Gentoo for Mac OS X Released

joeljkp writes "According to today's Gentoo Weekly News, Gentoo has released a new project: Gentoo MacOS (sic). This new distribution adds Portage, Gentoo's package manager, to Mac OS X, among other things."

Comments

Full Text (images already /.'ed)

[Anonymous Coward]

Gentoo News
-----------

"Apple, we have a problem" - Gentoo MacOS X Released

Figure 1.1: Derived from Apple's 'Redmond, we have a problem' campaign:
The Gentoo MacOS announcement
http://www.gentoo.org/images/gwn/200 40719_macos_pr oblem.png

Almost exactly one year after the idea of porting Portage to MacOS X came
up - and the joint Metapkg initiative[1] between Fink, Darwinports and
Gentoo took off - a 20-head-strong developer team around Pieter van den
Abeele[2] (strategic lead) and Daniel Ostrow[3] (operational) is now ready
to release an extraordinary beast into the wild: Gentoo MacOS. They
deliver on a promise no other Linux distribution has been daring enough to
make yet: Portage on MacOS is now fully operational, seamlessly integrated
as a package manager in a non-Linux operating system. It initially serves
the main purpose of an SDK for inclusion of new packages, testing and
patching. Granted, KDE isn't ported yet, but make no mistake: Gentoo MacOS
is ready for consumption by Macintosh users who want, say, scientific DTP
via TeX, something they will now be able to simply emerge in OS X just
like they'd do in Gentoo Linux."Right now it's a tool to install lots of
commonly requested applications on OS X", explains Pieter van den Abeele.
"But in a few months, we'll have a port system that builds Darwin from
scratch, provides a standardised lookup and installation routine for
Dashboard widgets[4], enhancements and tools like the Desktop Manager[5]
and many, many more popular OS X applications." Downloading the Gentoo
MacOS Installer provides users with a patched portage, its tree, and the
Python modules. It sets environment variables and demands a bootstrapping
shell script to be run before the first emerge that detects the operating
system (Panther or Tiger), chooses the relevant profiles and injects every
application it finds already installed in MacOS X.

1. http://www.metapkg.org
2. pvdabeel gentoo.org
3. dostrow gentoo.org
4. http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/dashboard.html
5. http://wsmanager.sourceforge.net/

Figure 1.2: Taming the Tiger with a double-click: The Gentoo MacOS
Installer
http://www.gentoo.org/images/gwn /20040719_macos_in staller.png

Since Gentoo's own GCC ebuild for MacOS X isn't ready yet, compiling is
currently done using the Xcode development tools[6] which include GCC 3.3
provided by Apple. "People already on Tiger can experiment with GCC 3.5",
adds Pieter. Tiger, the new release of MacOS X, is due in 2005 with its
brandnew database filesystem Spotlight[7], modernised video services and
many other features. The Gentoo MacOS developers are busy polishing the
knobs (a Cocoa user interface is part of the plan), getting iSync[8]
integration to work (emerge an application on one machine, automatically
replicate onto all other Macs in a LAN), right down to making Catalyst
produce Darwin LiveCDs... "But first the cool stuff, then Darwin",
chuckles strategic lead Pieter. Even though his team is already larger
than the entire Gentoo Linux PPC developer group, they still train new
devs almost daily, and whoever wants to help with the project is very
welcome to get in touch. The public Wiki[9] holds installation
instructions and serves as a reporting tool for packages outside of
Portage that already compile without bombing out. The Gentoo MacOS
Installer can be downloaded from here[10].

6. http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/xcode.html
7. http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/spotlighttech.ht ml
8. http://www.apple.com/isync/
9. http://gentoo-wiki.com/Gentoo_MacOS
10. http://www.metadistribution.org/macos/
Full size (1024x768) screenshots of the Gentoo MacOS installation
procedure:
* Installer starts[11]
* Detection of OS version and installed software[12]
* Still busy injecting detected

Re:Full Text (images already /.'ed)

[loosifer]

But Spotlight is just indexing the same metadata that is in HFS+ under Jaguar, plus data that it pulls out of the file, not out of the filesystem. There is significant improvement in the mechanism and the interface, but it is not a "database filesystem."

