Gentoo Linux Announces Gentoo Linux 2004.1 377
Keppy writes "The departure of Daniel Robbins hasn't dented the progress of Gentoo Linux with version 2004.1 being released. ... please support Gentoo by purchasing something from the online store. The Gentoo homepage also has a short message about the future of Gentoo Linux now that Daniel has left. ' Robbat2 writes with an excerpt from the linked announcement:
"Please consult our
mirror index for download
locations and the
Gentoo Linux Installation Handbook
for detailed installation
instructions. Support for Gentoo Linux 2004.1 can be found through our
user community by way of the Gentoo Forums,
IRC, and various
community mailing-lists.
Release notes for each architecture
can be found linked from the
Gentoo Linux Release Engineering project page."
Give it a go. (Score:5, Informative)
The documentation is brilliant, and all the defaults for the packages are sensible, and well thought out.
When I install a box, I do it at about 4pm. Give it 30 mins to configure, and install a new kernel, reboot, and leave it to emerge -u world ; emerge kde mozilla overnight.
Couple of things though - emerge ufed, and gentoolkit - ufed is a gui for editting USE flags, and gentoolkit contains qpkg.
A very brief doc I knocked up is here [umtstrial.co.uk]. It's probably slightly out of date by now, but you get the idea.
autoupdate (Score:1, Informative)
Upgrading is not needed (Score:4, Informative)
To me the greatest benefit of Gentoo is this: I do not need to blow a machine clean and install a new version or risk a lot with an uncertain install of large packages, I just gradually update my system as new versions become available!
And contrary to popular belief, Gentoo is pretty "user friendly" since it allows "on the fly updating". But this is of course once you actually have your system working flawlessly to begin with..
Upgrade (Score:4, Informative)
#emerge sync
#emerge -DUu world
(oh and upgrading to the latest kernel that will be in
Could someone confirm or deny?
Not a good idea... (Score:2, Informative)
Best Gentoo Utility! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Does it still have the same installer? (Score:1, Informative)
etc-update (Score:3, Informative)
IMPORTANT!!!!: make damn sure you know what you are doing before running etc-update!!!! It is very easy to bork your system if you're not paying attention. Read the manpage and check with the forums before using it.
Re:Not a good idea... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Best Gentoo Utility! (Score:1, Informative)
alias es='esync && eupdatedb'
Throw that in a cronjob and then use esearch to search the portage tree. Much faster and I recommend it over the original way
Cheers,
~ zx 'at' gentoo.org
Re:Upgrade (Score:3, Informative)
For the OP, emerge -upv world to see what will be upgraded, and then do an emerge -uv world to actually upgrade it (or you can upgrade only the packages you want to upgrade from the list).
emerge -upv tells you which packages will be upgraded, and with what options (USE flags in Gentoo speak). -p is for pretend, while -v means verbose. Always a good idea before going ahead and doing the actual upgrade.
Of course, with Gentoo, you never need to download the new distribution to make sure you stay current. Just do emerge -u world (after an emerge sync), and you have the latest version.
Gentoo vs. Slackware (Score:4, Informative)
I literally just moved my home computer from Slackware 9.1 to Gentoo 2004.0 last week (ok, over the course of the last week!) and I have to say that it is indeed the slickest Linux distribution I have ever used!
I still run Slackware 9.1 on my laptop, which has 5/3 the memory and a CPU twice as fast as my home computer - but my new Gentoo box actually runs about TWICE as fast!! It's amazing how compiling everything w/ -O3 and -march=XXX really makes a huge difference. Last night I was simultaneously compiling OpenOffice, Evolution and Gimp, with no slowdown at all in my web browzing, development, etc!
Also, nvidia, sound, FB, kernel 2.6.5 worked the first time, plus it has thousands of packages to download (everything I need), and boots faster than Windows did on my faster machine (by ~8-15 seconds, depending on my readings).
