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Operating Systems Software Linux

Gentoo 2005.1, Experimental Live CD Released 347

safeness writes "Gentoo 2005.1 was released yesterday. Included in its release is an additional experimental LiveCD with the long awaited graphical installer. Now there's one less reason for your friends to switch to Gentoo! Get it here!" And darthcamaro writes "Hard to tell from the change log what's new ... but this story on internetnews.com notes new installation hardware support and WiFi."
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Gentoo 2005.1, Experimental Live CD Released

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  • Yeah yeah. (Score:5, Funny)

    by suso ( 153703 ) * on Wednesday August 10, 2005 @03:21PM (#13288775) Journal
    Now there's one less reason for your friends to switch to Gentoo!

    Indeed! A couple more features and I'll be ready to switch back to Fedora.
  • Typo? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by fiji ( 4544 ) *
    "Now there's one less reason for your friends to switch to Gentoo!" should perhaps be "Now there's one less reason for your friends NOT to switch to Gentoo!".

    -ben
    • Re:Typo? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Eberlin ( 570874 )
      Probably not a typo. There's a common thought that the gentoo folks are pretty "hardcore" about the OS. That whole stage1 compile everything from scratch, configure everything with vi, use magnets to place the linux kernel bits on the HDD, and all that wonderful stuff. A graphical installer almost defeats the purpose of being 1337, after all.

      I hear you learn lots about Linux that way. I wouldn't know, I run ubuntu. I'd like to maybe try it one day (or week or month...it's a slow machine) for the experi
      • Re:Typo? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by sbennett ( 448295 ) <spb@gentoo.o3.1415926rg minus pi> on Wednesday August 10, 2005 @03:38PM (#13288929)
        I hear you learn lots about Linux that way.

        No, you learn lots about following instructions that way. Of course, it's still useful knowledge that a lot of people could benefit from gaining.
        • Re:Typo? (Score:3, Interesting)

          by dratox ( 894948 )
          I did my first gentoo install only 2 months ago(by the book), and in that time learned more about linux than from running it an entire year before with other (more user-friendly distros). You do learn alot, even by the book, because it lets you see the inards more than some distros, and forces you to see how what does what and why it's there. This is actually one of the main reasons I DID use gentoo, rather than something like fedora 4.
        • Re:Typo? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by agraupe ( 769778 ) on Wednesday August 10, 2005 @04:27PM (#13289400) Journal
          Well, that's not entirely true. You could say the same thing about the apprentice system, which obviously does work. Sure you don't become a linux 1337 hax0r over night, but, having done a gentoo install, I could see what I had done wrong with other linux systems. As you do the install, you see how things fit together, and getting from the fresh-install to working-desktop stage is better still, in terms of learning. Because X.org wasn't automatically configured, I learned how to do it by the gentoo guide, so when something did screw up with it, I could go back in and fix it. Was this the only way to get this information? No. Would a gentoo install teach you much if you're already a knowledgeable linux/UNIX user? Again, no. For those of us not in that category, the gentoo install proves to be educational, and it ends up with a system that is customized to your liking.
          • Re:Typo? (Score:5, Informative)

