Posted by
timothy
on from the sane-versioning-system-is-a-plus dept.
Dreadlord writes "Gentoo has released 2004.3 for x86, amd64, hppa, ppc, sparc, and an initial release for ppc64. You can read the information page, the changelog, or go straight to the mirrors, or better yet, the torrents."
Re:Obligatory Gentoo Joke
by
BlindSpy
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· Score: 5, Informative
these are only the versions of the live CD. Your actual Gentoo install has no version number because its always the latest. So regardless if you used 2004.0 or 2004.3 to install - you ultimately have the same version after you've completely installed.
Yes. All you have to do (not in Gentoo at the moment, so forgive my lack of specifics) is change the make.profile symlink to the new profile (the one which corresponds to the liveCD release using x.org) and do an emerge -uvD world.
That will only install xorg if X is needed and xfree isn't installed. If xfree is installed, it won't be replaced. You have to remove it first.
Re:Obligatory Gentoo Joke
by
Frymaster
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· Score: 3, Funny
What makes it worse still is that this was done on a PIII-667
i believe the minimum hardware requirements for gentoo are defined as "any machine capable of compiling the latest release in less time than the stated release period".
If you're paranoid that it will break something, use quickpkg to make a package of your existing install first, and build a binary package of xorg using emerge -b, so you can switch back and forth until you are satisfied.
Re:Obligatory Gentoo Joke
by
daybyter
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· Score: 2, Interesting
No need to complain. I installed Gentoo on a 486/133, then on my P1/200 neighbourhood router and my next target is a P1/166 machine. My main problem is, that my x86 stage 1 seems to require a MMX processor, and the P1/200 is my only MMX capable chip here...:-(
Yeah, only after the switch my numpad refuses to do anything else but numbers and xkb isn't exacly the clearest documented part of X..
-- Nobody expects the spanish inquisition!
Re:Obligatory Gentoo Joke
by
Sweetshark
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· Score: 2, Informative
i believe the minimum hardware requirements for gentoo are defined as "any machine capable of compiling the latest release in less time than the stated release period".
And I believe you can circumvent that by using stage3+GRP.
You need a program call xkeycaps to help save your key layout. It's on the net and although it's not available for Amd64 under portage the 32 bit version ran just fine the other day for me. Once you got your keys the way you like save them in an.xmodmap file and use xmodmap to update X11. Job sorted.
-- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
Re:Obligatory Gentoo Joke
by
Curtman
·
· Score: 2, Informative
You can set it to whatever version you want by simply relinking the/etc/make.globals symlink
That would be the/etc/make.profile symlink./etc/make.globals isn't a symlink at all.
Re:Get them over with
by
PeterPumpkin
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· Score: 3, Informative
USE flags are very powerful - if and only if - you set them on a per package basis. If you just leave it to setting them globally like they suggest to you in the manual, you will forget/not realize something, screw it up and cause problems.
The USE flags are pretty straight forward when looking at them in the context of a particular package. Pass the -pv ([p]retend to not install the package yet, and [v]erbose to see what USE flags the package will do) option to emerge. Say you do emerge -pv kde. You will probably see that samba support is off by default! Big issues there if you need access to Windows network shares.
If you don't get what a USE flag means, you can always do a "less/usr/portage/profiles/use.desc" to get a description of most of them.
Re:Get them over with
by
qtothemax
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· Score: 2, Informative
That joke is so damn old. I installed gentoo on my p3 900 laptop in 2 days, including X and KDE and firefox. Did it from knoppix, so I had a fully functional system the whole time it was working. Also, theres binaries for a lot of big packages, so I probably could have done it in a couple hours if I really felt like it. Think of a new joke already.
Re:Get them over with
by
NotoriousQ
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· Score: 2, Informative
If you have time, you might consider emerging ufed, and going through ALL (including local) flags, deciding whether you need it or not. Gives an ok curses interface for setting them. Careful not to accidentally exit without saving -- a common problem.
-- badness 10000
Re:I HATE YOU TOO GENTOO
by
x.Draino.x
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· Score: 3, Informative
emerge sync, then emerge --update world
done. no need to download a new iso.
Re:I HATE YOU TOO GENTOO
by
mrchaotica
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· Score: 4, Funny
Nice troll. I'm sure with you as his guide, he'll have much fun reinstalling and then ending up with THE EXACT SAME SOFTWARE!
--
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
An installer? WTF? I'll have to change distros if it gets too easy!
--
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
What I wish Gentoo had
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 5, Interesting
It's been awhile since I used gentoo-- the computer I had it installed on physically broke a few months ago-- but the thing I really wished for when I last used it was some sort of way to figure out, when you've installed a package, what is the first thing you do to make it work? Like, some sort of emerge info packagename command. I would install ircd and go "okay, i have ircd installed on my computer... now what? is it configured for me? is it enabled?" and not have any idea what to do except try to poke through the only-sometimes-relevant gzipped files in/usr/doc or whereever.
Re:What I wish Gentoo had
by
NotoriousQ
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· Score: 2, Informative
Most packages that have user-based postinstalls will print out a message after they complete the install with instructions on what to do.
A good example is GAIM: which prints out a giant message that tells you not to seek help in #gaim for fear of ridicule.
