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Gentoo 2005.0 Released
mintshows writes "According to Gentoo Planet, the first gentoo release of the year, 2005.0, is out. You can download the 2005.0 ISOs from the torrents at http://torrents.gentoo.org/ . Of course, current Gentoo users can just emerge to the latest and greatest as always."
I just finished compiling 2004.999999!
Has anyone had any experiences with the lengthy compilation having a bad impact on their hard drive? I've long been wondering and considering trying Gentoo. And to those who are very experienced in Gentoo, has all the learning/tweaking/compiling been worth the extra power/costumizability in the end?
(\_/)
(O.o) This is Bunny. (> <)
...rather than have 'releases', there's just a whole lot of software which can be used in any combination from the get-go.
Don't current Gentoo users have to change the symlink of their /etc/make.profile to point to the 2005.0 profile under /usr/portage/profiles? Then emerge sync, then emerge -uD world? Then fix_libtool_dependancies.sh... Then revdep-rebuild... Then Emerge --prune some of the old slotted apps that they don't need anymore?
Sincerely Yours
An "Actual" Gentoo user.
Try this out:
Vidalinux
Apparently it's Gentoo, with a nice graphical installer that is no longer cruel and unusual punishment...although the install of Gentoo teaches you quite a bit.
Yes, you get the benefits of portage.
Just wait a little for a new version based on 2005
No, really, I didn't just finish compiling whatever. Anyway, as a lot of people still don't seem to understand, release don't mean anything if you've got gentoo allready installed, as you can keep it up to date with emerge sync and emerge -u world, that's all there is to it.
Releases only mean something for people wanting to install gentoo, although it is no proplem to install from an older medium, you'll still get an uptodate system in the end.
However, what is great about new releases is that they mean new and uptodate binary packages, so if you just want to install gentoo quickly and still have an uptodate system, here is your chance.
Btw., wasn't this release supposed to feature at least a preview of the upcoming installer? Any word on that?
3.4 is there but masked. The current stable version according to portage is 3.3.2. I'm sure in a few weeks, I will wake up to a new KDE and a smoking CPU after all that compiling. Funny thing is, I use Xfce these days. ;)
RebateFX.com - Spread rebates for Forex traders
Pardon a little rant, but gentoo is about to get wiped off all my remaining linux boxen. I've already taken the hard drive out of the gateway and popped in m0n0wall, a CD-based firewall that is the bee's knees and works much more smoothly. Thank god I don't have to deal with the monstrosity that is the webmin "user interface"(aka 5 billion gif images for no particular reason). Oh if only it supported config-on-usb-key!
Last night I updated apache and a bunch of other things (I use the unstable branch because "stable" lags, big time, on many packages I need; yes, I can manually unmask those certain packages, but that wouldn't have solved the particular problem I'm about to describe).
I run etc-update, which absolutely blows chunks and has for years; for example, ALL of /etc is protected. So maybe webmin comes along and touches 70 config files. You're then treated to trying to approve those 70 files along with other files that were also changed by other emerge updates. Attempts to provide better alternatives have been staunchly blocked; cfg-update has been trying to get into portage, but the gentoo team have been sitting on their asses for over two years. Piss-poor configuration management is one sure fire way to get me off your distro, because it's the biggest potential problem maker. PS- not everyone installs X on their servers, guys.
All is well, or so I think. Overnight, the power fails. I go to show someone photos on the server, connection refused. Huh?
Apache's not running. Hmm. 'apache2 start'.
That spits out a big tirade about how my commonapache2.conf file "is present in the old location" and I need to update the current configuration files and remove the commmonapache2.conf file. Then tells me to see this page which tells me about all the internal details, none of which I give a fuck about; I want a simple 1-2-3 migration, and they're yacking about recompiling everything, but they don't actually tell you what versions of everything you need to have at a minimum for that package to "understand" their changes. The page claims mod_php isn't ready for these changes yet (which is not true anymore, I later discover), so I panic and try going back to older versions of everything. More carnage and wasted time compiling.
