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Posted
by
timothy
from the sane-versioning-system-is-a-plus dept.
Dreadlord writes "Gentoo has released 2004.3 for x86, amd64, hppa, ppc, sparc, and an initial release for ppc64. You can read the information page, the changelog, or go straight to the mirrors, or better yet, the torrents."
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by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Monday November 15, 2004 @01:38AM (#10817640)
It's been awhile since I used gentoo-- the computer I had it installed on physically broke a few months ago-- but the thing I really wished for when I last used it was some sort of way to figure out, when you've installed a package, what is the first thing you do to make it work? Like, some sort of emerge info packagename command. I would install ircd and go "okay, i have ircd installed on my computer... now what? is it configured for me? is it enabled?" and not have any idea what to do except try to poke through the only-sometimes-relevant gzipped files in/usr/doc or whereever.
Not really, I did that a few months back when I switched to gcc34 and did emerge -e world, didn't notice much difference. Just keep gcc33 around and eventually most packages will recompile during the normal update process with gcc34. Now, I'm not using an AMD64 though, so you have to decide whether whatever improvements have been made in gcc34 are worth doing it all over again.
I don't use Gentoo myself - the server downstairs runs Debian - but it's nice to see that it's moving forward, being updated, and being used.
It's good for people to have the ability to choose what they want, and if this revision encourages people who've previously tried Gentoo and found it in some way lacking - never tried it myself - then maybe they'll try it again and find what they missed the first time.
Forward my GNU/Linux friends, onwards to a less viral, more versatile, personally empowering digital horizon.
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Monday November 15, 2004 @02:56AM (#10817938)
What makes it good and different from other linux distro?
Very good and easy to use package management.
Shortcomings? It is an "Expert" distro to some extend. Think of it like a shark knife... in the hands of a trained chef it works wonderfully, but the untrained my cut themself.
Have the boot scripts been changed? I tried Gentoo some time ago, and saw that if there was a problem with any of the boot scripts, they would stop and wait for a key press before the boot process could continue. That alone was enough to make me wipe it out.
Yes, I could have re-written the boot scripts, but I had better things to do with my time.
If anyone knows (otherwise I'll go to the gentoo forums) when you install the PPC version does it give an option to install a bootloader (like GRUB/LILO etc.) to dual boot OS X, or is this something they expect you to do afterwards?
Very familiar with linux on PC's, just a bit of a newbie to my powerbook.
No need to complain. I installed Gentoo on a 486/133, then on my P1/200 neighbourhood router and my next target is a P1/166 machine. My main problem is, that my x86 stage 1 seems to require a MMX processor, and the P1/200 is my only MMX capable chip here...:-(
Funny. I'd say Gentoo saved me more time than it cost me during install (which is really time consuming). I've setup my Gentoo computer ~four years ago. It took some time to install and configure to my tastes. However, since then, moving to a different machine is just a matter of grabbing the list of packages in the world profile in the old computer, and emerge'ing the whole list in the new one. It cooks for a couple of days, but the new computer chugs along without interaction. Then, move the homedir, and the new computer feels like home. I've changed computers twice since the first install.
Oh, and naturally, forget burning and installing 'new releases'. The system keeps itself up to date.
A lot of people complain that setting up gentoo on a bunch of machines as well as maintaining them takes to long. Obviously I disagree. This is what I do.
I have made a bunch of i686 optimized packages for most of the things needed. These packages are updated once every weekend. I use those along with glis (glis.sf.net) to bootstrap new machines when I need to. By using glis along with binary packeges it only takes a moment to start the install and only about 30 minutes for it to finish.
I install shfs to mount/usr/portage on all the machines through ssh, so therefore I only need to sync on the one machine. I also compile the packges first on that machine and then build a binary package. Then once a week cron updates all the other machines by installing those binary packages. It also gives me time to test the packages for problems.
The package server is very snappy and compiles usually don't take too long, the workstations are mostly old p3's. Since they don't compile anything and the packages I build are optimized for them the workstations are all utilzed to their full potential (ie probably running solitaire via wine or some such).
There is no need to continually ridicule gentoo. It's small and blue and mostly comes out at night, but I think people wouldn't use it if wasn't useful.
My primary reason for using Gentoo is Portage. I couldn't care less about "speed optimizations" or whatnot. But being able to install software with one command is wonderful.
My secondary reason is that it is continuously updated. I have yet to reinstall my system for anything else than major hardware upgrades. This is why I never liked Debian much, which in retrospect might have been wrong.
My tertiary reason is the documentation and community. http://forums.gentoo.org and #gentoo on freenode will get you lots of help.
But beware, there's a downside too. You can more easily end up with a broken system (compared to other "easier" distros) because you accidentaly wrote over some important configuration files. So you need to know what stuff like fstab is. And you need to know how to recover from disasters should something go haywire.
The evidence does not suggest that gentoo is inherently slower than other distributions, although sometimes people do use the wrong optimizations. It does suggest that in many cases, gentoo is faster, especially on obscure architectures, or basically anything other than a PPro which is what most Linux distributions are built for; there's an i386 build, and an i686 build.
The real benefit of gentoo is not that it teaches you something. The best way to actually learn what's going on is to install LFS, aka linux from scratch. Gentoo and its install guide hold your hand. Nothing wrong with that, but don't pretend that it's the ultimate teaching tool. The real benefit of gentoo is USE flags, and to a lesser extent, CFLAGS. You can elect to compile everything on your system with support for whatever you need, and only what you need, and you can easily use stuff like propolice.
