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Gentoo 1.0 Released
Spider[DAC] writes: "Gentoo Linux 1.0 is finally released. see their homepage for more details, or skip directly to the installation instructions. Gentoo is a up-to-date distribution that uses 'portage' (a system similar to the BSD ports) to download, compile and configure the installation process."
...biggest balls of them all!
what's gentoo?
+ Donald Gunth
+ Email: dgunth@quicktek.net
"Caffeine is the greatest lubricant ever created." -ESR
Teh bsd ports? Well, I guess that's one way of saying that the BSD ports are l337 liek JK.
"Gentoo is a up-to-date distribution that uses 'portage'...to download compile and configure the installation process."
other than the portage system, this seems to be a moderatly unexciting distro. User-mode Linux is somewhat interesting but doesn't seem compelling enough to change from slack\SuSE\debian, etc. Is that a compelling enough feature to consider this an important step in the evolution of Linux, or, as is more likely, is this simply going to go by the wayside...
But how is it possible for the editorial 'skill' on slashdot to slip even further down the drain?
I might be biased because my feelings for BSD have more in common with other people's feelings for sex or air, but really . . . "teh?" How in the hell can you miss that and still speakah teh Engleesh?
--Ryv
From lookin at the changes to 1.0, I still like Sorcerer GNU Linux better ... Its just cleaner and easier to use in my opinion.
But don't get me wrong, a source based distro is a great thing, and I really hope that one day in the near future (rather than trying to maintain this binary package management hell) all the major distros will wake up and realize that source management is *much* cleaner and nicer to the user. I'm really hoping for the death of RPM, but I'm sure I'm not so lucky...
jdW
...Well? Do we? Surely you can either a) find one you like already or b) just use te little bits you like and do it yourself?
You're almost good enough to be a slashdot editor!
The ISO is only 103 MB. Tres coolito. However, I'm watching my download get slower, slower, slower....... --The Rev
Cool now that I spent the last 2 days installing Visual Studio 7 Enterprise Architect on my Win XP box, I can unload the Rh 7.192 Advanced server test platform I had setup and Was going to upgrade to the current redhat 7.3 beta, and instead spend the next week downloading and installing, compiling and playing with Gentoo , until that is RH 7.4 (or 8 whatever) is released since Solaris 9 isnt going to offer an Intel version I can wipe my solaris 8 intel box and try to load......
Holy shit no wonder I dont ever get any actual work done anymore, between loading new systems to playing with new distros, trying to figure iout this whole ungodly dot.diaster and typing stuff like this on slashdot.....
Time to get back to chasing my tail in circles.....
Sig went tro...aahemmm.....fishing........
yeah..biatch
1. Fuck
2. Shit
For those who already have gentoo running and you just want to upgrade, you can find the instructions here
The underlying concepts for this distribution seem fantastic. Browsing through the Gentoo site, I noticed verbiage to this effect in multiple places:
"Gentoo Linux is a versatile and fast, completely free x86-based Linux distribution geared towards developers and network professionals
Are there any similar projects in the works for other computing architectures (Mac, Sun, etc)? Not trying to open another can of worms, just thought I'd ask...
I really really DON'T think that it's wise to the base distro so small. The ISO is just 103 MB and offers only the very basic system. If you want most of the apps provided by the distros like RedHat / Mandrake / Debian, you will have to download them. This is pretty much like a net-install. Sure, it's great for those with broadband, but what about those who don't have broadband ?
Make it 1CD, make it have X, Gnome and some nice apps come with the distro itself and I might reconsider trying this.
Gentoo also has a picture of the new iMac
:)
What the hell is that thing anyway?!
Cat got your tongue? (something important seems to be missing from your comment ... like the body or the subject!)
No one, not even here at Fag-Dot, gives a flipping fuck about 'felchers linux', or whatever the fuck your queer little distro is called.
I've dabbled in every possible Linux distribtution imaginable and have been using Gentoo exclusively for about 6 months now. I must say that I'm pretty sure I've settled on using Gentoo Linux as my sole distribution from now on. I've even gone ahead and put them on some production servers as well. Between portage and the ability to have a system that's totally optimized for your particular hardware is beyond perfection. This may not be a newbie distribution but for most hardcore Linux users and even those with some serious servers on hand, Gentoo takes the cake. The first time I tried Gentoo I was blown away at the clean file system, powerful portage system, and shear increase in speed that I had gained. If you give it a shot, you'll be hard pressed going back to another ditribution. I HIGHLY recommend giving it a shot. For those you go ahead and try it, don't be set back by the time it takes to install. It will take a while (I mean youre basically building the whole system from scratch) but it will be worth the wait. If for the speed alone.... it's great. Ok... I'm done plugging Gentoo (just a user, not part of the Gentoo team or anything). So give it a shot some weekend... if nothing else.... you'll learn a lot!