As far as I can tell, that is incorrect; Dominic (the authoer of BeFS) has added additional metadata capabilities to HFS+, so Spotlight is actually 1) indexing that metadata, and 2) using interpreters to pull and index data from various file formats. See those post, for instance. While I agree that this does not create a true database filesystem, I would say that it's close to what BeOS had, which is the closest anyone has come.

I must admit interest in MS's claim that they're going to create a true database filesystem; while it is obviously technically feasible, it's just as stupid now as it was years ago when Be decided to back off theirs. Thus, I expect MS to produce a solution that does what they said it would do while sucking so much that no one uses it. It will be interesting to watch.

As to the claim that Apple is just doing all front-end stuff while MS is actually doing technology, I call baloney on that one. Apple has been good recently at creating and then utilyzing really good technology (although it's usually protocols, not servers). All of the technology available via .Mac is available to everyone, even if the servers themselves aren't. I can (and did) create a WebDAV server to store and share my calendars, and I can mount this WebDAV server as a local filesystem. Rendezvous/Zeroconf is another good example of a tech that Apple has developed, championed, and then been a real leader on.

I agree that there are big differences, though: Spotlight is based on proven technology and will surely arrive in 2005, while WinFS is a huge gamble, will increase costs dramatically (both licensing and maintenance), and will also arrive no earlier than 2006, without actually being based on proven tech at all. If their history is anything to go by, it will be 2010 or so before WinFS is usable.

Re:Full Text (images already /.'ed)

[Qamelian]

"while WinFS is a huge gamble, will increase costs dramatically (both licensing and maintenance), and will also arrive no earlier than 2006, without actually being based on proven tech at all. If their history is anything to go by, it will be 2010 or so before WinFS is usable."

MS has already announced that WinFS is being withdrawn from Longhorn along with several other technologies, all of which have now been pushed back to the following Windows release("Blackcomb"). This was a result of basically two factors. First, there were too many difficulties in hitting the target dates unless some items were dropped. Second, too many third-party developers were at best apathetic over the concept of supporting some of the features, most notably Microsoft's "Trusted Computing" platform.

Re:Full Text (images already /.'ed)

[Elwood P Dowd]

I'd already read the article you link to. It is what I base my point on. There are additional metadata capabilities in Tiger, but they are not part of the fileystem. Your ID3 tags are not being stored in HFS+ metadata. Everyone who thinks that HFS+ will have user-extendable metadata or a database-driven filesystem will be disappointed. It is not a database filesystem. That's perfectly OK with me.

As to the claim that Apple is just doing all front-end stuff while MS is actually doing technology, I call baloney on that one.

You seem to misunderstand. I called it MS's "pie in the sky" technology for a reason. My analogy is a good one.

I agree that there are big differences, though: Spotlight is based on proven technology and will surely arrive in 2005, while WinFS is a huge gamble, will increase costs dramatically (both licensing and maintenance), and will also arrive no earlier than 2006, without actually being based on proven tech at all.

You say that as if you had made the point, rather than me.

Re:Cool

[Wally Fenderson]

Still waiting for the commodore 64 version, myself.

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

there already is a distribution for xbox that is based on gentoo.
its called http://gentoox.shallax.com/

-Jonathan

Server, we have a problem

[Petronius]

3 posts and it's already slashdotted. nice.

I see that it's a catchy headline, but ...

[burgburgburg]

how exactly is this a problem for Apple?

Yea, and?

[soybean]

What does this do that fink doesn't already (for the last few years) do?

Re:Yea, and?

[hunterx11]

This one goes to 11.

Re:Yea, and?

[justforaday]

What does this do that fink doesn't already (for the last few years) do?

