Slashdot Mirror

I've used both LFS and Gentoo. The basic fact is, LFS is wonderful for learning about Linux but doesn't have anything comparable to Portage. Indeed, LFS doesn't have any kind of package management system except one you set up yourself. That's one example of a major difference which might have you choosing a Gentoo install over "doing" LFS.

Now, I loved doing LFS, it was great to learn more about Linux, see what depended on what and compile things "by hand," but when I was looking for an upgrade, I didn't want to spend the time, so I picked Gentoo: it's very low-level in some nice ways, but doesn't make me doing every single little thing to get it running. They are two different distributions (if you can call LFS a distribution) with different positive points. So why compare them like this? You're just trolling and spreading confusion. Please explain what you mean when you say "LFS...accomplishes much of what Gentoo has set out to accomplish but without all of the superfluous extras." Is a BSD-style ports system superfluous? Superfluous is what is superfluous to you depending on your needs. This is why we have different distributions. So what are you talking about, what is your point?

BTW, Gentoo does also have a PPC version, please check your facts or make sure you are saying what you mean to say before posting: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/gentooppc-quickstart.htm l.

I am a former FreeBSD user who installed Gentoo Linux after reading about it on Slashdot a couple of months ago. I am still amazed how well it is designed and documented! If you don't believe me, just go to here and have a look. I now have a fully operational (sound, video - everything works!) desktop system which is far better than any *BSD system could deliver. I have learned to enjoy the sheer speed and performace I get when I use Gentoo Linux. Native NVidia video drivers and ALSA sound makes my desktop experience enjoyable. Perhaps the most coolest thing about Gentoo is the portage system, which is a nail in FreeBSD's coffin. It is the most advanced ports system you will find in the whole world.

Actually it's not that hard.. You just need to have a boot disk that will allow you network support and some file transfer protocol. tomsrtbt and mulinux come to mind.
Instructions:
Mount the CD on some computer with a cd-rom and network support.
Follow boot disk instructions to get the computer that Gentoo Linux is going to be installed on running and the network up.
Look at Normal Instructions and Skip steps 1 - 5; Follow step 6 (partitions) and 7 (mounting); skip 8; and for step 9, instead of copying from cd-rom, copy stages from the network (using whatever protocol meets your fancy); then continue on with the rest of the instructions.

1) Can't search portage. Under FreeBSD just do: "make search name=blarg". This will give you a wealth of information.

emerge -s package

2) Poor documentation for portage. This may be the reason I never figured out how to do the previous. Under FreeBSD, do a "man ports" and you get all the information you need. (there's also the excellent Handbook and Porter's Guide)

emerge --help gives a wealth of information as does man emerge or even man ebuild, ebuild is what does most of the work, emerge is just a nicer front end that does all the ebuild steps automatically.
Want more? Gentoo Documentation

3) No package descriptions! ... Even a one line lazy-developer's description is better than nothing.

Look at the output from emerge -s foo

4) For difficult source code, it may be easier to create a Gentoo emerge file. But for simple straightforward source, the FreeBSD port Makefile is easiest.

If your source code is as simple as:
./configure
make
make install

then all you need to put in an .ebuild file is the url for the source, something like:
$SRC_URI="http://application.sourceforge.net/foo-$ {PV}.tar.gz"

Name your .ebuild appropriately (foo-1.0.ebuild) and ${PV} is populated from the .ebuild name.

5) Ability to install binaries packages as an option. Building from source is great, but sometimes you don't have the time.

You can install Portage created binaries (they are just tar.bz2 files).

If you want to you can even install RPMs, however since on a Gentoo system you are not going to have a wealth of RPMs installed you will probably need to use --nodeps or even --force.

Summary: I expect the Gentoo portage system to eventually address my concerns. In the meantime it was a very painful experience.

I hope it does address your concerns eventually. Remember that Gentoo is still a "young" distribution, I'm sure that the other major flavours all had their problems during the development of their respective packaging systems.

