Linux Sea - Complete Linux handbook with Gentoo as OS

Sven Vermeulen

Hi all,

I've been writing an online handbook on using GNU/Linux (mainly command-line driven). The idea was to elaborate a bit more on the Linux architecture (processes, file system, users and permissions, etc.) and use Gentoo Linux as the distribution to show the various aspects. Although the document is still far from "production-ready" (read: it still needs lots of information, many parts need to be written more elaborate, etc.) I believe it is quite usable for many people already.

The document is available online, a PDF version is available as well. I'd like to know what you think about the document. Mind you, it is not my intention to bring in the graphical aspects of (Gentoo) Linux (of course, extending the current introduction is possible).
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Yttrium · n00b Joined: 22 Oct 2009 Posts: 29 Location: Germany

Great! It's written very nice (I've only read parts of it though). I started using gentoo (and linux in general) ~6-12 months ago. It would have been great if I knew this before, because I spent a lot of time getting more or less simple tasks to work. There's still much I can learn from it now and I am surely going to read more of it. I'll recommend this to everyone who wants to know more about linux.

I also like the included exercises and that it focuses important commands and principles: It follows a central theme and might even answer questions you don't even know you've had.

I guess you've spent much time on it. Thanks for sharing this!
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XQYZ · Apprentice Joined: 19 Jul 2009 Posts: 231 Location: Europe

Looks great, I bet I'll be able to learn some new tricks from it, so thanks a lot for making it available for us.

Mike Hunt · Watchman Joined: 19 Jul 2009 Posts: 5287

I've been using it for a while, especially chapter 7 - Manually Configuring a Kernel. The step-by-step guidance helped me get a small, fast, very efficient kernel.

ppurka · Advocate Joined: 26 Dec 2004 Posts: 3256

Very nice documentation. Thank you!
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Sven Vermeulen · Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 10:05 am Post subject:

Talking about the kernel configuration, I'm going to update this in the near future with information on using Pappy's kernel seeds (they are popular and well designed) for the default settings.
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unixbhaskar · Posted: Sat Nov 07, 2009 2:38 am Post subject: thankx for your effort Sven

Kudo to you.

Keep up the good work man!

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few · Guru Joined: 03 Mar 2008 Posts: 448

I have some notes about chapter 9.

In chapter 9 -> "Masked Packages"

At least masked by backtracking, by license and by EAPI are missing.

In chapter 9 -> "Uninstalling Software"
You use emerge -C when there are better alternatives. -C is only for cases when emerge --depclean doesn't want to remove it and you know what you are doing. First use
emerge --deselect <pkg>
to get it out of your world file and then either use
emerge --depclean
or
emerge --depclean <pkg>

In chapter 9 -> "Compiler Directives"

I would prefer -march="native". You might want to mention -mtune.

In chapter 9 -> "Portage Behavior"

You suggest using FEATURES="collision-protect" when emerge changed the default to FEATURES="-collision-protect protect-owned".
You might want to mention FEATURES="buildsyspkg".

In chapter 9 -> "Switching System Profiles"

There is a footnote talking about virtuals. This footnote only applies to old style virtuals.

other ideas for chapter 9:

You might want to mention app-portage/autounmask.

sera · Retired Dev Joined: 29 Feb 2008 Posts: 1017 Location: CET

Holy cow! Amazing what you have put together.

One of the more difficult concepts in Linux is the split between OS and WM/DM and the accompanying diversity. Mentioning Gnome and KDE is a must, but having xfce as the only other example isn't sufficient as this one fits in the very same category.
It would be nice if you could expand on this chapter. Wikipedia has a nice article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window_manager

As we are talking about Gentoo mentioning Xresourses and app-defaults would probably fit this guide as well.

Keep it up.

d2_racing · Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 5:32 am Post subject:

Thanks for this great book

aidanjt · Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 7:06 pm Post subject:

Good work.

One thing I'd like to see in.. well.. any Linux documentation is a crash course in email handling (both local delivery and forwarding).
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pappy_mcfae · Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 8:19 pm Post subject:

Sven Vermeulen,

I am very honored by your words. Thank you for including my project in yours.

Blessed be!
Pappy
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d2_racing · Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2009 2:33 am Post subject:

Yep, Pappy is doing a great job

mjf55 · Guru Joined: 25 Aug 2007 Posts: 372

Wow, great information, well written. Kernel configurations have always been problematic for me, now with your help in the book, those days will be gone. Thank you....
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d2_racing · Posted: Mon Nov 16, 2009 1:07 am Post subject:

In fact, nowdays we need some extra info when we configure a kernel,because each time that there is a new kernel, there is a lot of new stuff

cach0rr0 · Posted: Mon Nov 16, 2009 4:32 pm Post subject:

this is pretty awesome work man, many thanks - now bookmarked!
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Sven Vermeulen · Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2009 9:51 pm Post subject:

Sven Vermeulen · Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2009 9:54 pm Post subject:

Sven Vermeulen · Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2009 9:55 pm Post subject:

nenemsis5 · n00b Joined: 23 Oct 2007 Posts: 72

nice book . thanks alot could u try to make an pdf with an index plz

Sven Vermeulen · Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2009 4:51 pm Post subject:

Hi nemesis5,

The PDF can be downloaded and has an index.
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slangdaddy · n00b Joined: 17 Jul 2007 Posts: 73 Location: Braunschweig

Hi Sven,

I just read the intriduction of your book and I have to say that I like it very much. I see that you use docbook to create the web pages, would you mind to share the sources ? I am using docbook for some documents at work and would like to see how other people use it.

Also, I'd like to translate your book into German, If you're interested.

sera · Retired Dev Joined: 29 Feb 2008 Posts: 1017 Location: CET

Hi Sven,

I went through the alsa section and have a few comments I'd like to add.

The default setup comes with the dmix plugin enabled. And most of the time there is nothing to be done at all. Also the default pcm devices could be mentioned.

The command aplay -l (instead of cat /proc/asound/cards maybe) and aplay -L could be mentioned too as they give quite a good overview of your hardware and pcm devices.

What are pcm devices/streams? If you can put that in words would be just great and probably unique on the whole Internet. :roll:

What happens if two different soundservers are needed at the same time because the stupid apps won't talk to alsa directly or to the other soundserver. How to setup those two? One using the other or both using dmix. Setting the useflags for soundservers when they are not required is asking for troubles in my experience.

Using alsactl when /etc/asound.conf and /.asoundrc can do the same is in my eyes wrong for fix setups. Alsactl is more of an audio development tool. The api at http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/alsa-lib/pcm_plugins.html for the default plugins and the files at /usr/share/alsa/ the pcm concept covers most of what's needed to understand the a bit special configuration system.

Instead of using the asound init script or alsactl one can for instance have a script or initscript asoundPPHome containing:

nenemsis5 · n00b Joined: 23 Oct 2007 Posts: 72

would be nice if we can make this book to an wiki and ppl can all time update it. why not make it to open source document too. XD

gentoo-dev · Apprentice Joined: 24 Jan 2006 Posts: 172