Gentoo's Portage to be Ported to Mac OS X

billatq writes "I love Mac OS X, but I'm also a fan of running Gentoo Linux because of its powerful package management system. A Debian-style system (fink) is already on Mac OS X, but now it seems that Gentoo's Portage is going to be available for it. Gentoo's announcement can be found on their web site. I can't wait until we see what the Gentoo team has prepared."

Comments

hmm

[rastachops]

I've never used Portage before, I have used fink but didn't like it much.... so whats so good about Portage and why should I download it?

Re:hmm

[Asprin]

It's a CLI package manager. You type 'emerge gnuchess' and portage goes out to the Gentoo server, finds the gnuchess source code package, downloads it, asks you some config questions, makes it (compiling from source using optimized compiler settings you've already set up) and installs it.

The advantage is that you get exactly what you ask for, compiled from the ORIGINAL SOURECE. Since you compiled it yourself, you can optimize the compiler to build for your specific platform only.

Re:hmm

[klmth]

The real advantage of portage is not that it installs and compiles gnuchess.
The greatest advantage is that is follows your guidelines for what features should be installed.
"Ssl support, you say? No problem! Next time I update the system, I'll be sure to update every app that has support for it!"

Re:hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't apt do that?

Re:hmm

[Goner]

"...asks you some config questions..."

No, it doesn't even do that. You specify them all through what are known as USE flags in a file called /etc/make.conf, as in gnuchess USEs opengl (or whatever, actually it doesn't depend on any USE flags). But portage can also do cool things like build straight from cvs repositories for apps like ardour that don't currently have even tarballs out. All of this is pretty darn well documented on the gentoo site, and I recommend people check it out. (Especially if you have tons of time on your hands ;))

Re:hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Apt installs arre the packages that the requested binaries depend on. But if they maintainer didn't compile it with SSL support, you have to recompile it yourself (and possibly its dependencies). As a result, Debian typically builds their binaries with support for as many libraries and features as they can.

In Gentoo, you have a long list of all the kinds of support you want compiled in, and it builds the packages with those things compiled in, or out.

For example, I don't run KDE, and don't have QT support compiled into most packages. That was no additional work for me (and I have nothing against Qt per se, I just don't use it myself)

Re:hmm

[2nd Post!]

How is this different from fink?

sudo fink install orbit

It downloads the orbit source, compiles, and installs it.

Re:hmm

[zojas]

one clarification: portage asks you no questions. configure-time options are set via USE flags in your make.conf file. see the portage user guide and the USE flag guide.

no questions means you can type 'emerge kde' and come back later after it has installed possibly dozens of packages with no more input from you.

Re:hmm

[m0rph3us0]

Another advantage of portage is that if you dont compile everything from source you get broken code. Especially since 90% of the code speed up from compiling yourself comes from libc and and the kernel there really isn't much point.

Re:hmm

[zojas]

portage differs from fink in that it is quite easy for you to specify system-wide compile-time options and optimization flags with portage. for example: don't like gnome? USE='-gnome' in your make.conf file will prevent gnome support from being compiled into every single package you install with portage.

Re:hmm

[Sevn]

Really?

I'm running quite a few precompiled binaries on
Gentoo and nothing is broken.

Quake III Arena
Aim
UT2003
RTCW
RTCW ET
Mozilla Firebird
realplayer

and those are just the ones I can think of.
Nice attempt at FUD though. I think more of the
speedup has to do with the fact that I don't have
gnome or kde support compiled into anything on
my system since I use blackbox. It's the same
logic behind making a custom kernel to take
advantage of your hardware, applied to the entire
OS. Some people care enough. Some don't and run
another distro. Some enjoy spreading lies about
other distro's because they feel inferior for some
unknown reason.

Re:hmm

[Cokelee]

Dozen, I wish! more like 98. Anyway it'll be done, in an hour or so.

Re:hmm

[wealthychef]

That's very nice, the "no further questions" part. I hate having to baby-sit an installer.

Re:hmm

[nvrrobx]

Ahh, unless dev-java/jdk-docs stops because you have to go download the javadocs zip file from Sun directly.

