Review of Sorcerer GNU Linux

ladislavb writes: "Sorcerer GNU Linux is not just another Linux distribution. It did not follow the tried and tested path of modifying a major Linux distribution and releasing it under a new name. Instead, the Sorcerer development team embarked on a completely unconventional way of putting together a unique distribution with features not found anywhere else. Once installed, it will be 100% optimised for your hardware, it will include the very latest Linux applications and it will provide an incredibly convenient way of keeping all software, even essential system libraries, up-to-date. The full review of Sorcerer GNU Linux, as written by DistroWatch.com."

Comments

Re:I just started downloading...

[AgTiger]

Given the name of the distribution:

They're going to wish they had a +25 magic staff of bandwidth in the next little while. ;-)

ObPratchett citation

[ishark]

The correct name of the distribution should be "Sourceror GNU Linux"

What about Aunt Tillie?

[3seas]

Does this mean Aunt Tillie gets to build her own kernel?

Damn, That was fast! Leave it to the GNU community!!!!

what the hell are you talking about?

[Anonymous Coward]

a makeworld takes a half hour on my computer. My Dual AthlonMP 1800+. Sorry, I just like talking about how fucking fast it its. Hee hee.

Re:But will it do..

[pj7]

next boot? What is this "boot" you speak of?

Memory Requirements

[jonv]

This...
You will be advised to create a large swap partition, the basic rule is that your amount of RAM plus the size of swap partition should be at least 1 GB. Do not ignore this advice! Although the installer will complete the installation even if the above condition is not met, you will run into trouble later when trying to compile large programs and get frequent "out of memory" errors. This memory requirement might seem strange at first, but the logic behind it is that Sorcerer makes use of "tmpfs", a virtual RAM drive which can also use swap space, to accelerate compilation and minimise file system fragmentation. Because of the "tmpfs" file system, Sorcerer expedites compilation by making the most efficient use of RAM. This makes sense as you are about to do a lot of compiling and the compilation speed gains are definitely noticeable.
Reminded me of a quote from an old fortune file: Virtual Memory ? Wow! Now we can have really large RAM disks...

Re:make buildworld

[ichimunki]

Hmmm. That really doesn't sound like hardware that is four years old to me. And are we talking a buildworld from scratch-- none of this stuff had ever been compiled on that machine before? For how much of the ports tree? Just for the minimal install or for X, Gnome|KDE, some major apps like GIMP or KOffice or Evolution or Mozilla?

You see where I'm going with this, of course... but compare your situation to mine. I've got one machine that I use regularly that is five years old, and therefore has a P/133 in it (it's a laptop, and it works for the things a laptop should do, there is no reason to go spending hundreds of dollars on newer hardware). That said, I disagree with our erstwhile whiner about the compile times being an issue. It won't take weeks, but it will take some effort and maybe a few days, especially if you don't have an automation tool to help you. Even so, set the larger packages to compile when you go to bed, or off to work, or whenever. And think of this as a one time investment, you won't be recompiling most of this stuff over and over.

If this distro does even half of the hard parts: knowing where to get fresh source code, downloading the code to a local repository, helping configure the build, automating the build process, then it's quite a boon. And yes, you may have to wait for some time for this stuff to compile and install, but through the magic of CVS you might not have to wait so long to upgrade parts of it. *And* you get all the benefits of compiling from source- optimizations, special ./configure options you want, and more control over the whole install.

Mispelt name?

[scorcherer]

Thought it should be called Sourcerer.

Can't wait for the newbies to try this one

[Angst Badger]

The APPRENTICE option allows you to execute a command even if the associated package is not installed on your system. Sorcery will simply download, compile and install the necessary package before executing it.

Hmmm...

[newbie@home newbie]$ startx

"Damn, X sure does load slowly on this box!"

(Seriously, it does sound like a cool idea, even if I'm not convinced it's practical, but I may try it.)