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Gentoo 2005.0: A Live CD And [No] Graphical Installer
Sunsetbeach writes "zdnet.co.uk reports in this article that 'The next version of Gentoo, 2005.0, will also include a graphical installer that will allow users to automatically install the same set-up of Gentoo on multiple machines, according to Gianelloni.' " The article distinguishes the upcoming live disk from the (available) Gentoo Live CD; the new one will contain a fully functioning system ala Knoppix. Update: 11/30 23:09 GMT by M : Gentoo now has a clarification posted; the next Gentoo release will not have a graphical installer, although it is planned for the future.
Ouch... While compiling everything to a ram-disk is technically viable, I somehow fail to see it working in a long run :p
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
It really is a fantastic distro and this will allow it to be used by many many more people.
I pretty much started my Linux experience with Gentoo, which was difficult to say the least. This way though it can be setup easily by the inexperienced, while everyone else is still free to do a Stage 1/2 install
Over the years I've been using gentoo, I've noticed that it has become MUCH more userfriendly. The documentation has improved dramatically, and now there's a graphical installer. Will this increase gentoo's install base?
-b0lt
got sig?
In Korea, only old people use graphical installers.
One of the best things about Gentoo for me (the performance difference was negligble) besides portage, was the bootstrapping process. I know it took forever, but you actually are learning more about linux. Redhat (my first *nix) hid everything, and slackware (my second love) gave me a little more access. Only gentoo allowed me to see (and attempt to understand) a true view of the install.
the real hardcore Gentoo users won't consider you a Linux guru until your self-starting Linux system begins its bootstrap procedure by constructing your PC and CD-ROM drive using a desktop matter fabricator.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Dozens of post making oh so funny remarks that they are still not done compiling the old version before the new one comes out.
At least as many posts telling us that gentoo is the best and only distribution real man can use and that their boxen run so much faster now.
Half a dozen links to funroll-loops posted.
Anyway, I think this is great news. Imho gentoo really is a great distribution for what it does but there have been a few things missing that now seem to fall into place.
Kickstart like functionallity was one and a really stable (not in that it does work, but as in install and then have a stable system that will not be updated but only receives bug fixes) is also on the way.
And portage will finally get reverse-dependency checking when uninstalling, at least some gentoo devs are working on it.
Go gentoo!
Gentoo is just like BSD, but a million times better:
/var first and then moves stuff to /usr, wheres BSD ports aren't smart enough to do this)
1. With Gentoo you can choose what version of software to install (tested or not very)
2. USB actually works
3. Ext3 is much better tested than UFS2 (and all Ext2 tools work with it too)
4. Portage works much more reliably than BSD ports system (because Portage installs in
The only thing that was keeping Gentoo behind BSD was the rather tedious installation (you have to follow some steps from the How-to). Now, with this automated, there will be absolutely no reason for anyone to use BSD
ummm, vida linux is gentoo with a graphical installer. i fail so see how the next 2005 release will be any different from vida.
http://gentoo.vidalinux.com/
What's planned for 2005.0 is an experimental test release of the new graphical installer. It'll be there for people who want to test it, but don't go relying on the thing.
Like, so your telling me whatever application your runing isn't compiled? That would mean your eitehr using a mainframe with interpreted cobol or using the only browser written in bbc basic.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
I actually did the majority of my stage 1 install and system setup (x.org, kde, OO.o, most of the programs I use) from knoppix, partially because for some reason the gentoo CD I got from one of the other guys here wouldn't boot, partially because I wanted a working system while I installed (so I could still idle on IRC and such). If the graphical installer can be made to run inside the knoppix-like part of the new gentoo CD...
nice.
Karma: Negative (Mostly affected by dorm trolling)
Live-CDs aren't only good for test Linux, but Live-Cds are wonderful rescue Cds and make Linux-boxes where only windows is available.
I usually use Slax because it fits on a small 8cm CD-RW.
Gentoo it's another Live CD to add to the list whatever I can i'm goint to test this one.
My city: Barcelona.
I think this is great. This weekend I installed 2004.3. I had to keep my laptop on the desk as well to read the install guide (handbook) and do other 'usefull' stuff such as browse the internet ;-) (Links for me is a little too bare)
;-)
I hope they include Open Office as well and a decent email client. That way you can boot of the disk, set the thing to install and, whilst installing or compiling, stay 'productive' the whole time!