For the packages that do not have instructions, then if it is a/etc/init.d starting package, there is probably a config file in/etc/conf.d. In most case you can always assume there is a default configuration that comes with the package (if one can exist) is going to be used. The program is never started, or set up to start at boot for you.
Yeah, it can be better, but it is not horrible. The only thing that I have had problem figuring out what to do was kismet -- but that is due to poor drivers for my card.
-- badness 10000
Someone's got to say it
by
Stevyn
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· Score: 5, Informative
Before all the dumb jokes start, here's what this means:
If you want to install Gentoo for the first time, you can download a bunch of precompiled packages and complete an installation in a few hours or so, probably less.
If you already have Gentoo on your system, this won't mean much since you can update the everything by with the command(s) "#emerge sync; emerge -uDp world"
This does not mean everyone with Gentoo is going to be compiling for days. You're still stuck with us for a while.
Re:Someone's got to say it
by
solarium_rider
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· Score: 5, Informative
actually, no need to do both commands anymore.
With the latest version of portage, you can just run
# emerge -uDa world
The -a is short for --ask. That will ask you if you really want to emerge the listed packages.
-- --
How many sigs are as useless as this one?
Re:I HATE YOU TOO GENTOO
by
Aneurysm9
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Not really, I did that a few months back when I switched to gcc34 and did emerge -e world, didn't notice much difference. Just keep gcc33 around and eventually most packages will recompile during the normal update process with gcc34. Now, I'm not using an AMD64 though, so you have to decide whether whatever improvements have been made in gcc34 are worth doing it all over again.
-- There was Cowboy Neal at the wheel of a bus to never-ever land.
Why announce new Gentoo releases??
by
riprjak
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Since I could install from 1.2 and after my emerge sync emerge world at the end would be as up to date as someone who used 2004.3.
Gentoo linux simply does not, now or ever, warrant release notification. It is released and will remain so; up to date today, regardless. This is why I choose it...
However, release announces are no better that SCO stories, redundant and old news.
just my $0.02.
err! jak
Re:Why announce new Gentoo releases??
by
micromoog
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· Score: 2, Informative
This isn't exactly true, particularly with respect to profiles (which dictate things like which packages are system packages). Read section 2 here.
And, of course, release notices are a form of marketing, as with all software.
Re:Why announce new Gentoo releases??
by
Ozric
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· Score: 2, Informative
You might want to relink your/etc/make.profile to they correct 2004.3 for your platform, as well.
oz
Re:Why announce new Gentoo releases??
by
MooseGuy529
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Gentoo does warrant release notifications.
The older your LiveCD gets, the older its packages are and the more stuff needs to be recompiled for the final system. An older version also has worse hardware compatibility. Lastly, for people who use binary packages, an out-of-date install CD makes binary packages worthless, as you have to compile new versions of most packages.
--
Tired of free iPod sigs? Subscribe to my blacklist
Re:And they still don't have an installer
by
Aneurysm9
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· Score: 3, Funny
Bah! zsh is all the installer I need!
-- There was Cowboy Neal at the wheel of a bus to never-ever land.
Icon?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Slashdot Editors,
Since every other Linux distribution under the sun has their own Slashdot icon, how about providing one for Gentoo as well?
Thanks.
Re:Icon?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 3, Funny
They're working on it -- the GIMP isn't done compiling yet.
Re:Icon?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 2, Funny
I think the Microsoft Windows hourglass would be appropriate. Or maybe the one which looks like a calendar:-)
I just wish that they would use the wacky gentoo penguin rather than the 'g' logo.
Speaking of the wacky gentoo penguin. Does anyone else find it strangely similar to this?
-- badness 10000
Jiminy Krikes!!!
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 4, Funny
Did you see that version number?!? These guys are WAY ahead of the others!
Why all this hate? D:
by
talornin
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· Score: 5, Insightful
I wonder why so many non-gentoo user goes out of their way to flame gentoo because you have to compile everything from source. If you dont like it, dont use it. I like it, I use it. This is almost like Linux VS BSD:(
-- When in danger, whewn in doubt! Run in circles, scream and shout!
Re:Why all this hate? D:
by
diablobsb
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· Score: 2
except that gentoo is still alive:)
-- I for one, welcome our new hot grits... PROFIT!
Re:Why all this hate? D:
by
NerveGas
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Newbies to Linux are almost *always* confused. Sad, but true. At least in my dealings with family, friends, coworkers, and faceless persons online, that's what I've seen.
Not that it's unique to Linux, it happens with newbies to most all operating systems.
steve
-- Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
For those who think `emerge sync && emerge -uD world` will update your system:
Don't forget to update the/etc/make.profile link after an `emerge sync`. The sync will place the new profile in/usr/portage/profiles. From the Gentoo Upgrading Guide:
substitute $arch with your arch # rm/etc/make.profile # ln -s../usr/portage/profiles/default-linux/$arch/2004.3/etc/make.profile
--
http://www.masturbateforpeace.com/
Nice to see...
by
Biomechanical
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· Score: 3, Interesting
I don't use Gentoo myself - the server downstairs runs Debian - but it's nice to see that it's moving forward, being updated, and being used.
It's good for people to have the ability to choose what they want, and if this revision encourages people who've previously tried Gentoo and found it in some way lacking - never tried it myself - then maybe they'll try it again and find what they missed the first time.
