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Gentoo Linux Reloaded

Posted by michael on from the peer-pressure dept.

nitro322 writes "Daniel Robbins, the leading developer for Gentoo Linux, has written an excellent O'Reilly Network article covering many of the various features of Gentoo, what's coming in version 1.4 (due out SOON), and why you should give it a try. If you haven't tried Gentoo yet, what are you waiting for?"

5 of 315 comments (clear)

  1. Defuse by ViceClown · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Lets defuse this bomb before it happens.

    Gentoo is a really nice distro. I wouldn't say it's for newbies and it's definitely geared for developers. The install isn't a cinch but it's very thorough. Before we get into a holy war with sides saying Sorcerer is better or Slackware this or Redhat that - lets try and keep the discussion about Gentoo itself... what is good or bad about it - and maybe help out Dan Robbins with useful constructive suggestions. Now... have at it :-)

    --
    Have a Happy.
  2. What I'm waiting for by ivan256 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you haven't tried Gentoo yet, what are you waiting for?

    I'm waiting for it to have over 4000 packages tested and available. I'm waiting for it to have widely available high performace mirrors that serve binaries, so I only have to compile when I want to, and I can be using that new piece of software in seconds. I'm waiting for it to have a proven track record for strict filesystem hirearchy standard compliance (the same standard each release, please). I'm waiting for it to run on all the platforms I currently use (still missing arm). I'm waiting for it to have a dedicated team of hundreds of developers that release security updates in hours (In binary form so that I don't have to wait for compilation for security). I'm waiting for transparent integration of non-"free" software into the standard package installation system. And most importantly, I'm waiting to find any reason why my current system may be insufficient, or even sub-optimal, because I don't feel the need to fix what isn't broken.

    Glad you asked?

    1. Re:What I'm waiting for by Shelled · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If you want a binary distro, use a binary distro. There are dozens around. Gentoo isn't for you and that's not a failing on the distro's part. I've always found a mirror first try and they've almost always been DSL-saturating fast. You need 4000 available packages and instantaneous perfect security? And don't find that contradictory?

  3. Re:Is Gentoo the new Slackware by G27+Radio · · Score: 5, Insightful

    But I can't help but laugh when I see the similarities between some of the younger Gentoo users and the Slackware users of yesteryear. These particular Gentoo users seem to think they're hot stuff and mock anyone who uses another distro, or at the very least dismiss their 7337ness.

    I'm sure that there are some gentoo users as you describe, but I'd like to state for the record that all the members of the Gentoo community that I've dealt with have been both helpful and pleasant in their responses to questions. Don't let a couple kiddies give you a bad impression of the average gentoo user.

    Gentoo certainly isn't the easiest distro to set up, but if you know what you're doing the benefits are worth the time/work getting it started. If you compile everything from stage 1 you're looking at at least a day of compile time--but the actual time you need to spend in front of the computer is most likely going to be less than an hour. The amount of compile time really depends on what packages you install. You can use precompiled packages for a lot of stuff, but the point of compiling it from stage 1 is that you have a system that is fully optimized for your specific processor. This made a huge difference on my Athlon--I can actually watch DVD's smoothly now--something that Windows and Mandrake couldn't do for me.

    What worked best for me as far as installation was to create a partition in Mandrake, chroot into that, and do the installation in there. Basically you can do pretty much the entire installation in a shell window without having to stop whatever else you're doing. I'm not sure this is well documented though. If you know your stuff linux-wise you can figure it out. It's not for the linux newbie though.

  4. The biggest advantage of Gentoo... by SlickMickTrick · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...is the one they're not using.

    Gento is source based, meaning big compile times. However, it has the possible advantage of very small downloads. Imagine, that instead of downloading all the source packages for KDE 3.0.4, you simply had to download the patch level difference for the source from KDE 3.0.3. The diff file would probably be less than 500k.

    Of course, patch files would be too difficult to manage, so why not set up an rsync or cvs server, and use cvsup to grab the differences. Not from the production cvs, but from another set up by Gentoo. This would turn a bandwidth hungry dist into the lightest one of all. After downloading the initial sources, the updates would be noticably smaller than binary dists.

    Of course, gentoo doesn't do this, but I use it anyway. :-)