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Gentoo 1.0 Released 170

Posted by timothy from the slick-ideas dept.
Spider[DAC] writes: "Gentoo Linux 1.0 is finally released. see their homepage for more details, or skip directly to the installation instructions. Gentoo is a up-to-date distribution that uses 'portage' (a system similar to the BSD ports) to download, compile and configure the installation process."
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Gentoo 1.0 Released More

Gentoo 1.0 Released

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  • explanation needed.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 31, 2002 @04:32PM (#3261834)
    I'm not a BSD user, can somebody explain to me what the following means? How does one download, compile, and configure a program's install process??


    "Gentoo is a up-to-date distribution that uses 'portage'...to download compile and configure the installation process."

    • Re:explanation needed.. (Score:4, Informative)

      by someonehasmyname ( 465543 ) on Sunday March 31, 2002 @04:36PM (#3261844)
      in FreeBSD, if I wanna install apache for instance, I cd to /usr/ports/www/apache13 and type "make install clean" .. freebsd downloads apache, if patching the code is required for it to run under bsd it does that too. mostly the patches are just path changes.. just to make all the apps install to /usr/local/bin and conf goto /usr/local/etc

    • Re:explanation needed.. (Score:5, Informative)

      by CoolVibe ( 11466 ) on Sunday March 31, 2002 @04:37PM (#3261850) Journal
      BSD ports work as simple as this:

      # cd /usr/ports/editors/vim
      # make install clean

      It then fetches the sources (and dependancies if they aren't met yet) and compiles and installs them automagically.

      Oh, you can also make packages this way (with the 'package' makefile target). BSD also has a package system btw, but that's too oftopic :)

      • But the parent is talking about the install process of the OS. How do you compile the install process if you don't have a system to compile it on?

        Of course, the question is naive in that you don't do that, you need a binary bootstrap of some kind.

    • Re:explanation needed.. (Score:3, Informative)

      by ibbey ( 27873 )
      To install Gentoo, you first download a base system that you bot from. This system includes the compiler & necessary utilities to install the system, all in binary form. Then, as part of the install process, all of the binaries are then re-compiled from the latest sources. Once you reboot, all of the binaries are gone & you're running from the newly compiled versions.

      This simplifies things a bit, but the install process is actually quite easy. I've been running Gento for ~2 months now, and I don't think I've ever been as pleased with a Linux distribution. It requires a bit more knowledge then, for example, Mandrake, but it's not difficult, and it's very well documented. I highly recommend you try it out.
    • A lot of people have replied to you already, but I'll take a stab too because I've just recently installed FreeBSD, and had to learn what they meant by "ports".

      Basically a "port" of an application is a collection of scripts containing information on where to download the source for the application, how to compile it, how to install it, and what other "ports" it may depend on. Whether you have other "ports" installed (in the sense of the application the "port" contains instructions about), etc...

      When you install FreeBSD, and I assume other BSDs as well, you have the option of installing all these "ports". This isn't to be confused with installing that applications themselves, this is just the skeleton script collection.

      I think the BSD people maintain a list of accepted "ports", so it is a controlled situation.

      Hope that helps.

      • Re:explanation needed.. (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Also, each system has url(s) of where to update the ports scripts from. You can replace these with third-party locations if the official line isn't accepting certain software.

  • Nice to see, but... (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Zrealm ( 114647 )
    other than the portage system, this seems to be a moderatly unexciting distro. User-mode Linux is somewhat interesting but doesn't seem compelling enough to change from slack\SuSE\debian, etc. Is that a compelling enough feature to consider this an important step in the evolution of Linux, or, as is more likely, is this simply going to go by the wayside...
    • User-mode Linux is somewhat interesting but doesn't seem compelling enough to change from slack\SuSE\debian, etc.

      User mode linux is part of Debian unstable anyway, and there are RPMs for download at the UML [sourceforge.net] web site.

      And it is a great toy / tool.
      • You're right - apparently I'm channeling an idiot this morning and for some reason when I saw it on the Gentoo page associated the two more strongly. It definitly does seem like a reasonably neat tool to allow testing of some of the dev stuff that's still to unstable to put on a business machine...
    • The main benefit of Gentoo is that you get the latest versions of every package when you're installing.

      You also get to choose to some extent what dependencies you want your programs to have. If you don't care about KDE, you can set it up so no programs with optional KDE support have it compiled in. This is unlike .rpms and .debs where you're at the mercy of whoever built the package.
      • The main benefit of Gentoo is that you get the latest versions of every package when you're installing.

        After you're done with the 4+ hour installation, you wont have the latest versions of anything any more. :)
      • You also get to choose to some extent what dependencies you want your programs to have. If you don't care about KDE, you can set it up so no programs with optional KDE support have it compiled in. This is unlike .rpms and .debs where you're at the mercy of whoever built the package.

        No, this is LIKE .rpms and .debs, where you can download the source package and compile to your heart's content.

