Slashdot Mirror

You can still run Linux using a ports-like system, compiling everything from source: check out Gentoo Linux.

Phillip.

Is he describing Gentoo Linux here?

This has already been said by other posters, but you should give gentoo a spin. It uses a package management system that I've heard is very similar to BSD ports. Its easy to constuct a system that is lean, and very customizable. I've been running it on my laptop and home server for some time and have been very impressed at how easy it is to maintain and upgrade. The portage system, as its version of ports is called, had over 5000 packages at last count(probably much more now). You can browse it here.

This leads to a lot of differences. In a very real sense, BSD systems are constantly developed; I can always update my system to the absolute latest code, irrespective of "releases". In Linux, that doesn't really have as much meaning, because the release process is very different. I think the most appropriate verb for a Linux release is "assembled". A Linux release is assembled from version A.B of this program, plus version C.D of this program, plus version E.F of this program... all together with version X.Y.Z of the Linux kernel. In BSD, however, since the pieces are all developed together, the verb "cut" makes a lot more sense; a release is "cut" at a certain time.

Apparently, you have not studied Gentoo

Now, it's true that most Linux users install binary packages, and most BSD users install by building from source. Partly, that's a result of the tools; the ports system is designed around the concept of building from source, with the ability to make and install binary packages being something of an afterthought, while Linux packaging like RPM and dpkg and such are designed around the concept of installing a binary package, with building from source as an afterthought. Some of this is historical; binary packaging historically isn't a predominant theme in Unix systems, as I mentioned earlier. For that matter, packaging itself is a more recent thing. Traditionally, you'd deal with uninstalling and such manually.

Apparently, he has not studied Gentoo

Then, there's the second category; those programs which are add-on packages. In the BSD world, this is usually called the "ports system". That name is chosen for a specific reason.

Traditionally, when you wanted to run a package on your system, the first thing you had to do was compile it. And often before you could compile it, you'd have to fiddle with it. Your system would require different header files. Sometimes, manifest constants would be different. Sometimes, you'd even need to rewrite parts of it from scratch, because of basic assumption that didn't hold on your system.

Or, in other words, you'd have to "port" it to your OS, and/or to your specific system. The basic intent of the ports system is to do all that "porting" stuff for you. That it also automates building and installing, and provides packaging services (for things like 'uninstall') isn't as well reflected in the name.

But as with many things, it grew past its name into the beast it is today. The current FreeBSD ports collection has close to 10,000 packages in it (this number will, of course, be outdated quickly, but that's the nature of development). The most obvious feature of ports is that it builds things from source all the time, rather than just install pre-built binaries. This, it seems, is another one of those blatant differences that trip people up when trying to look at BSD from a Linux perspective. That it builds from source is just a side effect, it's not the primary purpose or difference. Binary packages are also available; in fact, binary packages are built from the ports tree!

Now, it's true that most Linux users install binary packages, and most BSD users install by building from source. Partly, that's a result of the tools; the ports system is designed around the concept of building from source, with the ability to make and install binary packages being something of an afterthought, while Linux packaging like RPM and dpkg and such are designed around the concept of installing a binary package, with building from source as an afterthought. Some of this is historical; binary packaging historically isn't a predominant theme in Unix systems, as I mentioned earlier. For that matter, packaging itself is a more recent thing. Traditionally, you'd deal with uninstalling and such manually.

Gentoo is a Linux distribution gaining in prominence these days. One of its big selling points is its portage system, which is often considered very similar to BSD ports. Perhaps most visibly, in that it compiles from source. That avoids a lot of the problem of binary packages. I've never used it myself, but the impressions I've gotten from information I've seen on it, and people I know who have used it, is that it's taken some good ideas from everyone, and smooshed them together. It'll be very interesting to see how it progresses and matures over the next few years. It's still much more Linux than BSD, but it may well be the closest to the BSD style of the major Linux distributions.