Great when installing Gentoo on your office workstation
The graphical installer seems to me as best of both worlds, the control over your system as Gentoo users are used to as well as significantly reduced time spent on installing. If I get it right, the install time itself won't be shorter but it will be more of a 'setup what you want, press go, and wait' rather then, type command..... wait......type other command....... wait....... wait some more.....
---
When you install mandrake or suse, do you learn anything? No, you just click next, next, next until you are done. With gentoo you are forced to use command line which some say is too hard. But it really isn't, with the Gentoo Handbook the installation is all laid out for you and by actually installing it by hand and reading an entire manual to make sure you don't screw up you learn a lot and get a ton of command line expierence. Hopefully Gentoo continues to be innovative so its GUI installer doesn't end up like the rest.
Gentoo is the name of a very fast type of penguin. George Lucas has no claim (he's too busy making turkeys).
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
I've been through a lot distros over the years. But Gentoo was the one that stayed installed on the hard drive. For me, it is all I ask of an OS. One of the best things that I absolutely love about Gentoo is the active and highly professional developer community. They really get it. Go Gentoo!!!
Don't you just love it how first posts are always modded redundant. I mean, all you did was make a comment. You expressed your opinion. I wonder, what is it that the moderator expected ?
I've noticed a lot of redundant mods lately, and negative mods in general. I think Slashdot should attach statistics to each story showing the percentage of positive versus negative mods. I would also like to see these statistics for editors, who have unlimited mod points. We should get to see how they were meta-modded as well. On one final note, Slashdot needs a forum to discuss issues like this, so that people don't have to resort to offtopic posts.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
He was talking about inexperienced with linux.
I'm guessing that wasn't on their radar screen...
It's very common for people on /. (who are, perhaps familiar with other distros) to denounce Gentoo for its lack of a graphical installer, but I've always seen this as a good thing. The person installing Gentoo has clear and precise instructions outlining what actions need to be performed, so they can very easily adapt those to a wide range of different situations. E.g. I don't like to have to burn CDs unnecessarily, so I make my kernel first and then network boot into the stage1 filesystem.
I believe that, in general, it's a better design decision not to have an overly intrusive installer for any software because that can tie too much of the software's configuration to the installation process, rather than having a comprehensive way to configure the software post-install.
- Brian
I will admit I still haven't RTFA, but has the Gentoo crew fixed what is my biggest beef with their distro, i.e. the regular smashing of un-identified configuration files?
I mean, I can accept that various configuration files get overwritten when you upgrade stuff through Portage, but that you are (ok, _were_, as it has been a few moons since I used Gentoo) kept in the dark as to what has been nuked does not help me to keep a system running smoothly unless I spend time to track down and re-modify what was smashed back into default values or whatever by Portage.
I will admit I am going from memory here, but this is 2004, people, and it should not be a painfully involved process to keep a system running & tuned after it is installed. I should not have to spend time trying to identify changed configuration files and whatnot, I have better things to do with my life.
Or maybe I never understood how Gentoo worked. But having dealt with various flavours of *nix since my Ultrix-on-{micro}VAX days, I think I have somewhat of a clue on how to manage a *nix system. And yet, with Gentoo, I saw my system become more and more discombobulated due, as far as I could perceive it, to bad config. (Clue stick welcome, here, if I am out to lunch about this.)
So, back to my initial question/gripe, have the Gentoo crew worked at making post-install management of the box saner?
Go back to RH little boy...
I, myself, am fairly newbieish (a couple of years using linux, certainly no toothy, beared old UNIX veteran); but I found Gentoo, contingent upon RTFM and a little ingenuity, to be the easiest to fully install. When I use the term fully install, I mean install, finalize and gain complete control over. Things that could use improvement: 1) Fonts 2) Stupid, Bloody X configuration. Should be in Installation Docs not Desktop section. Many hours of frustration.
This is a receipt for $0.02 expended upon "My Opinion." Please retain for tax purposes.
Ingrid took the things I said completely out of context and ran with them.
At no point did I ever tell her that we would have a graphical installer on 2005.0's release media. I also did not tell her that the 2005.0 release would be a Knoppix-style LiveCD, as it will, in fact, be exactly like the 2004.3 release with the Minimal, Universal, and Packages CD images.