            by jtwJGuevara ( 749094 ) on Wednesday August 10, 2005 @04:43PM (#13289527)
            For instance, the gentoo installation was my first experience manually editing fstab, compiling a kernel, editing various files in /etc by hand, so and so forth. Installing gentoo is not so much a learning experience than it is a "frame of mind" changer. It completely forced me out of using gui configs to the point where I now prefer to go edit files by hand. Of course, you could always go edit files by hand in other distributions as well, but gentoo (moreso the gentoo community and documention) is more supportive of it and explains it much better than other distributions that I've seen. (Disclaimer, I haven't used debian, so I can't speak of its community and documentation).
            • Yeah, I agree completely on that one. I can say that, for the most part, gentoo documentation is the most complete that I can find for any distro. The community is usually helpful, but can be slightly hostile if you don't RTFM and ask a stupid question. I've used Debian, and Ubuntu is now my distro of choice for most things (it's just less effort than gentoo, although I still use gentoo on my main box). The Debian community, I've found, is very elitist, and also unbelievably hostile to Debian offshoot d
              • The strengths of Gentoo seem to be its emerge system and its documentation. I think emerge beats FreeBSD's ports simply because so many people are using it that it is broken less often and the USE flags are a more consistent way of handling options than ports uses (it often varies port to port and sometimes you have things like multiple ports, i.e. portX-with-gui portX-without-gui). But I think FreeBSD still has it beat on documentation. Anyway, I am really glad linux finally got Gentoo because it really
      • Liking Gentoo has nothing to do with "being l33t" as you call it. Some people just like it when their config files are not being screwed up permanently by some GUI config tool that doesn't know how to preserve comments or advanced settings (the ones not accesible through the GUI). Some people also like not being forced to install KDE or Gnome (yeah, I am one of these people who doesn't want their Linux look almost like Windows, I like my environment a bit more customized and efficient) just because the comp
  • Now there's one less reason for your friends to switch to Gentoo!

    Is is just me, or are the /. editors at it again?

  • by Dan667 ( 564390 ) on Wednesday August 10, 2005 @03:22PM (#13288787)
    Let the Gentoo vs. everything else flamewar begin!
    • by Anonymous Coward
      Cheese on toast tastes way better than Gentoo does.
    • I use gentoo 2005.0, and have used gentoo since one of their 2003 releases. Did that make me a linux expert? No. Using about a dozen different distros since the early 90's has sure helped though!

      I agree that following a step-by-step list of instructions to install something does not make someone an expert. Heck, I can buy something in a box from IKEA, assemble it per their instructions, and have a functional piece of furniture, but that hardly makes me a furniture craftsman "expert".

      Of course, if the us

  • by imsabbel ( 611519 ) on Wednesday August 10, 2005 @03:23PM (#13288795)
    but somehow, putting a CD with an "experimental Gentoo" Release on it into my computer sounds just as fascinating and fun as open hearth surgery in nanibia or landing a space shuttle with chocolade heathshields...
  • by An Onerous Coward ( 222037 ) on Wednesday August 10, 2005 @03:25PM (#13288807) Homepage
    No way in hell am I going to recompile the OS every time I boot up. Do I look like I have that kind of time in my life? /me checks posting history.

    Never mind. Carry on.
  • Are there directions on performing a profile updgrade avaliable?
  • Happy Geek. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Onimaru ( 773331 ) on Wednesday August 10, 2005 @03:28PM (#13288846)

    Looks spiffy. I'm seriously a geek in heaven lately...it seems that now my biggest problem is choosing between all the pretty, easy, functional linux installs I could be running and resisting the urge to "catch 'em all."

    I do find myself occasionally wishing, though, that some of the effort being put into endlessly fragmenting and repackaging linux could be put into taking some of the great apps available and turning them from "good, functional, usable, and fast" into "droolingly beautiful and slick as Elvis' hair."

  • by SporkLand ( 225979 ) on Wednesday August 10, 2005 @03:33PM (#13288888)
    I was browsing the screenshots of the new installer, and they looked nice. But as I was looking through them I saw reference to a "nazi-ish firewall". I'm not the type of person that is upset by this, but I can picture the people whose sensitivities would be offended by such a remark.

