on the wall for the aerial next time. Modern aerial outlets sold in Italy have a male connector, while in the past a female connector was used. The previous establishment allowed to swap the sides of the cable, like you do with EuroAV/SCART cables, HDMI cables and so on, but caused confusion for many people with VCRs’ cables (I know more than a few people confused by that). Unfortunately I was used to the old style, and bought two male connectors for the cabling, when I should have bought a female L-shaped connector. (For who’s wondering, it’s a IEC 169-2 Belling-Lee connector.)