I understand the licensing issues that cause this, but come on!!!

If you could make emerge -up pretend a little harder (like, tell me if I need to download anything before I kick off 'emerge -u kde gnome gaim mozilla galeon-cvs') that would be damned cool.

Re:hmm

[zojas]

lucky for, you it is there. this from 'emerge --help':

--fetchonly (-f short option) Instead of doing any package building, just perform fetches for all packages (main package as well as all dependencies.) When used in combination with --pretend all the SRC_URIs will be displayed multiple mirrors per line, one line per file.

yay [...]

[Anonymous Coward]

Official Gentoo-Linux-Zealot translator-o-matic

Gentoo Linux is an interesting new distribution with some great features. Unfortunately, it has attracted a large number of clueless wannabes and leprotards who absolutely MUST advocate Gentoo at every opportunity. Let's look at the language of these zealots, and find out what it really means...

"Gentoo makes me so much more productive."
"Although I can't use the box at the moment because it's compiling something, as it will be for the next five days, it gives me more time to check out the latest USE flags and potentially unstable optimisation settings."

"Gentoo is more in the spirit of open source!"
"Apart from Hello World in Pascal at school, I've never written a single program in my life or contributed to an open source project, yet staring at endless streams of GCC output whizzing by somehow helps me contribute to international freedom."

"I use Gentoo because it's more like the BSDs."
"Last month I tried to install FreeBSD on a well-supported machine, but the text-based installer scared me off. I've never used a BSD, but the guys on Slashdot say that it's l33t though, so surely I must be for using Gentoo."

"Heh, my system is soooo much faster after installing Gentoo."
"I've spent hours recompiling Fetchmail, X-Chat, gEdit and thousands of other programs which spend 99% of their time waiting for user input. Even though only the kernel and glibc make a significant difference with optimisations, and RPMs and .debs can be rebuilt with a handful of commands (AND Red Hat supplies i686 kernel and glibc packages), my box MUST be faster. It's nothing to do with the fact that I've disabled all startup services and I'm running BlackBox instead of GNOME or KDE."

"...my Gentoo Linux workstation..."
"...my overclocked AMD eMachines box from PC World, and apart from the third-grade made-to-break components and dodgy fan..."

"You Red Hat guys must get sick of dependency hell..."
"I'm too stupid to understand that circular dependencies can be resolved by specifying BOTH .rpms together on the command line, and that problems hardly ever occur if one uses proper Red Hat packages instead of mixing SuSE, Mandrake and Joe's Linux packages together (which the system wasn't designed for)."

"All the other distros are soooo out of date."
"Constantly upgrading to the latest bleeding-edge untested software makes me more productive. Never mind the extensive testing and patching that Debian and Red Hat perform on their packages; I've just emerged the latest GNOME beta snapshot and compiled with -O9 -fomit-instructions, and it only crashes once every few hours."

"Let's face it, Gentoo is the future."
"OK, so no serious business is going to even consider Gentoo in the near future, and even with proper support and QA in place, it'll still eat up far too much of a company's valuable time. But this guy I met on #animepr0n is now using it, so it must be growing!"

-

Re:yay [...]

[xombo]

This is so funny, it deserves a +11!

Re:yay [...]

[cyman777]

hmm saw your post somewhere else before, make shure no DRM applies ;-)

I find nothing wrong with logging into my parents' computer from time to time (usually after major updates of KDE or the like) and updating everything over the net without them even knowing.

That made me more productive, yes. With SuSE I always lost dependency war...

Re:yay [...]

[AvantLegion]

As a Gentoo user (not zealot), let me counter some of these.

"Although I can't use the box at the moment because it's compiling something, as it will be for the next five days, it gives me more time to check out the latest USE flags and potentially unstable optimisation settings."

Once my system is set up, all compiling is done in a little terminal window. It does not stop me from using the box normally during that time.

"Apart from Hello World in Pascal at school, I've never written a single program in my life"

Some of us ARE programmers.

Last month I tried to install FreeBSD on a well-supported machine, but the text-based installer scared me off.

This is just dumb. FreeBSD's installer is a hell of a lot more straightforward than installing Gentoo. I haven't bothered with the other BSDs, so no comment there.