Well, this one can compile the packages from source. Oh wait, Fink already does that...Yeah, how does this really differ from the Fink project, other than being based on Gentoo's portage system?

Re:Yea, and?

[Otter]

I could well just be missing something, but I've had a lot of problems with the selection granularity in fink -- e.g. trying to build x-chat without dragging in all of GNOME. USE flags would be a very nice alternative.

Re:Yea, and?

[Massacrifice]

I recently moved bask from Gentoo-PPC to Mac OS X + Fink lately after my Linux HD crashed, so I'll tell you what I am missing the most about Gentoo.

First, there are a quite a bunch of advanced build options in Portage that are not available under Fink (see /etc/make.conf). USE variable, easy distcc, easy ccache, powerful package query... These are things that you can't go without once you've tried them.

Fink is nice, but its package tree is smaller and less up to date than Portage is. Besides, nobody will prevent you from having both.

Apart from Portage, Gentoo offers multiple system management facilities. I don't know if these will be ported, but things like rc-update (init script management) and java-config really help.

Finally, I think that what will set Gentoo-MacOS apart from Fink is the number of developper and community size. That is something that cannot be duplicated.

emerge karmawhore

[Stevyn]

Gentoo is one of the best distros out there. I use it on x86 and it was easy to install and set up. I had more trouble on mandrake than on gentoo. The best thing it has going for it is portage. This system of automatically downloading and compiling software is only appriciated when you've gone through RPM hell or dependency hell when compiling from scratch. I was using mandrake previously, and this is definately faster. I encourage everyone who uses a distro like mandrake, fedora, or SuSE to look into gentoo.

I've only been using linux for a few months and gentoo for a week or so but I already see how well produced it is. I used to get annoyed at gentoo zealots, but I see what they were talking about.

Oh, and the compiling software isn't that bad. I've spent more time searching for packages and dependecies than typing "emerge k3b". Don't believe all the hype of course, but don't believe the FUD either. Gentoo is where it's at!

Now to make this a little more on-topic, I'm happy that gentoo is trying to make more headway into apple hardware. I think that this will only encourage apple to help and contribute to the OSS community even more. MacOS is probably the most refined modern operating system, but giving it a little more competition can't hurt.

Re:emerge karmawhore

[Bold Marauder]

Personally, on x86 I had far more problems with setting up gentoo (I have to compile a kernel during the installation? how fucked up is that?) than I ever had with using packages under mandrake (particularly when using easy urpmi.

I mean, different stroke for different folks, certainly. But gentoo's strenth is its' ability to squeeze 0.0008 percent more processing power out of your 2.4ghz computer; not ease of use or installation. That arena is where (imho) mandrake really shines.

Re:emerge karmawhore

[Joseph Vigneau]

gentoo's strenth is its' ability to squeeze 0.0008 percent more processing power out of your 2.4ghz computer

Actually, that is not Gentoo's primary strength. Its strength is from the amount of flexibility that portage provides for package dependency. With binary-oriented distributions, you are forced to use the same configuration settings that were chosen by the package maintainer. Portage has the concept of "USES", which is basically a list of flags that the build uses to figure out what options to use during compilation. For example, many packages can be integrated with GNOME. I don't use GNOME. With other distributions, if the package was built with GNOME dependencies, I'd be forced to install GNOME. If the package was built without GNOME, some GNOME user wouldn't be able to take advantage of GNOME-specific features. With Portage, you can specify via the USES variable whether or not you want to have a dependancy on GNOME or not. As a side effect, you get the CPU-optimization "for free".

Re:emerge karmawhore

[bob670]

I'm going to agree with you on all points. I bought a Shuttle SK41G, GeForce4, Athlon XP 2000+ and 2x256 DDR a few weeks ago. From out of the box, assembly time and then OS install was about one hour 15 minutes with all hardware recognized correctly, all updates installed and a usable desktop, office suite, Internet tools, etc... A quick install of the nVidia driver updates and some extra software gooodness via urpmi and I was off and running in about 90 minutes.