What I did tell her is that we will have an experimental LiveCD with our first limited functionality beta of the installer, which will most likely be curses-based only and not have any enterprise-ready features available for use.
This is exactly why you demand to have interviews done via email and not the phone, especially when speaking with someone from another country, and be sure to ask to proof read the article for accuracy before it prints.
What the hell! I'm still not done compiling the old version. Well, Gentoo is the best and only distribution real men can use. My box runs so much faster now!
;)
*cough* Actually, I use Knoppix.
BytesTemplar.com
You know how it is, there are probably benchmarks floating around proofing it, as there are probably other benchmarks showing that it isn't true.
;-D
./ telling people how cool they are and how fast their computers are running gentoo but believe me, they are not representative of the gentoo community and they annoy me as a long time gentoo user as much as they annoy the other people around here.
From my personal experience I can say that no, you won't notice a considerable speed increase compared to other modern distros, at least not on the desktop. I haven't tried slackware lately, but right now I'm also running Ubuntu and it doesn't seem slower than my gentoo install.
I can only repeat it again and again, if you really want to see a performance boost, get better hardware.
I think there is a general problem with your question though, gentoo isn't really about speed increase, there is a lot more to it. I know that there are a lot of people running around in online communities like
Finally, if you really want to give gentoo a try, don't do it for the false reasons. Don't do it because you feel provoked by the kiddies I just described and want to prove them wrong, do it because you are interested in trying out a new system and you think that gentoo could be a distribution that fits you needs.
This lappie I'm typing on is running Mepis flavoured debian, I did briefly play with gentoo about a year ago...
As I understood it, the sole advantage of gentoo over the likes of debian (on the assumption that functionally apt-get = emerge etc) was that instead of installing precompiled packages in debain, the gentoo user compiles and optimises everything for their specific hardware, thus gaining anything from a miniscule amount to perhaps a few percentage points in performance boost versus the debian approach.
In the final analysis for me such minimal gains simply were not worth the CPU time and disk thrashing so I walked away from it.
So a GUI led gentoo live-cd installer is either going to be losing all that one area of bespoke compiling advantages, OR, you're going to be running that live cd in ramdisk and compiling the install in what's left until kernel 3x is out?
Is this correct?
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
Parent is 100% correct. Even on the new CD, one would have to type "setup" to load up the installer and use it.
It depends on whether reiser 4 makes it into the vanilla kernel in time or not. Gentoo no longer patch their kernels with large patchsets that are likely to breaks things.
I for one use Gentoo Linux myself and i'am happy with it. but Optimzations.... really can't see much of a difference in speed comparing to other Distro's i've used. But it works nice as my Desktop Distro and i'am fine with that. Any distro that does what i want is fine with me.
htop(top on stereoids): http://htop.sf.net
It's sooo awesome cuz it lets U compile your stuff from source!!!!!
Like u don't need to mess with any packages or RPM database r stuff like that.
Answer me this-- wat other linux distro actually let u compile stuff from source?
Intolerance for ambiguity is the mark of the authoritarian personality.
i read this as saying that gentoo were releasing a linux boot disk which started up a virtual advent calender.
how bizairre. it doens't say anything like that.
i'm trying to give up sigs.
the real advantage is being able to "turn off" certain sections of the code with USE flags. Did you know bitchx can be compiled to use gnome? when the debian maintainers compile bitchx for you, they decide whether or not to include it. you don't have the choice.
/etc/make.conf file. my flags on my workstation are the following:
with gentoo, you can use the USE flags
USE="-gnome" emerge bitchx
USE="gnome" emerge bitchx
This allows me to say if I want gnome installed or not if it's just an optional feature on bitchx. Since I mostly use kde, I can do without installing all the gnome dependencies.
to see a list of flags for any given package (and their default status)
emerge -vp bitchx
[ebuild N ] net-irc/bitchx-1.1-r1 -cdrom -cjk -debug +esd -gnome +gtk -ipv6 +ncurses +ssl +xmms 2,473 kB
Then you can choose to enable them or not.
There are a lot of common flags, USE flags which you can set in the
USE="3dnow amd alsa bzlib cddb cdparanoia curl dnd dvd -dvdr ethereal flash gd glut -gnome gstreamer icq image magemagick imap java javascript kerberos krb4 ldap lm_sensors maildir md5sum mime ming mmx -mozilla mplayer msn jack ooo-kde openssh pdf rtc samba sasl threads type1 tiff usb xvid"
and this isn't even close to all of them.