Yeah, I could have gotten a life, but why, when we have Gentoo?

If you go to Gentoo's Website and read about the portage system, you'll see they make reference to the fact that it's similar to BSD's ports system. They mention that portage is certainly not just a ports "ripoff". I recall reading somewhere that the portage system uses the best features of ports and Debian's apt.
Although I've never used Debian, and have limited experience with ports, I wouldn't doubt it. Portage is pretty tight.

So rather than providing a myriad of different binary RPMs for the dozens of different Linux distribution, The Kompany, which is a commercial entity developing Linux applications, reluctantly decides to give away the source code to paying customers. [Emphesis added]

• • CONS of source based distros
    
    
  • Initial install typically requires source to all of the system, which is generally downloaded from the net. I.e. in most cases requires a fat pipe for installation.
  • The installation is time consuming, due to the fact that each package must be compiled. For modern CPUs this isn't such a big deal (a day will suffice, most of which you can spend away from the computer while it chugs away), but for older CPUs like an AMD K6 233 I have, the initial install can literally take days.
• • PROS of source based distros
    
    
  • Updates and upgrades typically require much less bandwidth than their binary equivelents, as only the new package's source needs to be downloaded.
  • The software is compiled optimized for your hardware. Typically such systems run 20-30% faster than their binary equivelents, based on some casual benchmarking I and a few others have done.
  • The software is compiled against the exact library versions installed on your system, so no subtle incompatabilities arise due to slightly mis-matched binaries. This eliminates a whole class of bugs, and a whole host of problems that can affect stability and reliability.
  • In the case of Gentoo, you have very precise control over the configuration of your system, and what is installed vs. what is not, as well as where it is installed to.
  • In the case of Source Mage, the system is auto-healing, meaning that if and when a new library is installed and the older one removed, all packages that rely on that library are recompiled against the new library. This makes upgrades (on Source Mage) very easy.
  • Upgrades are very easy. In the case of Source Mage they are virtually automatic (you select the package to update and everything is taken care of for you), in the case of Gentoo they are less automatic and require some care, but are nevertheless easier than with any binary distribution I've ever tried (and I've used all the major ones at one time or another), and with Gentoo the flexibility of having multiple versions of libraries and even runtime apps is very useful.
  • Security is improved in one way: the ease and ability to keep up with security updates. Binary distros are still trying to get this to work smoothly (and mostly not succeeding, or requiring a tradeoff like Debian Stable, in which one must run 2 year-old software to enjoy that level of security). This is really a side effect of the previous point, but is significant enough to deserve sepearate mention.
  • The ability to run current hardware. Again, this goes back to the ease and stability of upgrades inherent in source based distros like Source Mage and Gentoo. Source Mage had X 4.2 out a day after its release, giving its users the advantages of all the new features and bug fixes it had to offer. Ditto for KDE 3. Gentoo had these packages out almost as quickly. This means users get the latest features, and the latest bug fixes, almost immediately, in contrast to binary distros that typically require 3-6 months (worse for some distros. I still recall the Debian developers irate answer to a user's question on when thye could expect X 4.2 support in the experimental version of Debian ("unstable"), to the effect of "leave me alone, it will be months!")

There's been quite a discussion on the installer issue in the Gentoo forums (the thread can be found here). The general consesus from the users seems to be that they like Gentoo being kind of a "niche" distro. If the idea of the source based distro really appeals to you, I would suggest giving it another go and leaning very heavily on the forums (if you need to). Gentoo's Forums have the most helpful and friendly user base I have ever seen on the internet. I have yet to see a single person give a n00b a hard time (outside of the occasional rtfm...). I realize that it's not for everyone and that it takes a little bit of work, but I think Gentoo is definitely worth it after the dust settles. It's nice to install an OS and feel like you actually accomplished something.

Oh yeah, and I don't like RPMs.

