Slashdot Mirror
Sorcerer Review, and News of Impending Doom
osworks writes: "There is an review of the Sorcerer Linux distribution over at linuxworld.com that is worth a read. I've been running SGL on my Inspiron for a month now, and have the same impression as the author. It took a really long time to install, but was educational and rather fun. Some discouraging news near the bottom about how the maintainer needs some development help, or it will be the end of Sorcerer. This is one of the most exciting new distros to come along in a long time, and that would be a shame."
i've used and loved mandrake for some time... sorcerer's update functionality is far better than mandrakes, and that is basically what open source is all about: GETTING THE SOFTWARE INSTALLED.
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
I too have been using it for a month with very little hassle. I installed lilo on the SGL partition so that I could use grub which I already had installed. I have only done this with a broadband connection so internet wasn't too hard to set up.
Spencer Ogden
Gentoo has got the whole pack together. Excellent support and tutorials from the developers. Not to mention the 100% optimization.
Like the submitter I have been using Sorcerer for a little over a month. This distro is exactly what I have been looking for.
For one, I don't know if it is the optimized compiles, or the fact that it is a bare minimum system, but KDE feels fast!
The project is in need of assistance. If you haven't tried it, give it a weekend, and you too will hope that this project does not die. The author has a paypal account linked to his email address.
Spencer Ogden
Red Wizard needs food badly.
i like the thought behind SGL, but i think SuSE has kinda beaten everybody (except perhaps debian) with the update/config tools in YaST2. `/sbin/yast2 online_update` with an internet connection and usually before you can get a 2nd cup of coffee, there's a nice list of packages to download and update/install, all pertinent to your system. my only desire is for http connections for high-security areas that don't have ftp access ...
when it rains, it gets real soggy. when it pours, i'm under the tap just _waiting_ for the joy
It does work on the mbr if you follow their instructions, edit lilo.conf to show the last word on the boot line to read disc, and then install to the mbr. It's perhaps not highlighted as well as it could be in their docs, but it's there. I found the install time consuming, and it's easy to make a mistake by not RTFM carefully, but it's really a painless, well thought-out install process imho. I would hate to see this distro fall by the wayside. It's truly unique, exciting, very well thought-out.
They're at: http://www.rocklinux.org , They've been around a while, and much of the ideas are similar re: rebuilding the whole thing locally.
Have you painted a shed today?
Not being a BSD user, how does this distros 'spell casting' system
compare to BSD ports? I've heard ports does a similar operation
of downloading code and custom compiling it.
Also, Rock Linux puts out a distribution where you basically compile all the packages, but I don't think it has the update ability that Sorcerer has.
It looks like a fun distro to try.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
[SGL has a] script that locates the latest stable source code for the application, downloads it to your system, configures it for your machine, compiles, and installs it. Pure magic.
Sounds familiar...
C-X C-S
I have sorcer installed with 256mb and a 2gb root partition in addition to my regular 500mb home partition. This does not seem excesive to me.
Spencer
Spencer Ogden
I have all three of these installed on my hard drive.
Sorcerer is pretty interesting, and certainly easier to use than the others, but if you have problems... good luck. The web page is spare, and the mailing lists aren't really busy enough yet to make for a good replacement.
As far as I can tell, Gentoo is made by Debian types who wanted to be able to use the BSD ports system to download and compile all their software. Perhaps they prefer the GPL to the BSD license. Anyway, like Debian, Gentoo has a "Social Contract". Functionally, you can do the same things that are possible in Sorcerer, although the commands are slighly more complicated, and less friendly to newbies.
Finally, there's FreeBSD, which has many more programs in its software collection than either Sorcerer or Gentoo. Frankly, unless people are really against the BSD license, think the Linux kernel is much better, or need to play some game that's tailored for Linux, I would recommend going with FreeBSD. Not only does FreeBSD have many programs, but it has many more port maintainers to track whether the system is working.
That said, I'm going to Sorcerer and Gentoo on my hard drive, and will periodically check to see if their software collections have become competitive. If either had ports for as many programs as FreeBSD, this would be a much harder decision.
Check out my blog: My Galaxy is Milky Way Adjacent
Both are source-based distros. Gentoo uses a Python and bash-based package system, influenced by the bsd ports system. It handles required dependencies automatically, and chooses optional ones based on a config file--you indicate if you want kde functionality in your apps, for example. Sorcery just prompts you for each dependency.
That comparison is typical for the approaches to the two distros. Sorcery asks/tells everything in a very straightforward way. Gentoo is more automatic.
