Slashdot Mirror

Alright, so I'm a grouchy minimalist unixbeard. And XBMC is a perfect example of the kind of an app that people like me have no use for. If you're its developer - please don't take my bah-humbugging personally. You can't please everybody. I've stated my opinion of XBMC, and why I'd rather script together my own media center that uses mplayer (see above). But, as HTML5+ video advances, it won't just be people like me...

you have a beef with the build system on freebsd

Of course my opinion of XBMC was affected by how it's packaged for my OS, as would be the case for any user. This may indeed be a very rare example of bad packaging for FreeBSD (I've contacted the port maintainer). But, looking at the far more flexible ebuild, it's clear that some fraction of my criticism remains valid.

i'm sure that if you reduced xbmc to a mere media player (i.e. extracted our dvdplayer), you could get us down to mplayer in terms of deps.

Now you're just being silly. To go pound-for-pound against mplayer (or ffplay), you'd have to rewrite xbmc from scratch in C, not C++/Boost + Python.

--libman

The statement "Linux distributions do not ship with a 32-bit browser or a comprehensive 32-bit emulation layer" was overbroad. Gentoo does a very good job of this. I used to use amd64 Gentoo and a 32-bit Firefox with Flash, with no nspluginwrapper, no chroot, no problem.

http://www.gentoo-portage.com/Search?search=emul-linux-x86

Also I recall reading a review of 64-bit Mandriva which stated that it had a 32-bit Firefox and Flash. Some distributors put some work into this; apparently the author uses a distro that ignores this issue.

How is Gentoo these days? Does it have a full install ISO "bootable" CD? Is it easier to install these days...or does one have to compile stuff overnight as it used to be? One thing I liked about it were the beautiful KDE implementations it showcased.

Meh. The Live cds for gentoo are very similar to Ubuntu now. They boot up to a Gnome environment where there is a double clickable icon labeled "Gentoo Linux Installer" on the desktop. The GUI install makes it easier, but in the end it really is just the old procedure. Another words you should be familiar with the gentoo handbook, but you don't have to reference it every 5 seconds like before. I believe the full install cd includes some precompiled binaries for at least gnome/kde. It's been at least a year since I have done an install, so don't quote me on it.

Compiles are still a pain in the butt. I personally renice emerge in make.conf so it doesn't hog the CPU and just hibernate when I shut the computer off. It's kind of like background updates that way. Gentoo still provides binaries for Firefox and OpenOffice.org which is nice. Firefox 3 hasn't been stabilized which is starting to get grating.

Gentoo has some very handy community sites nowadays, even if they are unofficial.
http://gentoo-wiki.com/
http://gentoo-portage.com/

I'll probably be switching linux distros eventually. I don't use gentoo so much because I like compiling things. The key is it's so customizable...which is exactly the reason I don't use Ubuntu. It peeved me how it loved to overwrite my configuration files. I wonder if Arch Linux would be most appropriate for me?

Basically, everything. If Pidgin 2.5.0 comes out tomorrow with new features, I want it by the day after tomorrow. If a totally new and interesting app comes out then I want it to appear in the respository in a reasonable timeframe. When KDE 4.0.0 came out, I could have emerged it from Portage less than a week later (I chose not to, though).

With Ubuntu, I would either have to compile it myself outside of Synaptic or wait six months for the next Ubuntu release. They enact a "feature freeze" at each release, so that *only* security updates come out through Synaptic and *no* new features or non-security bugfixes may be added. There is an Ubuntu repository called "backports" where they release newer apps, but in my experience this isn't very up-to-date either compared to Gentoo/Sabayon's Portage tree.

For most people, upgrading every six months is often enough. I'm not running a critical production server and I'm also a techie, so a 6-month release cycle is unacceptable to me (let alone 3+ yrs for something like Debian). I like having the ability to install a new and untested piece of software without giving up the benefits of package management. I've heard that there are other distros out there that offer this with a binary package system, but I've not tried one yet. The Sabayon devs are working on a binary project called Entropy and it's supposed to be compatible with Portage as well. People are already saying it works great, but I don't quite trust it yet. Looks promising though.

As always, it is a good idea to check to build large releases such as OpenOffice.

The thing I don't seem to like is that OpenOffice is a heavyweight package and doesn't appear to be modularized enough to allow users to install only oodraw and ooimpress (which are separate source distributions), but nothing else. If only OpenOffice could be built in the same way you can build Gnome/KDE (plenty of options to add/remove components).

I was thinking more of having core OpenOffice libraries such as: liboocommon, liboolang, liboomedia, etc and then having your user-space applications such as oodraw depend upon those core libraries.

OpenOffice is a very large project with what appears to be poor architecture when it comes to building the software. Other large projects such as Gnome/KDE split everything up into modular pieces to make the build task much easier. Why doesn't OpenOffice do the same?