One more thing - Portage is even more user-friendly than downloading *.tgz from linuxpackages.net and running installpkg. It searches for the right version from various mirrors, then downloads, does MD5 checking, and compiles automatically, and maintains a nifty little log, and checks for all dependencies. Also - it provides the most freedom I've seen in a distribution - nothing I don't need or want is installed. Getting evolution to be optimized to my machine is just a matter of typing "# emerge evolution"
Gentoo is indeed fan-freaking-tastic (if you have the patience to compile everything from scratch).
A. Coward
Removing even MORE (Score:3, Informative)
I disable a few packages from the 'recommended set' before I snapshot the tree and start building.
Gentoo store clarification (Score:1, Informative)
Just wanted to clear that up.
If you really wanted to support Gentoo itself, make a direct contribution.
Re:Gentoo is one of the best linux distribs, and h (Score:5, Informative)
And hardware support... The only reason my laptop is still running XP is that my wireless card refuses to run.
After a bit of hunting it seems that the problem is an IRQ conflict between the inbuilt LAN card (which cant be disabled in the BIOS) and the IRQ that the PCMCIA tries to grab when initializing the card.
The card works in windows without a hitch.
I dare say that someone with skills beyond mine in Linux could probably get it working, but for now im stuck in windows, as are most of the computer using population.
Re:Give it a go. (Score:3, Informative)
If you don't have a previous installation of Mandrake, Red Hat or something like that, you should consider doing one before the Gentoo install. Their partitioning tools are easier than raw fdisk, especially if you want to resize a Linux partition. (Reformat them, though, for the Gentoo install.) Again, save those config files!
Re:One more thing (Score:5, Informative)
um..if you knew anything about Gentoo then you would know that it doesn't touch configuration files, if there is a new config file it will rename the NEW file as something like
After the emerge it will tell you that some files config files need to be looked at, a simple:
find
will give you a list of the config files that need updating. Yes. Gentoo even informs you how to find these files. and nice big fat: "use 'emerge --help config' message is staring you right in the face if any new config files need updating.
This isn't something you can just bypass. Nice try. But please, give us a little credit if you're going to make something up!
Re:Gentoo is one of the best linux distribs, and h (Score:5, Informative)
This is the only reason I switched all servers where I work over to gentoo. We need some special builds and such. I don't have time to download/compile by hand. Of all distros I have used Gentoo is the easiest to maintain and keep up to date.
It would be nice with a more enterprise geared gentoo though. It is very fast with upgrades to new packages, might break something. Doesn't happen often but if it does it's often easy to fix.
For the desktop there is no competition. Gentoo is the easiest "bleeding edge distro" to maintain. Alot of unstable packages to test out. And no need to go fully unstable if you only need a few packages.
Now I have about 10 different gentoo boxes at work to take care of. Every friday it takes about an hour of work to upgrade them. Could probably handle 20-30 with not much more time spent.
Re:Gentoo is one of the best linux distribs, and h (Score:5, Informative)
In short, here are some negative things to keep in mind:
In turn, here are some more (and some repeated from the parent post) good points from my view:
Gentoo is for the computer user who likes to customize his environment and have control and know what is what. If you just want to 'use' your computer, go get Mandrake or Fedora or Windows. If you like
Re:One more thing (Score:5, Informative)
find
Actually, you can also do:
'etc-update'
This will walk you through the config files that need to be updated, and let you decide whether you want to accept the changes wholesale, discard the changes, or manually merge them in (it will even show you the differences between old and new).
Re:Gentoo is one of the best linux distribs, and h (Score:3, Informative)
Problems come up on their own. Since programs are compiled and linked against each other and many libraries, when versions change, problems can arise in certain setups, especially new ones.
For the first one, Gentoo also offers pre-build Mozilla binaries for you to use. dont know what compile flags it uses but you can just emerge the binary mozilla, then emerge -B mozilla and when thats done you'll have your own mozilla package in /usr/portage/packages/All
For library changes in programs, use revdep-update (im 85% sure that is the name). it does back tracking in package dependencies to see what needs to be updated.
kportage is pretty nice :) there is also a gnome version i hear.