If you'd like to learn more, let me know. I try not to be a zealot:)
Looking for Book Reviews? Check out Literary Escapism.
Yes.
Achille Talon
Hop!
The gentoo fanboy community can't have it both ways.
1. Requiring intimate kernel-level knowledge of a system to install it.
2. Shouting 'use gentoo!' to every passerby who expresses any sort of question about another distro (like, how do I install an RPM? or something similar).
It's like people saying Macs are the bestest most awesomest systems ever, but that they're also cheaper than x86 alternatives. It doesn't work both ways.
Be content with having a difficult-to-install system that forces people to learn more than most people would want. That's fine. But don't shout that as the answer to every single problem as well - most people don't have the time or motivation to do that.
creation science book
Comment removed based on user account deletion
After an emerge, the system would either do no updating so I must manually update the config files, or it would update all the files automatically, overwriting everything, including the users file so all my accounts no longer existed (including root).
Until they can find a way to do an "automatic, unattended smart append" to the config files after an emerge, I won't switch to it on my thirteen PCs and two notebooks.
On the other hand, a graphical installer is, IMHO, a bad idea. This allows any dork off the street to say that he's installed Gentoo and now even know what Linux is. Bad idea.
- Just my $0.02, take with a grain of salt, your mileage may vary.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
not really the speed. At the time I tried it, early in 2004, it seemed to be the only readily available distribution that actually worked with AMD64. Fedora Core claimed to have a distro for it, but I read a lot of horror stories; Mandrake and others only seemed to have commercial payware products for the platform.
I did have problems with Gentoo (when using USB2 the whole computer slowed down, hotplug didn't seem to work right, etc.), so perhaps this was more a reflection of the maturity of Linux distros in general on the AMD64 platform. I also didn't really find it much faster that other distributions I've used on x86 machines.
I guess I'll have to try again soon. I'm currently stuck on WinXP since I needed something that worked, but it may be time to survey the current 64 bit landscape.
======
In X-Windows the client serves YOU!
I admit I struggled with the install my first couple of times. Having a graphical installer is something that will only help Gentoo get more users. Good Job.
I've never run linux to be honest. It just seems like hard work. And apparently someone is now bragging that this version has a graphical installer?
whoopee. About 15 years too late too impress anyone.
Headlines like this only remind me why (for all its sins) I run windows.
This isn't flamebatit, its a non-linux geeks viewpoint. There IS a difference.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
Well, whether or not it actually happens, it sure would be nice if Gentoo did start releasing fully-functional live CDs - I'd love to have the equivalent of Knoppix for various architectures. (PPC especially. And please don't reply with links to the horrifically old "Knoppix/PPC" project which can't autodetect its way out of a wet paper sack.)
Okay Gentoo people, here is how you make sure you don't screw up your beta curses/GUI installer.
Make sure that you include ALL documentation from the startup guide on the website on your install CD and make it possible to READ the documentation while going through the install. Sort of a read and install as you go kind of option.
For bonus points you could include third-party site content on correct march flags for proper CPU optimization.
See: this follow up posting under the original article
The 2.6 kernel will become the default kernel, not just for the liveCD, (which as been that since 2004.3) but for the distro. Instead of emerge gentoo-dev-sources for 2.6, it will be emerge gentoo-sources.
Was the binary hand written by monkies or did it start out in C and then get compiled?
Hey, maybe the gui is in python and never needs to be compiled
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Gentoo is for Ricers
Laugh, it's funny!
Why do I keep typing pythong?
'apt-get source pkg' whatever you want configured differently, edit the debian/rules file, and fakeroot ./debian/rules binary.
It's true that somebody hasn't taken the time to figure out the options for each program that match up to a flag like gnome, but I've only needed to locally recompile for odd things, like adding NAD27/83 datum shifting support for proj4.
There is also deb-make, which trivially converts any autoconf based source release into a practically proper debian package. I use that a bit more heavily.
Is there a tutorial out there that will guide you to installing kernel 2.6 instead of 2.4 from the beginning?
An installer? That's crazy. I better have to compile it before I use it.