Forward my GNU/Linux friends, onwards to a less viral, more versatile, personally empowering digital horizon.
-- His name is Robert Paulsen...
Re:Nice to see...
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 2, Funny
the server downstairs runs Debian
And nothing going on upstairs, evident by your choice in distro!
As for the rest of your comment, where did you get the mdma/e from?
Gentoo is widely known for its portage system. If you want something, say irssi, you just type 'emerge irssi' and hit enter and it downloads it and compiles it. This system though is a rip of BSD's ports system (they did a good job though).
Its main shortcoming: its linux. I'll stick with FreeBSD until the day it dies (please no BSD dying jokes)
Portage is the main act. The side show is that it is compiled exactly how you want. As others have said, if you want something like Gaim, it's baiscly, emerge --ask -v gaim, it will ask you if you want to install gaim, and all of the dependancies. other than that, it's a very very striped down install, and very easy to keep up to date.
-- All of the above was encrypted with a Quad ROT-13 method. Unauthorized decryption is in violation of the DMCA.
I'm sure you know it's source based by the dozens of +5 Funny's..
What's good? The package system is transparent and extremely hackable. If you don't touch it, it works just like apt or yum. But if you want to make a change, its extremely easy to pop the ebuild in vim and change it, or fork your own version. Also very easy to produce a "package" for any specific version you like, often as simple as renaming a file.
What's bad? Initial installation takes a while (I can get a useable box in ~ 3 hours. Gnome & co take the longest). Not recommended for slow computers (anything made in the last four years ought to be fine) due to frequent code compilation. Portage moves very very fast. Lots of new versions released every week.
I run it everywhere, including this here Toshiba Tecra S-1 notebook.
I would argue that the few times I have installed gentoo made me much more familiar with linux than playing with Fedora for any period of time would have.
My primary reason for using Gentoo is Portage. I couldn't care less about "speed optimizations" or whatnot. But being able to install software with one command is wonderful.
My secondary reason is that it is continuously updated. I have yet to reinstall my system for anything else than major hardware upgrades. This is why I never liked Debian much, which in retrospect might have been wrong.
My tertiary reason is the documentation and community. http://forums.gentoo.org and #gentoo on freenode will get you lots of help.
But beware, there's a downside too. You can more easily end up with a broken system (compared to other "easier" distros) because you accidentaly wrote over some important configuration files. So you need to know what stuff like fstab is. And you need to know how to recover from disasters should something go haywire.
Gentoo - too much time to commit
by
Magickcat
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Gentoo's too damn time consuming for my tastes.
I like the fact that you have so much control over your installation, and the fact that you can compile for your own system easily is also very attractive features, but the trade off is how much time do you want to spend on Linux choosing and customising when there's a real world going on outside? In my case, the real world wins out.
Perhaps it's a bit like people who build cars by hand - not for every driver on the road, but a good hobby for some.
--
Si tacuisses philosophus mansisses.
If you had kept quiet, you would have remained a philosopher.
Re:Gentoo - too much time to commit
by
Warren_Canuck
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· Score: 3, Informative
Too time consuming? Granted the initial setup may take a bit longer than RedHat or Debian but maintenance takes so much less time.
I don't have to worry about security holes anymore. I have a firewall setup and I emerge -q sync and emerge -up world every night and look at it whenever there is something for me to update. And when it does update I don't have to worry about other programs not using the most up to date versions of libraries, it does it all for me.
I wouldn't run Gentoo on a slow box but it works wonders on my P4 2Ghz.
Re:Gentoo - too much time to commit
by
jmwmit
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· Score: 2, Informative
"Gentoo's too damn time consuming for my tastes."
It's pretty obvious that you have never tried using gentoo.
I think that once set up, Gentoo takes much less time to maintain and run than any Distro I have ever used (Redhat 5.2-9, Fedora 1 and 2, Debian, Mandrake, Knoppix (on hard drive), slackware).
I think that this is partly because the package manager is so great (trustworthy, stable and easy to use), and partly because the software that is installed is compiled specifically for all of the other software installed.
The best part is that the work of compiling all of your programs doesn't even have to take that much time or effort. Most gentoo users update overnight, or even compile while they work, neither of which has to dominate the usage of your system. Depending on which settings you use, changing the nice value of an emerge command let's you run it in the background with relatively little side effects. (See Gentoo Wiki - Portage Niceness)
And just to clear up a hole in my argument above ("once you get gentoo set up"), Setting up gentoo is easier than ever with the live CD and pre-compiled packages. You can even re-compile these packages (after the initial install) by installing their non-binary versions once you have your system up and running.
I was a Redhat user for many years, and until Fedora Core 2 failed me, and I could absolutely not get any Distro other than Gentoo to support my Treo-600 syncing, IBM T-40 Hardware, and my sd-card reader - I saw no reason to compile my software regularly. With gentoo, you don't even notice that you are compiling, except that software takes longer to install - and considering that everything I works beautifully (minus the bloat of most Distros), I save myself many lost days of troubleshooting despite compile time.
If you haven't tried Gentoo before, or not for a while. Give it a try, you probably will not go back.
