Gentoo Linux Announces Gentoo Linux 2004.1

Keppy writes "The departure of Daniel Robbins hasn't dented the progress of Gentoo Linux with version 2004.1 being released. ... please support Gentoo by purchasing something from the online store. The Gentoo homepage also has a short message about the future of Gentoo Linux now that Daniel has left. ' Robbat2 writes with an excerpt from the linked announcement: "Please consult our mirror index for download locations and the Gentoo Linux Installation Handbook for detailed installation instructions. Support for Gentoo Linux 2004.1 can be found through our user community by way of the Gentoo Forums, IRC, and various community mailing-lists. Release notes for each architecture can be found linked from the Gentoo Linux Release Engineering project page."

Comments

Give it a go.

[caluml]

If you have never tried Gentoo, you should give it a try. Contrary to popular belief, you can have the base installed and running in 15 minutes, and from then you just emerge the packages you want. gentoo-dev-sources, openssh, sysklogd, vixie-cron, at, ntp, whatever.
The documentation is brilliant, and all the defaults for the packages are sensible, and well thought out.
When I install a box, I do it at about 4pm. Give it 30 mins to configure, and install a new kernel, reboot, and leave it to emerge -u world ; emerge kde mozilla overnight.
Couple of things though - emerge ufed, and gentoolkit - ufed is a gui for editting USE flags, and gentoolkit contains qpkg.

A very brief doc I knocked up is here. It's probably slightly out of date by now, but you get the idea.

Upgrading is not needed

[BuddieFox]

Actually, with the Gentoo portage, current Gentoo users should be the ones least interested in new Gentoo distributions, since Gentoos portage allows updating of components to "the latest version" regardless of what cd-version you used to install it.

To me the greatest benefit of Gentoo is this: I do not need to blow a machine clean and install a new version or risk a lot with an uncertain install of large packages, I just gradually update my system as new versions become available!

And contrary to popular belief, Gentoo is pretty "user friendly" since it allows "on the fly updating". But this is of course once you actually have your system working flawlessly to begin with.. :)

Upgrade

[barcodez]

I'm assuming one can upgrade by doing the following:

#emerge sync
#emerge -DUu world

(oh and upgrading to the latest kernel that will be in /usr/src/ after the emerge)

Could someone confirm or deny?

Best Gentoo Utility!

[Anonymous Coward]

By far is esearch. "emerge esearch" will get you a suite of utilities that will index the portage tree and make it easier and faster to search the package descriptions. It will also sync and show you any new or updated packages since the last time you synced. A great addition to any Gentoo machine.

etc-update

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget to run etc-update after you upgrade; that way you can merge any changes to the config files in /etc. (hence the name "etc-update")

IMPORTANT!!!!: make damn sure you know what you are doing before running etc-update!!!! It is very easy to bork your system if you're not paying attention. Read the manpage and check with the forums before using it.

Re:Upgrade

[gandalf013]

First of all, it is a pretty bad idea to use -U (--upgradeonly), because if the latest version of a package has some bug (either in the software itself, or in the ebuild), then you may well need to downgrade it (and portage will downgrade it [if needed] if you use the -u option). emerge -u is the Right Way.

For the OP, emerge -upv world to see what will be upgraded, and then do an emerge -uv world to actually upgrade it (or you can upgrade only the packages you want to upgrade from the list).

emerge -upv tells you which packages will be upgraded, and with what options (USE flags in Gentoo speak). -p is for pretend, while -v means verbose. Always a good idea before going ahead and doing the actual upgrade.

Of course, with Gentoo, you never need to download the new distribution to make sure you stay current. Just do emerge -u world (after an emerge sync), and you have the latest version.

Gentoo vs. Slackware

[Anonymous Coward]

Good day,

I literally just moved my home computer from Slackware 9.1 to Gentoo 2004.0 last week (ok, over the course of the last week!) and I have to say that it is indeed the slickest Linux distribution I have ever used!

I still run Slackware 9.1 on my laptop, which has 5/3 the memory and a CPU twice as fast as my home computer - but my new Gentoo box actually runs about TWICE as fast!! It's amazing how compiling everything w/ -O3 and -march=XXX really makes a huge difference. Last night I was simultaneously compiling OpenOffice, Evolution and Gimp, with no slowdown at all in my web browzing, development, etc!

Also, nvidia, sound, FB, kernel 2.6.5 worked the first time, plus it has thousands of packages to download (everything I need), and boots faster than Windows did on my faster machine (by ~8-15 seconds, depending on my readings).

One more thing - Portage is even more user-friendly than downloading *.tgz from linuxpackages.net and running installpkg. It searches for the right version from various mirrors, then downloads, does MD5 checking, and compiles automatically, and maintains a nifty little log, and checks for all dependencies. Also - it provides the most freedom I've seen in a distribution - nothing I don't need or want is installed. Getting evolution to be optimized to my machine is just a matter of typing "# emerge evolution"

Gentoo is indeed fan-freaking-tastic (if you have the patience to compile everything from scratch).

A. Coward

Re:Gentoo is one of the best linux distribs, and h

[D-Cypell]

Anyhow, whatever *nix one chooses, it handily beats Windoze over the head except for gaming

And hardware support... The only reason my laptop is still running XP is that my wireless card refuses to run.

After a bit of hunting it seems that the problem is an IRQ conflict between the inbuilt LAN card (which cant be disabled in the BIOS) and the IRQ that the PCMCIA tries to grab when initializing the card.

The card works in windows without a hitch.

I dare say that someone with skills beyond mine in Linux could probably get it working, but for now im stuck in windows, as are most of the computer using population.