I remember when legal used to mean lawful, now it means some kind of loophole. - Leo Kessler
There is only one sligh thing that you failed to remember. Yes, there is near zero downtime (on older systems I remember the knoppix (which im assuming is similar to memphis) installer bogging the system down to a near unusable level. Yes, there is a ton of packages installed, but what if you dont want them all? For example, I remember having etheral installed by default (simply using it as an example, replace package foo here), when in my life I have never used, nor do I ever plan to use it. The same goes for many other pre-installed aplications. On my laptop, I really dont need the whole graphics suite that is installed. I could go on here, but its kind of redundant. The point being you could spend those six hours that you "saved" chasing down software that you dont want/need, and hoping to hell some dependencies dont get messed up (not so sure about the dependencies part, its been a year or so since my last adventure with debian). So before you go off and clame that these live-cd's are the answer to mankinds problems, remember that they can cause more problems than they solve.
I am that much more enlightened and proportionally disillusioned
I recently did a Gentoo install for the heck of it -- I happily run other distributions and other OSs too, but wanted to make an educated comparision.
What I liked:
What I didn't like:
All in all, portage makes it worth using and I will install it on real hardware someday.
err, the COMPLETE mepis debian HD install is under 3 gig of footprint.
who cares if there is a load of stuff I wouldn't CHOOSE to install if I was rolling a bespoke system?
not me.
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
Well, I installed gentoo last week, and I was disgusted at the installer. The current (non-graphical) installer automates almost nothing. It doesn't even automate the things that would be trivial to automate. Let me contrast the installer with the (famous) debian installer.
/mnt/cdrom/doc/handbook/txt/handbook.txt (filename slightly wrong). Once you find it, it is pretty obvious this is the instructions. I wonder how long it takes the average guy to find it?
/dev/hda5. Oh, half a dozen other filesystems are offered. A hint for newbies suggests ext3 might be best for normal computers (though it is hardly written for newbies to follow). No instructions are given for installing if you already have an OS installed. Nothing explaining that hda is the primary master... There is no way this could be followed by anybody without linux experience.
/mnt/gentoo and type ./scripts/bootstrap.sh. Why don't we cd to /mnt/gentoo/scripts and run ./bootstrap.sh? I don't know...
/proc/config.gz exists and so I didn't have to write it from scratch but the docs didn't tell me that... The docs also told me about something called genkernel, which turned out not to be installed (emerge genkernel) and once installed generously informs me I don't have a configuration file. The docs also claim genkernel isn't as good, and they claim they'll get around to documenting it after they've explained the manual way (but then they don't)...
;-)
1: Download and burn the installation CDs (trivial for both gentoo and debian). Boot CDs.
At this point Debian presents you with an installation menu (choose your keyboard or language is first, I forget). Whereas gentoo presents you with a root prompt. Um hello? What is the installer program called? What do I type?
After searching the gentoo CD you'll hopefully come across
The first instruction is to type cfdsk, then mkfs.ext3
Next we tar -zxvf a tarball. Better not make a typo and install in the wrong place... Next we cd to
Now, at this point I'm sitting there wondering why? why do I have to do this? why can't they automate these steps? How much work would it have been to write a little curses program that lets me choose a filesystem, finds which tarballs I have, extracts it, and runs bootstrap for me?
Ok, now we have to configure the network and the docs go down a little sidetrack explaining WEP and ESSID... that's great guys... I'm just trying to install an OS here... automating ifconfig eth0 inet dhcp would have been appreciated, but hey I already knew to type that, so you didn't need to automate anything, right?
emerge sync, emerge world... that wasn't too hard... Again, it could have been automated. Oh, and some progress bars would be nice, the number of files you've downloaded doesn't tell me a lot if I don't have a clue how many files there are.
Next I'm supposed to write an fstab by hand with no assistance except a few sample lines in the docs? Really? No sweat mate! No explaination of the keep/dump flags or what I should put there. No explaination of the order of things... And you better not make a typo.
Now I'm supposed to install a kernel from scratch with no sample configuration file to go off? No wonder idiots never manage to get gentoo installed. _I_ knew that
Finally I just have to set up a few symbolic links for the timezone, install a cron program (why didn't bootstrap do that?), install a logger (again, why didn't bootstrap...).
Gee, that was easy! You know, I think a graphical installer might help
but this bloody well is :)
:)
As a card carrying gentoo Zealot I am incredibly impressed with this new release (or at least its betas).