I've spent hours recompiling Fetchmail, X-Chat, gEdit and thousands of other programs which spend 99% of their time waiting for user input

The speed benefits are from compiling X11, KDE, etc. They're not HUGE, but a subtle speed increase is not a BAD thing!

"I'm too stupid to understand that circular dependencies can be resolved by specifying BOTH .rpms together on the command line, and that problems hardly ever occur if one uses proper Red Hat packages instead of mixing SuSE, Mandrake and Joe's Linux packages together (which the system wasn't designed for)."

Orrrr.... I can just type "emerge kde" and not worry about it. Hunh, how about that.

On one hand, you criticize Gentoo for the less than friendly nature of recompiling, and now you criticize Gentoo for having the MORE friendly nature of dependency handling. Is easy a good thing or a bad thing to you?

Constantly upgrading to the latest bleeding-edge untested software makes me more productive.

It's nice to have the option. It's not required. I guess choice is a bad thing?

OK, so no serious business is going to even consider Gentoo in the near future,

Probably not. More likely, the features of Gentoo will appear elsewhere (as we're seeing in this here article, even). Portage is quite simply the nicest method of software install in any OS I've used. If compiled binaries were an option in it, that'd be great too. But the ability to download and install something like an IM client with a simple "emerge gaim" cannot be overstated.

Hopefully, this becomes standard fare for OSs, instead of something special to Gentoo.

GTK+ Native or X-Windowed?

[erebus24]

Being a gentoo fan I know the portage for Mac OS X is a good thing (tm)... But I hate having to use the X11 server on my mac, I'd prefer everything to be as native as possible. So will it include the option to use one of the gtk+ Mac native ports (and possibly other widget/graphics libraries) or will we still have to crank up X11 before we can run any of the programs we install through the portage?

Re:GTK+ Native or X-Windowed?

[Jellybob]

My guess is that it'll be up to you, via the usage of USE flags. If it's anything like the native Linux version, you'll be able to set the GTK flag, and it'll build with gtk for OS X.

OpenDarwin and Darwinports

[Leimy]

Don't forget about Darwinports.

Maybe I'm going out on a limb here,

[Asprin]

I can't wait until we see what the Gentoo team has prepared."

Maybe I'm going out on a limb here, but shouldn't it be just like portage on Gentoo? Macs *DO* have CLI's now, right?

Re:Maybe I'm going out on a limb here,

[TheAvatar666]

Maybe that's why the original topic was "Gentoo's portage to be ported to mac os x" heh

name of the thing

[akellens]

The thing is called iPortage.
A link to sourceforge:
iPortage

Re:name of the thing

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm, an "i" name. I wonder if Apple is going to sue these guys, maybe Apple knows about it and this is just another nice surprise for the Open source community by Apple and Gentoo. Was anything rumored about this? This seems too good to be true if you ask me.

Re:name of the thing

[claude_juan]

actually, iPortage is a gui version. portage in its "normal" form is very much command line.

Re:name of the thing

[commodoresloat]

Was anything rumored about this?

iDon'tKnow

Re:name of the thing

[Anonymous Coward]

not really - i came up with the idea off the cuff. hate to break it to you. it's going to be python and wxpython based. check the site this evening and and explaination will be posted about the project and it's relationship to other systems [gentoo/apple].

ct

As I Understand It

[Farley Mullet]

The big advantage behind portage is that you custom compile everything from source according to preferences set locally, so you get all the advantages of being able to control compile-time options without actually having to manually compile things. But since fink allows you to compile packages from source too, i wonder how hard it would be to hack something together to allow you to impose the compile-time options that you want using fink?

Re:As I Understand It

[oojah]

And the big disadvantage with it is compiling OpenOffice...

(Yes, I know you don't have to)

Roger

NetBSD pkgsrc

[LizardKing]

NetBSD's pkgsrc collection can be used on MacOS X from what I understand. It's a "compile from source" system much like Gentoos, and has about 3700 packages available.

Chris

Re:NetBSD pkgsrc

[mackstann]

I was going to mention the same thing, Pkgsrc has been available for this task for quite some time.