    Maybe they should switch nazi-ish for strict. I'm not trying to be overly critical but I'm sure there are people who would find the comparisons between an overly-strict computer and a group that baked people in ovens offensive.
  • Screenshots (Score:5, Informative)

    by Se7enLC ( 714730 ) on Wednesday August 10, 2005 @03:39PM (#13288947) Homepage Journal
    Screenshots are here [gentoo.org]
  • by Anonymous Coward
    Because now installing it is only like pulling teeth, whereas before it was like ripping your own eyeballs out with your fingers?
  • (troll emulation) I use Gentoo, how does this affect.... (/troll emulation)

    oh wait...
  • I like to seed torrents of debian, fc4, and gentoo isos. I noticed today that my 2005.0 seed showed 0 seeds and 0 peers connected so I figured 2005.1 was out. Gentoo's torrent page was down, so I found it at tracker.netdomination.org. Had over 110 seeds connected and pushing the 6Mbps limit of my cablemodem. I just assumed I missed the story here and stumbled across the fact that it was out. Guess not. Oh, and the new Mercedes Benz Mixed Tape (#8) is out, so I grabbed that torrent, too.
  • Now there's one less reason for your friends to switch to Gentoo!

    Reasons are discrete. This should read "one fewer reason."

    Sincerely yours,
    Your friendly neighborhood grammar Nazi.
  • " Now there's one less reason for your friends to switch to Gentoo! "

    Either this was a compelling arguement gone wrong or somebody wanted to get in on todays load of Linux/BSD/OpenSuSE News with a nice prank on the Editors. What next? A live CD of SCO?

  • Isn't one of the main reasons to have a "LiveCD" speed and convenience? With the hours-long compile time to simply get to an optimised ramdisk image, I'm just not sure who really *needs* this.

    Don't misunderstand, I've run Gentoo and it has many geat attributes. As far as improving the install, that's great, and makes sense.

    I just have trouble imagining many scenarios where a LiveCD that takes hours to compile is the "right tool".

    It just seems to me that I'd want to invest the compile-time into something tha
  • Someone needs to set standards for ebuilds. I've noticed that ebuilds marked stable are less stable than masked versions. For example, I recently upgraded to the lastest stable version of apache, but when it came time to rebuild mod_php the compile borked. I had to install masked versions of both apache and mod_php just to get the system working again.
  • by log0n ( 18224 )
    Is there a PPC version of the LiveCD available (or on it's way)? I scanned the article quickly, but didn't see anything pop out at me about it.
  • No ReiserFS (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Danuvius ( 704536 ) on Wednesday August 10, 2005 @04:05PM (#13289181)
    Gentoo's "default filesystem" (the one that's recommended for the root partition in the installation manual) is not supported. No ReiserFS with the graphical installer.

    For a large portion of Gentoo users this makes the graphical installer USELESS.

    And why is there no ReiserFS support?

    According to the, presumably 12 year old, FAQ writer for the project:
    http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/releng/installer/faq .xml#reiser [gentoo.org]
    "Because reiserfs == teh suck...and libparted doesn't support it very well."

    Based on past experience, I suspect behind this decision a juvenile programmer with personal dislike for Hans Reiser due to some flamewars.

    Urgh... what a pity. I hope eventually work will be taken over by people with some sense. In the meantime I'll continue being very happy with my manual gentoo installation and recommend any GUI-installation-dependent users to head on to SuSE.
    • You should be able to cfdisk/mkreiserfs manually and do the rest with the GUI.
    • Re:No ReiserFS (Score:2, Informative)

      by xpulsar87x ( 305131 )
      I think you missed the second part from the FAQ:
      and libparted doesn't support it very well

      No matter what the developer's opinion of ReiserFS or Hans is, I think the second part of the FAQ entry is much more of an explanation as to why there is no ReiserFS support.
    • Have you used libreiserfs via parted?
      I can assume you it is "teh suck".
  • I'm still less than enthralled with Gentoo. After a few attempts to install it on my SunBlade 100, I finally gave up. Somehow I think that the last thing that I want to do is compile every damn thing from scratch on a 500MHz UltraSPARC IIe processor. The machine sat there for several days just compiling X and KDE.

    Fedora (Aurora) isn't any better - it's a torturous installation process that is fraught with opportunities for error.