Gentoo's ebuild for openssh includes a hpn USE flag for it. Go forth and build the system & tools as you need/want them. Portage is best package manager out there.

Yeah, I know what you mean. It's pretty gay how you have to authorize for each snap-in panel in the GUI configurator.
http://gentoo-portage.com/up_img/img_800px/1453.png

Although I applaud their effort to showcase less prominent linux software, they could have worked off of an existing linux software database: gentoo-portage.com. It doesn't have the "package-a-day" feature, but it does have short descriptions for each package and uses a wiki-style CMS in that it allows users to upload screenshots related to a given application. Also, the gentoo package repository is more diverse than that of debian's (owing to its package management system being source-based), so I'm sure most of the debian packages are already there.

Ultimately, I feel this serves its function well as a feature that sheds light on the more obscure, but not necessarily less useful, programs.

Yes, but you also have to have a lot of other 32 bit libraries installed just for the browser to run. I think that one of them is glibc.

My understanding is that there are libraries that emulate the 32-bit stuff, so you don't have to install all of it.

Ladislav Bodnar of DistroWatch was quite happy with 64-bit Mandriva and, like many, he noted a substantial speed boost. Try getting the latest Mandriva.

It's a great program I have on my Linux box:

http://www.gentoo-portage.com/games-misc/wtf

how about http://www.microsoft.com/products/? Sure, you can't instantly install the programs there, but neither can you if you go to www.gentoo-portage.com. Hell, even with some programs (e.g. Maya,) you still can't do "emerge maya" or click "Emerge" with Porthole, and something makes me thing that the same situation exists with Yum and Apt.

Don't get me wrong, I love Linux and use it for my computing whenever I'm not doing things that are currently much easier to do under Windows, or things that can only be done under Windows. Hell, just two days ago I got a BSOD when all I was doing was looking at www.economist.com and ripping some movies. Speaking of BSOD's, I've been getting quite a few of them lately, and I know I don't have any viruses....

Uhm, because Microsoft's fonts have a restrictive license that prohibits them from being included in a Free OS.

Huh. Really? I wonder what I just emerged last month?

Gentoo doesn't distribute Sun's Java? Then why do they have both sun-jdk and sun-jre in the official portage tree?

Gentoo doesn't distribute Sun's Java? Then why do they have both sun-jdk and sun-jre in the official portage tree?

Thanks for pointing that out. I checked out what Gentoo has to offer (Since that's my distro of choice) and they have an ebuild available for r350, r300, r250 and r200 chipsets; I had it backwards. However, they do not appear to support x800 and x18xx products. If you go the ATi route you are still behind by at least a generation.

For reference as far as performance goes, compare this ATi x300 benchmark to this nVidia GeForce 6600GT benchmark. Unfortunately I could not find a GeForce 6200TC comparison as that chip is much closer to the x300 in price. The ATi card is about $40 cheaper than the 6600GT on Pricewatch now, but the performance difference is in the range of 2x-5x in favor of the 6600GT across the board. In Enemy Territory, the 6600GT gets over a hundred FPS at 1280x1024 high quality (HQ) while the x300 gets a dismal 20 at the same settings. In Doom 3, the 6600GT manages to get 50 FPS at 1280x1024 in HQ while the x300 gets less than 10 at 640x480 in HQ. The 6600GT gets 53FPS in the Quake 4 1280x1024 low quality benchmark, while the x300 gets 21 in low quality. Unfortunately Phoronix didn't include a UT2004 benchmark for the 6600GT, but I think we can guess who wins there.

If performance isn't important, then you may as well get a Matrox G400 or something. Hell, XGI might even be a good choice since they might even go the open source route with drivers.

Try Gentoo Portage http://www.gentoo.org

http://www.gentoo-portage.com/s?search=nwn

See NWN with data and server right there.

http://www.gentoo-portage.com/s?search=doom3 for doom3

And Portage put games into catagories.

Like: games-fps, games-rpg, games-puzzle. etc.

AND the best part, to install. emerge nwn
It will download any and all deps for you!

Try Gentoo Portage http://www.gentoo.org

http://www.gentoo-portage.com/s?search=nwn

See NWN with data and server right there.

http://www.gentoo-portage.com/s?search=doom3 for doom3

And Portage put games into catagories.

Like: games-fps, games-rpg, games-puzzle. etc.

AND the best part, to install. emerge nwn
It will download any and all deps for you!

I wonder what the possibilities would be for starting a Steam-like service, but instead of peddling one's own games, instead distributing inexpensive indie games in exchange for a percentage? Would many casual gamers install a client like that?

While this probably isn't what you had in mind, I've found Emerge to be a very nice client for installing games, both casual and not so casual. Check out http://www.gentoo-portage.com/Browse and look through the various game categories. Plenty of games are available, from Doom3 to xshipwars. Unfortunately, Emerge hasn't been ported to Windows yet. I beleave it's avalable on Linux, BSD, and OSX though.