Compared to a couple days to get the same results with Gentoo, which is an outstanding distro, but not the distro to break Linux onto the mainstream desktop. Any casual PC user who has built a gaming PC or even tinkered around with his Dell could get Mandrake up and usable in less than an hour, Gentoo however is another story. Of course Gentoo wasn't aimed at that market, but the parent poster can't possibly paint Gentoo as easy to install and not expect some rebuttals.

Re:emerge karmawhore

[javiercero]

He was just giving an example, you anal retentive geek....

Re:emerge karmawhore

[Sloppy]

Compiling everything will take more time than you will ever save by adding a few optimizations!

Sorry, but my time is valuable

Your time is valuable, but the computer's time is not. I recommend you use a program called "gcc" to compile, instead of manually translating C into machine language by hand. What this will allow you to do, is have the computer do all this compiling work, while you can do anything you want (write a program, sleep, watch a movie, drink beer, hang out under the escalator at the mall and try to look up girls' dresses, send radio messages to the UFOs to try to get them to return Elvis -- almost anything!), without it taking any of your time.

Linux has changed a lot since 1957. I'm tellin' ya, these fully automated compilers are the shit!!

Gentoo MacOS?

[Anonymous Coward]

um, isn't that 'Gentoo MacOS' a tad misleading? It's like calling x86 Linux 'Linux Windows'

Re:Gentoo MacOS?

[Noksagt]

um, isn't that 'Gentoo MacOS' a tad misleading? It's like calling x86 Linux 'Linux Windows'
No--this isn't an OS (gentoo has run on the Mac hardware for sometime). Rather it is a native OS X port of portage and other gentoo utilities. It would be like calling cygwin "cygwin" (in other words Cygnus + GNU on windows).

Am I missing something?

[Moofie]

I read that blurb, and I still don't know what the significance of this release is.

"Right now, you can use it to install TeX! Someday, you might be able to install some other stuff!"

I mean, I suppose this is kool and the gang, but what is the problem that is being solved here? Maybe I'm just not clear on the concept.

In case you don't get it.

[torpor]

This means (sorta, as in 'soon') that a Mac-user will be able to rebuild their own OSX box, using the Gentoo scripts, and still be able to maintain compatability with all OSX apps.

In other words, a 'better build system: a public one' has been unleashed on a commercial operating system, so that - separate from the company itself - alternative builds of the OS can be done, publically.

Why is this good? Because with Gentoo you can take personal risks that Apple can't. Gentoo allows you to build a system "Just for You", whereas Apple have to compile/link things "For Everyone".

Expect to see highly-tuned Gentoo boxes running GentooMacOS in the future, smokin' 'Factory OS' setups. I'll be digging into this a bit further, next point release sort of thing, and if I get the same results out of applying Gentoo to my OSX machine as I have with my Linux boxes, I'm excited. I may man I can put off a hardware upgrade or two and just 'Take Things To The Next Level' on my aging Powerbook...

Oh, and in case you think Apple should be 'worried about' this, it seems to me that they already get the point. With all the OS releases they've been doing lately, and the upgrades/improvements in the one area 'open source' is lacking: usability, and it seems to me that they're positioned well to be 'competing with the Open Source Base' ... but thats just my personal opinion.

Re:In case you don't get it.

[mikrorechner]

In other words, a 'better build system: a public one' has been unleashed on a commercial operating system, so that - separate from the company itself - alternative builds of the OS can be done, publically.

I think you forgot that while the source for Darwin, the system "under the hood" of OS X, is available, the UI is not. That means no Quartz, Spotlight or Core Image technologies, and no applications like the Finder or Expose.

Now, who would want a Mac without all this? That stuff, among other, makes it special. If you want only the underlying system, you can install OpenBSD right now.

Re:In case you don't get it.