There's no reason not to use gentoo in the corporate environment. You are not required to perform all upgrades. You have a choice! It's not like gentoo comes with a cron job to ( emerge sync && emerge -u world ) or anything. Meanwhile gentoo will allow you to build (with your customizations or at least options) the latest updates and patches for the software you need, when you need it, without waiting for a binary package to reach your local mirror - all you need is a new ebuild and some patch files.
I would like to agree with you about testing, but the fact is that redhat isn't any more stable than gentoo, nor is any other linux distribution. In many cases, gentoo is more stable; I'm not running the majority of unstable packages or anything, the software I'm running has been tested, and it has the latest fixes which are available for gentoo typically before they are available for any other distribution. (This is not a law or anything.)
Gentoo has one con as compared to the other distributions: Compile time. This is a very real problem which is why there are so many jokes about it. Every stereotype is based (however tenuously) in reality. Other than that, well, if you want to use apt or rpm for some reason, you can. But you're a sick bastard.
What I wish Gentoo had (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I HATE YOU TOO GENTOO (Score:3, Interesting)
Nice to see... (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't use Gentoo myself - the server downstairs runs Debian - but it's nice to see that it's moving forward, being updated, and being used.
It's good for people to have the ability to choose what they want, and if this revision encourages people who've previously tried Gentoo and found it in some way lacking - never tried it myself - then maybe they'll try it again and find what they missed the first time.
Forward my GNU/Linux friends, onwards to a less viral, more versatile, personally empowering digital horizon.
Re:Sooo... (Score:1, Interesting)
Very good and easy to use package management.
Shortcomings? It is an "Expert" distro to some extend. Think of it like a shark knife... in the hands of a trained chef it works wonderfully, but the untrained my cut themself.
Re:And they still don't have an installer (Score:2, Interesting)
over 500 systems installed over ssh =]
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=189250/ [gentoo.org]
So, while I'm waiting for it to download... (Score:2, Interesting)
Have the boot scripts been changed? I tried Gentoo some time ago, and saw that if there was a problem with any of the boot scripts, they would stop and wait for a key press before the boot process could continue. That alone was enough to make me wipe it out.
Yes, I could have re-written the boot scripts, but I had better things to do with my time.
steve
Re:I HATE YOU TOO GENTOO (Score:3, Interesting)
Dual booting OS X? (Score:2, Interesting)
If anyone knows (otherwise I'll go to the gentoo forums) when you install the PPC version does it give an option to install a bootloader (like GRUB/LILO etc.) to dual boot OS X, or is this something they expect you to do afterwards?
Very familiar with linux on PC's, just a bit of a newbie to my powerbook.
cheers
Gav
Re:Obligatory Gentoo Joke (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Gentoo - too much time to commit (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh, and naturally, forget burning and installing 'new releases'. The system keeps itself up to date.
gentoo on workstations (Score:1, Interesting)
I have made a bunch of i686 optimized packages for most of the things needed. These packages are updated once every weekend. I use those along with glis (glis.sf.net) to bootstrap new machines when I need to. By using glis along with binary packeges it only takes a moment to start the install and only about 30 minutes for it to finish.
I install shfs to mount
The package server is very snappy and compiles usually don't take too long, the workstations are mostly old p3's. Since they don't compile anything and the packages I build are optimized for them the workstations are all utilzed to their full potential (ie probably running solitaire via wine or some such).
There is no need to continually ridicule gentoo. It's small and blue and mostly comes out at night, but I think people wouldn't use it if wasn't useful.
Re:Sooo... (Score:3, Interesting)
My secondary reason is that it is continuously updated. I have yet to reinstall my system for anything else than major hardware upgrades. This is why I never liked Debian much, which in retrospect might have been wrong.
My tertiary reason is the documentation and community. http://forums.gentoo.org and #gentoo on freenode will get you lots of help.
But beware, there's a downside too. You can more easily end up with a broken system (compared to other "easier" distros) because you accidentaly wrote over some important configuration files. So you need to know what stuff like fstab is. And you need to know how to recover from disasters should something go haywire.
Trollity troll troll troll (Score:3, Interesting)
The evidence does not suggest that gentoo is inherently slower than other distributions, although sometimes people do use the wrong optimizations. It does suggest that in many cases, gentoo is faster, especially on obscure architectures, or basically anything other than a PPro which is what most Linux distributions are built for; there's an i386 build, and an i686 build.
The real benefit of gentoo is not that it teaches you something. The best way to actually learn what's going on is to install LFS, aka linux from scratch. Gentoo and its install guide hold your hand. Nothing wrong with that, but don't pretend that it's the ultimate teaching tool. The real benefit of gentoo is USE flags, and to a lesser extent, CFLAGS. You can elect to compile everything on your system with support for whatever you need, and only what you need, and you can easily use stuff like propolice.
There's no reason not to use gentoo in the corporate environment. You are not required to perform all upgrades. You have a choice! It's not like gentoo comes with a cron job to ( emerge sync && emerge -u world ) or anything. Meanwhile gentoo will allow you to build (with your customizations or at least options) the latest updates and patches for the software you need, when you need it, without waiting for a binary package to reach your local mirror - all you need is a new ebuild and some patch files.
I would like to agree with you about testing, but the fact is that redhat isn't any more stable than gentoo, nor is any other linux distribution. In many cases, gentoo is more stable; I'm not running the majority of unstable packages or anything, the software I'm running has been tested, and it has the latest fixes which are available for gentoo typically before they are available for any other distribution. (This is not a law or anything.)
Gentoo has one con as compared to the other distributions: Compile time. This is a very real problem which is why there are so many jokes about it. Every stereotype is based (however tenuously) in reality. Other than that, well, if you want to use apt or rpm for some reason, you can. But you're a sick bastard.