Re:Gentoo - too much time to commit
by
binary+paladin
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Gentoo often refers to itself as a "meta distribution." In many cases it's like an automated Linux From Scratch. Point is, I use Portage and its tools to roll my own stuff on a local server and create binary packages on the server and all my client machines install from there. I don't rice out with stupid optimisations, but it is nice that all my packages are compiled the way I want them. (By that I mean since no one here runs Gnome, I have no Gnome support compiled in, etc.)
A couple of my friends and I use Gentoo as do our servers. With one central server the setup works well and keeps us all up to date with minimal compiling. From my "real world" standpoint it works very, very well. I even keep my mom's laptop up to date this way without having to physically touch the thing.
Plus, once a machine is customized, just keep your/etc and/home and you're set. I keep some common configurations stored on my server as well. This took me a lot of initial work, but it doesn't take me much longer to do an install of Gentoo than any other OS anymore.
I have to hear the cracks around here about compile times all the time... but seriously, who cares? Do you really need the latest KDE the second the ebuild is ready? Start your updates and go to bed. it's very rare that anything isn't complete by the time I get up in the morning.
It's not for everyone, but as should be stated over and over, no distro is nor should every distro be. All I'm saying is that "real world" is a very relative term and for my real world Gentoo is my choice and besides... I think it's fun. I used to be a Slackware fiend so maybe that explains my problem.
Re:Gentoo - too much time to commit
by
TheLittleJetson
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
i think gentoo is sort of an investment. even for someone who knows the system well, doing the install is a pain in the ass. however, once everything's set up, i find it very easy to maintain. it really is just like no effort to keep it all up to date and such. emerge --sync && emerge -u world && etc-update and come back later to finish things up. do this maybe once a week and you're chill.
portage has roughly a gajillion packages which is also good for lazy people (emerge CoolProgram beats going in search of CoolProgram, downloading and compiling it)
Re:Gentoo - too much time to commit
by
Khazunga
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Funny. I'd say Gentoo saved me more time than it cost me during install (which is really time consuming). I've setup my Gentoo computer ~four years ago. It took some time to install and configure to my tastes. However, since then, moving to a different machine is just a matter of grabbing the list of packages in the world profile in the old computer, and emerge'ing the whole list in the new one. It cooks for a couple of days, but the new computer chugs along without interaction. Then, move the homedir, and the new computer feels like home. I've changed computers twice since the first install.
Oh, and naturally, forget burning and installing 'new releases'. The system keeps itself up to date.
-- If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you
Support for new hardware.
by
onesadcookie
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I had to use a (late) beta of the 2004.3 release recently to get Gentoo installed onto some only recently-released hardware. 2004.2 didn't play nicely either with the SATA controller or the on-board ethernet.
For those out their too timid to try a beta install CD, this might well be eagerly-awaited news.
Not just emerge -u world
by
ringer9cs
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· Score: 2, Informative
Technically speaking, emerge -u does not completely upgrade your system to the newest release. You need to update your system profiles as well. If you are upgrading from 2004.1 or later, it is as simple as
# rm/etc/make.profile
# ln -s../usr/portage/profiles/default-linux//2004.3/etc/make.profile
However, if you are upgrading from versions earlier than Gentoo 1.4, it is quite complicated. For more information, see the Gentoo Upgrade Guide:
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-upgrading.xml
Can people stoping saying
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Gentoo is faster than the other distros, yes it is in many cases, but in many others it is not.
This myth that gentoo is some kind of speed demon is just stupid, it's about as fast as all the others give and take etc. etc.
The real benefit of gentoo is in that it teaches people how to put together a gentoo system, it's a learning experience of a sort.
But fanboys who trick noobs into using it for the speed shouldn't do so, it's not.
And also fanboys who try to claim that a hand built distro like that should be used in PRODUCTION servers (I believe there is a company set up by gentoo users to peddle this idea) is just insance.
The WHOLE point of a production server is that it has been tested THOUSANDS of times in a given configuration. Production has always meant, and always will mean a trade-off between the latest and stability.
To try and claim that you can run your server with some loopy custom compilations and expect to be able to get support for it is just ridiculous. The extra money spent on getting all this hand-craftednes should just be spent on a beefier server.
And as gentoo doesn't actually offer a definitive speed-gain, just spending $30 to get to the next CPU catergory up with 5% more performance will decimate any speed advantage created by the gentoo system optimizations.
please, stop the astro turfing, gentoo is great from a system design perspective, customisation and learning about linux. But it is not, and cannot (nothing can) be ALL pros and no cons. Be suspicious of any fanboy who says so because making those claims about ANY distro is just peddling snake-oil.
Re:Can people stoping saying
by
A+beautiful+mind
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Well, its really dependant on a person's view. If you would rather trust a ms windows xp as a server, just because its tested worldwide, and dump the FreeBSD/OpenBSD/Gentoo server which has custom stuff isp stuff in many cases "make their system unstable with", like scripts, performance-patched daemons, etc. I'm sorry, but if you need support for your production server, well, then you shouldn't be admining it in the first place (ok, don't count some extreme cases).
Btw, im not saying gentoo is perfect. Its just very good.
-- It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Re:I HATE YOU TOO GENTOO
by
oddfox
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· Score: 2, Informative
Eh, I've used Gentoo on and off for a long time now (Well over a year and a half, mebbe two years) and I've never had a problem with using portage to keep my system running spiffer. Even if a problem did pop up I know that the forums would have much debate about it by the time I found out about it first-hand, so fixing the problem was usually a case of reading a thread or two.