Now, there are advantages to pre-compiled binaries; mostly time (as in much less), and usually it'll take a lot less space to install a pre-compiled package, than it would to compile the package. There are also advantages to building from source, like avoiding all sorts of library versioning ugliness (my personal pet peeve with binary packages). You can install binary packages on Linux or BSD; you can build from source on Linux or BSD. But the users seem to be biased differently, because the systems are biased differently, because the users are biased differently... it all dovetails.

I guess what's important here is to realize that the difference between ports and RPM's isn't just that ports compile and RPM's just install. Ports are designed to cover the full range of bits and pieces of installing stuff; encoding and tracking and installing depe

Gentoo.

Seriously.

I'm sure that the "Gentoo Zealot Translator" will follow this post (or at least another one ;) ) and as someone who has tried Linux (most major distros), Solaris, and BSDs (Free and Open), I keep coming back to Gentoo.

Why? Several reasons:

1) The community. It is *fun* to be part of the community. I am on IRC as much as I can be, and I like to help, and the community helps me back.

2) Documentation. It is extensive. Unbelievably so. Even the noobiest of noobs can follow the install documents, and the rest of the documentation just r0x0rs. ;)

3) Portage. It combines the best of apt-get with the concept of Ports, and I have yet to find that something I need isn't in Portage. While I'm sure that not everything for everyone is in there, the vast majority of people will find what they need, and even lots they don't!

4) Ease of use. Some people might see this as a negative; ie, that which is easy can't be (or shouldn't be) good. However, Gentoo can be hard too - the choice is there. You can take advantage of all that they've done to make Virtual Hosting with Apache easier, or you can ignore it and do your own thing.

It all comes down to flexibility and power in your OS. I run minimal Gentoo installs as servers at work, but have a full fledged desktop at home. It makes work easier, and my home machine way more powerful and fun than it would ever be with any other OS, and that's what I'm looking for. It's the best of both worlds.

Other options I would choose:

Gentoo
Slackware

Clearly there is only one other option ;-)

You are out to lunch if you think a commercial distro like mandrake is anything like Debian. Gentoo resembles Debian by far more than any other distro out there.

Gentoo is working on a project they call Catalyst, basically it's a framework for allowing gentoo users to create their own custom live cds and binary installations.

My url for all the Emulators didnt get included in the link.

emerge dosemu
or
emerge dosbox (and dosbox-cvs for that newest version)

Gentoo has a nice collection of emulators.

I'm running 2.6.1_rc2-gentoo and like it alot (since it's all new hardware and want to play with the new ALSA, USB and crypto stuff) but still will run 2.4.x on an older box until genkernel will work [with 2.6]. I'm guessing that genkernel will support 2.6 soon and they're just trying to figure out a way to make a smooth converision.

For those that haven't read about Gentoo they should check "The Philosophy of Gentoo" and Portage User Guide. IMHO Gentoo rocks.

I'm running 2.6.1_rc2-gentoo and like it alot (since it's all new hardware and want to play with the new ALSA, USB and crypto stuff) but still will run 2.4.x on an older box until genkernel will work [with 2.6]. I'm guessing that genkernel will support 2.6 soon and they're just trying to figure out a way to make a smooth converision.

For those that haven't read about Gentoo they should check "The Philosophy of Gentoo" and Portage User Guide. IMHO Gentoo rocks.

I'm running 2.6.1_rc2-gentoo and like it alot (since it's all new hardware and want to play with the new ALSA, USB and crypto stuff) but still will run 2.4.x on an older box until genkernel will work [with 2.6]. I'm guessing that genkernel will support 2.6 soon and they're just trying to figure out a way to make a smooth converision.

For those that haven't read about Gentoo they should check "The Philosophy of Gentoo" and Portage User Guide. IMHO Gentoo rocks.