On the other hand, Gentoo doesn't really have an installer at this point, just a shell and a bunch of well-written instructions.
At this point I prefer Sorcery, because no other distro has made me feel like I really knew exactly what was going on with my box.
GIMP? LILO? Firestarter? Joe? Gnome?
The list goes on. Linux is full of weird and funny names. Personally I think it helps you remember the names of tools better. It's called Sorceror Linux, so why not have a command called cast? Seems logical for me.
Rather than call something a long name that may be descriptive, and accurate, why not use these shorter, easier to remember alternatives. It makes it a far better UI.
What everyone failes to mention is the self healing ability of sorcerer which is IMHO its biggest strength. Doing #cast --fix will verify all applications on your system, recompile the once whose depandancies have changed, put back in place missing files and symlinks.
One of the big challanges for sorcerer was upgrade from db3 to db4. That one tooked me 2 #cast --fix till system self healed. Try doing this with any other distro and see what happens.
Damn, it's a good thing Linus didn't/doesn't subscribe to this philosophy. From what I read it sounds like he really wants to keep the project up, but he needs help. If I find a free minute I might look at the spells and see if I can help out, maybe you should do the same.
(B) + (D) + (B) + (D) = (K) + (&)
Sourcerer is a brilliant idea, but may be ahead of its time. Downloading everything from source and compiling requires a lot of CPU horsepower (not a problem nowadays) but also lots of bandwidth. Many people still do not have the bandwidth so binary distributions are invaluable. However, I must admit that over the years I have used Slackware as a base OS and then built all my updates from source as and when they appear. This guy has the right idea. It would be a shame to see it fail.
I'm out of my tree just now but please feel free to leave a banana.
Gentoo Linux is an excellent distro that is very similar to Sorceror in the fact that you compile everything from scratch. It uses a Free-BSD style ports system, and it has a command-line driven package tool that's similar to debian's apt-get. The portage tree is huge and contains thousands of apps. One major advantage over Sorceror is that Gentoo has a very active development community, and it isn't in any danger of dissappearing anytime soon. If you want a distro where everything is compiled explicitly for your hardware for blistering fast speed, you should check out Gentoo. It's my favorite distro, and I've tried virtually all of them.
A musician without the RIAA, is like a fish without a bicycle.
It would really be a shame if SGL stopped getting support. I switched from Mandrake a month ago and I'm more than satisfied with the results. Yes, the install is more difficult and time consuming, but it was worth it for the experience I got out of it. I now have an intricate knowledge about how the inner details of linux works.
I also believe that their method of installing applications is better than any binary install system out there (apt-get/rpm). Although it may take a bit longer to compile things, they're installed *right* and are compiled specific for your architecture. All dependencies are automagically downloaded, compiled, and installed without any user interaction (although you can interact if you want).
No other distro provides more control, flexibility, or ease of use better than sorcery. I hope it doesn't go away.
'When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.' -HST
It seems that every few weeks there's some new distro-related story on /., all asking pretty much the same question, in one form on another ;
Which distro is best for what, and why?
A site that answers most questions one might have about pretty much any distro is www.distrowatch.com
IIRC, when Arnold Schwarzenegger was told to change his name, he said something like: "It takes a little effort to remember, but once they do, they'll never forget it."
I find the acronyms and "cute names" for some of the UNIX-style utilities to be the same way; they require a little more explanation to tie the meaning together with the word, but (like all good mnemonics) they make up for it by staying longer in the brain.
"Hardly used" will not fetch you a better price for your brain.
It can be a boon or a curse, depending on how much you really know about the packages you are installing. In theory, you get a pretty clean, smooth system as you only install the bits you specify, and you can hand tune the compiles and dependencies such that you don't have to install unwanted bits just to get what you want to work, and it will do all this without breaking the package manager (i.e. if you go from a non-RPM in redhat, those files are now kind of rogue).
.cf files.
Unfortunately, there are pitfalls to be a ware of. One is that the occasional package is overlooked in terms of updates. For example, xmame is outdated in grimoire, so I manually edit the grimiore on every update to make sure it doesn't overwrite my more recent copy witha n older copy.
Another thing is that by rolling your own custom configuration, you are really exploring brand new territory. No one has tested that particular combination of packages to see if there are any issues, and by mixing the latest and greatest of everything, invariably you get some mismatches that produce unpleasant results if you don't know what to be careful of.