There's been quite a discussion on the installer issue in the Gentoo forums (the thread can be found here). The general consesus from the users seems to be that they like Gentoo being kind of a "niche" distro. If the idea of the source based distro really appeals to you, I would suggest giving it another go and leaning very heavily on the forums (if you need to). Gentoo's Forums have the most helpful and friendly user base I have ever seen on the internet. I have yet to see a single person give a n00b a hard time (outside of the occasional rtfm...). I realize that it's not for everyone and that it takes a little bit of work, but I think Gentoo is definitely worth it after the dust settles. It's nice to install an OS and feel like you actually accomplished something.

Oh yeah, and I don't like RPMs.

Gentoo Linux uses a system called "portage" which will download, compile, and install programs from source (binary for some packages). It is fantastic. Similar to apt it will check for dependencies and get those also. But the use of source is what turns me on. I'm converting all my linux boxen to it. Even inspired me to slice up the disk on my Win2000 box and go dual-boot.

It works VERY well. The cvs-update-and-compile method of system maintenance is astonishingly useful. I love everything about OpenBSD.... except one.

There is no SMP support. There is a cvs branch for SMP development, but after a year the only thing it does is RECOGNIZE the second CPU. It doesnt actually do anything with it.

So, I'm about to build a new server, SMP, and I have two choices. I can run OpenBSD on one CPU hoping for the day I can reboot and have the second fire up, or I can run Gentoo linux, which has all the cvs-and-compile chocolaty goodness of BSD, but will do SMP.

FreeBSD has smp. I believe NetBSD has smp. Darwin has SMP. OpenBSD doesn't. With SMP hardware so cheap (At least on the i386 side) it's ludicrous that it's not in there.

See the Gentoo Linux FAQ:

Why write a new port system (Portage) instead of using BSD's version?

In one sentence, because Portage is much better in so many ways. One of the design philosophies of the .ebuild syntax was to make it an analog of what you'd type to install the program manually, thus making Portage very easy to learn and modify to your needs. We also have OpenBSD-style "fake" installs, safe unmerging, system profiles, package masking, a real dependency system, and lots of other good stuff.

The companies have the potential for a proprietary extension into the Linux environment (GPL/LGPL) to a degree not seen. How do I say this?

• RedHat is the provider of the Linux OS and has the ability to ship anything that they want with it, including proprietary packaging if they wanted to. This is contrary to the philosophies of the non-profit distrobutions like Debain and Gentoo among others.
• Dell controls the hardware source that goes into these machines, allowing the focus to concentrate on one product line and de-focus on everything else
• Oracle is a highly proprietary 800-pound gorrilla that already has interests in keeping in that way.

It's a great way to maximize the profits of the three corporations at the expense of the guy paying the bills at the other end. It starts with the support. If certain improvements are made to the system and are held under Oracle, then they are shipped as binaries and un-reviewable by the rest of the community.

There is some great potential here for one of the greatest supporters of the Linux OS to start edging themselves somwhere between the OS developers and OS movement and the proprietary foothold that forces payment

I don't know that RedHat is entirely like this, but I've heard comments from more and more people that they are becoming increasingly aggressive in their financial tactics to dictate payment schedules. What worries me about this is that Oracle is the next closest thing to Microsoft in their aggressive and morally questionable business practices.

Personally, I believe that the philosophy of Open Source, as outlines originally by ESR is more valuable socially and therefore economically than the stock option performance of these three companies and as such, this ideology needs to be preserved in the face of such movements. Not that they are bad, they are part of the migration process. But it is imparative that these migrations keep moving things forward in a constructive direction rather than becoming some instrument of code oppression that allow companies to exercise baseless claims (legally and advertising) and practice FUD tactics.

This could have two edges to the blade. Linux is recognized as a real enterprise level solution and can start being accepted into the Corporate IT fray, or only two companies can provide Linux (IBM and RedHat) and everything else belongs to the terrorists, crackers, child molesters, and dead-beat dads.