        But with RPM and dpkg, you have the option of easy install of binaries for systems that don't need specially-compiled versions.
    • Since User-mode linux can be used with any distribution, you're right, it's not a very good reason to switch. Of course since UML has basically nothing to do with Gentoo other then a tutorial on the site, I can't imagine why someone would even think about switching to Gentoo for it. Had you done even 5 minutes worth of research before posting you would have known this, so maybe next time you should actually read the site before posting?

  • I still like sorcerer better... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jdwilso2 ( 90224 ) on Sunday March 31, 2002 @04:34PM (#3261839)
    From lookin at the changes to 1.0, I still like Sorcerer GNU Linux [sorcerylinux.org] better ... Its just cleaner and easier to use in my opinion.

    But don't get me wrong, a source based distro is a great thing, and I really hope that one day in the near future (rather than trying to maintain this binary package management hell) all the major distros will wake up and realize that source management is *much* cleaner and nicer to the user. I'm really hoping for the death of RPM, but I'm sure I'm not so lucky...

    jdW
    • Whats the philosophy behind Sorcery Linux... examination of the link informs me that its 'so advanced it might as well be magic', but it is apparently not quite at the telepathic stages yet.

      There is almost no information on the website, except cryptic install instructions, a long explaination of the developer heirarchy and uber-cute magic-themed nomenclature. ("Can I cast spells in runlevel 3" -- umm, huh?)

      Nothing about what it actually is!!

      • Re:Explain... (Score:4, Informative)

        by Zach978 ( 98911 ) on Sunday March 31, 2002 @06:54PM (#3262458) Homepage
        You bring up good points. I'll work on a "New to Sorcerer" FAQ section for the site. We've just reorganized after the leader of the project went awall. He just took off without helping to ensure continued development. So we have reorganized a new team and have been trying to get the website together with some better documentation. This FAQ [wox.org] is from the old Sorcerer site, which is back up after being taken down by Kyle, the former leader of the project. We'll probably have more on the new site soon.

    • Before installing Gentoo, I tried Sorcerer. They are very similar, and Sorcerer sdoes have some nice touches (for example, I like that you can make symlinks that will automatically install a package the first time it's called).

      The problem I had with Sorcerer, however, is that it lacked any real documentation. It had a great installer, but if -anything- went wrong, you were on your own (for example, there is basically no info on setting up your network connection, even though a network connection is absolutely vital to the install process).

      Gentoo, on the other hand has a less automated install, but it is VERY well docemented. If you follow the instructions, you will get the install done, even if you don't have much Unix knowledge. I still wouldn't recommend Gentoo to a beginner (The install may be simple, but once it's installed, you're back on your own), but even a moderately experienced and moderately adventerous user will have no problems.
      • Unfortunately, you're right - so many people are putting so much effort into making Sorcerer great that not a whole lot of attention has been paid to creating lots of documentation. The mailing lists, however, are always there if you need help; you can find them here [sorcerylinux.org].

        I highly encourage everyone to give Sorcerer a shot (for a veteran Linux user it is extremely easy to get the hang of - and not too tough for someone with relatively little experience, and the installation has menus and whatnot to make it fairly simple). However, if you're weary about making the plunge without adequate documentation, you can probably expect to see a story on Slashdot a few weeks from now once all the kinks have been worked out (it has only been a few weeks since Sorcerer's creator quit and tried to bring his project down with him, so we're still scrambling to get everything perfect).

    • While I use and like Sorcerer, I don't think sorce based distributions have a chance of becoming mainstream. The average user does not have the time to let the box build for a day.

    • >I really hope that one day in the near future (rather than trying to maintain this binary package management hell) all the major distros will wake up and realize that source management is *much* cleaner and nicer to the user.

      This is BS, IMHO and to say it bluntly (no offence intended, it's just that I'm such a troll ;-))

      Try to use a source-based distro for a firewall. I mean: I don't have compilers on a firewall. Nor "man". I don't have *anything* on a firewall that can be remotely used if the box is hacked. This is one reason that I'm against using a source-based distro for some things.

      The other reason is that I don't really understand what's the point in compiling everything, or to be precise: I don't understand what's the point in compiling everything *besides geekiness*. Of course it could be funny, if you like it. Enlightening? Maybe. But to say that it's "the right way" to do things is plain BS. "Joe Sixpack" doesn't need it, nor a veteran sysadmin. It's time and bandwidth consuming. What do you gain in terms of performance? A 10%? C'mon, gimme a break.

      But of course, I use Debian, so maybe compared to RH or SuSE it's better the *BSD way. I don't know.

      I think that many people are trying to be 3l337 trolling about *BSD, without really knowing all the Linux options.

      Excuse me if I sound too much "anti *BSD", but it's just that I'm fed up of the "BSD is better" attitude without giving real proofs. Give me reasons and I'll be the more reasonable guy in Earth, but don't try to fool me.
  • "(a system similar to teh BSD ports)"

    You're almost good enough to be a slashdot editor!