    So somebody tell me - what do I have to do to get Gentoo and KDE running on
    • Have you tried good ol' Debian? It's not bleeding edge, but whenever I have old hardware I want to put Linux on, Debian has almost done well for me. Their "testing" branch is stable enough for most people and has much more recent packages, to boot.
    • Somehow I think that the last thing that I want to do is compile every damn thing from scratch on a 500MHz UltraSPARC IIe processor

      Really ?? I did a stage 1 install on my old Pentium 233MX laptop and it went OK, i Just came back to it a day or so later (without X, admittedly) and that's my home server fully built. I did add X later on, but if you think it takes too long to build KDE on your hardware, then you're probably not going to like the way it runs on there either.

      You could always try the emerge distc
  • Gentoo (Score:2, Interesting)

    by DJCater ( 877532 )
    I'm a Gentoo user, used the 2004.1 Minimal LiveCD and a stage-1 package to start me off. I spent 2 days getting it working. Actually, I spent 2 days getting it running. I wouldn't really call it working. I was experimenting with make.conf, and basically I fucked it up big style. No problem, I've got plenty of time.

    So I fixed up, did it again, and actually got GNOME running. It still sucked though, I was useless at kernel configuration. And I thought that using the 2.4 kernel would be best, you know, more st
  • Now there's one less reason for your friends to switch to Gentoo!

    what they really mean is that the graphical installer is harder to use than the terminal commands.
  • Would be storing /usr/portage in a huge .zip file. There are 121537 files in portage on my system and that constitutes a massive overhead on the filesystem and degrades the performance. And when updating it tends to scatter lots of little tiny files all over the disk, making performance even worse. With Reiser 4 is literally takes 6+ seconds to rebalance the filesystem tree, which happens ever so often.

    It should be simple in python to just replace file.open to first look in /usr/portage for an actual fil
  • Graphical Installer (Score:3, Informative)

    by ndansmith ( 582590 ) on Wednesday August 10, 2005 @04:31PM (#13289435)
    The pain-in-the-butt, lengthy, confusing terminal installation process is what I like about Gentoo. It is the first Linux distro I ever used, and the difficult installation process gave me some nice hands-on experience and put me ahead of the curve compared to most Linux n00bs. Having a graphical hold-my-hand-daddy version takes all the fun out of it!
    • Sorry, but your post looks like something right out of http://funroll-loops.org/ [funroll-loops.org] :) I love gentoo as well, however, having a way to *quickly* get the system installed is something that I like. If I'm sitting in a colo upgrading my server (in this case, from debian to gentoo), sitting and going through the manual procedure sucks. I want to stick a CD in, click a few buttons, and end up at the same point that I was at after the by-hand install process. Of course, linux is all about choice, so I'm sure tha
  • Which distro posting results in the most 'funny'-moderated comments?
    ( ) Fedora
    ( ) Mandrake
    ( ) Gentoo
    ( ) Slackware
    ( ) Debian
    ( ) Yggdrasil
    ( ) Lindows
    ( ) Novell
    ( ) SCO
    ( ) Slackware jokes aren't funny, you insensitive clod!
  • Ubuntu & Gentoo (Score:2, Interesting)

    by alucinor ( 849600 )
    At home, I use Ubuntu and Gentoo -- the former for fun, the latter for development. I've found that if I'm needing to find stuff and compile it, Gentoo is the most friendly distro. On Ubuntu, you have to first find out all the various dev packages you need to compile something, and it can be a real pain. Not so with Gentoo!

    Gentoo is really only good in this respect, though. I also like it as a hobby system, and avoid software with really long compiles on it. So I say, if you're going to go Gentoo, avoi
  • ^ Sarcasm.

    I mean yeah, it's great, but I just setup two Gentoo boxes at work the last few days!! :(

    I was amazed how unfriendly it was from a graphical installer POV (i.e. it had none!).

    I've used Slackware in the past, and aside from setting up your fstab, it was a breeze so it was very suprising the installation was so complex.

    But, like the above posters, I now know much more about how Linux works. And yes, emerge rocks.

    All in all, it's my new fav distro, and this will make it more accessible to the less te

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