Cheers!
Eddy.WriteLinux.Com
Is that fucking while shitting, or fucking a handful of shit oneself? Personally, I find fecal matter to be the best lubricant in the world, and often masturbate into a handful of my own 'love chocolate'. Normally whilst staggering down the middle of the road into oncoming traffic.
It sees me through.
"Why did they cancel my favorite Sci-Fi show? I downloaded ALL the episodes!"
Is this somewhat like Sorcerer Linux? The mention of automagical scripts and optimized installs made me think of it right away... Since I'm no Linux guru, anyone care to shed some light?
The number of ports available doesn't compete with FreeBSD (or, I imagine, the other BSDs) at this point, but that could change quickly.
On the minus side, some of the author's tuning instructions are dubious, or downright silly. He recommends using "noatime" in the filesystem everywhere -- now that may be ok for /home, or
for /usr, say, but for /var, which holds mailboxes, it's not a good idea -- the atime is used to tell whether you have new mail. (In fact, the default partitioning doesn't even create a separate /var or /tmp, and the install guide doesn't suggest you do it. This is not unique to Gentoo, it's a common attitude in the linux world, but it looks like a bad idea to me.)
Also, the global CFLAGS sets -O3, which looks overambitious to me -- the only change -O3 has over -O2 is function inlining, which sometimes helps and sometimes hurts, you definitely don't want to build your system with it. (The FreeBSD project doesn't support anything beyond -O, though I generally have no problem with -O2.)
Anyway, it's easy to fix these small caveats. (Another good thing is Gentoo doesn't clobber your config files when you upgrade; however, something like FreeBSD's "mergemaster" for upgrading /etc would certainly be welcome.) That apart, Gentoo looks like a nice system and I'm happy with it.
I've been using Gentoo for the last 6 months or so and I've been very impressed. The speed is simply amazing - no other distro is this fast and clean. Gentoo is also very well documented! Daniel Robbins, the main man behind Gentoo has written some excellent tutorials which can be found here. I suggest you go and have a look. I have learned a lot by reading his tutorials. BTW, do you know where that name "Gentoo" comes from? Gentoo is a species of a small and fast penguins ;)
I always liked that I could run Linux on old hardware. Is there anyway that I can install Gentoo or Sorcerer Linux on an old 386 with 16mb of ram? The posted minimum specs to install them are a little more daunting than this.
I'm determined to reclaim my karma. Now, if I can only find a groundbreaking article and something witty to say....
Whats the philosophy behind Sorcery Linux... examination of the link informs me that its 'so advanced it might as well be magic', but it is apparently not quite at the telepathic stages yet.
There is almost no information on the website, except cryptic install instructions, a long explaination of the developer heirarchy and uber-cute magic-themed nomenclature. ("Can I cast spells in runlevel 3" -- umm, huh?)
Nothing about what it actually is!!
I'm just polishing my shiny new 1.0-rc6 install of gentoo (and madly enthousiastic about, best distro ever IMHO).
What's the difference between 1.0 and 1.0-rc6? I can't seem to find a changelog anywhere.
For those in doubt: check it out, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
Greetz
I became interested in Gentoo when a source distribution sounded like an interesting challenge, and just different from the usual binary distros. I chose it over Sorceror because at that point the Sorceror world was falling apart (some ex-Sorcerors have found their homes with Gentoo, btw). I found the Gentoo documentation to be right on course, and the install was comfortable and informative if you're used to Linux/BSD (it's not for the newbies, but it would make a good learning experience). The portage system is wonderful, it has all the graces of APT and more, is amazingly current, and can do "fake" installs ala OpenBSD (one my favorite *nixices). Getting your system going may take a few hours while stuff compiles, but everything runs smoothly.
If I didn't have to use a wireless card, I'd be writing this from inside a Gentoo install right now. However, getting my 802.11b card operable proved to be a trial, though the kind folks on the Gentoo mailing lists were beyond helpful. Ultimately I went back to RedHat, as I had lost too much time trying to get wireless support, but this wasn't a fault of the distro, just my crunch for time (note to kernel and pcmcia-cs folks: standardize your functions and modules together!).