[torpor]

You can still -RUN- all that stuff, its just that Gentoo will let you fine-tune all the goodness (kernel, system /bin's, /usr/bin's, etc) even further, around it, and yet still maintain a fully working properly configured system.

This one really does go up to 11.

And since its Open Source, Apple can instantly turn around, and start using it themselves.

Its not "Apple, we have a problem.", its "Apple, we have source."

They (Apple) certainly get the point...

Re:In case you don't get it.

[goMac2500]

I'm not sure you understand what this is... It is basically a Gentoo package manager, allowing you to downwload and compile Linux programs on OS X. Yes, it does sound like it could build the Darwin kernel. No, this will not magically make your computer faster. Apple has worked hard to ensure Darwin is already extremely fast. Not only that, their kernal extension system already disables kernal extensions you don't need. If anything the bottleneck is in Aqua, most likely in Windowserver. You cannot simply use a different Windowserver (like X11) and expect all your OS X apps to run. Windowserver contains a lot of custom code to create memory space foundations unique for Cocoa and Carbon (gotta load those Carbon resource files into memory). Windowserver is not open source and not able to be recompiled. There is no magical way to make X run faster. And I hate to break it to you... but Linux is starting to get just as slow with X11.

That's why the Metapkg Alliance was formed

[Shinzaburo]

The Metapkg Alliance was formed explicitly to improve cooperation between Fink, Gentoo, and DarwinPorts. Besides, have you actually tried Gentoo MacOS yet? Perhaps it offers (or will eventually offer) a significantly large value proposition over the other port distributors. Only time will tell.

My Only Question

[tunabomber]

Will it handle the X11 dependency gracefully? I spent many, many hours trying to get Fink either to recognize that I had XFree86 installed as a binary or to compile it from source without getting errors all over the place. I'm not a newbie to package managers like apt and ports, but despite this I eventually ended up giving up trying to install X11 apps with Fink because I just didn't have the time to spend trying to get it to work properly. As a result, I am now using Quicken instead of GNUCash.

Re:OK, so...

[doodlelogic]

where do I download the source code for OSX?

Uhm... here?

Oh the, err for want of a better word, 'Humanity'!

[Thud457]

Dear God, No!

All idiotic zealtory of Gentoo with all the, well, mindless zealotry of Mac! A winning combination!

Re:Fink?

[Shinzaburo]

Gentoo MacOS brings the Gentoo Portage package management system to Mac OS X. Yes, it provides functionality similar to Fink and DarwinPorts, and all three solutions have agreed to cooperate in the future.

Portage seems to have several advantages over the other package management tools, including the following summary from the Portage manual:

Multiple versions and revisions of the same package in the tree, conditional dependency resolution and feature support, fine-grained package management, sandboxed safe installation, configuration file protection, profiles, and much more.

Re:make sense?

[Joseph Vigneau]

Ask these guys.

I don't think you get it

[Shinzaburo]

I don't think the parent poster "forgot" that the Mac OS X UI source isn't available for custom compiles. That's not what Gentoo MacOS is about -- it's about being able to easily install and update popular *nix software on Mac OS X.

Who would want a Mac without Quartz, Spotlight, etc? I certainly wouldn't give up these features. But some people might want to use alternate desktop managers on Apple hardware. Just because you're not interested in doing so doesn't mean there is no reason for others to want to.

Besides, you don't necessarily have to forgo the Finder and Exposé to use Gentoo MacOS. It's a package manager, and as such can install a bunch of *nix tools that work alongside Mac OS X without replacing it.

Re:Yes! Finally! Optimized MacOS!

[Antihero77]

Doesn't anyone know the right compiler flags? Does O4 work on a Mac?! AWESOME! I'm going to go recompile my Gentoo in celebration of this huge day.

See ya in 6 months.

Not true

[Anonymous Coward]

Shallax has been kicked off gentoo because he refused to work as part of a team or commit the xbox patches back to gentoo. At this point in time gentoox has nothing to do with gentoo, and he is violating the "gentoo" trademark by using the name.

how's its hygiene?