Also, the compilation of some packages on some hardware, particularly XFree. For example, if you have a Voodoo3, you need to get glide3 separate first. Even then you have to use tdfx for DRI rather than TdfxDRI or whatever is offered in the menu, as the ifdefs don't work in the
As to performance, yes it is highly optimized and you can omit debug symbols and such. However, it uses 2.95.3, which results in a more stable distro, but in a way counterbalances the advantages of compiling yourself, as the 2.95.3 doesn't optimize for x86 nearly as well as gcc 3...
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
I especially liked this line in the review (emphasis mine):
A real-life sorcerer keeps his spells in a book called a grimoire.
Where do I find a real-life sorcerer? I have some spells I wouldn't mind cast.
It builds and bootstraps a basic utilitarian GNU/Linux installation all from source packages.
I think its great as both a production system and an educational build/install process.
The nice part is you end up with a fully functional linux you have built yourself. You will know _every_ package installed and why.
And all the mystery of linux will be revealed in your build process, its very educational.
Now, there is an partner group with the linux from scratch folks called automated linux from scratch.
From the automated linux from scratch site:
"Automated Linux From Scratch or ALFS, is a project that aims to create a generic framework of an extenable system builder and package installer using XML to describe the process.
It's main goal is to automate the process of creating a LFS system."
I have never used it, but I have used the straight linux from scratch and it is wonderful.
Wax on, wax off baby!
(This will end up being almost an article/review in and of itself, some of which may be redundant, but I will attempt to keep that to a minimum.) /.'ing the dependancy resolution and casting process have become MUCH more rebust and stable.) after casting the system a sorcery update will install the latest versions of the pacakage (some developers recommend doing this nightly, however I doubt that even on the computer I'm currently building that it would finish before the next night's upgrades). /usr/bin/ioahwoithjalwerh is, you have installed all of it and your knowledge of what's on the system is COMPLETE. this allows HUGE advantages
SGL was created to automatically solve dependancies on a minimal system bootstrapped off a small cd iso. the entire distribution is written in dialogue/bash. from there they add 'sorcery', a dialogue app somewhat similar to the initial package selector in debian potato's installer. allows you to select and modifiy package groups in the grimoire. the packages are downloaded and the interface is similar to debian where you answer yes/no/maybe questions as cast downloads and processes the files. (note that since the last
DOWNSIDES (and yes there are a lot)
A: TIME: Sgl can take a week to do what a binary distribution can do in 30 minutes. a stable working system
B: effort: you have to understand the system, or else you will break it during casting
C: patience: this is a much and almost deserves to be capitalized with time.
UPSIDES
A: RPM: No messy RPM/DEB (and please debian purists I do like deb better but source is still more pure)
B: optimization: from a custom kernel as a start to -fno-expensive-optimizations, it creates bulky code that runs REALLY fast and extreamly efficiently, and bulk in compiled code can be a good thing as the processor isn't used to remove the corners cut by the "optimization process"
C: you know the entire system: from the libs installed to exactly what
D: creation of cast scripts: it's BASH, it's easy, and frankly even I can do it (gropes his bash howto) RPM is tricky if you've ever read through it, BASH makes it easy.
a bit more about me http://www.advogato.org/person/trelane/ or my private page http://trelane.net
Frankly, the idea of compiling absolutely everything from source 'just because' seems a little bit of a waste of time. The vast majority of software will only see very very minimal performance increase compared to a well built Debian package with the usual careful choice of compiler flags. (Note: compiling for your CPU's architecture vs. generic i386 makes little difference today since all modern CPU's do very extensive instruction scheduling and out-of-order execution.) Furthermore, from what I saw of Sorcerer, the chosen compiler flags are system-wide instead of being based on the individual packages needs. This is not wise. So, I personally think that Sorcerer is redundant considering the quality and ease of use of Debian source packages for the few programs that can really benefit from hand-tuned compiler flags (such as data compression or encryption software). You just edit the rules and run two commands.
dunno, i thought the gimp was cute.
i note that you used the word google assuming we'd all know you meant "a search engine"....
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
Frankly, the idea of compiling absolutely everything from source 'just because' seems a little bit of a waste of time. The vast majority of software will only see very very minimal performance increase compared to a well built Debian package with the usual careful choice of compiler flags.
... once you've begun using source-based distros you will likely find you can no longer stomach the issues that binary based distros, even one as well engineered as Debian, bring with them.
Our enterprise is currently using Debian for many tasks. However, we are evaluating Sorcerer and Gentoo as a replacement.
Why?
1) Compiling everything from source 'just because' isn't a waste of time. What you overlook in your truncated 'just because' is that by compiling the source optimized for your hardware, against the library versions on your machine, you insure a level of compatability, and reliablity, that cannot be insured when mixing and matching binary libraries and applications. In short, you are compiling everything from source just because that is the only way to insure maximum performance and reliability on a given machine.