If you're looking for a distro that's very active and, above all, enjoyable, I reccomend Gentoo. It does take some work, and the performance benefits of source vs binary are debatable, but what matters is the pleasantness and effectiveness of the Gentoo community. Daniel Robbins, the project's architect, is really a neat, smart guy, and the other folks involved are helpful and motivated. Using a Gentoo system is great for experienced folks who want serious control while retaining more community than a "Linux from Scratch" build. It's also a great way for a less experienced user to get familiar with Linux, or a good bridge from Linux to *BSD (if you need one). I don't think the folks out there saying "yet another distro?" understand that the beauty of the open community is choice. If you don't like it , ignore it, but good things are happening around Gentoo.
As a Gentoo-user since, hmmm, early november I think (when rc6 was just released anyway), I can testify that it *ROCKS*. Thinking back to the time when I had to bother with the dirty RPM's of Mandrake, I don't think I could ever go back. In this way, all I have to do to keep my system updated with the latest versions and the latest security patches is type 'emerge update' or if I'm not gonna touch the computer for a while, 'emerge update --world'. The entire dependency nightmare from using RPM's is also gone. If you emerge something that needs a lib or whatever, the program neatly emerges all dependencies first. /etc for customisation, you should definitely give this distro a try. ;)
Also, the guys behind the distribution definitely seems to know what their doing. In conclusion, if you are not afraid of compiling your own kernel and you can live with having to edit a few of the files in
Mmmm.... I can feel myself growing into a zealot
Opinions stated are mine and do not reflect those of the Illuminati
use Google to look for Penguins and skip over all that Linux stuff. You'll get to things like Pete and Barbara's Penguin Pages
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Anyways, one day the boss decided to change the name, and we had a meeting ... and the patron saint of linux is obviosuly the penguin... So I found some sites about penguins that said that the "Gentoo" penguin was the fastest and best swimmer ... and it stuck ;)
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
You were trying to make a joke by comparing the costs of hardware to the costs of network infrastructure. Your joke doesn't add up. For some users in the United States, initially setting up broadband Internet access can cost a hundred times more than the price of a relatively high-end computer system. In some cases, adding broadband Internet access to a family's telecommunications package may cost upwards of $200,000.
Will I retire or break 10K?
The big reason that I want a small Linux distribution instead of a 15-CD RedHat set is so I can run Linux on wimpy machines. I've got a number of antiques hanging around my lab doing nothing, and few of the Pentium60s and none of the 486s have CDROMs, and all of them have wimpy disk drives. Netbooting is important - it makes it possible to install the basic operating system on a small machine and get it up and running, with the disks partitioned enough to install any other software.
It's also important to have distributions that can install the basic system from one CD! (Or alternatively, at least to be able to install it from separate CDs that aren't all merged into one ftp directory.) Even most of my server machines don't have enough space to copy multiple CDs to one filesystem for FTP, so it's also really important to be able to work with separate CD images - ideally to mount the CDROM and publish it with FTP, or at least to have the different CD images stashed in different directories (which also makes it possible to do two-CD sets by storing one in ~ftp/pub/linux/cd1/ and symlinking or mounting the CDROM for the other disk.)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
If anyone is listening, I want Debian, but with objprelinked kde =].
Full plate and packing steel! -Minsc
A Linux distribution with a BSD-like ports system. How revolutionary.
or, you could just get a *BSD. Save yourself a lot of time and trouble, and learn a solid, logical os.
Me too!
I run gentoo and its amazing, if I want Mozilla 0.9.9 I type emerge mozilla and its perfectly installed. Gentoo is amazing, fast, I can even say perfect. this is the best distro ever in my mind.. Every app is compiled FOR my system and gentoo doesnt use any Binary packages. If you want a speedy install you can use the precompiled packages. And if there isnt a package you want you just write a simple ebuild for your package. sudo emerge phpnuke for example....
keanmarine.com
I've been on the lookout for a decent distribution I can customize heavily. I have a P133 laptop with a 1.2Gb HD, and I really like the machine (excellent footprint, good screen, best laptop keyboard I've ever used). To get the most out of it, I really need something that is easily customized. Right now I run RedHat 6.2 on it, but it's time to move forward.
I like the idea of a source distro; 5% to 10% performance matters a lot more on a machine like this, than on a large, modern desktop. Unfortunately, Gentoo seems not to be the distribution I was looking for. I would not mind long installation time, but the recommended minimum specs (especially disk space) is way over this little machine, and it seems like a fairly substantial hassle to install it without a CD-ROM.