OS X will bring more geeks to the world

[chia_monkey]

Does anyone else see all this as such a beautiful way to bring more *NIX geeks to the world? The Mac used to be considered a "toy". REAL programmers code on their PCs or Sparc stations. But now you have this Mac toy with such powerful UNIX underpinnings that is really getting the programming and hacking community excited.

I can see kids toying around on their parent's Mac. They tinker. They tinker more. Soon they're playing with Fink or with Gentoo. All of a sudden there are soooo many *NIX hackers out there that didn't even mean to be in the arena.

I know I'm guilty of it. And thousands more will be in no time at all.

Re:OS X will bring more geeks to the world

[torpor]

I've been a geek since '78 and a unix nerd since '82. My first Unix box was a MIPS Magnum pizzabox.

I remember the day Linus told the minix list about his little linux project. I've used Linux, in some way, pretty much every day since then.

I've watched Be come and go. I still have a BeBox. I still have a stack of SGI Indy's too, which I always refer to as the "Old New Magnums".

I make geek toys.

You would have to tear my tiBook500 Rev *A* from my cold dead hard fingers. As a "Switcher", Apple can do no wrong in my book.

Show me a better Unix laptop and I'll switch.

Re:OS X will bring more geeks to the world

[ElGanzoLoco]

Yep, that exactly what's happening...
I mean, had someone shown me an Xterm on linux three years ago, I would probably have phreaked out; but OS X is really, well, "reassuring": you go step by step, from the Finder (same as OS 9, plain and simple) to C++ programming. Currently I'm at the "make your own CLI aliases and tinker with SSH / SCP / Screencapture" level, it's kind of cool :) (my studies have nothing to do with computers, so I progress rather slowly).

Cool, nonetheless... But you have to install XFree86 and run a terminal, GIMP and xEyes next to iTunes and, say, Microsoft office to really understand how much this platform is good: best of ALL worlds (except the prices off x86 hardware?), in one.

This is going to rock

[Znonymous Coward]

Mac OS X is lacking in it's UNIX core. Fink is ok and all, but it's not great (IMHO). This will help spur competition and drive both products to mature and grow on the Mac platform.

I've always been a Mac zelot, now I can be a Genoo zelot as well. Yea!

Re:This is going to rock

[sporty]

The only diff between portage and fink is one is from GenToo and one is from Debian. They are just distribution packaging systems. Nothing more, nothing less.

The only thing this adds is variety, and competition. It's not filling a particular hole.

Re:This is going to rock

[DiscoOnTheSide]

Well, thats one difference, yes. But I've used both, and can honestly say gentoo is EXTREMELY well made. say I don't know a package name... gentoo -s suddently every package that has it in the name and description come up. Wanna see what will be made if you emerge it w/o actually doing it? emerge -p (the p is for pretend). Yes. It takes a while, but the speed increase is worth it. Debian you have to go through all sorts of menus and stuff, when everything can be done from the command line with gentoo (I'm sure you can with apt-get and dpkg and such, but gentoo is just more logical and "uncluttered" I guess you could say... but then again everyone has their own preferences, thus the great thing about choice. Now we have debian OR emerge to try. Once they get the FreeBSD ports going full swing I think I'm gonna die and go to heaven. :)

Re:This is going to rock

[IpalindromeI]

Here's what you're missing.

Search for a keyword, in the name or description:
apt-cache search keyword

Search just in the name:
apt-cache search --names-only keyword

Simulate what would happen without doing it:
apt-get -s install package
apt-get --no-act install package

The nice thing about apt is that it doesn't take a year to do a simple search and the package descriptions are actually useful, instead of one cryptic line.

Re:This is going to rock

[Thomas A. Anderson]

Search for a keyword, in the name or description:
apt-cache search keyword


Yeah, that would be kinda cool


Search just in the name:
apt-cache search --names-only keyword


qpkg keyword

qpkg is a program in the gentool package - flags include:
-v print available versions
-i print package information
-d print packages that have multiple versions ins
talled
-f find package that owns file
-l print package contents
and many more options

Simulate what would happen without doing it:
apt-get -s install package
apt-get --no-act install package


emerge -p package


The nice thing about apt is that it doesn't take a year to do a simple search and the package descriptions are actually useful, instead of one cryptic line.


