Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Gentoo 2005.1, Experimental Live CD Released

Posted by timothy on from the now-that's-an-ecosystem dept.

safeness writes "Gentoo 2005.1 was released yesterday. Included in its release is an additional experimental LiveCD with the long awaited graphical installer. Now there's one less reason for your friends to switch to Gentoo! Get it here!" And darthcamaro writes "Hard to tell from the change log what's new ... but this story on internetnews.com notes new installation hardware support and WiFi."

13 of 347 comments (clear)

  1. Typo? by fiji · · Score: 1, Insightful

    "Now there's one less reason for your friends to switch to Gentoo!" should perhaps be "Now there's one less reason for your friends NOT to switch to Gentoo!".

    -ben

    1. Re:Typo? by Eberlin · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Probably not a typo. There's a common thought that the gentoo folks are pretty "hardcore" about the OS. That whole stage1 compile everything from scratch, configure everything with vi, use magnets to place the linux kernel bits on the HDD, and all that wonderful stuff. A graphical installer almost defeats the purpose of being 1337, after all.

      I hear you learn lots about Linux that way. I wouldn't know, I run ubuntu. I'd like to maybe try it one day (or week or month...it's a slow machine) for the experience but for now, mine work relatively well.

      So yeah, if the draw is to be difficult, complex, and 1337, then making it easier would make some people NOT switch to gentoo.

    2. Re:Typo? by sbennett · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I hear you learn lots about Linux that way.

      No, you learn lots about following instructions that way. Of course, it's still useful knowledge that a lot of people could benefit from gaining.

    3. Re:Typo? by agraupe · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well, that's not entirely true. You could say the same thing about the apprentice system, which obviously does work. Sure you don't become a linux 1337 hax0r over night, but, having done a gentoo install, I could see what I had done wrong with other linux systems. As you do the install, you see how things fit together, and getting from the fresh-install to working-desktop stage is better still, in terms of learning. Because X.org wasn't automatically configured, I learned how to do it by the gentoo guide, so when something did screw up with it, I could go back in and fix it. Was this the only way to get this information? No. Would a gentoo install teach you much if you're already a knowledgeable linux/UNIX user? Again, no. For those of us not in that category, the gentoo install proves to be educational, and it ends up with a system that is customized to your liking.

    4. Re:Typo? by LordoftheWoods · · Score: 2, Insightful

      nano (the free clone of non-free pico) is much more straightforward than vi. So it moves it down on the 1337 scale and up on the is-this-even-plausible-for-a-newbie scale.

  2. Discrepancy by hamfactorial · · Score: 1, Insightful

    There seems to be an obvious mismatch between the summary, which states that the release includes the long-awaited (is it really?) graphical installer, and the article which says that the installer is not included. What gives?

    --
    Did you know subscribers can see articles in the future? Holy shit!
  3. Poorly Chosen Language by SporkLand · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I was browsing the screenshots of the new installer, and they looked nice. But as I was looking through them I saw reference to a "nazi-ish firewall". I'm not the type of person that is upset by this, but I can picture the people whose sensitivities would be offended by such a remark.

    Maybe they should switch nazi-ish for strict. I'm not trying to be overly critical but I'm sure there are people who would find the comparisons between an overly-strict computer and a group that baked people in ovens offensive.

  4. Re:Perhaps its only me... by Drooling+Iguana · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's only the installer that's experimental. The actual stuff that installs on your computer will only be expiremental if you go with the "~arch" branch.

    --
    ... I'm addicted to placebos
  5. Re:etc-update STILL sucks by jj110888 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    stop trolling and start use dispatch-conf (included in portage).

    IIRC, most of the alternatives that don't use X are simple scripts (like dispatch-conf and etc-update are anyways), so why make a whole package for something u can just slip into ~/bin (or w/e is in your $PATH) ?

  6. Re:etc-update STILL sucks by ajayrockrock · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I posted about how much gentoo config handling sucks in the last slashdot story about gentoo, and I'll keep doing so until they do something to fix it.

    Thanks for doing your part.

  7. Re:This is going to be good... by w98 · · Score: 3, Insightful
    I use gentoo 2005.0, and have used gentoo since one of their 2003 releases. Did that make me a linux expert? No. Using about a dozen different distros since the early 90's has sure helped though!

    I agree that following a step-by-step list of instructions to install something does not make someone an expert. Heck, I can buy something in a box from IKEA, assemble it per their instructions, and have a functional piece of furniture, but that hardly makes me a furniture craftsman "expert".

    Of course, if the user goes through the installation walk-through and checks other command line options, and WHY things happen in a certain order, then of *course* it will make a HUGE difference on the skill level they end up with.

    So I don't use gentoo for the "prestige" of saying "I use an OS I compiled from source", I use gentoo 'cause it's a comfortable distro for me, it's nice and fast for what I need, it supports all of the hardware I currently need it for, and that's that.

    # emerge mytwocents

    --
    my geeklog
  8. No ReiserFS by Danuvius · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Gentoo's "default filesystem" (the one that's recommended for the root partition in the installation manual) is not supported. No ReiserFS with the graphical installer.

    For a large portion of Gentoo users this makes the graphical installer USELESS.

    And why is there no ReiserFS support?

    According to the, presumably 12 year old, FAQ writer for the project:
    http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/releng/installer/faq .xml#reiser
    "Because reiserfs == teh suck...and libparted doesn't support it very well."

    Based on past experience, I suspect behind this decision a juvenile programmer with personal dislike for Hans Reiser due to some flamewars.

    Urgh... what a pity. I hope eventually work will be taken over by people with some sense. In the meantime I'll continue being very happy with my manual gentoo installation and recommend any GUI-installation-dependent users to head on to SuSE.

    --
    Akarsz Magyar Gentoo fórumot? Akkor
  9. Re:It's not bad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    You can install from stage 3 and precompiled binaries to get to the desktop in a mater of minutes and then emerge --deep -e world, go to a rave party and the box should be ready when you get back. Anyway, even if it compiles in the backgroud, you still have the desktop. No pain in my book, but a busy cpu for a while.