Does anybody have a recommendation for a distro that can be built small and efficient enough to for this machine, and does offer decent support for all those laptop-centric issues like no CD, networking through PCMCIA and so on? I've been considering Debian as a possibility but I feel that too seems a little heavy. Roll-your-own distros could be fun, but they generally assume you'll be able to boot and install from a CD at the end of the process. Also, this extreme form of customization means you are all on your own, with nary a mailing list archive to search through if you get into trouble.
I can't be the only one with this problem; any feedback would be welcome.
/Janne
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
If you want the FreeBSD ports system, just
run it on FreeBSD, which is more stable
and cool anyways.
I'ma fairly die-hard redhat user, but I wanted to try out gentoo.
.src.rpms with optimizations...
What impressed me most was the speed once you installed it. It was astounding. My desktop is a 1.2 Ghz athlon with 1/2 a gig of ram, and I saw _huge_ performance gains. I am guessing about 20%, maybe more. Granted, this is not empirical, but it really did feel much faster. Compiler optimizations rock!
Anyone know of a nice system to be able to rebuild all your rpms with all optimizations? I'm looking for a script that figures out what's on your system, downloads the dev packages it needs, and then recompiles all the
-- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
Crux already has this. And its tiny!
This thing is smart, and it works! I am not a programmer, nor linux guru, but their documentation to get you up and running is flawless. I built up a desktop system and have installed all the applications I need and they are all working great. I've avoided KDE completely and run blackbox as a wm. I've successfully gotten my DVD player, CDR, TV Tuner card and sound card working great. Also, MPlayer (which doesn't allow binary installations like RPM) compiled and runs great. (Much better than Windows Media Player)
When I first read about Gentoo, I was afraid that if software I used wasn't in their portage list, I would be SOL. But, the list of applications available is very comprehensive...There haven't been any applications I've needed that aren't available via their Portage system. As I am not familiar with C, I have always had problems installing programs from source. If the makefile has problems, I usually can't figure out what to change in order to get it working...But, I haven't had any installations fail in Gentoo. The automatic configuration and dependencies calculation works and works well...
I can't imagine ever running Red Hat again. My Gentoo system is stable, fast and lean.
It's about time...Hindoos have been in need of revision since the Company first infiltrated the area 6 score ago! Time for a nice brandy -Sir Walter Raleigh
This looks very interesting, but what happens to the source after a program is installed?
.o, .cpp, .c,... files hanging around the system. Does Gentoo automatically remove them? (hard drive space would get used up quickly if not)
There is no point having a million
Is there an X based dselect sort of program?
Why does the site say its based for x86.. wouldn't it be REALLY easy to port to other systems?
thanks
The distribution was okay over all, but the people in charge of it were not people I would necessarily want to support monetarily or vocally.
./join #religion
Excerpt from #gentoo:
21:35:58 I don't necessarily think that Muslims are bad people.
21:36:03
21:36:14 there are some very wonderful muslims
(yeah, that's drobbins... the head of gentoo... with a wonderfully flattering view of Muslims...)
I have trouble supporting someone with a view like that (or the rest of the views on Islam he disseminated into the channel).
Check out the mailing lists first. The upgrade
procedure will damage your system. New installs
are ok.
Dan Robbins has posted to the Gentoo mailing lists
with the message not to upgrade until the
developers resolve the problem.
How is Debian too heavy, when you can do a basic install in 40MB of disk space? You want more stuff, you just install the (not bloated) packages with apt-get. Debian works great on a 486, so even better on a P133.
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson
I am happily running Gentoo on a 1ghz Athlon, but I also tried an install on a wimpy machine (P200, 96MB) and it took literally days to get the base install to compile (not that it failed, just took that long to run). When all was done, an emerge update took another 2 days to complete, by which time there were more updates.
If you are running on an underpowered machine, be prepared to wait... a lot.
But once it is done, it seems worth the wait.
Have you read the Moderator Guidelines yet?
Real men use Slackware.
No RPM. Not very friendly install. You better know what you are doing.
Mod me.
I do admit I'm interested in this sort of idea, and I'm sure I'll end up trying it in a machine once I get some spare time (currently scheduled to happen on March 3, 2005 :)
To answer a few questions I've seen in the comments:
1. If you want something like this on a "wimpy" machine, then you might look at Debian. I'm sure you've all heard about the magic of apt, which is similar to this, but with binaries. This way, your machine doesn't have to do all that compiling. Leading to:
2. You can do similar things like this with Debian by using deb-src lines in sources.conf. You can just do "apt-get source " to get the source, along with the patches, rules, etc. to make an officially compliant Debian package from it. You can even add the -b option to build it automatically after downloading.