Just go to gentoo.org I bet the 1.0 source ebuild will be up tonight and I will download and build and install in one fail swoop:

emerge mozilla

And it will be compiled with MY build options that I have compiled my ENTIRE system with.

Derek

I second the recommendation for Cygwin; good stuff.

The next time you upgrade your Cygwin installation (run setup.exe again), also pull down the keychain tool. It's a wrapper around ssh-agent, so you only have to enter your passphrase once per session.

Try

ssh -l user hostname command

to ensure you really can run commands remotely. env is a good one; it'll also let you check your PATH on the remote machine:

ssh -l user hostname env | egrep '^PATH='

If cvs isn't in one of the listed directories, set the CVS_SERVER environment variable to the full path name of the cvs command on the server:

CVS_SERVER=/opt/cvs/bin/cvs

Your error message suggests you might be getting some extra cruft as part of the rsh output. That usually means a wordy .profile (or similar) file; hack it until it's silent (e.g., until the env command above only shows environment variable settings and nothing else).

If you think the problem is ssh-related, try:

CVS_RSH='ssh -v -v -v'"

(perhaps with fewer -v options). You may need to wrap that in a shell script. (Good thing you got bash as part of Cygwin, isn't it?)

Oh, and if you take the (great) advice of a lot of several other posters and run cvs (or anything else) over ssh, thake a look at keychain from Gentoo Linux. It's a nice wrapper around ssh-agent, minimizing the number of times you have to type your password.

Ever heard of Debian ?

From the (now /.'d) Linux and Main article: the companies will allow source to be downloaded, but not binaries.

Isn't that what the `emerge united-linux` command will be for?

I guess Gentoo Linux becomes more and more important everyday.

It sounds like they are just raising the barrier to entry. If you want to download the source & build your own copy, go right ahead. But you already have to have Linux (possibly some othe *nix with a cross-compiler) installed, as well as the ability to compile all those packages. And I'd be surprised if they released tools that made it easy to build the binary installation CDs.

Of course, anyone who already has a Linux box and the ability to compile all that source probably is going to be running something else already, and won't be inclined to switch. Besides, if you want to compile all that crap, why not just run Gentoo, LFS, or *BSD?

Source Mage Linux and Gentoo have good package system. Source Mage's is called sorcery, it will download the latest source from the authors website and compile and install it. For example, to install xfree86 you would type "cast xfree86". Gentoo uses a portage system very similar to the BSD ports.

I've found my uberdistro in Gentoo. It uses a simple tbz2 package system (now that I think about it, a lot like Slackware's). This means that I can use RPMs and debs through simple conversion process.

Personally, I've never understood the holy war of distros. Granted, I'm a relative newbie, but still... whenever I install a new distro, the first thing I do is remove about a quarter of the packages and recompile stuff from new source, including (especially) the kernel. Once I do this, I hardly consider it the original distro anymore, it's now just a conglomeration of packages.

All that being said, I really want to try gentoo linux soon as it seems to be most inline with my philosophy.

...I didn't realise Red Hat had much dominance. I'd always thought of it as the "crappy Linux distro" (which I know is unfair). I run Windows 2000 at the moment, and have been looking into which distro would be best for my needs. Essentially, Mandrake and SuSE were the two that seemed most useful. RedHat never featured.

If you are not afraid to get your hands dirty, and don't mind compiling stuff, you should give Source Mage or Gentoo a gander. Both are "source-based" distros, meaning their packaging systems have been designed to automate the download-compile-install procedure. The result are packages that are compiled against the libraries already on your system (read: no subtle binary compatability issues between library versions, etc. as crop up with binary distros from time to time, and is the reason redhat RPMs often don't work with Suse and visa versa), and which are optimized for your hardware. Systems so constructed are typically 20-30% faster (based on anecdotal benchmarks people on the mailing lists have run. It matches my own experience ... my video capture, editing, and playback tools run much more smoothly on a Source Mage or Gentoo system than any other binary distro I've tried, and I've tried a bunch of them).

