Gentoo Reviewed

An anonymous reader writes "Nick Petreley over at LinuxWorld.com gives the uninitiated an excellent view of what the world of Gentoo is like."

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[FUCKING FAG]

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3 days to a week to compile?

[Surak]

I've been a happy Gentoo User for almost a year now, and I can tell you that on my machine 2-3 days is a more accurate time estimate. I just totally rebuilt my machine from scratch a couple of days ago and it took me about 3 days working on it part time to get it going. If I had more time to devote to it, I could have got it up and running in 1-2 days.

One thing Pietrely (sp?) misses though: you need a high speed Internet connection to use Gentoo. If you're on dialup, Gentoo is gonna take a llllooonng time to complete the installation because, unless you're starting from a precompiled base system (GRP), you pretty much have to download everything -- from the kernel, GCC, bash, XFree, KDE, GNOME, whatever.

Also of note, there's very little in the way of GUI admin tools -- no Linuxconf, no graphical init system editor. You'd better get to loving modifying everything with a text editor. For me this was no problem as I'm an oldskool Unix sysadmin. ;)

Anyways, I love gentoo. Emerge ROCKS! No more dependency hell! And the system is FAST! Way to go Gentoo!

Love it!

[ChiefArcher]

I love gentoo... I've been using it for about 6 months now...
the best thing in the world is
emerge sync
emerge -up world
The updates work.. Unlike upgrading from other distros...
If gnome 2.4 came out tomorrow, emerge will have it.

I don't think i can go back to any other distro now.

ChiefArcher

Nope.

[handsomepete]

The original package is not unmerged until the new one installs successfully (i.e. if the install fails, you've still got the complete original version untouched). Even then, you can turn off the automatic 'cleaning' of packages and keep the old version until you feel like uninstalling it.

Re:Debian?

[revmoo]

Well, Debian is great for servers, I still would use debian for a production server, partially because it is so stable, partially because you don't have to wait for things to compile

However, those who like to run bleeding-edge workstations, and customize their configurations like crazy are the ones that I think Gentoo is aimed at.

Re:Keep in mind

[Oopsz]

There's a stable branch [gentoo.org] of gentoo, developed for server use. :)

Re:And now, a translation...

[drinkypoo]

Okay, so you're a troll. But anyway; BSD is easier to install than gentoo, but runs on less hardware, unless you mean netbsd, which has less features than (say) FreeBSD, but which is getting better. On some architectures (notably K6) compiling everything for your native architecture is much faster because the K6 is a great chip but it's lousy at being an i386. Depdency Hell, well, you're the one disses it here, by saying oh of course it doesn't work with rpms for which it was not "designed".

Re:the dark side of gentoo...

[deeeev]

Your first point... You realize that you can "zap" services right? Example: /etc/init.d/apache zap would reset the init script so that you can start it up regularly. I figured that out first week using Gentoo and I'm no rocket scientist.

Ignorance is bliss.

[rice_burners_suck]

If you want to run ntpd at boot time by default, you would issue the command rc-update add ntpd default. This puts a link to the ntpd startup script in the directory /etc/ runlevels/default. Notice also that this is not the traditional Unix SysV path for runlevel scripts (one fewer reason for SCO to think it can sue the Gentoo folks, I guess).

SCO's startup script directories suck, IMHO. I honestly don't see the advantage of filling the filesystem up with all kinds of garbage a la SCO when a simple text file containing a few configuration options will suffice just fine.

Since I will likely get modded down for talking such blasphemy on this screwed up init system anyway, I may as well go ahead and say that FreeBSD's system is really cool. The defaults are read from /etc/defaults/rc.conf and then your overriding settings are read from /etc/rc.conf... As far as all these useless runmodes are concerned... On FreeBSD, the system starts up in Single User mode and then immediately switches to Multi User mode. These are the only two modes that I could ever conceive uses for. I don't understand why all these Linux distros give you 10 different runmodes, of which only one or two are ever used, with five or so of them being used solely for different types of shutdowns and restarts, and in fact, one of the first things I do on any Linux distro is blow all those excessive modes off. Either this machine uses XFree or it doesn't... it's not that hard to start from the command line if you don't ALWAYS use it. Oh, well... Maybe I'm just an ignorant fsck.

