Gentoo Linux 2004.2: What You See Is What You Get

editingwhiz writes "Jem Matzan has a cogent analysis of the new Gentoo Linux 2004.2 on Linux.com: "Gentoo Linux is the BSD of GNU/Linux distributions; it's elegant and customizable and you know exactly what you're getting when you install it. No mystery programs, no packages that you have to deinstall because you'll never use, no clutter, and everything is customized to your needs. If you do it right, Gentoo is also faster than your average GNU/Linux distro because everything can be compiled with higher compiler optimizations." (Linux.com is part of the OSTG network.)" Jem also has some criticism of the current version of Gentoo's AMD64 version.

Comments

WYSIWYG

[alatesystems]

What you see and what you get is a bash prompt on the cd boot. It is worse than slackware on the install, unless you get that new-fangled(yes I know red hat uses it and has forever) Anaconda working, but who does that anyway?

Gentoo is great though because you can send a friend a cd and have him pop it in and forward port 22 and do /etc/init.d/sshd start; passwd and then you can remote in and install linux for them, or in my case, on a colo that had a bad hard drive.

I like gentoo, but to set it up right takes quite a while and a lot of patience.

Chris

Re:WYSIWYG

[ComputerSlicer23]

Anaconda can be run from the command line.

Start by fetching a couple of files off of the RedHat boot disk. From the images directory, you'll want to grab the boot floppy you need (depends on if you plan on doing a network or cdrom based install).

In my example, I grabbed bootdisk.img, and I put it in tmp. You'll also need RedHat/base/stage2.img also.

cd /tmp ;
mkdir bootdisk
mount -o loop bootdisk.img /tmp/bootdisk
cp /tmp/bootdisk/initrd.img /tmp/initrd.img.gz
gunzip initrd.img.gz
mkdir initrd
mount -o loop initrd.img /tmp/initrd
mkdir stage2
mount -o loop stage2.img /tmp/stage2
mkdir install-root
( cd initrd ; tar cvf - . ) | ( cd /tmp/install-root ; tar xf - )
( cd stage2 ; tar cvf - . ) | ( cd /tmp/install-root ; tar xf - )
mount -t proc none /tmp/install-root/proc
chroot /tmp/install-root/ /usr/bin/anaconda --method http://pub.whitebox.mirror/whitebox/3.0/en/os/i386 --text

That starts the installer running, and is attempting to do a network install from whatever website you replace "pub.whitebox.mirror" with (you probably have to adjust the rest of the URL, but it's the path I use on my local whitebox mirror).

The installer starts to run at that point. I had to run it from the console, and I was intentionally in run level 3 rather then 5 (I should have gone to single user mode, but I was lazy). I get a nice curses application at this point. It got all the way to the part where it wanted me to repartition my disk. I have no free partitions to actually attempt an install. However, I'm fairly sure I could have finished the install (if I couldn't the heavy lifting was pretty much done with, it would have been a series of small problems to overcome).

It's a bit of pain, and there's probably an easier way to do it, but that's how I figured out how to run the installer in less then 30 minutes after reading your message. (I remember reading on the WhiteBox lists that it should be possible to just start a remote install via an SSH session, but I've never actually seen the procedure written up). I figured it couldn't be that hard. Anaconda is nothing more then a python script that runs. It needs a bit of runtime support, but nothing special.

Kirby

easy fix for that...

[oldosadmin]

echo 'net-www/mozilla-firefox ~x86' >> /etc/portage/package.keywords

or if you care that much, just run ~x86.

Kernels

[keesh]

I don't think the author understands gentoo's kernel naming system... gentoo-sources is 2.4.x, gentoo-dev-sources is 2.6.x. The only reason they've not been merged is that portage is rather too happy to upgrade slotted versions. The -dev- part doesn't indicate that it's any less stable.