I'm running 2.6.1_rc2-gentoo and like it alot (since it's all new hardware and want to play with the new ALSA, USB and crypto stuff) but still will run 2.4.x on an older box until genkernel will work [with 2.6]. I'm guessing that genkernel will support 2.6 soon and they're just trying to figure out a way to make a smooth converision.

For those that haven't read about Gentoo they should check "The Philosophy of Gentoo" and Portage User Guide. IMHO Gentoo rocks.

I'm running 2.6.1_rc2-gentoo and like it alot (since it's all new hardware and want to play with the new ALSA, USB and crypto stuff) but still will run 2.4.x on an older box until genkernel will work [with 2.6]. I'm guessing that genkernel will support 2.6 soon and they're just trying to figure out a way to make a smooth converision.

For those that haven't read about Gentoo they should check "The Philosophy of Gentoo" and Portage User Guide. IMHO Gentoo rocks.

I'm running 2.6.1_rc2-gentoo and like it alot (since it's all new hardware and want to play with the new ALSA, USB and crypto stuff) but still will run 2.4.x on an older box until genkernel will work [with 2.6]. I'm guessing that genkernel will support 2.6 soon and they're just trying to figure out a way to make a smooth converision.

For those that haven't read about Gentoo they should check "The Philosophy of Gentoo" and Portage User Guide. IMHO Gentoo rocks.

The new gentoo image creation program, called catalyst, does exactly what you are looking for.

WHY are there so many window managers? Checking the Window managers section on Gentoo Packages site there are 44! A search for Window Managers on fresh meat brings over 400! yes, 400 window managers.

What is wrong with the standard K window manager on KDE? What is wrong with the Standard Sawfish Window manager with Gnome! This is the problem. The X11 designers should of FORCED an intergrated Window manager, like Windows and Mac OS did. Hopefully the KDE and GNOME guys can create a unified Window manager for Xouvert and seal off all these useless window managers for good!

Twm is shit, FVWM is too old, BlackBox is too weird, Ratpoison is too hard, evilwm is just stupid. The Debian and Gentoo guys should enforce a one window manager policy. You can whine about "choice", but Id rather have one fucntional flawless Window manager than 400 buggy ones that do things differently.

The average user should never hear the word Window Mangager, and the KDE and Gnome guys are working hard to make their intregrated Window managers a seamless part of the system. In KDE 3.2 beta, the login screen has moved the Session type (their terminology for Window manager) into a sub menu so the average user will not see it.

Conclusion, all Window managers should die in favour of Desktop environments. Don't talk to me about 'bloat', when you only have kdelibs and kdebase rpms installed, it takes only 50Mb, which even on a 5 year old hard disk is about just 1% of the disk. Even a full install of KDE takes only a few hundred MB.

Yes, -1,flamebait, but my opinion is shared by most.

Later versions of windows are better.

So let me get this straight... Windows ME beats Windows 98? Windows ME was the last Windows-based OS I 'upgraded' to before converting, and I can assure you it was much worse, in many many ways.

I asked same questions on Gentoo forums and I've got an impression that usually people with DVD+/-R/RW don't know how to build a bootable DVD. The problem with a bootable DVD is in its size - its image would be too big to become commonly downloadble. But if you have a Linux box in your hands then such problem doesn't exist anymore. The solution is to distribute a guiding script instead of an image. If you already have Linux with DVD authoring tools then such script, being configured and told about what settings and what applications you want on the disc, would build all desireable application packages, pre-configure the system for your desirable environment, make a proper image and burn it. Source code is more compact than binaries. And it's a high chance that you have most of needed source code on your Linux box already. So, with such a guiding script, the downloaded size can be even less than with a CD image. By the way, does any of you know any links that I can follow and gather bootable DVD advises? I may build such script by myself (as I actually need it!) and share it with the rest of us.

3) Please give us step-by-step instructions for updating *anything* on a *nix based box (one per variant and packager please... one where you compile the source yourself on each variant.. oh and one where you do not run any XWindow system whatsoever.)

apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade

Updates all of my packages on the distro of my choice, Debian. (If you need help, it's kind of like Windows Update, except that it works, and I excercise control over whose updates I trust.)