To each his own

[infiniti99]

Gentoo really requires a speedy system if you want to have any fun, as you'll spend so much time compiling things. I have Gentoo on my desktop here, and it is great. I used to use Slackware, and this is definitely an upgrade. Well, for me at least. The great thing about Linux is that there is a distro for everyone, no such thing as 'best'. ;-)

However, on my laptop, which is about half the speed, I use Debian. While Debian has been around for a long time, I only recently tried it, some six months after I discovered Gentoo. I'm very impressed by it, apt-get is as good as emerge as far as I can tell, but without any compilation to wait for. I had a full system, KDE and all, up in just a few hours instead of days.

If you use Gentoo and a friend says to you, "oh you need program X", throw your instant gratification out the window. By the time you have program X, your friend will be asleep, and you'll have to coordinate another day.

I still recommend Gentoo, but I think Debian is probably a better choice if you want easy software installation. Of course, neither of these distros is very user friendly. Setting up Gentoo is almost like LFS, and Debian is sorta like Slack. Give your mom SuSE.

Longtime Gentoo user

[be-fan]

I've been using Gentoo since 1.0-RC3. I switched my whole system completely over to Gentoo about a year ago, and haven't looked back since. Here are the top reasons I like Gentoo:

1) Community support. The Gentoo community is absolutely awesome. forums.gentoo.org is a one stop shop for any problem you might have. To this day, I have yet to encounter a problem I couldn't fix by a quick trip to the forums.

2) Excellent documentation. Everything is very verbose, and the most thinking you have to do is substitute devices names and the like for the appropriate values for your system. Previous Linux distributions I have used (and I've been using Linux since Slack 3.5) almost always required you to deviate a little from the written instructions, but this almost never happens with the Gentoo docs.

3) Great package management system. It easy for anybody that knows a bit of sh to write their own package build scripts (.ebuilds). As a result, the forums are full of ebuilds for the latest software. Thing of forums.gentoo.org as "0-day Linux Warez." Also, the ease of writing your own packages means you rarely have to bypass the package manager, since it's almost as easy to write your own ebuild (or, more often, edit an existing ebuild) as it is to compile the software manually.

4) Thoughtful extras. The NVIDIA Linux kernel drivers autodetect your kernel, and apply the appropriate patches if you're doing something like running a development kernel. It's these little tidbits that just makes life

5) Great configuration system. The init system makes sense. All environment variables are in files in the directory env.d. All module aliases are in seperate files in modules.d. All configuration parameters are in conf.d. Also, great utilities like etc-update for managing configuration files and whatnot.

PS> Note that nowhere in the top 5 is any reference to optimization. I use Gentoo not to be 1337, but because, after an initial investment in installation time, I ultimately get a very low maintenence, customizable, and flexible machine. So you anti-Gentoo trolls can just fuck off.

Re:Ignorance is bliss.

[Majix]

The Big Idea behind the SysV init style is that you use tools to administer it. Sure you could do it all manually, but why would you want to? All the symlinking of scripts to runlevels is done automatically for you, as a benefit it is easy to build very complex post install configuration scripts of server software installations.

A init script in Gentoo is little more than a wrapper to call some binary. Even the status checking seems to fail ever so often in my experience. Compare this with an Red Hat style init script, they can be hundreds of lines long and perform a dozen checks and dependency tracking before it'll start the service.

Which is better? It's a matter of taste I guess. If you like to tinker around the Gentoo scripts are ok, but these days I don't expect to have to think about init scripts. They are there, they work, other than that I don't want to care.

Modem install

[justrob]

I've noticed a few comments advising people not to try Gentoo if you don't have a high speed internet connection.

If you already have an existing Linux distribution
installed, you'll have no problem installing Gentoo on another partition, even with a modem.

I was running Red Hat and downloaded the stage tarball, did a chroot on an empty partition and had my system downloading and compiling in the background.

