Gentoo Linux 2004.0 Released

Quique writes "Gentoo Linux is proud to announce the release of Gentoo Linux 2004.0 for the x86, AMD64, PowerPC, Sun SPARC, and SGI MIPS architectures. Additionally, the Gentoo Hardened team is announcing the inaugural release of a security-enhanced Gentoo platform for the x86 architecture. Installation stages, LiveCDs, and GRP sets can be found on the mirrors. More information about the Gentoo Hardened project can be found on its project page. For more information, please consult the documentation, mailing lists, user forums and official IRC channels. The new Gentoo Store has also been announced." I've put more of the release notes below - might also be worth checking out the tutorial for LPI certification done by the President/CEO of Gentoo; there's also a note about Gentoo's newest meta-release tool, Catalyst below as well. Looks like it's not out yet - stay tuned for more information. " In addition to many bugfixes and security updates since the 1.4 release, Gentoo Linux 2004.0 contains a cutting-edge development toolchain and user environment including, but not limited to, Linux kernel 2.6.3, GCC 3.3.2, GLIBC 2.3.2, KDE 3.2, GNOME 2.4.2, and xfce4.

Gentoo Linux 2004.0 marks the debut of Catalyst, the new Gentoo release meta-tool. Using Catalyst, developers and users can create and customize every aspect of their Gentoo Linux system; from installation stages, to bootable LiveCDs, to customized binary packages for the Gentoo Reference Platform (GRP). For more information on Catalyst, please see the Catalyst project page and online documentation."

Comments

Gentoo never ceases to amaze..

[mehaiku]

Check out catalyst. It allows you to build your own stage taballs for Gentoo. You can even build the binary GRP packages to your specs and it will automatically arrange for the packges to be burnable to more than one CD. Talk about flexibility. You can cook your Gentoo up how ya like.

What I really want to know is what they have planned for April Fools this year. I do not see how they will ever be able to top last year.

Gentoo has it's place

[Realistic_Dragon]

I'm very fond of it on my desktops, I have one running 2.6 and one running 2.4 (both gentoo sources) and both are very responsive. I have yet to see another vanilla system that can handle running at 100% load without missing a beat handling the desktop.

It's not as easy as Redhat Mandrake et al, but then doing more complex stuff (custom kernels, odd hardware support etc) is much easier, which is really part of the Linux spirit :)

On the other hand I think the people running Gentoo on Zauruses are nuts. Gentoo might be good, but man if there was ever a place for Debian that was it!

gentoo helpful to a new user

[waterbear]

I'm one of the not-very-skilled, but I found gentoo relatively easy to install from their pre-compiled CD. It's good enough that I don't absolutely need the biggies compiled from scratch. So I don't see that the argument about long compile-times need be so determinative.

Above all, I found documentation items from gentoo specially helpful, because they were written by someone with the skill of remembering and including _all_ of the needed steps -- and this isn't true of all documentation in linux-land. (OT -- another very very good documentation IMO is the GRUB manual.)

So let's hear it for user-helpful gentoo folk and their well-documented distro.

-wb-

Initrd tools?

[SuperBanana]

Catalyst sounds nice, but what about a tool for making our own initrds so I can, for example, load the module-only driver for my raid card? I think a lot of people have a need for loading third-party drivers in order to boot.

RAID card vendors have a funny definition for "linux support". My Promise SX4 card's SATA interfaces, and not the raid interface, are the only thing 2.6 supports, so you get to stare at 4 separate drives instead of your RAID-5 array; one helpful page suggests that "that's ok because software raid is better anyway"- um, okay. Promise's half-closed-source driver(which is available from 'some guy in germany') won't compile under 2.6, but does under 2.4; however, only as a module, so bringing up the system off the card is impossible without an initrd, even though LILO will work since it uses the BIOS to get the kernel and initrd.

I tried using genkernel, which does build initrds, but I haven't been able to make an initrd that'll boot a -normal- system without tons of module errors, and adding the FasTrak driver module into an already built initrd is a huge pain as well, something else I haven't gotten working. Anyone have a good link to a guide to making initrds and specifically dealing with module headache and describing how the initrd then boots the system off the real_root partition?

'course, i'd also settle for a howto on tricking the kernel into linking the module directly into the kernel, that'd do the same thing...

"Looks like it's not out yet "

[bonch]

Does it disturb anyone else that:

* The headline is completely wrong--the 2004.0 file everyone is downloading is the EXPERIMENTAL pre-release that's been sitting on FTPs for a while.

* As a result, everyone and their mothers are reporting now that it is out. #gentoo has been fielding people left and right over it. Thanks, Slashdot.

* Hemos mentions it in passing with a "Looks like it's not out yet - stay tuned for more information" at the very bottom of the blurb. Uh, mind changing the headline then that says it's released? A bunch of people are downloading the experimental now.

Thanks for the journalistic integrity, Slashdot--again.