Now there were a few minor things that I had to fix after the reboot before I could SSH back in. I hadn't pointed my swap line in /etc/fstab at the proper mdadm RAID volume, the 3c509 moved from eth7 to eth4 after the reboot, I had to use the "noapic" kernel option and I'm still getting the IRQ7 warning.

But the system is mostly in a workable state at this point. So it's time to start installing administration packages and cleaning up the install. I'll save the existing kernel as my "base" configuration in case I screw things up.

The first package that I always install is emerge screen. That provides me with multiple virtual terminals in my single SSH connection. Even better, if I disconnect accidentally, I don't lose my state and programs that were running within screen sessions will continue running. After reconnecting, I can type "screen -x" and reconnect to my old sessions.

Other key packages to install, even on a basic system like this one, are:

app-benchmarks/bonnie
app-editors/vim
app-misc/colordiff
app-portage/gentoolkit
app-text/tree
dev-util/subversion
net-analyzer/iptraf
net-analyzer/nettop
net-analyzer/nload
net-misc/ntp
sys-apps/dstat
sys-apps/eject
sys-apps/smartmontools
sys-process/atop

san1-azure ~ # emerge -pv bonnie vim colordiff gentoolkit tree subversion iptraf nettop nload ntp dstat eject smartmontools atop

These are the packages that I would merge, in order:

Calculating dependencies ...done!
[ebuild N ] app-benchmarks/bonnie-2.0.6 6 kB
[ebuild N ] dev-util/ctags-5.5.4-r2 254 kB
[ebuild N ] app-editors/vim-core-7.0.17 -acl -bash-completion -livecd +nls 5,997 kB
[ebuild N ] app-editors/vim-7.0.17 -acl -bash-completion -cscope +gpm -minimal (-mzscheme) +nls +perl +python -ruby -vim-pager -vim-with-x 0 kB
[ebuild N ] app-vim/gentoo-syntax-20051221 -ignore-glep31 18 kB
[ebuild N ] app-misc/colordiff-1.0.5-r2 13 kB
[ebuild N ] app-portage/gentoolkit-0.2.2 84 kB
[ebuild N ] app-text/tree-1.5.0 -bash-completion 25 kB
[ebuild N ] dev-libs/apr-0.9.12 +ipv6 -urandom 1,024 kB
[ebuild N ] dev-libs/apr-util-0.9.12 +berkdb -gdbm -ldap 578 kB
[ebuild N ] net-misc/neon-0.26.1 +expat -gnutls +nls -socks5 +ssl -static +zlib 763 kB
[ebuild N ] dev-util/subversion-1.3.2-r1 -apache2 -bash-completion +berkdb -emacs -java +nls -nowebdav +perl +python -ruby +zlib 6,674 kB
[ebuild N ] net-analyzer/iptraf-2.7.0-r1 +ipv6 410 kB
[ebuild N ] net-libs/libpcap-0.9.4 +ipv6 415 kB
[ebuild N ] sys-libs/slang-1.4.9-r2 -cjk -unicode 628 kB
[ebuild N ] net-analyzer/nettop-0.2.3 22 kB
[ebuild N ] net-analyzer/nload-0.6.0 118 kB
[ebuild N ] net-misc/ntp-4.2.0.20040617-r3 -caps -debug +ipv6 -logrotate -openntpd -parse-clocks (-selinux) +ssl 2,403 kB
[ebuild N ] sys-apps/dstat-0.6.0-r1 35 kB
[ebuild N ] sys-apps/eject-2.1.0-r1 +nls 65 kB
[ebuild N ] mail-client/mailx-support-20030215 8 kB
[ebuild N ] net-libs/liblockfile-1.06-r1 31 kB
[ebuild N ] mail-client/mailx-8.1.2.20040524-r1 126 kB
[ebuild N ] sys-apps/smartmontools-5.36 -static 528 kB
[ebuild N ] sys-process/acct-6.3.5-r1 300 kB
[ebuild N ] sys-process/atop-1.15 102 kB

Total size of downloads: 20,638 kB
san1-azure ~ #

That should take all of about 0.1 seconds on this Athlon64 X2. (I joke, slightly... the box is quite snappy even with only 7200rpm SATA drives.)

Now I'm going to configure SubVersion. There have been some changes in that process that I learned through trial and error. Folders that I would recommend placing under version control are:

/boot (most files)
/etc (most files, especially configuration files)
/usr/local/sbin (local sysadmin scripts that you create)
/usr/src (the .config file, make sure you add the actual directory with "svn add -N" before adding the "linux" symbolic link)

I know there are other folders to add, but I typically add them on the fly as I start customizing the system.

Labels: Gentoo