Yeah, it took a long time but it was worth it. I started with Slackware then switched to Red Hat and now I'm very pleased with Gentoo. The portage system is incredible.

Well, Debian is great for servers

[ignorant_newbie]

I run gentoo on servers as well, both at home (for fun) and at work (so I'd get fired if they hung). Two things mitigate the slow compiles: the ability to save tar.gz'd versions of the optimized compile, so that I only have to compile a given package once and then deploy it onto the other machines, and distcc - so that all the machines help with the compilation.

distcc is particularly cool - I love compiling kde on my laptop with help from my 4 dell 2650s :)

Another cool thing about Gentoo

[LMCBoy]

Gentoo has a great community. The forums are a great place to ask any question, and the people who reply are generally courteous and well-informed. There is virtually no newbie-bashing, and never a cry of "RTFM!" (about the closest you'll get is a link to an existing post or FAQ with a polite suggestion that you avail yourself of the search button next time :)

Anyway, yes Gentoo is leet and emerge kicks ass, but I think the Gentoo forums are another of its great strengths. Indeed, because of the forums I question the conventional wisdom that Gentoo is only a good choice for the uber-Geek crowd. There are plenty of newbies on the forums, and they seem to get up to speed rather nicely.

Oh, and "Go Gentoo!!!" or some junk...

Re:the dark side of gentoo...

[Billly Gates]

Do not get me started on documentation either. All the docs are only for the 1.4rc.

The rc is quite bleeding edge and flaky. Compiling does take awhile longer compared to FreeBSD ports because of python.

Gentoo is great for goofing around but is too bleeding edge for my taste. Freebsd is cool because it comes conservative out of the box but ports for newer versions of gcc, kde, perl, and java are installed if you ever want to upgrade.

Re:Debian?

[N1KO]

The debian install process was short for me because it crashed halfway through (during x setup i beleive).

I had similar problems with gentoo (i screwed up the kernel and couldn't boot into the system). The great documentation and the livecd which basically gives you a bootable rescue disc helped me get through the problems.

Emerge can upgrade packages without having to uninstall them first, sometimes it even keeps the older package around (gtk1.2 and 1.4 for example can be installed side by side with no problems).

Re:How long does it actually take?

[Omicron32]

On my P4 2.53GHz/1Gb RAM it took about 6 hours to get a base install, (bootable system), then ages (went to sleep, not sure of exact time), to build XFree, KDE and GNOME.

I did this chrooted into my Gentoo installation from a now dead RedHat partition, so I could continue using my computer (IRC, and not much else, however ;) while it did it's work.

Despite how long it took, (overall about 20-25 hours to get it how I liked it), I'm very happy with Gentoo, and I've been using it for about 7 months.

Also, you should know, I was a Linux newb, (Linux newb, not a computer newb), yet managed to get this working, and to understand a lot more about Linux in the process. Gentoo shouldn't just be resigned to those with Linux knowledge - a bit of common sense and a dashing of general computer knowledge will see you through the installation. :)

Re:No vi?

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

well, after getting the bootstrap done, or a stage 3 install, you can always type

emerge vim

and you'll have your vi.

nano is much more useful and editor agnostic to those not schooled in the ways of vi. I was forced to use vi in my programming classes in college. I now ONLY use it when forced. preferably when I'm doing a system recovery for someone.

of course you can always alias, so that when you try to invoke vi, you get nano instead, but I know how personal editor choices can be.

DO_NOT_COMPILE

[Praxxus]

It looks like people use a combination of "emerge inject category/package" and the "DO_NOT_COMPILE" flag to customize their KDE installations.

For example, say you don't want kdeedu when you go to install KDE 3.1.1:

emerge inject kdebase/kdeedu-3.1.1

Then Portage thinks "kdeedu" is already installed, so it won't compile/install it when you "emerge kde."

For further "granularity" within the different KDE groups, you can do something like:

DO_NOT_COMPILE="knode ksirc kppp korn" emerge kdenetwork. Then, as you might expect, it will build kdenetwork without the specified programs.

This was all ripped off from this thread [gentoo.org] from the ever-helpful Gentoo forums. ;-)