(Although, in the interest of full disclosure, I am 1) ... post[ing] that from a Windows box; I got it copy of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic for Xmas, and it freaking rocks. Thus, I'm using my X(P)box right now.)

If you really want to compile from sources yourself, I'm sure that someone around here can help you with Gentoo and the emerge command.

emerge sync && emerge packagename , I think. So simple, even an MCSE (me) can do it.

Gentoo has a PPC Gnome/KDE LiveCD. You can purchase it here:
http://store.gentoo.org/index.php?item=23&action=v iewitem for $10.

Here is the link for the Gentoo Press Release:
http://www.gentoo.org/news/20030603-ppclivecd.xml

Gentoo has a PPC Gnome/KDE LiveCD. You can purchase it here:
http://store.gentoo.org/index.php?item=23&action=v iewitem for $10.

Here is the link for the Gentoo Press Release:
http://www.gentoo.org/news/20030603-ppclivecd.xml

Sorry, forgot this in the writeup, but there are some Gentoo packages out for lighting for your Christmas trees and houses.

Check out Gentoo.org for more details.

You may need a 3D card to view demos though.

I know I do. :)

The version of parted that is on the Gentoo live CD claims to have hfs support.

I tried it and it did not work, I read someplce that Apple changed something to do with the on disk format somewhat recently... It didn't damage the data, it just quit after a while. I didn't feel like mucking with it any longer so I just backed up and wiped the drive.

links:
Gentoo
Gentoo PPC FAQ mentions using parted
parted patches
newsgroup post from the above patch author

The version of parted that is on the Gentoo live CD claims to have hfs support.

I tried it and it did not work, I read someplce that Apple changed something to do with the on disk format somewhat recently... It didn't damage the data, it just quit after a while. I didn't feel like mucking with it any longer so I just backed up and wiped the drive.

links:
Gentoo
Gentoo PPC FAQ mentions using parted
parted patches
newsgroup post from the above patch author

• Rio Karma (20G) for day to day use, Rio Cali (256mb version) for the gym (Wow just did a currency conversion, and even with the exchange it's about $100CND cheaper to buy this in the states (assuming the $169USD pricetag seen on froogle.google.com)
• AOpen DRW4410 DVD Writer (at under $100 US it'd be cheaper than the above items :)
• Linux compatible Serial ATA card for my fileserver (the Silicon Graphics chipsets don't seem to do linux RAID, but according to some of the forum posts it is possible to get it working). This is just an interim solution until I upgrade the whole box and put in a motherboard with a SATA chip, so just looking for something that works :)
• A couple of big ass SATA hard drives to go with it.
• Aliens Quadrilogy DVD
• A USB keychain storage device... 64 or 128 megs of storage to keep important files safe. According to a recent Linux Journal article, they are the floppies for the new millenium.
• Canon Digital Rebel or...
• Pentax Digital *ist
• Add on bits for my Canon A70 Digital Camera
• Another nice shirt like I got from mom for my birthday
• $1,000,000
• A house that exactly meets what I want (and only costs $1)
• A subscription to Popular Photography Magazine
• A huge and over priced flat panel TV, ungodly expensive reciever, and speakers of such high quality that even the most freakish audiophiles will cry for mercy (this will go in the house I mentioned above).
• CDRs
• CDRWs
• DVDRs (to go with the DVD writer mentioned above)