3. Debian has binaries for many platforms; they haven't abandoned SPARC, and their PPC distribution has been solid for some time now.
Anyway, I think that Gentoo is cool and a good idea, but I wanted to make sure this stuff was known. I've done all of the above (run Debian on very wimpy machines, run it on PPC, and had it compile GAIM packages for me, since GAIM isn't in potato, but the sources are available via deb-src).
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
You can reduce some requirements by installing the pre-compiled version.
A ppc version of gentoo linux is in the make :-) and will probably be online by the end of the week
read gentoo-dev@gentoo.org for more information
Yeah. As the author of the gentoo filemanager, I really wish the headline here would have included the phrase "Gentoo Linux", to make it clear. Not that the risk for confusion outside my own head is, er, overwhelmingly large, or anything. Incidentally, I just released 0.11.23 of gentoo-the-filemanager-for-GTK+ yesterday, if someone would like to try it out...
main(O){10<putchar(4^--O?77-(15&5128 >>4*O):10)&&main(2+O);}
Gentool(tm) 1.0 is a recently-released accessory for our popular Nüsse(tm) Satchels. Each Gentool(tm) is lovingly hand-crafted to exacting specifications, to provide an exquisite ornament for any satchel that we sell. The Gentool(tm) arrives in a protective sheath (hence the name, after the jewish word "gentile"), ready and waiting for your enjoyment, though you may cut it to suit your taste and/or religion.
No longer do you have to go without, for we have the perfect Gentool(tm) for any occasion. We even ship them bundled with our stylish line of nut transportation satchels (nutsacks, to the layman). We call this the "total package". In this way, your Gentool(tm) will never be too large for your nutsack, and your nutsack will never hang too far below your Gentool(tm), or scrape along the ground. With your purchase of a "total package", you can e assured of a perfect fit every time.
As a bonus, each Gentool(tm) doubles as a handy nozzle, should you have the need or desire to rapidly eject the contents of your nutsack.
Why would you need this functionality?
Say you're walking down the street, nutsack in hand, heavy with nuts. All of a sudden, you are accosted, and the scoundrel is demanding that you hand over all of your valuable possessions. With our Gentool(tm), you could simply point your Gentool(tm) at the robber's face, and empty the contents of your nutsack right into his eye, blinding him, and allowing you to escape unharmed!
So you see, not only is the Gentool(tm) a high-fashion accessory, guaranteed to win you friends and business associates, it also doubles as a personal protection device. It's also great fun at parties. Women all over the world love a nice, hard Gentool(tm)!
-------------------
I am a highly intelligent squirrel
These days, new distrobutions are coming along almost daily. I have been using gentoo for about 6 months now and have found it to be the most genuine distro available.
Clearly, not for beginners, thats a fact, but it is for people who give a damn about how their system works. Its LFS for people who arnt saddistic, and actually want to do something with the system.
Its portage system is unique to linux, updating, changing, removing packages. You can step through each part of the build and make it *your* baby.
The portage system also allows you to build each individual package optimised for your machine, you got an althon, enable the athlon C optimisations.
Portage also allows a commoner to easily build custom packages. If you feel that there is something to add, the portage config type files are easy to read, and simple to follow.
The developers of gentoo actually listen, which is unique to a linux distro these days. I can remember my days of #debian on openprojects about a broken perl in SID, and being ignored for 4 weeks.
Once again, you will need to think to use Gentoo, but it is well worth your while. I am looking forward to seeing the progress of this distro in the coming months, as it has come so far even in this short time.
So Gentoo has ext3 and reiserfs support, hmm, have you seen Red Hat? Gentoo has an easy way to install packages and can even do it from a connection to a ftp or http server, and uses this process to do the distro install...Sounds an awful like RPM. I realize that Portage has a few more features, but this is far from innovative. Dependency based start-up scripts???? Come on that's so 1985 System V!!
...five machines by hand is OK, but what about 1000?
I'm sure the people at Gentoo put a lot of work into their distro, but I think that calling it innovative is a bit of a stretch. Besides companies like Red Hat and Suse offer features to maintain the install base. I see no mention of that it the description of Gentoo. Maintaining one, two,
No offence, but I need some more content before I go jumping on the Gentoo bandwagon.
-Runz