-- "We invented personal computing." - Bill Gates
Compile...?
by
tanveer1979
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· Score: 4, Informative
Umm, Compiling everything is this big misconception. There are prebuilt binary packages available for most common applications for most architechtures. Infact if gentoo binary package is not there, there is a fair chance you will not get the binary package for other distros as well. I am using gentoo on my AMD64, and i do not want to go back to any other distro.
But then its always a matter of choice. And if the only reason of you not using gentoo is compiling everything from source, then its the wrong reason.
-- My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
Re:And they still don't have an installer
by
ali3nxx
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Re:I HATE YOU TOO GENTOO
by
qtothemax
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· Score: 4, Informative
The big question... does it actually work and take care of everything?
Yes. The only other thing you might want to do (though its usually not necessary) is to update the profile. After an emerge -u world, everything will be current. With gentoo version numbers mean next to nothing. New versions are usually just updates to the installer livecd itself to fix bugs and support more hardware. The packages are updated constantly, not just when new gentoo releases come out.
Re:I HATE YOU TOO GENTOO
by
NotoriousQ
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Apparently not -- I have not synced and updated the profile yet:
[ Results for search key : gcc ] [ Candidate applications found : 25 ]
Re:version dependencies
by
NotoriousQ
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· Score: 5, Informative
To add to this, there are two modes of masking:
the hard mask -- which means that the package maintainer does not deem the package to be safe at all.
the ~ mask -- which is the unstable package. You can tell the emerge system that you wish to have the unstable system, in which case it will ignore the ~ mask.
Also, there is such a thing as profiles. They have things such as the version of gcc and glibc that your system uses. If you chose the right profile, you can continue building the system with gcc 2.95. Although the packages are not well tested with it, and no one wants to specifically check and mask each package with older profiles.
-- badness 10000
Dual booting OS X?
by
sejanus
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
hiya,
If anyone knows (otherwise I'll go to the gentoo forums) when you install the PPC version does it give an option to install a bootloader (like GRUB/LILO etc.) to dual boot OS X, or is this something they expect you to do afterwards?
Very familiar with linux on PC's, just a bit of a newbie to my powerbook.
cheers
Gav
Re:emergent reality
by
brix
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· Score: 2, Informative
While I've never used an apt-get system, I had the same problem with dependencies on RPM-based systems. It seems that most distributions try to provide as much functionality in the package as possible to meet the needs of the widest possible user-base. The result is that grabbing a small package can result in multiple large dependencies being downloaded and installed.
Gentoo's answer to this is the set of USE flags. You can provide your flags either globally or on a package-by-package basis. For example:
... would compile packagefoo without support for kde or gnome, but would provide support for maildir-style mailboxes. There are currently 309 different USE options available, so you can tweak things just the way you like them. In reality, you would probably want to put the use flags in/etc/portage/package.use so that they will be remembered permanently rather than setting the USE variable on the command line.
As far as managing dependencies after the initial install, "emerge --deep packagefoo" will check for any updates to the dependencies themselves, and the portage maintainers track and flag which upgrades break/block an existing package.
First off, I had submitted Slashdot an official press release which was much more verbose and gave a nice list of reasons for the release and things changed since the last release, but since the editors are a bunch of tools and don't pay attention to what they're adding to the site, it all got lost.
Anyway, for the x86 platform, the primary reason for the getting a newer release is improved hardware support. The newer LiveCD for x86 supports the new Dell EM64T machines and also has vastly improved SATA support over previous releases. This is also the first release where all of the arch teams worked very closely together throughout the entire release process. This is also our first official PPC64 release. The submitter of this story also completely missed the fact that we have a new Alpha release under/experimental, and you can also find embedded stages for arm, mips, ppc, and x86 under/experimental.
Re:Amazing!
by
Dreadlord
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I'm the submitter of the story, as I wrote in my journal, I put that story together in no time, minutes after receiving the newsletter, don't know if I was faster and this was the reason, when did you submit your story?
The editors didn't change anything other than the title btw (it was Gentoo 2004.3 released).
-- The IT section color scheme sucks.
Did they fix glibc?
by
marcovje
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
A while ago, they were distributing beta glibc's that rumouredly broke a lot of programs.
"--deep (-D)
When used in conjunction with --update, this flag forces emerge to consider the entire dependency
tree of packages, instead of checking only the immediate dependencies of the packages. As an
example, this catches updates in libraries that are not directly listed in the dependencies of a
package."
In my experience, doing a 'emerge -vuD world' is something you should only execute once in a while, and it is vital that you include the "--pretend" option in case some packages wants to downgrade others. Essentially, the "--deep" option will do a more thorough scan of portage to locate packages which are not directly affected by critical or new ebuilds, or something like that.;)
--
"The only clear view is from atop the mountain of our dead selves." - Peter Carroll
The evidence does not suggest that gentoo is inherently slower than other distributions, although sometimes people do use the wrong optimizations. It does suggest that in many cases, gentoo is faster, especially on obscure architectures, or basically anything other than a PPro which is what most Linux distributions are built for; there's an i386 build, and an i686 build.