• Rio Karma (20G) for day to day use, Rio Cali (256mb version) for the gym (Wow just did a currency conversion, and even with the exchange it's about $100CND cheaper to buy this in the states (assuming the $169USD pricetag seen on froogle.google.com)
• AOpen DRW4410 DVD Writer (at under $100 US it'd be cheaper than the above items :)
• Linux compatible Serial ATA card for my fileserver (the Silicon Graphics chipsets don't seem to do linux RAID, but according to some of the forum posts it is possible to get it working). This is just an interim solution until I upgrade the whole box and put in a motherboard with a SATA chip, so just looking for something that works :)
• A couple of big ass SATA hard drives to go with it.
• Aliens Quadrilogy DVD
• A USB keychain storage device... 64 or 128 megs of storage to keep important files safe. According to a recent Linux Journal article, they are the floppies for the new millenium.
• Canon Digital Rebel or...
• Pentax Digital *ist
• Add on bits for my Canon A70 Digital Camera
• Another nice shirt like I got from mom for my birthday
• $1,000,000
• A house that exactly meets what I want (and only costs $1)
• A subscription to Popular Photography Magazine
• A huge and over priced flat panel TV, ungodly expensive reciever, and speakers of such high quality that even the most freakish audiophiles will cry for mercy (this will go in the house I mentioned above).
• CDRs
• CDRWs
• DVDRs (to go with the DVD writer mentioned above)

• Rio Karma (20G) for day to day use, Rio Cali (256mb version) for the gym (Wow just did a currency conversion, and even with the exchange it's about $100CND cheaper to buy this in the states (assuming the $169USD pricetag seen on froogle.google.com)
• AOpen DRW4410 DVD Writer (at under $100 US it'd be cheaper than the above items :)
• Linux compatible Serial ATA card for my fileserver (the Silicon Graphics chipsets don't seem to do linux RAID, but according to some of the forum posts it is possible to get it working). This is just an interim solution until I upgrade the whole box and put in a motherboard with a SATA chip, so just looking for something that works :)
• A couple of big ass SATA hard drives to go with it.
• Aliens Quadrilogy DVD
• A USB keychain storage device... 64 or 128 megs of storage to keep important files safe. According to a recent Linux Journal article, they are the floppies for the new millenium.
• Canon Digital Rebel or...
• Pentax Digital *ist
• Add on bits for my Canon A70 Digital Camera
• Another nice shirt like I got from mom for my birthday
• $1,000,000
• A house that exactly meets what I want (and only costs $1)
• A subscription to Popular Photography Magazine
• A huge and over priced flat panel TV, ungodly expensive reciever, and speakers of such high quality that even the most freakish audiophiles will cry for mercy (this will go in the house I mentioned above).
• CDRs
• CDRWs
• DVDRs (to go with the DVD writer mentioned above)

• Rio Karma (20G) for day to day use, Rio Cali (256mb version) for the gym (Wow just did a currency conversion, and even with the exchange it's about $100CND cheaper to buy this in the states (assuming the $169USD pricetag seen on froogle.google.com)
• AOpen DRW4410 DVD Writer (at under $100 US it'd be cheaper than the above items :)
• Linux compatible Serial ATA card for my fileserver (the Silicon Graphics chipsets don't seem to do linux RAID, but according to some of the forum posts it is possible to get it working). This is just an interim solution until I upgrade the whole box and put in a motherboard with a SATA chip, so just looking for something that works :)
• A couple of big ass SATA hard drives to go with it.
• Aliens Quadrilogy DVD
• A USB keychain storage device... 64 or 128 megs of storage to keep important files safe. According to a recent Linux Journal article, they are the floppies for the new millenium.
• Canon Digital Rebel or...
• Pentax Digital *ist
• Add on bits for my Canon A70 Digital Camera
• Another nice shirt like I got from mom for my birthday
• $1,000,000
• A house that exactly meets what I want (and only costs $1)
• A subscription to Popular Photography Magazine
• A huge and over priced flat panel TV, ungodly expensive reciever, and speakers of such high quality that even the most freakish audiophiles will cry for mercy (this will go in the house I mentioned above).
• CDRs
• CDRWs
• DVDRs (to go with the DVD writer mentioned above)

Try recompiling blender with special cflags. It really helps with the speed, it can be up to 30-40% faster. Re compiling XFree86 can help too. To find out more, check out the Gentoo project.