Re:Yeah, library versioning could be better (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Gentoo is one of the best linux distribs, and h (Score:2, Informative)
I'm beginning to suspect that the author of this particular troll is a Windows user. Microsoft, WISE, InstallShield, etc., have cultivated in Windows users the notion that installation prohibits multitasking. Most every Windows installation program I've seen since the 3.1 days runs in either a maximized window or--in the case of a lot of games--fullscreen mode. Also, they pretty much all include a message on the first screen to the effect of, "Please shut down all other programs while Setup is running."
switching to Gentoo (Score:3, Informative)
Up until then, I'd had some control over 7 boxen running RedHat, mostly RH8. I never moved to RH9 because I didn't like the emerging direction. Starting to cast about for a new distribution, I began to realize that I was thinking of support for family, etc, and not *fun*.
My dual-boot work laptop now runs Gentoo, as does my second (up and coming) server. Other systems are waiting for me to get more comfortable, and for the various nForce2 patches to stabilize and hopefully get into the mainline kernel.
Gentoo has been a mixed bag. Package install is a breeze, far better than RedHat, as long as you don't mind a minor wait. Configuration is 'a learning experience.' (not all bad, but slow)
Re:Gentoo is one of the best linux distribs, and h (Score:3, Informative)
Gentoo is built from source code. This means it can take an entire weekend (Friday night included) to get a system built... Yeah, no kidding. I was a bit suspicious about build times because often when someone jokes "this days days to compile" they mean "it took a long time" which could mean anything. Here's a real stat for newbies: I had a P2/450/384mb RAM, took a little over 8 hours (including reading manual, fixing mistakes, and so on) for a base install. Okay, it took me several days on two machines. The last (5th attempt) only took 5 hours to compile because I went from Stage 1 to Stage 3 to save lots of time. The stage 1 attempts I ran at work, went home, came back the next day, and it was done compiling in about 22 hours on a P2/Dual450/512mb RAM. KDE 3.2.1 took 44 hours to install, not including xfree86. Mozilla took 5 hours.
If you don't have a handle on the situation, it might require outside help and research to solve the problem. Which I used. Luckily, Gentoo-loving people seemingly are both educated and friendly. I had a "Gentoo buddy," and he was very helpful with good cheer once he heard I was having problems. "Oh, I know what the problem is! Nano sucks! Do this, emerge vim..."
Problems come up on their own. Since programs are compiled and linked against each other and many libraries, when versions change, problems can arise in certain setups, especially new ones. This also includes just installing the base system. I had a problem when a package was labeled missing from the ftp mirrors (due to a misspelling. But again, Gentoo forums came to the rescue
You will be using the command line for most administration.The first thing I launch in a GUI is an xterm or something, so this wasn't a problem. What was a problem was nano saved my files only half the time, and it took an emerge vim to get an editor that worked and got my fstab fixed (actually, I used vim from a Slack-LiveCD first to get Gentoo bootable). For a hard core distro like Gentoo, I was a bit surprised vi was not part of the LiveCD, but nano was. I don't mind nano, I was used to pico because I use pine, but the random "not saving" part was irrirtating.
Community is there. Almost any problem can be found in the Gentoo Forums, and most all of them have solutions. A-men! Thank god for those comprehensive, flame-resistant forums. I got my Stage 1 attempt [gentoo.org] fixed in less than an hour.
Gentoo's install guide is very detailed and geared towards novices. I'd change that to "step-by-step commands for people who know what 90% of these commands mean." So when they go wrong, you can go, "Ah... all I have to do is repeat step 15a."
Because of the way you install Gentoo, you become much more familiar with the way Linux works under the hood. Ater my hassle, I may not use Gentoo. I just don't have the time for all those compiles. But you are so right on your point, and that's why I considered my install process with Gentoo, hassles and all, to be well worth my time simply because even though I knew a lot of this stuff already, I still learned a whole lot. Very educational, very forward, and support's there when you need it.
Some points I'd like to add from a newbie's POV:
Re:Yeah, library versioning could be better (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Gentoo unrealistic for production environments (Score:4, Informative)
So only update when there is a security or stability fix that effects you.