2) The speed increases are notable. Your assertion that architecture tweaks vs. generic compilations make little difference are not born out by real world, emperical testing. Debian (my favorite distro before trying Sorcerer and Gentoo), even Mandrake compiled with i586 optimizations, is noticably slower in performing many tasks (like video capture and editing, smooth window scrolling in KDE, web browsing in mozilla) than either Sorcerer or Gentoo compiled from source on the same hardware.
3) Distributions introduce their own level of bugs. Source compilations against existing libraries minimizes distribution-specific and distribution-induced bugs. Things like library version mismatches, subtle changes in behavior that break things but are unobvious, plague Debian, Mandrake, et. al. but are virtually eliminated by Gentoo and Sorcerer. What is more, the source based distros tend to stick closer to what the software authors intend in the installation of their software, reducing bugs that result from shuffling files or doing other "non-standard" things (from the orignial source author's point of view) in order to comply with the distro's file placement policies (for example). This isn't eliminated, as gentoo and sorcerer both have their policies, but it is reduced significantly vs. Mandrake, RedHat, and Debian.
4) What is more, gentoo and sorcerer are able to remain closer to the current state of development. While one may initially dismiss this as "upgraditis" and, at best "nice but risky and not necessary," it turns out to offer significant advantages, advantages that in my experience outweigh any disadvantages.
- one gets bug fixes immediately
- as important, the cycle of develope/test/report bugs to the author/fix bugs is tightened dramatically, with the author getting feedback in days instead of weeks or months
- one gets important new features immediately
- finally, if one doesn't like the current version (e.g. X 4.2 vs 4.1) using the older version instead is a trivial matter, with recompilation of dependent packages a relatively painless process when the version is changed, be it upward to a newer version, or a reversion back to an older version.
I cannot emphesize enough how many longstanding bugs, particularly distribution-related bugs, that have dogged us from RedHat to Mandrake to Debian, simply do not exist when running gentoo or sorcerer. What is more, we can use X 4.2 today, not months from now when it finally gets into Debian unstable. More importantly, we can use X 4.2 in a very stable environment, with one complete heirarchy of distro-induced bugs virtually eliminated.
Furthermore, from what I saw of Sorcerer, the chosen compiler flags are system-wide instead of being based on the individual packages needs. This is not wise.
Both gentoo and sorcerer allow individual ebuilds and spells (respective terms for suites of scripts which download, compile, and install a piece of software) to override and/or modify their respective compilation options. The "system wide" options and optimazations one sets are defaults that work for most ebuilds/spells. This is far wiser than hoping each ebuild/spell maintainer will think to optimize their own compilation (many would not, and many others would err on the side of caution). When optimization flags cause a problem the ebuild/spell maintainer typically strips the offending optimization out of the compiler options (a small sed pipe does the trick) and the spell or ebuild builds and runs fine.
Source distros are hands down better, easier, and less buggy than binary distros, despite their young age and "green" state. I encourage you to give one or the other a try
And no, "apt-get source --compile" isn't at all comparable (though it does make Debian immensly more useful than many of its binary-distro counterparts). You still have the plethora of distro-induced bugs that comes with any binary distro as large and complex as Debian.
Gentoo and Sorcerer aren't free of bugs, mind you, but they are free of several classes of bugs that exist in binary distros in addition to bugs in the software itself, and in the distro's configuration and layout. The difference may not sound like much, but in practice it is quite significant.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Casting spells to install applications sounds pretty cool. While I have found tools like Red Hat's Up2Date and Ximian's Red Carpet very nice there's still some dependancy problems encountered when you try to go with the latest and greatest versions of Gnome and other libraries. From the review it sounded like Sorcerer downloads and compiles the packages you are installing. Would it pull dependencies too?
/dev/hda1
I'll have to check this distro out. I can see it now.
>Turn on PC
Your monitor flashes. You are greeted with the message "Loading Windows 2000..."
>Insert Sorcerer boot floppy
There is an audible click as the floppy settles in the drive.
>Press Ctrl-Alt-Delete
A menu is presented giving you several options [more]
>Click Shutdown
Your computer restarts. Your floppy drive begins to whirr and churn with excitement. You feel a sense of power rush through you. A message slowly begins to emerge on your screen.
>read message
Hail and well met sysadmin. Sorcerer Linux sees you have Windows currently installed on this PC. What is thy choice friend?
>cast magic missile at
Formatting... Please wait.
'Same speed C but faster'