Which distro are you talking about? I find that neither of those describe gentoo.

Listen, you are more than welcome to like debian/fink over gentoo/gentoo-ppc (or any other distro or even os). No skin off my nose.

But don't spread untruths about another distro - it serves no usefull purpose.

Re:This is going to rock

[sporty]

So you agree, but can't identify any other differences than being package management systems?

Re:This is going to rock

[Anonymous Coward]

it's emerge -S keyword... RTFMP

huh?

[claude_juan]

ok, maybe i'm being silly but the "beauty" of portage is that you compile it from source. it seems to me that with the limited number of varying mac processors out there that it would be a much better deal if the mac portage would just install a binary that was precompiled for your particular processor. for you apple folk who dont know this, it can take hours upon hours to compile certain packages from source. now this is usually only larger things like kde and gnome, but there are a number of larger ones as well that suck to compile. but to date, thats what portage sells to people. "compile it from source!" "its better that way!" anyway, gentoo is cool and all, but its very much becoming the overwhelming cult distro of the linux world. i hope mac users know what they are getting into with this one.

Re:huh?

[clarkcox3]

it seems to me that with the limited number of varying mac processors out there that it would be a much better deal if the mac portage would just install a binary that was precompiled for your particular processor

There is still something to be said for compiling from source, even on a platform as homogenous as the mac. There are significant differences between the G3 and G4, and even among various G3s and G4s. The variety of optimal optimization settings will only increase if/when Apple introduces PPC970-based Macs (crossing fingers).

i hope mac users know what they are getting into with this one.

I would say that any mac user downloading a CLI-based package management tool, probably knows what they are getting in to.

Possible Implications for GNUstep

[SewersOfRivendell]

Wow. I can see using Cocoa to write an excellent GUI front-end to Portage. If Portage on OS X works just like it does on Linux, that could mean an easy port to GNUstep. Extrapolate (fantasize) a bit, and you can see a possible way out of the KDE and GNOME wars, and into Objective-C nirvana.

Re:Possible Implications for GNUstep

[Anonymous Coward]

it's being worked on - see iPortage on SF.net for more info tonight.

Re:Possible Implications for GNUstep

[m0rph3us0]

portage doesnt port programs, it automates compiling and packaging them. portage doesn't port ANYTHING. if GNUStep doesnt work on OS X right now portage isn't going to change anything.

Oh, boy

[Anonymous Coward]

I love Mac OS X, but I'm also a fan of running Gentoo Linux because of its powerful package management system.

Ladies and gentlemen, in case you're wondering, THIS is what "missing the point" looks like in its purest form.

Anybody who chooses their operating system based not on the software that's available for that operating system but the method for installing that software is missing the point. Grandly.

Re:Oh, boy

[agrippa_cash]

While I am among those easily swayed by the 'wow' factor, the poster is not guilty of this offence. He is also a fan of running *Gentoo* Linux becuase of the package system. I would assume that the poster likes Linux in general, and Gentoo because of Portage, as Portage is the main thing that differentiates Gentoo from the other distros.

Re:Oh, boy

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not what he said. He said he runs OS X, but he also runs Boohoo Unix (or whatever it was) because of the installer.

Now, I'll concede the possibility that the submitter is an illiterate mouth-breather who is incapable of constructing a sentence that accurately conveys his thought, but I hardly think that should be the default assumption, do you? If you string some words together and start them with a capital letter and end them with a period, the assumption is that you said what you meant. I know, I know, this is Slashdot, but we shouldn't just throw out our language parsing experience because the incidence of linguistic maladaption becomes non-trivial. Should we?

Re:Oh, boy

[StikyPad]

While funny and true to some extent, the ability to install software is of course important. If turning on and off the monitor involved soldering and de-soldering the power line each time, it would detract from the overall quality of the experience, even if all of its other qualities were exceptional. In the same way, if it's a burden to install and remove software it detracts from the overall experience. Whether installation should be a function of the operating system or the software itself is another question.

