Gentoo Archives: gentoo-amd64

From: Dale <rdalek1967@×××××.com>
To: gentoo-amd64@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: About to install on a 64 bit system. Advice wanted.
Date: Thu, 09 Dec 2010 17:12:45
Message-Id: 4D010655.5070302@gmail.com
In Reply to: [gentoo-amd64] Re: About to install on a 64 bit system. Advice wanted. by Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net>
1 Duncan wrote:
2 > Dale posted on Wed, 08 Dec 2010 23:13:21 -0600 as excerpted:
3 >
4 >
5 >> Stan Sander wrote:
6 >>
7 >
8 >>> In addition to using grub-static, you will need to have the IA32
9 >>> Emulation enabled in your kernel, else you won't be able to execute
10 >>> grub at all. It's under file formats / Emulations in the menu.
11 >>>
12 > I think that's covered in the handbook, now, but posting's still good,
13 > just in case it would have been overlooked. FWIW when I first switched to
14 > no-multilib, before I did the 32-bit chroot thing, I tried turning off
15 > that option in the kernel... and found I couldn't run... I think it was
16 > lilo I was running at the time, properly, so it's definitely worth
17 > remembering.
18 >
19 >
20 >> Glad you posted this. I looked at the USE flags for grub not a package
21 >> called grub-static. That seems to be two different beasts. I never
22 >> knew that package existed. Would emerging the plain grub with the
23 >> static USE flag give the same results? I would think not else they
24 >> would just have one package but am curious just the same.
25 >>
26 > The grub-static package is actually a pre-built grub (obviously built with
27 > the static USE flag), binpkged by gentoo/amd64, with an ebuild to unpack
28 > and install it, for those that want/need it. With both lilo and grub,
29 > parts are 32-bit (or actually, 16-bit) only, as that's the mode all x86
30 > computers even x86_64/amd64 computers start their boot in, so that's what
31 > at least part of an x86 bootloader must be built in. As such, the grub
32 > package remains hard-masked in the no-multilib profiles (someone at one
33 > point claimed it should build, but I haven't tried and am skeptical,
34 > especially when it's still hard-masked for no-multilib), where grub-static
35 > is the recommended bootloader.
36 >
37 > But grub-static actually /is/ a binpkged grub, built on either a 32-bit
38 > only machine or a 64-bit machine with multilib (I'm not sure which), with
39 > an ebuild that simply unpacks the binpkg, and puts the files where they
40 > need to go when it's installed. As such, emerging grub with the static
41 > and other USE flags set as in the binpkg, should get something quite
42 > similar, yes. But there's some particulars there I'm not sure of (the
43 > boot part should be identical, but I'm not sure if the part run on a
44 > normally running machine gets compiled in 32-bit mode or in 64-bit mode on
45 > a 64-bit machine, and that could be critical), so I'm not sure whether
46 > it'd be an exact replacement or not.
47 >
48 >
49
50 So the static version is like OOo-bin then? That makes sense. I may
51 try the plain one at first and see if it works. If not, I can switch to
52 the static one. It's not like it will take hours to install on a 4 core
53 CPU running at 3.2Ghz. lol If I blink, I may miss it. :/
54
55 Thanks
56
57 Dale
58
59 :-) :-)