I hope you're using the new(is) suspend2-sources kernel, and not taking gentoo-sources and patching it yourself.

I am using the unmasked 2.6.12 and it has been working fantastically, with a flawless hibernate working "right out of the box".

Portage seems to handle commercial software just fine. Check out the available software, especially the games. Plenty of commercial software. Want to add your commercial software? Just write a quick ebuild file and upload it to Gentoo

Gentoo(Linux, not BSD):
19384 ebuilds, 9440 Packages, Last Updated At 12:21:45 GMT

PkgSrc (NetBSD+):
Over 5400 packages

FreeBSD Freshports:
10897

I was unable to find stats for OpenBSD, but I last recall it was in the 2000 range.

Anywho, my point being, it contains about 1/2 of the packages that Gentoo has (and, let's be honest, a lot of the stuff in Gentoo is fluffy crap) and runs on platforms that it is dead-impossible to find decent apps for, like AIX.

What do you do with something like OpenOffice.Org, then, which requires about 10,000 dependencies?

Should each GTK+ application come with its own statically linked copy of GTK to be carried in memory separately for each app?

The natural response, of course, is to say: "no, that's an unnecessary reduction ad absurdum. We can just declare (by some means similar to the LSB) that all applications must use GTK+ 2.4."

But then what do you do six months down the road when you start to see applications written for GTK+ 2.6? Now, either you have to convince every application developer to stick with 2.4 (unlikely); distribute those applications statically linked (ugly, see above); or explain to your users why they have to upgrade to the next version of your distribution to run what they want to run.

Do you think your processor should contain open microcode as well?

As a matter of fact, yes. I do.

And, I know for a fact I'm not the only one.

Open Operating System, Open BIOS, and Open Microcode. Fine!!

This screenshot is integrated with kde and it is similar to what I use.

http://www.gentoo-portage.com/Image/136

And last I checked nVu wasn't available for Linux/PPC.
Check again: http://gentoo-portage.com/net-www/nvu

Well, how Gentoo installs Gnome packages into a DESTDIR is like this:

make DESTDIR=${D} scrollkeeper_localstate_dir=${D}/var/lib/scrollkee per install

or alternatively

make prefix=${D}/usr datadir=${D}/usr/share infodir=${D}/usr/share/info localstatedir=${D}/var/lib mandir=${D}/usr/share/man sysconfdir=${D}/etc scrollkeeper_localstate_dir=${D}/var/lib/scrollkee per install

Also, you need to

mkdir -p ${D}/var/lib/scrollkeeper
export GCONF_DISABLE_MAKEFILE_SCHEMA_INSTALL="1"

to keep scrollkeeper and gconf happy.

Then after it's installed into the DESTDIR, remove /var/lib/scrollkeeper and /usr/share/applications/mimeinfo.cache; they aren't needed.

To compensate for removing those from the package, though, you need to install the schemas with gconftool-2, run scrollkeeper-update and run update-desktop-database and update-mime-database.

Maybe 'easy' is a relative term - but I've been using Gentoo for two years now and never had a problem with the installation of Gnome 2 packages, which are all installed with the same bash script (http://www.gentoo.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/eclass/ gnome2.eclass)

If you're determined to roll your own packages, you could do worse than to follow what Gentoo does, both in preparing tarballs (Gentoo binary packages are just a tarball with a bash script appended) and in dependencies; you can see the dependencies of any package in Portage at e.g. http://www.gentoo-portage.com/gnome-base/libgnomeu i/dep for the dependencies of libgnomeui.

The strenght of Gentoo Linux is that it does not really matter what version you are using. emerge sync and emerge -u world, wait a while and there: you are running the latest version. The install has not changed much, so this actually means nothing to us Gentoo users. You get the latest version whatever Live CD you use to install, only the pre-buildt GRP packages are different on new releases.

This is why you should try Gentoo today, it is excellent for both servers and desktops. Desktop users can choose to use the latest ("masked"), bleeding edge versions, while older stable packages should be preferred for production environments.

The Gentoo Portage tree has more packages in it's database than any other Linux distribution. The freedom to choose.

There is also a sweet front-end for Gentoo's portage called porthole. It allows you to search through the package database from a GUI GTK interface. You can browse the portage database online to find out how much software is available without installing Gentoo.

..try Gentoo today! It's excellent.

Let's face it, IM is not rocket science. The basic functionality is easy to code, and, unsurprisingly, there are already tons of open source clients out there. The cost per user to operate a server is minimal, too, which means: Anyone who's trying to charge you money (or for all that matters force you to receive advertisements) for basic IM services, is attempting to rip you off. If you want to make use of functionality in AIM or MSN Messenger or Yahoo! Messenger which open source clients cannot offer, then you'll be using their official clients anyway. If not, you have two options: Cave in to their extortion, or switch to an open protocol like Jabber.

Btw, that's one reason why many companies want TCPA. It would give them an unhackable way of enforcing a particular client.