Usability Testing

This page provides a place to document your install experiences, highlighting pain points so that they can be addressed in future versions of Funtoo Linux.

Daniel Robbins, ninja2, 12/24/2010

Installation of ninja2 (Dell R710) using rhel5-openvz-binaries kernel/modules/initrd .tbz2 (compiled on another machine using gcc-4.1.2) and GPT/GUID partitions. Use of binary kernel was successful although directing Portage to use the binary package was difficult - it wanted to find it inside a package repository rather than accept it directly from the command-line. Forgot to downgrade udev-160 to udev-146-r4 which resulted in a missing /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules. Also didn't have brctl (bridge-utils) or ifenslave on the stage3 to allow me to set up the network correctly. Also ran into an issue with boot-update where I got the configuration wrong, because I used "kernel-[-v]" instead of "kernel[-v]". This could be a usability issue with the boot.conf syntax.

After getting the system booted, I ran into an issue with macaddr renaming - you can't rename a device to eth1 if eth1 already exists! So I realized the limitations of macaddr renaming using nameif (built in to the Funtoo Linux network configuration scripts.) After fixing 70-persistent-net.rules and thinking of ways we could have some kind of default assignment rather than the currently random approach, I rebooted, configured my network, firewall, OpenVZ using the masked vzctl-3.0.25-r2 -- without issue -- and had the system up and running. I found that "bc" is no longer installed by default (I thought it was) -- so I added it to the default Metro stage3. Only ~90K.

Possible usability improvements:

• document use of rhel5-openvz-binaries
• improve Portage's ability to install binary packages by having the .tbz2 specified on the command-line
• improve management of udev to either force downgrade or allow multiple versions to exist on the same system (this is becoming more appealing....)
• add bridge-utils to default stage3 (DONE)
• add ifenslave to default stage3
• add bc to default stage3 (DONE)
• integrate some scheme for logically ordering ethX devices when you have many on a machine
• look into improving boot-update configuration syntax to avoid "-[-v]" issues that can cause thorny config problems.

Successes:

• the test of rhel5-openvz-binaries tbz2 was successful overall. It worked, and saved a ton of effort.
• GPT/GUID partitioning worked fine.
• testing of vzctl-3.0.25-r2 (currently in testing) worked perfectly.
• install was relatively pain-free for a pro but still needs work.