cons:
* installation takes time
- time to download sourcecode packages
- time to compile said packages
* you have to get your hands dirty
- no easy X config a la Mandrake/Suse/RH
- no hardware autodetection a la Mandrake

pros:

* stable, rock solid system
* fast, optimized system
* very current versions of the software
* ability to keep current fairly easilly (no waiting for months, perhaps even a year, before getting the current version of xfree or KDE)
* utter flexibility as to what you choose to include or exclude from your installation ... little to no cruft
* package system takes most of the pain out of compiling and installing packages by hand

Amusingly, Gentoo Linux users can install WineX with a single command. It is packaged (I assume) from the Sourceforge CVS, and given that Gentoo compiles everything from scratch, conveniently sidesteps the whole distributing binaries thing.

By the way, for fellow Gentoo users, a 2002/05/11 ebuild is currently available by "# emerge winex". Check the package list for the most recent date.

Amusingly, Gentoo Linux users can install WineX with a single command. It is packaged (I assume) from the Sourceforge CVS, and given that Gentoo compiles everything from scratch, conveniently sidesteps the whole distributing binaries thing.

By the way, for fellow Gentoo users, a 2002/05/11 ebuild is currently available by "# emerge winex". Check the package list for the most recent date.

This is probably going to come as a shock to some of you, but there are girls out there who run linux and like mozilla.

Now, it seems to me that if you're going to all spend your time whining and moaning about how there's no gurls to be found except ugly apes (and even if there were, they'd wreck everything, 'cause they have the cooties), you're going to annoy those of us that are smart, geeky, and reasonably pretty. This creates a self-fulfilling prophecy: you whine; we avoid you.

Now I can't speak for all the other myriad geeky girls our there, but I don't want a guy who's going to:

• Drool over me 'cause I'm pretty, plus I run gentoo
• Act like I'm a horrible aberration, rather than realize that I'm really a harbinger of Droves of Geek Girls To Come.

Seriously people, if you want women to go to your parties, don't alienate them. I know there's not many of us right now, but if you play nice, maybe we'll bring friends, and maybe in another twenty years slashdot will be more like 60/40 instead of 95/5.

Sorry for the rant, but this is only about the billionth time I've seen this particular whine on slashdot. This isn't directed specifically at the original poster, or even anyone who voiced these sentiments on this particular thread. I know it's not everyone, and not even most of everyone, but for those of you who haven't yet figured it out: girls don't like boys who whine about not having girls.

Oh, and I'll probably be at the SF party. :)

Other good ways to learn linux:

Gentoo: the portage package management utility is based off the BSD ports system and downloads, compiles, and installs programs instead of using binaries for increased optimization. The only graphical configuration tools are the ones the user 'emerges' using the portage system. Much like Slackware and Linux from Scratch, you have complete control over your system.

Linux From Scratch: step-by-step instructions to compile your very own Linux from the ground up. Excellent docs that are worth a read even if you don't decide to install it.

Then I recently made the change to Gentoo and have never looked back. I was just trying it out to see what it was like and I can't force myself to go back to Slackware. I personally love portage.

I've been a Slackware user for years, and I've done LFS too.

Recently I've switched to Gentoo Linux. It's the same no crap, basic distro that Slackware is with the added benefit of everything being compiled for your specific system and knowing exactly what goes on your system like LFS.

The reason I use Gentoo over LFS now is the package system (it's like BSD ports) is genius. I would recommend Gentoo to any Slack or LFS user.. you get all the benefits of the two plus an easier way of installing and uninstalling apps.

I'm glad I switched to Gentoo Linux before this...

I once used a linuxfromscratch, but it took to much time to keep up to date/install.