Re:Oh, boy

[Anonymous Coward]

While funny and true to some extent, the ability to install software is of course important.

Taken in context of this discussion, that statement implies that Mac OS X's software installation and removal scheme is somehow lacking. Nothing could be further from the truth.

To install software on Mac OS X, download it, then drag it to wherever you want to store it. Poof. Problem solved.

Nope

[finkployd]

Nope, Apt installs binaries. They are configured with library requirements when the package maintainer builds them, and you either like their options (which generally include every possible option....and dependancy) or you don't.

Finkployd

Re:Nope

[ivan256]

Nope, Apt installs binaries.

Yes, that's *one* of the things apt does. Configured properly (it's configured properly by default, BTW) it will also install source packages which you can configure however you desire. It provides the benefit of allowing you to build from source only the packages you deem necissary to reconfigure so you don't waste half your life compiling. Very handy. Next time you're on a debian system, try the 'apt-get source' command and it's various options.

yay ! compile time goodness !

[chrispy666]

at last ! I will be able to run endless compiles on my PowerBook 1Ghz AS WELL as my little x86 gentoo-mythtv box !!! top notch !!! I can now safely say that instead of just using/working my Tibook, I'll be just watching the never-ending output of the XFree86 compilation =)

seriously... gentoo's great. I learned tons of stuff while installing it a few times... but OSX works so great already ! I'm not quite sure if it's really a plus...

The implications of the thing

[Olathe]

No, you should gain more experience, especially when you're one of the few who can't adapt to the degree required to correctly analyze the statement in question.

Because you are fond of oversyllabled words, perhaps you know what a false dichotomy is and why it is a logical fallacy. Perhaps you realize that you used a false dichotomy. You assume that either :

• you are correct

OR

• the previous poster is correct AND the person who likes Gentoo Linux can't use English lucidly

Implying is a commonly used, usually transparent activity that I will now explain to you, since you are apparently unfamiliar with or ignorant of it. When people imply something, they omit it because they think it is obvious. In this case, the person who likes Gentoo omitted whether the only reason he runs it is its installer or whether one of the reasons he runs it is its installer. So, a third option could be added above :

• the previous poster is correct AND you'll have a hard time understanding people unless you learn to infer things

Extra credit: Guess which option I pick.

Re:The implications of the thing

[billatq]

Implying is a commonly used, usually transparent activity that I will now explain to you, since you are apparently unfamiliar with or ignorant of it. When people imply something, they omit it because they think it is obvious. In this case, the person who likes Gentoo omitted whether the only reason he runs it is its installer or whether one of the reasons he runs it is its installer. So, a third option could be added above :

the previous poster is correct AND you'll have a hard time understanding people unless you learn to infer things

A bit late to reply--and while I've been accused of not speaking lucidly on occasion--I like gentoo because of the package management system. Perhaps there isn't anything wrong with RPMs, but I've had my fair share of trying to install messed up RPMs for this and that and don't really like having to deal with it. I use fink quite a bit, but the problem with it is that there aren't enough packages, whereas I know that gentoo has all of the stuff that I'd like to install. I know it takes forever to compile, but quite often the packages available in other installers, are not up to date and gentoo gives me the option of having them now. I also like the fact that it's linux so that it runs most of the open source software out there today.

Oh, and I pick the last one, though perhaps I'm a tad biased.

We're doomed...

[yomegaman]

There will be no escaping the race of super-zealots this will create!

what Portage roughly is

[jago25_98]

similar to BSD ports.

portage usually goes under /usr/portage

you can update that dir with `emerge sync` or get a snapshot.

inside /usr/portage is a myiad to .build files. These are python scripts that:

- download the binary or source for a package
- build it
- install it

Basically portage is a dependancy and package manager and automates ./configure - make - makeinstall and similar steps.

It's very hands on to fiddle with /usr/portage too - can make own scripts fairly quickly.

NB: portage does binary packages as well as source packages

w00t!

[rwven]

the more gentoo the better. in my experiences with it so far, it's been the best dang linux strain i've ever seen... it impressed me and i'm pretty hard to impress :)