(moved to talk) Proposed Outline Virtualization Handbook

[egberts]

I came here for the excellent Gentoo Handbook.

Looked for virtualization aspect within the Handbook.

It looks fragmented. It looked non-extensible. Host-side? Guest-side customization? Kernel configuration? PCI passthrough? Dig, dig, dig... alas, not easily found.

The Handbook Parts outline got its wonderful start in 2014. Its outline has evolved slightly to accomodate the general consesus and trend. But it did not scale well for Virtuaization.

While the final Installation Handbook is later aggregated (by the Gentoo wiki server) and massively outlined (and parted out), the 2014 outline can be edited (by our esteem Gentoo editor team) into smaller pages given below:

Installation/About
Installation/Media
Installation/Networking
Installation/Disks
Installation/Stage
Installation/Base
Installation/Kernel
Installation/System
Installation/Tools
Installation/Bootloader
Installation/Finalizing

For the ease of maintaining multi-CPU/multi-virtual/multi-boot, we need to somehow insert the "multi-virtual" aspect into the current Gentoo Handbook architecture.

There are two general aspects to consider here for introducting the virtualized environment into the Gentoo Handbook as a handbook part:

* Host-side (bare-metal, physical, VPS)
* guest-side

Current Gentoo handbook parts isn't accomodating to either side of virtualizationr. We could explore one of the following:

• break out from the 2014 Handbook Parts Wiki approach and see if the "Guest Handbook Parts" can co-exist side-by-side
  
• a surgical insertion wth the following sub-scope of selecting either the host or the guest:
  
  
  
  • boot VM preparation,
    
  • disk layout and mount options
    
  • kernel/'''Kconfig''' options,
    
  • kernel modules used
    
  • host/guest communication API (VM guest tools)
    
  • PCI passthrough,
    
  • viritualized drivers (ie., '''VirtIO'''. et. al.)
  
  

So, we have at least 7 subsections that needs to be added that are pertaining to Virtualization.

There will probably be more subsections that are architecture-specific.

Side-By-Side Guest/Host

Self explainatory. If there is an AMD/Installation/Kernel, then there can be a corresponding '''AMD/Installation/Kernel/Guest'''.

I think '''/Guest''' is easily attached to a document infrastructure for any CPU/installation-section of the current Wiki page hierarchy. But it will not be fluid; given the many needed subsections related to virtualization, this approach may still fail in continuity and fluidity of the most vaunted Gentoo Handbook.


Many-Subsection Approach

If we assume the current documentation are for the 'host-side' of virtualization (and that's not necessarily a good assumption there), we could try and surgically insert the "Guest part of virtualization" (which is actually comprises of many separate subsections).

That's why my example wiki drafts are mererly an exercise to see if these parts of the handbook can be extensible toward the guest side or the host side of Virtualization. I think it did not.
_________________
Clusters of Fry's Special, AMD 2200, 2 GB DDR, 220 GB (2008.1/desktop, stage 1, -O3) x8
HP Compaq Fry's SPecial, AMD 2100, 2 GB DDR, 260 GB (2008.0/server, stage 1, -O3)
Ultra Sparc 5, 256MB, 3GB (2006.1/server, stage 1, -O3)

[NeddySeagoon]

egberts,

This should be added to the installation guide talk pages, so that the Handbook maintainers are sure to see it.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

[egberts]

Thanks, Neddy Seagoon.

Taking the subject to which talk page?

Would you happen to meant this one?

https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Talk:Installation

Going to assume that one.
_________________
Clusters of Fry's Special, AMD 2200, 2 GB DDR, 220 GB (2008.1/desktop, stage 1, -O3) x8
HP Compaq Fry's SPecial, AMD 2100, 2 GB DDR, 260 GB (2008.0/server, stage 1, -O3)
Ultra Sparc 5, 256MB, 3GB (2006.1/server, stage 1, -O3)

[NeddySeagoon]

egberts,

It won't matter much. You are asking for a root and branch overhaul.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.