With gentoo, you barely have to intervene with the install proces: I could do "emerge kde" on a system with nothing installed, and a few hours (ok , almost a day :) later, all the needed libraries, X, ... would be installed

The original sh compatible keychain tool for Linux (and Unix in general) mentioned in the referenced link can be found on the Gentoo Linux website here. There are links to IBM developerWorks articles describing the concepts behind the keychain scripts as well as how to set it up and use it.

The original sh compatible keychain tool for Linux (and Unix in general) mentioned in the referenced link can be found on the Gentoo Linux website here. There are links to IBM developerWorks articles describing the concepts behind the keychain scripts as well as how to set it up and use it.

For Linux users, it would be up to the Linux distro to provide patches like that if they wished. But none of them will either. Too much work for no money

On my Source Mage system I simply run a 'sorcery update' before going to bed, and any new versions of packages are downloaded, compiled, and upgraded accordingly. All dependent packages are recompiled as needed, such that all are optomized and compiled against the most current rev. Downloading and compiling mozilla may be time consuming, but if I'm asleep while its happening who really cares?

On my Gentoo system I do an 'emerge rsync' followed by an 'emerge --update system --pretend' (to first see what it is going to do), then if I like what is going to happen, the same command again without the --pretend to actually do the update, followed by an 'emerge --update world --pretend' and, once again if I like what is going to happen, an 'emerge --update world'. If I don't want to upgrade everything (not as safe to do under Gentoo as Source Mage) I simply do an 'emerge --update [package-name]', such as 'emerge --update mozilla' before going to sleep.

In either case, the next morning I wake up with the most current security patches (if any) and newest stable versions of all the Free Software out there, including Mozilla.

I had Mozilla rc2 running within 24 hours of its release, fully compiled and optimized for my machine. No waiting on Red Hat, Suse, or, God forbid, Debian to get around to pushing their versions out. (Though in defense of Debian they do push SECURITY fixes out very fast ... its just the snazzy new versions of things that take a lifetime before you see them ... e.g. "Stop asking me when X 4.2 debs will be out, it will be months!" as one of the developers posted, a day or two after 4.2 had been released by the XFree group, and was already up and running on my Source Mage and Gentoo boxes.

I don't plan to be picky, but in fact there are some linux distros out there that don't have the r- suite in their base install. Try gentoo for example.

regards
rmstar

Never had ANY trouble setting up quake3 in linux. Not a GeForce either, a G400 Max. Couple of kernel options and a few tweaks to XF86Config and it was the first "application" I had working on my new Gentoo Linux install besides X

And since I'm already WAY offtopic, I'll mention that the Gentoo Linux install is long but worth it and not difficult at all. The instructions on the website are FANTASTIC. I have never seen better installation instructions in my entire life. I was a hardcore slack user for a while, and this came to be as a bit of a shock. System is nice too :P

Anyway, play q3! and to a lesser extent rtcw! Support your local Cache! Cause computer games are damn fun

You should upgrade to Gentoo. RPM-based (in fact, all binary-based) distros should go the way of the dodo bird.

That's a p2/266 with a five gig drive. Had 64 megs RAM when I got it. $80 at crucial.com and it's at 288. (two 128meg sticks and 32 on the motherboard).

It's currently running Gentoo Linux. Every binary on my system except OpenOffice and Mozilla were compiled on my box with a lengthy set of gcc optimizations in CFLAGS. That's everything from zsh to KDE, XFree 4.2, etc.

Gentoo supplies a unified kernel patch, which includes all the fun goodies like preempt kernel and various latency patches.

I run KDE3. That means Konsole and Konqueror. KDE has no decent IRC app, so I have XChat compiled with no gnome support. Ditto for gnome. I read mail remotely in a terminal with mutt, but I've played with KMail, and even compiled all of gnome just to play with Evolution. (it's easy. I typed "emerge evolution" as root, and went to bed. When I woke up, the system had all of Gnome and evolution and all dependancies.)

I'm about to upgrade the CPU. p2/400 cpu's (MMC-2 form factor) have sold on ebay recently for as low as $26USD. I'll still have only a bit more than a hundred bucks in this thing.