Oh, and there is no default kernel on gentoo. You install whatever you want :)

Re:ebuilds still fly out fast

[keesh]

That's because mozilla source tarballs don't compile when shipped. The last three mozilla/firefox releases have all been either broken or incomplete from a compiling-from-source perspective. The current bunch doesn't compile properly with freetype+gtk2 enabled.

The GLSA is getting there, but it's kinda hard when upstream don't release working tarballs... Debian et al have it easy, they only have to make it build on one box with one set of configure options. Gentoo has to make it compile anywhere with any set of build settings.

Optimisations generator

[Anonymous Coward]

Great to see more coverage for my fave distro. Gentoo doesn't get the exposure it deserves, which is a shame as it has a bright future ahead. Anyway, having installed it on various boxes and trying to make the most of my hardware, I put together a script that generates the most appropriate optimisations (CFLAGS) based on your hardware. All you need to do is set the options and you're ready to go:

Gentoo Optimisations Generator

Gentoo is looking for feedback

[viniosity]

Looks like the Gentoo folks put up a survey intended for current users asking for feedback. I hope posting that link here doesn't result in flames or bogus responses.. they have enough work to do without trolls so please answer responsibly.

Re:I'd like to see that quantified

[GimmeFuel]

Easy. Just specify CFLAGS on the commandline. If your CLFAGS in make.conf is "-Os -pipe", but you want mencoder with -O2, just run

CFLAGS="-O2 -pipe" emerge mencoder

The specified CFLAGS are used for that emerge, with subsequent emerges using your unchanged make.conf settings. The same works if you want to override USE or any other option in make.conf for just one emerge.

Re:Learning vs. Getting It Done

[Directrix1]

If its the wasted time you dislike, here is what you do:
1) Setup a gentoo system as a template for each role of computer you would to set up.
2) tar.bz2 relevant partitions
3) script partition creation, and extraction
4) burn to CD

Now installing is as easy as running a script. Simple.

Installers for Gentoo Do Exist - sort of

[langles]

This is touched on a little bit in Jem's review, but I thought this would be a good place to add a few more notes:

Gentoo's Install Documentation Lives here:
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/index .xml

Many people, though, wish Gentoo had a more automated install.

There is an "Official" Gentoo Installer Project.
They are taking their time, with the hope of getting it right, making it useable for nearly everybody.
Project Roadmap:
http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/releng/ins taller/
Mailing list archives here:
http://news.gmane.org/group/gmane.linux.gen too.ins taller/
Code snapshots:
http://dev.gentoo.org/~tseng/installer -snapshots/

Two altenative installers that people have actually used to get working Gentoo distributions:
http://www.cs.luc.edu/projects/naj a
http://glis.sourceforge.net/

Other Gentoo Installer projects on Sourceforge that have actually released some code:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/geninstalle r/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/glbf/

Some prototype code from Sridahr R., who since has switched to Debian:
http://cs.annauniv.edu/~rsridhar/pub/proj ects/gli/

Finally, here are four Gentoo-based distributions with their own installers:

Vidalinux
http://www.vidalinux.com/
http://dis trowatch.planetmirror.com/table.php?dist ribution=vidalinux
with a Anaconda-based installer:
http://freshmeat.net/projects/gentooin staler/
http://gentoo.vidalinux.com/?q=node/view/ 35
Not sure if they survived their financial crunch:
http://www.linuxbeta.com/index.php?page=a rticles&r elease=84

Jollix
http://www.jollix.de/en/en_about.html
" a LiveCD based on Gentoo Linux Jollix boots directly from CD without touching the hard disk...
Once jollix is installed on a hard disk, it can be updated via portage, the packet manager of Gentoo linux. In fact, jollix IS gentoo at this point (somehow preconfigured)."

Navyn OS
http://navynos.linux.pl
"Navyn OS is the completed system build from Gentoo. It is also a live-cd so you can boot and run it from the cdrom drive. Since version 2004.07 there is a user friendly installer on the cdrom, and with only a few mouse clicks you can install the system onto your hard drive."

Gentoox
http://gentoox.shallax.com
Installable Gentoo CD for the MS Xbox.