The real benefit of gentoo is not that it teaches you something. The best way to actually learn what's going on is to install LFS, aka linux from scratch. Gentoo and its install guide hold your hand. Nothing wrong with that, but don't pretend that it's the ultimate teaching tool. The real benefit of gentoo is USE flags, and to a lesser extent, CFLAGS. You can elect to compile everything on your system with support for whatever you need, and only what you need, and you can easily use stuff like propolice.
There's no reason not to use gentoo in the corporate environment. You are not required to perform all upgrades. You have a choice! It's not like gentoo comes with a cron job to ( emerge sync && emerge -u world ) or anything. Meanwhile gentoo will allow you to build (with your customizations or at least options) the latest updates and patches for the software you need, when you need it, without waiting for a binary package to reach your local mirror - all you need is a new ebuild and some patch files.
I would like to agree with you about testing, but the fact is that redhat isn't any more stable than gentoo, nor is any other linux distribution. In many cases, gentoo is more stable; I'm not running the majority of unstable packages or anything, the software I'm running has been tested, and it has the latest fixes which are available for gentoo typically before they are available for any other distribution. (This is not a law or anything.)
Gentoo has one con as compared to the other distributions: Compile time. This is a very real problem which is why there are so many jokes about it. Every stereotype is based (however tenuously) in reality. Other than that, well, if you want to use apt or rpm for some reason, you can. But you're a sick bastard.
-- "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:Gentoo Hell
by
shadow255
·
· Score: 2, Informative
At first glance, it appears to me that you're blaming the Linux distro for what may be a hardware issue. Looks like the hard drive from the Dell Optiplex box is okay, but beyond that it's hard to tell. If I were in your shoes, I would have closed with this line instead:
Needless to say, I'm no longer impressed with my Dell Optiplex with three NIC's in it.
If you're serious about getting your box running, I heartily recommend that you post to the Kernel and Hardware forum at the Gentoo forums site with real details of your issues.
--
Logic is a wonderful thing but doesn't always beat actual thought. -Terry Pratchett
etc # gcc --version gcc (GCC) 3.4.3 (Gentoo Linux 3.4.3, ssp-3.4.3-0, pie-8.7.6.6) Copyright (C) 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc. This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
Any more questions?
-- "Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
Re:Gentoo Hell
by
21chrisp
·
· Score: 2, Informative
You may not have been adding the ethernet scripts correctly. Did you use rc-update for each of those cards? You should have something like:
Each point to the correspoding scripts in/etc/init.d/
This may seem assinine, but it's reality for portage based OS's. You can't manually modify this stuff when you continue to emerge changes! Your modifications will get overwritten. That's why Gentoo had rc-update and etc-update.
It's similar to fBSD.. although I never figured out why everyone bashes Gentoo and praises fBSD (I think they're both great).
My first Gentoo install ended in a similar way. You have to approach a portage (notice I didn't say source) based distro with the assumption that it will take some time to figure out the differences.
With Gentoo, it takes awhile to get comfortable with the changes to how init works.
Slashdot Mirror
Damn... I'd just finished compiling 2004.2!
That this is just a new version of the LiveCD. No need to reinstall the core system.
Buckethead
- Nothing to see here...
- But I just emerged 2004.2!
- I will tell you how it works in 4 weeks when it is done emerging...
Did I miss any?Unstable Apps: Our Android Apps Don't Suck
emerge sync, then emerge --update world done. no need to download a new iso.
Nice troll. I'm sure with you as his guide, he'll have much fun reinstalling and then ending up with THE EXACT SAME SOFTWARE!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
2004.3 falls on April 19, 2004.
Today (November 14) is more like 2004.87.
It's been awhile since I used gentoo-- the computer I had it installed on physically broke a few months ago-- but the thing I really wished for when I last used it was some sort of way to figure out, when you've installed a package, what is the first thing you do to make it work? Like, some sort of emerge info packagename command. I would install ircd and go "okay, i have ircd installed on my computer... now what? is it configured for me? is it enabled?" and not have any idea what to do except try to poke through the only-sometimes-relevant gzipped files in /usr/doc or whereever.
Before all the dumb jokes start, here's what this means:
If you want to install Gentoo for the first time, you can download a bunch of precompiled packages and complete an installation in a few hours or so, probably less.
If you already have Gentoo on your system, this won't mean much since you can update the everything by with the command(s) "#emerge sync; emerge -uDp world"
This does not mean everyone with Gentoo is going to be compiling for days. You're still stuck with us for a while.
Not really, I did that a few months back when I switched to gcc34 and did emerge -e world, didn't notice much difference. Just keep gcc33 around and eventually most packages will recompile during the normal update process with gcc34. Now, I'm not using an AMD64 though, so you have to decide whether whatever improvements have been made in gcc34 are worth doing it all over again.
There was Cowboy Neal at the wheel of a bus to never-ever land.
Since I could install from 1.2 and after my emerge sync emerge world at the end would be as up to date as someone who used 2004.3.
Gentoo linux simply does not, now or ever, warrant release notification. It is released and will remain so; up to date today, regardless. This is why I choose it...
However, release announces are no better that SCO stories, redundant and old news.
just my $0.02.
err!
jak
Bah! zsh is all the installer I need!
There was Cowboy Neal at the wheel of a bus to never-ever land.