This takes gentoo one step closer to being the One Distro, IMLTHO
Those of you who felt gentoo was obscure and difficult to install, this is no longer true; however its inherent light weight and "only what I asked for" philosiphy is soundly intact. I recommend you give it a shot with this new LiveCD release.
err!
jak
"I recommend you give it a shot with this new LiveCD release."; read WHEN this new LiveCD is released :)
I like your analogy to rice burners. I'd say gentoo is like adding a performance steering wheel and lowering springs. It's going to feel better, but probably not give you a real speed increase.
I love gentoo and I use it as my primary OS. I use it for it's simplicity and for portage. It runs faster than Mandrake 10, but that doesn't say much.
Who cares what people think? I mean, really. Do you think I am going to lose sleep over the fact that Rob "I can't spell" Malda's site has given a bunch of trolls one more thing to troll about?
In Soviet Russia, Gentoo trolls you with hot grits down a petrified Natalie Portman's pants being rendered on a Beowulf cluster of Macs.
While it is rather unfortunte that the original story was incorrect, and that Slashdot picked up on it, there really is no concern whatsoever.
I believe this can help bring more n00bs like me into the linux world but since it's for the hard core linux user, I feel afraid to even try linux now regardless of many other linux product because of the complexity of the gentoo installer. GUI Installer would be nice for the newbies, tho I am not a linux user and I'm trying to port over to linux sometime soon. Currently I have a barecomputer at home 1.6 Athlon XP - blah, etc... I just would perfer something like Debian Net Installer, where I can choose the distro I want, if I'm wrong then correct me.
Elsewise Linux's really nice but now I bear one concern what GUI Interface should I use?! KDE, Gnome, others?! Gentoo supports KDE, GNOME and others as well I bet. But I don't want it to be bloated or anything. This is where Gentoo comes in, because you have complete control of what you want and what you don't unlike the WIN-XP I'm using currently, so many background apps I don;t even need. Compling from source sounds complex but the benefits sounds nice, faster because it's compiled regarding to your hardware.
Point here is = GUI would be nice regarding helping out some n00bs like me to move into a bit more advance linux experience regardless of past experiences.
May
I could be wrong here, but isn't gentoo the only distribution that allows you to experiment with packets in such a way that you can easily remove them and their dependencies?
:)
emerge unmerge [ANYTHING] is great. Coupled with an emerge depclean for removal of packages that were installed purely for satisfying dependencies it greatly reduces the dependency hell.
With rpm/apt you can undoubtedly remove a single package, but what about the depclean feature? is it there?
in any case, this was one of my main reasons for switching to gentoo two years ago. No more need for clean installs because I forgot where all the junk came from.
Oh, another reason was that I had to keep my 200Mhz machine running through my thesis work; the performance improvement could be a placebo effect, but it worked when I needed it
All good stuff. But this kinda enforces my point. If people want to promote linux, thats cool, but they should brag about the stuff that linux does better than windows (like you have done). The fact that there is a graphical installer is just a lame point to labour. the biggest selling points to me as a windows user for a new OS would be:
Faster Boot Time
Less subsceptibility to trojans/viruses/adware etc
Less bloat generally.
As for stability, my windows XP systems never seem to crash. And while most games only run windows, Im loathe to have a different OS just for non game stuff.
I wish we did have a viable competing OS, but for joe user like me, the lack of games support is actually the biggest deal.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
Special situation when the poster themselves asks that a bad post be modded down... come to think of it, that might be a useful feature: let posters mod down any of their *own* posts, as a quick and easy way to submerge stupid or wrong comments they wish they'd never made. [I don't think they should be deleteable, tho, as that damages the overall integrity of a discussion.]
:) [goes off, reads supplied link] Very nice feature set, notably the --pretend switch. And the way it's organized, one can readily imagine a Handy GUI Optional Overlay that would be very easy for even novice linux users to figure out and use. I know I'd never remember all those switches, nor have the patience to RTFM to remind myself, but wrap it in something like TweakUI, and it would be effectively self-documenting on the fly.
;)
Having no familiarity** with Gentoo nor its children, yes, it was a serious question
Hmm. As to the point of that much-debated post... I wonder what the "this-is-cool" switch does? Maybe it turns on CPU cooling, or fetches beer from the fridge.
**Occasionally I muck about with various disties (tho Gentoo hasn't come my way yet), and keep a Mandrake box, but this is mostly a DOS/Win household.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?