You should have very few packages on a server. (For me it's (Apache, SSHD, mod_php) or (SSHD, postgres) or (SSHD, OpenLDAP, Courier))
So maintain a local portage tree and build binary packages for distribution across your server farm. You only need to build each package once. You could even set up distcc [gentoo.org] if you expect to have spare cycles on some of your servers
Is there a way in Debian or commercial distros to tell Qt to compile with support for Postgres or MySQL so you can install Rekall on your desktops (without recompiling it manually)? Is there a way to tell Courier whether or not to include support for OpenLDAP, MySQL, or Postgres?
Odd Timing... (Score:3, Informative)
"New" as in a reformat and repurposing of a venerable rack-mount. My email server moved to a new box and this one is becoming a firewall. All of my production machines are running Gentoo.
Yes it's crazy. But I k#0\/\/ w#@t 1m d01#% +0 C##p fr0# 831n% 0wnd.
Re:Gentoo is one of the best linux distribs, and h (Score:2, Informative)
>>"Gentoo makes me so much more productive."
>"Although I can't use the box at the moment because it's compiling something
My "gentoo-stable" machine runs a nightly cron task. I've never found it still emerging in the morning.
>>"Gentoo is more in the spirit of open source!"
>"Apart from Hello World in Pascal at school,
This really is a disservice to what Gentoo is trying to do. I find it much more likely that those *capable of doing so* will track down a source bug when the source is there and integral to their installation of the package. I know I have, personally, and submitted those bug reports to either Gentoo or the authors as appropriate. For those that can't do it in the first place, there is little difference between Gentoo and any other distro, they don't do anything.
>>"I use Gentoo because it's more like the BSDs."
>"Last month I tried to install FreeBSD on a well-supported machine (etc etc)
I use Gentoo because it does what I need. I have an OpenBSD install I use on my firewall machine...because it does what I need. So?
>>"Heh, my system is soooo much faster after installing Gentoo."
>"I've spent hours recompiling Fetchmail, X-Chat, gEdit and thousands of other programs which spend 99% of their time waiting for user input. Even though only the kernel and glibc make a significant difference with optimisations...
And yet for the clueful user there are gains. Flac compiled with ICC and specifically optimized for P4 saved me huge (>20% general speed) and when ripping 400 CDs, you know, that added up. There are more examples, but you'd probably dismiss me as a servile fan boi. shrug.
>>"...my Gentoo Linux workstation..."
>"...my overclocked AMD eMachines box from PC World,
My main server at home is a dual Xeon. It has a 1.5TB LVM2 that is backed up regularly via rsync (scripts I wrote) to a couple of raid machines elsewhere (the main machine is a media server - all of my music, and recent video stuff, avialable from anywhere in the house). It runs my web server, mail config, etc etc. Not a huge deal by big iron standards but a capable server machine. Happens to be running Gentoo quite capably. Just because it's popular to think script kiddies are using Gentoo, doesn't mean all Gentoo users are script kiddies.
>>"You Red Hat guys must get sick of dependency hell..."
>"I'm too stupid to understand that circular dependencies can be resolved by specifying BOTH
No, I understood RPM management just fine. It was still more cumbersome than Portage, and still didn't meet my needs in other ways (yes, being up to date was one of them).
>>"All the other distros are soooo out of date."
>"Constantly upgrading to the latest bleeding-edge untested software makes me more productive.
Gentoo provides you with three levels of edges to bleed on or not, as per your choice. You can use stable, unstable, or completely unverified (emerging a specific package and it's dependents). But why confuse the issue with the facts, it's so much more fun to cut and paste rhetoric.
>"Let's face it, Gentoo is the future."
Don't know if it is or is not. What I do know it is fits *my* needs better than any other distro I've tried, and I've tried an even dozen if I have one. And from a geeky personal standpoint, it put a little bit of the fun back in *nix that I lost 15 years ago or so.
Ah well, probably be modded to nothing, but I felt like replying.
Re:The Gentoo "geek-factor" (Score:3, Informative)