Slashdot Editors,
Since every other Linux distribution under the sun has their own Slashdot icon, how about providing one for Gentoo as well?
Thanks.
Did you see that version number?!? These guys are WAY ahead of the others!
I wonder why so many non-gentoo user goes out of their way to flame gentoo because you have to compile everything from source. If you dont like it, dont use it. I like it, I use it. This is almost like Linux VS BSD :(
When in danger, whewn in doubt! Run in circles, scream and shout!
emerge sync && emerge -uD world
There was Cowboy Neal at the wheel of a bus to never-ever land.
For those who think `emerge sync && emerge -uD world` will update your system:
/etc/make.profile link after an `emerge sync`. The sync will place the new profile in /usr/portage/profiles. From the Gentoo Upgrading Guide:
/etc/make.profile ../usr/portage/profiles/default-linux/$arch/2004.3 /etc/make.profile
Don't forget to update the
substitute $arch with your arch
# rm
# ln -s
http://www.masturbateforpeace.com/
I don't use Gentoo myself - the server downstairs runs Debian - but it's nice to see that it's moving forward, being updated, and being used.
It's good for people to have the ability to choose what they want, and if this revision encourages people who've previously tried Gentoo and found it in some way lacking - never tried it myself - then maybe they'll try it again and find what they missed the first time.
Forward my GNU/Linux friends, onwards to a less viral, more versatile, personally empowering digital horizon.
His name is Robert Paulsen...
For those of us not up on Linux distros, what makes Gentoo good? And what are its shortcomings?
Gentoo's too damn time consuming for my tastes.
I like the fact that you have so much control over your installation, and the fact that you can compile for your own system easily is also very attractive features, but the trade off is how much time do you want to spend on Linux choosing and customising when there's a real world going on outside? In my case, the real world wins out.
Perhaps it's a bit like people who build cars by hand - not for every driver on the road, but a good hobby for some.
Si tacuisses philosophus mansisses. If you had kept quiet, you would have remained a philosopher.
I had to use a (late) beta of the 2004.3 release recently to get Gentoo installed onto some only recently-released hardware. 2004.2 didn't play nicely either with the SATA controller or the on-board ethernet.
For those out their too timid to try a beta install CD, this might well be eagerly-awaited news.
Technically speaking, emerge -u does not completely upgrade your system to the newest release. You need to update your system profiles as well. If you are upgrading from 2004.1 or later, it is as simple as # rm /etc/make.profile
# ln -s ../usr/portage/profiles/default-linux//2004.3 /etc/make.profile
However, if you are upgrading from versions earlier than Gentoo 1.4, it is quite complicated. For more information, see the Gentoo Upgrade Guide:
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-upgrading.xml
Gentoo is faster than the other distros, yes it is in many cases, but in many others it is not.
This myth that gentoo is some kind of speed demon is just stupid, it's about as fast as all the others give and take etc. etc.
The real benefit of gentoo is in that it teaches people how to put together a gentoo system, it's a learning experience of a sort.
But fanboys who trick noobs into using it for the speed shouldn't do so, it's not.
And also fanboys who try to claim that a hand built distro like that should be used in PRODUCTION servers (I believe there is a company set up by gentoo users to peddle this idea) is just insance.
The WHOLE point of a production server is that it has been tested THOUSANDS of times in a given configuration. Production has always meant, and always will mean a trade-off between the latest and stability.
To try and claim that you can run your server with some loopy custom compilations and expect to be able to get support for it is just ridiculous. The extra money spent on getting all this hand-craftednes should just be spent on a beefier server.
And as gentoo doesn't actually offer a definitive speed-gain, just spending $30 to get to the next CPU catergory up with 5% more performance will decimate any speed advantage created by the gentoo system optimizations.
please, stop the astro turfing, gentoo is great from a system design perspective, customisation and learning about linux. But it is not, and cannot (nothing can) be ALL pros and no cons. Be suspicious of any fanboy who says so because making those claims about ANY distro is just peddling snake-oil.
Eh, I've used Gentoo on and off for a long time now (Well over a year and a half, mebbe two years) and I've never had a problem with using portage to keep my system running spiffer. Even if a problem did pop up I know that the forums would have much debate about it by the time I found out about it first-hand, so fixing the problem was usually a case of reading a thread or two.
"We invented personal computing." - Bill Gates
But then its always a matter of choice. And if the only reason of you not using gentoo is compiling everything from source, then its the wrong reason.
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
Some would claim that i am Gentoo's installer lol
over 500 systems installed over ssh =]
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=189250/
The big question... does it actually work and take care of everything?
Yes. The only other thing you might want to do (though its usually not necessary) is to update the profile. After an emerge -u world, everything will be current. With gentoo version numbers mean next to nothing. New versions are usually just updates to the installer livecd itself to fix bugs and support more hardware. The packages are updated constantly, not just when new gentoo releases come out.
badness 10000
To add to this, there are two modes of masking:
the hard mask -- which means that the package maintainer does not deem the package to be safe at all.
the ~ mask -- which is the unstable package. You can tell the emerge system that you wish to have the unstable system, in which case it will ignore the ~ mask.