I'm also pondering a hard drive upgrade. That will be the big expense. I'm weighing exactly how much space I need. 20gig for a bit above $100? or do I splurge on the 48gig drives and drop $350?. I'm also pondering either a USB or firewire drive. I've got a whole PCMCIA port doing nothing and firewire cards are cheap.

I use this machine daily. I surf the web, I listen to mp3's, I read my mail, I converse on IRC. I code, either in XEmacs remotely in a Konsole, or using Kate over kio_fish (Off tangent remark: kio_fish is fucking brilliant, if only I could use a few non KDE apps to access those remote drives).

Is it a speed demon? No. Is it flawless? No. Is it usable? Absolutely.

The system bogged down a bit using a more complex theme like mosfet's Liquid. I reverted to something more generic and it's downright zippy. Changing windows is fast, changing desktops is fast. The only time the system bogs down is if I'm compiling something, listening to mp3's and otherwise stressing the machine. But it never stops being usable.

Sure, it has it's faults. A bug in the thinkpad bios will make lm_sensors blow away certain EEPROM info on the system and turn it into an irreparable black doorstop. The little nubby mouse thing (Trackpoint?) has the annoying habit of masking the middle mouse button off a mouse connected to the PS2 port, forcing you to use Emulate3Buttons on external mice. And IBM never did learn how to make batteries worth a damn. Certain combinations of batteries and BIOS revisions can cause the "Smart" batteries to think they're empty, when they aren't. Some people report having a battery last only 3 months before total failure.

But those things aside, it's an incredibly usable machine. It does what I want.

"ones i could name are excellent pieces of software even though they may be slow on non-modern machines"

Try another distro like gentoo then. I can run KDE 3 pretty fast on my p-pro 200 (a bit faster than KDE 2.2.2), and about the same speed as GNOME/gtk apps.

Gentoo is the one, true light.

A semi-interesting article written by yet another Debian bigot. Apt-get already has a successor, my friend.

P.S. I don't work for Gentoo. But they got something cool going on over there.

some of the speed issues are rather maddening. Consider: I work very closely with the debian maintainer for
nano, in fact I'd say we are friends. He has done his best to get a particular nasty issue, in fact the problem was annoying enough that it required a fix upstream (on my end). But even though two official releases have gone by since the fix was put in upstream, it may not in fact end up in the first release of woody, four months later. I have used debian for probably 5 years now, but I have to wonder if source distros like gentoo have the right idea about making the user decide how to compile his or her package which severely cuts down the burden on the package maintainers. I guess it all comes back to how to balance the burden of upstream/package maintainer/end user...

Slackware was the greatest for the ultra power user until Gentoo came along.

Currently in version 1.1a, it's the coolest Linux to come along in a decade and includes an amazing Portage system that is the best (apt-get / BSD ports)-like package management system ever created.

Come on over to [irc.openprojects.net channel #gentoo] and see for yourself what all the fuss is about.

Didn't you mean Gentoo CD?

Can we all say Gentoo?

Don't forget that Gentoo Linux runs on PPC. Gentoo is an excellent, modern Linux distribution with a package system similar to portage. It has been reviewed a few times on /. and is quickly gaining popularity.

Gentoo Linux. Further up the food chain yet.

This must be the first distro shipping KDE3, or am I mistaken?

If you take the word "shipping" literally, maybe.

But I've been using KDE3 for a while on my laptop, running Gentoo 1.1, which, btw, is the best distro I've ever tried.

rmstar

Grow balls and run Gentoo without the bloated KDE WM, you dumbass RedHat/Debian/Mandrake RPM/DEB faggot clone. You are the apex of suck, and you have just displayed your ineptness publicly. I hope you fry in hell because of your retarded "suggestion", faggot.

Personally speaking, I recommend Afterstep, so "kthxgg" [lame irc.enterthegame.com saying] you fucking newbie "elitist" commie pig.