Distributions such as Debian, SuSE and Red Hat ship slowest common denomitator binaires, which are very slow. I have done it, and the speed of blender well offsets the installation time.

Changing the system means possibly breaking compatibility with other systems

It's here and it's called Gentoo Linux and I'll be modded as a troll.

Its a sign from above! Repent, ye Red Hat sinner!

We only recommend using this filesystem on Linux systems with high-end SCSI and/or fibre channel storage and a uninterruptible power supply. Because XFS aggressively caches in-transit data in RAM, improperly designed programs (those that don't take proper precautions when writing files to disk and there are quite a few of them) can lose a good deal of data if the system goes down unexpectedly.

The kernel maintainers have been clear on their reasons *not* accepting xfs into linus's tree (see prior posts in this thread). Considering that so many of the people who clamor for xfs (imx) are kids who're principally attracted to it's rep for high performance, yet have no concept of the tradeoffs delineated above -- well I can see why it's not being accepted into mainline. I'm sure if SGI actually cleans up the interface it'll go in but who knows if _that_ will ever happen.

Marcello on XFS:

JFS did not touch generic code as I remember. ....
Come one, it is not so hard to maintain a patch in a distros kernel. ....
Distros maintain hundreds of patches (even I did maintain hundreds of patches while maintaining Conectiva's RPM). One more patch is not that hard. ...
Fine, so people who want XFS go compile 2.6.0 by hand. I'm using test11 on several boxes and its working very well. ....
Also I'm not completly sure if the generic changes are fine and I dont like the XFS code in general.

Ah, an interesting example. You see, I recently tried to evaluate your BSDiff program. Not only could I not build it, I couldn't even figure out how to modify it to make it build - because you haven't even tried to write portable code.

In that particular case, I wrote the program for a specific purpose -- FreeBSD Update -- and was surprised by how many people wanted to use it for other purposes. So no, I wasn't really trying to write portable code. (On the other hand, GNU make is five times as large as BSD make, and is distributed under a much more restrictive license, so I don't think supporting GNU make is necessarily a laudable aim.)

In the mean time, if you're looking to use BSDiff on linux, you could always use Gentoo's port.

Rather than attempting to include support for every architecture via autoconf, I think the BSD ports approach is far superior

The problem is, how do you install the ports system? I'm currently trying to install Gentoo on my Linux box, but the installation is failing.

It was.

Actually... if you read the statement at gentoo there were a number of people involved.

The FSF Savannah server has been hacked. The statement indicates a similar attack vector as the exploit against the Debian systems. However, it had been hacked nearly a month ago and was not detected until December 1st. For those that are not familar with it, Savannah is the FSF version of Sourceforge, hosting both GNU and non-GNU Free Software projects. It has not yet been determined whether any of the projects' source code has been modified. Read the full statement for details. One thing is certain though, with Debian, Gentoo and now the FSF being exploited in the same month, the open source/free software community is clearly under attack.

one thing people forget to mention is that this wasn't JUST a gentoo mirror. They havn't disclosed what else the server was used for. There is an announcement on the gentoo forums about it. HERE

P

This one's been in development for a while, and will be going live soon probably. Read GLEP 14,

I would just like to point out that this would never happen to gentoo! Gentoo is the best and most secure distro out there. Don't call me a "zealot" just because I tell the truth.

--
Gentoo user

[shameless plug]

If only someone would point people to Gentoo sigh

[/shameless plug]

Now, switch to Gentoo Hardened and rest easy.

No, I run Gentoo. It has all patches to date by the time installation finishes. Whilst the install is running, the system is locked down with no services running.

Please show me an up to date XP that I can download, and optimise for my machine.

Likewise with OSX, Unix, Opera, Sendmail [oh lord, Sendmail... possibly the most deeply flawed piece of software ever...], Mozilla, etc.

It appears like all Microsofties you are deeply confused as to what constitutes an operating system.