Also, there is such a thing as profiles. They have things such as the version of gcc and glibc that your system uses. If you chose the right profile, you can continue building the system with gcc 2.95. Although the packages are not well tested with it, and no one wants to specifically check and mask each package with older profiles.
badness 10000
hiya,
If anyone knows (otherwise I'll go to the gentoo forums) when you install the PPC version does it give an option to install a bootloader (like GRUB/LILO etc.) to dual boot OS X, or is this something they expect you to do afterwards?
Very familiar with linux on PC's, just a bit of a newbie to my powerbook.
cheers
Gav
BTW, this is probably why you should do it per hand
gentoo and BSD are in the works.x .xml
Links:
http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/gentoo-alt/bsd/inde
http://dev.gentoo.org/~g2boojum/bsd.html
First off, I had submitted Slashdot an official press release which was much more verbose and gave a nice list of reasons for the release and things changed since the last release, but since the editors are a bunch of tools and don't pay attention to what they're adding to the site, it all got lost.
Anyway, for the x86 platform, the primary reason for the getting a newer release is improved hardware support. The newer LiveCD for x86 supports the new Dell EM64T machines and also has vastly improved SATA support over previous releases. This is also the first release where all of the arch teams worked very closely together throughout the entire release process. This is also our first official PPC64 release. The submitter of this story also completely missed the fact that we have a new Alpha release under /experimental, and you can also find embedded stages for arm, mips, ppc, and x86 under /experimental.
A while ago, they were distributing beta glibc's that rumouredly broke a lot of programs.
Did they finally got around to fix that?
As the manual of 'emerge' states:
;)
"--deep (-D)
When used in conjunction with --update, this flag forces emerge to consider the entire dependency
tree of packages, instead of checking only the immediate dependencies of the packages. As an
example, this catches updates in libraries that are not directly listed in the dependencies of a
package."
In my experience, doing a 'emerge -vuD world' is something you should only execute once in a while, and it is vital that you include the "--pretend" option in case some packages wants to downgrade others. Essentially, the "--deep" option will do a more thorough scan of portage to locate packages which are not directly affected by critical or new ebuilds, or something like that.
"The only clear view is from atop the mountain of our dead selves." - Peter Carroll
The evidence does not suggest that gentoo is inherently slower than other distributions, although sometimes people do use the wrong optimizations. It does suggest that in many cases, gentoo is faster, especially on obscure architectures, or basically anything other than a PPro which is what most Linux distributions are built for; there's an i386 build, and an i686 build.
The real benefit of gentoo is not that it teaches you something. The best way to actually learn what's going on is to install LFS, aka linux from scratch. Gentoo and its install guide hold your hand. Nothing wrong with that, but don't pretend that it's the ultimate teaching tool. The real benefit of gentoo is USE flags, and to a lesser extent, CFLAGS. You can elect to compile everything on your system with support for whatever you need, and only what you need, and you can easily use stuff like propolice.
There's no reason not to use gentoo in the corporate environment. You are not required to perform all upgrades. You have a choice! It's not like gentoo comes with a cron job to ( emerge sync && emerge -u world ) or anything. Meanwhile gentoo will allow you to build (with your customizations or at least options) the latest updates and patches for the software you need, when you need it, without waiting for a binary package to reach your local mirror - all you need is a new ebuild and some patch files.
I would like to agree with you about testing, but the fact is that redhat isn't any more stable than gentoo, nor is any other linux distribution. In many cases, gentoo is more stable; I'm not running the majority of unstable packages or anything, the software I'm running has been tested, and it has the latest fixes which are available for gentoo typically before they are available for any other distribution. (This is not a law or anything.)
Gentoo has one con as compared to the other distributions: Compile time. This is a very real problem which is why there are so many jokes about it. Every stereotype is based (however tenuously) in reality. Other than that, well, if you want to use apt or rpm for some reason, you can. But you're a sick bastard.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
At first glance, it appears to me that you're blaming the Linux distro for what may be a hardware issue. Looks like the hard drive from the Dell Optiplex box is okay, but beyond that it's hard to tell. If I were in your shoes, I would have closed with this line instead:
Needless to say, I'm no longer impressed with my Dell Optiplex with three NIC's in it.
If you're serious about getting your box running, I heartily recommend that you post to the Kernel and Hardware forum at the Gentoo forums site with real details of your issues.
Logic is a wonderful thing but doesn't always beat actual thought. -Terry Pratchett
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
You may not have been adding the ethernet scripts correctly. Did you use rc-update for each of those cards? You should have something like:
/etc/runlevels/default/net.*
/etc/runlevels/default/net.eth0@ /etc/runlevels/default/net.eth1@ /etc/runlevels/default/net.eth2@ /etc/runlevels/default/net.eth3@ /etc/runlevels/default/net.eth4@
/etc/init.d/
ls
Each point to the correspoding scripts in
This may seem assinine, but it's reality for portage based OS's. You can't manually modify this stuff when you continue to emerge changes! Your modifications will get overwritten. That's why Gentoo had rc-update and etc-update.
It's similar to fBSD.. although I never figured out why everyone bashes Gentoo and praises fBSD (I think they're both great).
My first Gentoo install ended in a similar way. You have to approach a portage (notice I didn't say source) based distro with the assumption that it will take some time to figure out the differences.
With Gentoo, it takes awhile to get comfortable with the changes to how init works.