It then takes me 2 hours to sort out the mess because they've got HARD LINKS to some directories, soft links to others, there's a full configuration file tree in /usr/lib/apache2, there's no clear delineation between the "common" and (???) apache conf files, their migration page claims the server root changed to /usr/lib/apache2 but it really didn't, it's all still in /etc/apache2/...Oh, mod_user_dir for no particular good reason now has to be TURNED ON with a -D option. I spend another 30 minutes fixing all the crap that was in my old apache configuration files, because apache2's error messages consist of "an access directive prohibited you from loading that". WHAT access directive? Or, my personal favorite, an "internal server error". Whee.
It's a unholy mess (at least part of it is apache's fault, for having one of the worst configuration schemes and error handling I've ever dealt with) and I was completely caught off guard- why? Because as portage merges things, if there are extremely important notes printed to the console, but so is EVERY detail about a compile along with all the files that are being merged/unmerged/whatevered...so chances are, it scrolls right out of the terminal buffer. At the end of a multiple-package emerge, there's no one block of text that says "IMPORTANT STUFF CHANGED".
I used to think the compile-from-source stuff was a godsend, but lately, it's nothing but a curse. I run a sync and then emerge -up world, and I get a list 3 pages long of mostly minor little version bumps. Fantasti
Please help metamoderate.
The only real problem I've had with gentoo is fragmentation caused by all the compiling and updating files. I think it isn't so much that the files are fragmented as spread out thin across the disk... that's because you're always compiling something and creating system files with different amounts of space in use.
:wq from vi hangs for a while. The best solution I have found is to create a fairly large partition and mount tmpfs onto /tmp then bind to /usr/tmp and optionally to /usr/portage/distfiles or portage cache dir. Creating a loopback device file and putting portage on it helps but the real problem IMO is all the files from compiling. Over time this has a large impact.
/etc/fstab|rc.conf|make.conf) it goes pretty smooth, although it defitely needs some work on that part.
I've tried different filesystems such as jfs, reiser4 (using -mm kernel), and ext3 of course and none of them really solved the problem. Reiser4 is the best overall, but suffers from several-second long pauses when doing file-io as in rebalances the tree, which can be really irritating when
Other that that gentoo is awesome. I always have more up-to-date software than any other distro, it's simple to set options for various software, and there's never any version conflicts. The only thing that ever takes any time from an administration POV is etc-update. Once you figure out the interactive merge and what files to actually care about (/etc/conf.d and
First off, I agree with some of the things you say, while I personally don't find etc-update to be that hard (It just gives you a list of the config files that can be updated and you can then simply choose the ones you don't want to be updated, that is most of the times the ones you edited yourself and then update the rest automatically), it sure isn't the ideal way of doing things.
Also the important messages scrolling by has been a problem for ages and still hasn't been addressed, which is a shame.
And I also agree that gentoo's handling of web things like apache, php, wordpress, etc. is far from ideal. (webapp-config, how I hate you).
But there is one thing that really makes a lot of your critizism mute, you are running an unstable system and complain about breakage and constant updates. Come on, that's just silly.
And contrary to what you seem to think, there is no situation that requires you to run an unstable system, especially if this system is a server. If you think you need some unstable apps, fine, gentoo gives you the tools to just install those unstable apps and leave everything else stable, if you refuse to use these tools, don't complain, it is entirely your fault.
Jesus, Gnome 2.10 has been available for quite some time now. It's just masked, that is all.
So if you want it, unmask it (should be 2 minutes or work) and install it, but let the people that want to have a stable system have their stable system.
I used to be a Gentoo guy after rolling my own LFS install. A lot of people go on and on about how Gentoo "teaches" them about Linux due to the install process, but what exactly are you learning? At most, you learn how to partition correctly. Everything else is handled with automated scripts that you just set flags for if you want to customize. When you install packages, you just emerge it, and it does all the compilation for you. So what exactly is being taught here? Just curious.
For a real good time, Linux From Scratch will actually give you insight into what's going on. No automated scripts there (though there are some available for LFS veterans who don't want to do it all again).