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the most awesomeliest things about Fink is that it installs everything in root /sw, no exceptions (i.e. /sw/bin, /sw/usr/lib, etc). That means you don't have to worry about contaminating the Apple-controlled parts of the OS, and uninstalling all customizations is just a matter of trashing /sw. I would never even think of installing anything in /usr or /usr/local (because it "belongs" to Apple).

Does Gentoo MacOS do the same thing? If not, why not????

Re:how's its hygiene?

[Anonymous Coward]

Installing in /sw is the stupidest part about fink. It should be /opt at worst, but /usr/local is perfectly safe to use. It's just a lot easier to use that way. It's a cinch to compile external apps from source because they already know how to deal with /usr/local. It was a pain in the butt trying to get all the right flags when fink was installed in /sw. Apple will not touch stuff that you put in /usr/local. They don't "own" that directory. It exists for the very purpose of the administrator installing his own packages. The "danger" of installing to /usr/local is overstated and you should just ignore fink's stupid warnings.

If it turns out that Gentoo/MacOS does install to a stupid non-standard directory, I'm going to be very unhappy.

Re:how's its hygiene?

[Anonymous Coward]

Judging by the screenshot here:
http://www.metadistribution.org/macos/8.png

It seems that it puts stuff into /usr/bin

I don't know what the effects of that would be on an OS X system.

Re:how's its hygiene?

[akiro]

http://gentoo-wiki.com/Gentoo_MacOS

From the documentation: "Portage installs things in / and could possibly overwrite important packages that were installed by OS X. Use this technology at your own risk!".

I think I'll stick to fink for now, they could at least have used /usr/local and not mess with / :-/

Re:Let's get it straight...

[Anonymous Coward]

..." I DON'T want linux software..."

Is someone twisting your arm to install OSS stuff?

Re:OK, so...

[Anonymous Coward]

Aqua : OS X :: Gnome : Linux

OS X is Darwin, but OS X also includes additional software. As in all Unixes, the GUI in OS X is not an integral part of the operating system. There are even OS X users who boot to a console, and then run X if they want a GUI.

Re:Let's get it straight...

[halivar]

I WAN'T MacOS software, it's user friendliness, simplicity, consistency and excelent graphical core with all that eye candy on my x86 machine. Without a loss of speed. Clear enough?

And I WANT a Ferrari Testarossa that gets 40 miles to the gallon. AND I want laser beams on the hood! Clear enough?

Re:OK, so...

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

Nice try, but no. The point of Gentoo MacOS is to use Apple's well-designed, proprietary OS with popular, open-source applications. If you want, go get Gentoo for Macintosh hardware / PPC, but you'll lose the benefits of Mac OS X. Not everything has to be open-sourced; frankly, there would be no was OS X could have reached the state it is in now had it been developed open source. There wouldn't have been enough incentive for Apple's talented developers, and management wouldn't have been motivated to include it with Apple computers.

Partially working for solaris too

[Stonent1]

Portaris, Portage on Solaris

Just something I've toyed around with. The major stumbling block is that the developers need to add the ability for portage to recognize other oses. Mine isn't really a complete project, more of a log of stuff I've done. Others have followed and managed to get things like KDE to fully install in solaris using portage.

Re:I have a bad feeling...

[Woody77]

In Soviet Redmond, the 11 goes to you?

Repeat once again: WinFS is NOT a filesystem !

[theefer]

I must admit interest in MS's claim that they're going to create a true database filesystem

I read this occasionally on /., but it is wrong. WinFS is not a (database) filesystem, and this is why the FS in WinFS does not stand for FileSystem but FutureStorage (there must have been a contest to find such a stupid name). WinFS is a database over NTFS that remains the filesystem. It just adds meta-data to files, but in a separate database.

I went to a mini-conference by a ms evangelist, and he repeated it many times.

I'd be more interested in what Reiser4 does with metadata, it seems much more interesting than a mere additionnal layer.