Re:One more thing

[ScottGant]

Gentoo emerge -UD world FUCKS UP configuration files.

um..if you knew anything about Gentoo then you would know that it doesn't touch configuration files, if there is a new config file it will rename the NEW file as something like /etc/._cfg0000_gentoo-release while keeping the original /etc/gentoo-release untouched.

After the emerge it will tell you that some files config files need to be looked at, a simple:

find /etc -iname '._cfg????_*'

will give you a list of the config files that need updating. Yes. Gentoo even informs you how to find these files. and nice big fat: "use 'emerge --help config' message is staring you right in the face if any new config files need updating.

This isn't something you can just bypass. Nice try. But please, give us a little credit if you're going to make something up!

Re:Gentoo is one of the best linux distribs, and h

[Lussarn]

uncomplicated upgrades.
This is the only reason I switched all servers where I work over to gentoo. We need some special builds and such. I don't have time to download/compile by hand. Of all distros I have used Gentoo is the easiest to maintain and keep up to date.

It would be nice with a more enterprise geared gentoo though. It is very fast with upgrades to new packages, might break something. Doesn't happen often but if it does it's often easy to fix.

For the desktop there is no competition. Gentoo is the easiest "bleeding edge distro" to maintain. Alot of unstable packages to test out. And no need to go fully unstable if you only need a few packages.

Now I have about 10 different gentoo boxes at work to take care of. Every friday it takes about an hour of work to upgrade them. Could probably handle 20-30 with not much more time spent.

Re:Gentoo is one of the best linux distribs, and h

[Dalcius]

I want to avoid scaring people away from Gentoo, but I do want to make it clear to Slashdotters that this isn't just like falling off of a log.

In short, here are some negative things to keep in mind:

• Gentoo is built from source code. This means it can take an entire weekend (Friday night included) to get a system built, or longer depending on your CPU/RAM/HDD. This also means your Mozilla install isn't a trivial event. ;)
• If you have problems, you're in a 'brave new world' so to speak. If you don't have a handle on the situation, it might require outside help and research to solve the problem.
• Problems come up on their own. Since programs are compiled and linked against each other and many libraries, when versions change, problems can arise in certain setups, especially new ones. Sometimes an install will fail simply because someone @ Gentoo didn't dot their i. Normal solution: report it and/or just wait a few days and the problem is almost always resolved on their end.
• This is not a click-n-install, auto-magic-detection distro. You will be using the command line for most administration. Don't confuse me here, your desktop is very graphical (and quite nice!) and you've got all the good applications for email, browsing, etc. But administration is a command line task. This distro is not for you if you would rather drink curdled milk than use a command line.

In turn, here are some more (and some repeated from the parent post) good points from my view:

• You can compile any program under the sun on your box, but for those that are offered by Gentoo you have some handy features available. All the information for available applications but the source code is stored on your computer. This means it's searchable. "emerge -s xmms" will give you a long list of plugins and other xmms (think WinAMP) related items.
• Installing programs is one command. Want gaim? "emerge gaim" and come back in 5-10 minutes. Everything is downloaded, md5sum checked, and installed. No hunting for the latest versions of RPMs for your distro or grabbing a tarball yourself. Easy peasy.
• Updating your system to the also a breeze. Update your local copy of all of the package installation files mentioned above (known as the Portage tree) with "emerge sync". In about 5 minutes, come back and run "emerge world -UD" and every package on your system will be upgraded to the latest available.
• Community is there. Almost any problem can be found in the Gentoo Forums, and most all of them have solutions. I solve most of my problems with a quick search. Second to that, I check the bugzilla repository. Very rarely do I have a problem which isn't at least mentioned in either location, and most have a solution. But if you need interactive help, the IRC channel can be very helpful! I haven't spent much time in there, but when I do drop by there are generally at least two people getting help.
• Gentoo's install guide is very detailed and geared towards novices. If you don't run into problems, for the most part you can just cut and paste commands to install. ;)
• Because of the way you install Gentoo, you become much more familiar with the way Linux works under the hood (GUI) and can, from there, be better able to solve any problems you run into. You also step into the realm of being able to install and maintain your own servers (www, ssh, ftp, mail, etc.) with your newfound systems knowledge. And it makes a good resume item. :)
• Gentoo is bare bones, as mentioned in the parent. Nothing on the system you don't want there. This makes for a great feeling of 'having a handle on things.' :)

Gentoo is for the computer user who likes to customize his environment and have control and know what is what. If you just want to 'use' your computer, go get Mandrake or Fedora or Windows. If you like

Re:One more thing

[B1]

After the emerge it will tell you that some files config files need to be looked at, a simple:

find /etc -iname '._cfg????_*'

Actually, you can also do:

'etc-update'

This will walk you through the config files that need to be updated, and let you decide whether you want to accept the changes wholesale, discard the changes, or manually merge them in (it will even show you the differences between old and new).

Re:Yeah, library versioning could be better

[loginx]

qpkg -q libfoo sounds like what you are looking for.

Re:Gentoo unrealistic for production environments

[temojen]

Incredibly short release cycle obsoletes software too quickly

So only update when there is a security or stability fix that effects you.

Poor package maintenance and broken builds are increasingly common

You should have very few packages on a server. (For me it's (Apache, SSHD, mod_php) or (SSHD, postgres) or (SSHD, OpenLDAP, Courier))

Compilation is stressful on hardware but performance benefits have not been proven

So maintain a local portage tree and build binary packages for distribution across your server farm. You only need to build each package once. You could even set up distcc if you expect to have spare cycles on some of your servers

USE flags have limited flexibility and are more of an annoyance than a benefit

Is there a way in Debian or commercial distros to tell Qt to compile with support for Postgres or MySQL so you can install Rekall on your desktops (without recompiling it manually)? Is there a way to tell Courier whether or not to include support for OpenLDAP, MySQL, or Postgres?