It's always ironic to me wherever Gentoo is discussed on Slashdot because Gentoo has struck me as the ultimate RTFM distribution. Think about that for a second. RTFM required + Slashdot = ...
Does anybody else think that the combination of torrent and emerge (or torrent and apt-get for that matter) would be a great match? I mean transfers are pretty quick already but this way the bandwidth loads from updates can be passed around with out a serious security risk. Bah I'm probably just being an idiot.
Many Gentoo users have probably run etc-update only to find out that 85 files need updating, 7 have been automatically merged, now you have to merge the rest yourself. After working steadily through them, you soon discover that 95% of them are files you have not even heard of, or at least you have never changed them. After a while you decide to just run your eyes over the list quickly, and keep the ones you have edited, then use -5 on the rest. Except you miss one and now your system doesn't work and you have to figure out why.
Here is my idea for a way to solve the problem.
Gentoo should always keep a backup copy of the original configuration files. When you run etc-update it should compare the current file with the backup copy and if they are identical the current file should be deleted and replaced by the new file without prompting the user. Then the list will only be the 5 or 6 files that you have actually changed, and there is much less chance of a user accidentally overwriting their own changes.
Of course the old functionality should still be available too, for those that prefer it.
Comments?
Mark Byers.
A small gentoo desktop install typically takes between 1 and 2GB. That includes the coreutils, linuxutils, X, mozilla, editors, compilers, etc...
As for the ram, ideally you want 256 as a minimum or you're going to be swapping a lot to disk. 512MB is plenty. I know on my laptop at least going from 256 to 768 [two slots, it came with a 256MB board] MB of ram was a nice boost for building stuff.
On my laptop I sit at 3.2GB used and I have tons of other tools installed [Gnome, tetex, debugging tools, gaim, openoffice, etc...].
But even a full desktop build with Gnome or KDE wouldn't top 4GB of space and in that you're getting a lot of free tools.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Bye bye Gentoo users? Sheesh, we don't even need stop using things while they upgrade. Just emerge and forget about it while carrying on as normal.
All this hot air about learning stuff from Gentoo is partly true, but the main reason I use it is because it's stupidly easy to maintain and keep up to date. Compiling certain things takes a while, and I don't bother to compile OpenOffice because it's not worth it. Still, it's not like I even have to stop using the computer while it's going on - I just fire, forget, and get on with my work.
Organic free-range music... yum!
can it be installed on a PIII with 256mb ram and an 8gb hdd?
/dev/hda6 2.9G 1.8G 1019M 64% /
/dev/hda5 17M 8.7M 7.5M 54% /boot
/dev/hda7 1.1G 560M 529M 52% /usr/portage
I'm running gentoo on an old 233 pentium MMX laptop with 80Mb RAM and a 6Gg hard disk (of which 1.5 gb is stil an old windows partition) - it's my home server including my main mail server (built in UPS, only draws about 10 watts, small and quite quiet etc.) and it's running fine.
I rarely run up X on it, I admit, but I've got X installed (so if need be I can run up apps to display on my main machine) and it's happily running qmail (qpsmtpd,spamassassin, clamav,pyzor, razor,dcc etc.), ssh and other "home server" apps, and it doesn't need much room:
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
I could probably trim this further, but it's fine for me. I have a weekly cron job to "emerge --sync" and "emerge -Dupv world", and I'm thinking of adding "emerge -Du --fetch-only world".
Updates compile a little slowly at times, but then I don't have much installed to update, and I could always add a cron job to do the updates too.
I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered. - George Best
how Gentoo generates heat and passion. If you don't like it, don't use it, period. Why waste outrageous amount of times explaining to the world that it's stupid and that its users are insane? In the time it took you guys who posted that kind of comments, you could have emerge'd and updated a Gentoo box. ;-)
This is a new *profile* version. Profile versions change things. Like default packages (one of the 2004 releases changed "x-window-system" to be xorg-x11 by default, for example).
New profiles mean more than just installers.
Jay | http://oldos.org