  • The ISO is only 103 MB. Tres coolito. However, I'm watching my download get slower, slower, slower....... --The Rev

  • Cool, now that I spent..... (Score:5, Funny)

    by CDWert ( 450988 ) on Sunday March 31, 2002 @04:38PM (#3261854) Homepage
    Cool now that I spent the last 2 days installing Visual Studio 7 Enterprise Architect on my Win XP box, I can unload the Rh 7.192 Advanced server test platform I had setup and Was going to upgrade to the current redhat 7.3 beta, and instead spend the next week downloading and installing, compiling and playing with Gentoo , until that is RH 7.4 (or 8 whatever) is released since Solaris 9 isnt going to offer an Intel version I can wipe my solaris 8 intel box and try to load......

    Holy shit no wonder I dont ever get any actual work done anymore, between loading new systems to playing with new distros, trying to figure iout this whole ungodly dot.diaster and typing stuff like this on slashdot.....

    Time to get back to chasing my tail in circles.....

    • I'm chasing that same tail...
    • Holy shit no wonder I dont ever get any actual work done anymore, between loading new systems to playing with new distros...

      Seriosly I have that same issue... In the last week alone I've installed/uninstalled FreeBSD 4.5, Debian 2.2r5 (3 times), Slackware 8.0, Mandrake 8.2, and Lycoris (whatever version it is). I was going to check out Stampede but on their site there is a message that says the project is on hold - which probably means it's dead - so I figured I wouldn't bother. I tried downloading the RedHat 7.(2/3beta) ISO's but it kept dying so I'll have to play with those later.

      The problem is after I get the system setup, get a new kernel compiled, get X setup just right, get all the programs installed that I like, and get all the CLI programs configured how I like them I'm left with nothing to do. So I scrap it and move on to another Distro.

      It's just not the same with MS Windows. What are you going to do? Install Dell's OEM version of Windows and then Compaq and then HP? Or even worse, install any ole' version just once, be happy with it and then start actually doing real stuff? Where's the fun in that? :)
  • For those who already have gentoo running and you just want to upgrade, you can find the instructions here [gentoo.org]

  • Just curious... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by redhatbox ( 569534 )

    The underlying concepts for this distribution seem fantastic. Browsing through the Gentoo site, I noticed verbiage to this effect in multiple places:

    "Gentoo Linux is a versatile and fast, completely free x86-based Linux distribution geared towards developers and network professionals ..."

    Are there any similar projects in the works for other computing architectures (Mac, Sun, etc)? Not trying to open another can of worms, just thought I'd ask... :)

  • I really really DON'T think that it's wise to the base distro so small. The ISO is just 103 MB and offers only the very basic system. If you want most of the apps provided by the distros like RedHat / Mandrake / Debian, you will have to download them. This is pretty much like a net-install. Sure, it's great for those with broadband, but what about those who don't have broadband ?

    Make it 1CD, make it have X, Gnome and some nice apps come with the distro itself and I might reconsider trying this.
    • Sure, it's great for those with broadband, but what about those who don't have broadband?

      Yeah, and what about those without a cd-rom drive|electricity|computer|etc? That's so unfair.
      • Yeah, and what about those without a cd-rom drive|electricity|computer|etc? That's so unfair.

        You were trying to make a joke by comparing the costs of hardware to the costs of network infrastructure. Your joke doesn't add up. For some users in the United States, initially setting up broadband Internet access can cost a hundred times more than the price of a relatively high-end computer system. In some cases, adding broadband Internet access to a family's telecommunications package may cost upwards of $200,000 [pineight.com].

        • I'm assuming that this post wasn't a troll, though from your rant, I suspect that it actually was meant that way. Nonetheless, I'll reply...

          I don't think the previous poster was making a joke at all, though it was clearly intended to be sarcastic. I believe that he was pointing out the stupidity of the argument that Gentoo was a bad idea since it required a broadband connection.

          If you don't have broadband, don't use Gentoo. You will probably not be happy with the overall experience. Is that a flaw in it's design? Not really, since the real advantages of it's design are directly due to it's network connection.
    • As an alternative to downloading just the 130MB iso you can also download the 650MB iso which is the fast install and has most of everything you need to get your system up and running.
    • They actually are going to be making a "binary" install with everything you mentioned available. In it's current form, yeah, you either have a fast connection or wait a damn long time. But it's very cool, well worth it.
    • umm if you read their website you would notice that Gentoo is targetted for developers and network proffessionals...

      no offense but most of thoose people have access to more than a 56k.

      and really when you consider that you still cant buy pre-burnt ISOs from em (though they say this is coming soon), wouldnt a more compact ISO that includes no fluff and lets you choose which apps you do want to download on your own be better for a 56k'er?

      you would surely spend more time downloading most other distros, and when its all over you would have probably downloaded a bit of stuff you may not even use. With this setup you will only spend the time after the install downloading what you want. If their CD they eventually offer for sale doesnt include any other stuff than the 103 megs you might have a point.


    • I really really DON'T think that it's wise to the base distro so small. The ISO is just 103 MB and offers only the very basic system. If you want most of the apps provided by the distros like RedHat / Mandrake / Debian, you will have to download them. This is pretty much like a net-install. Sure, it's great for those with broadband, but what about those who don't have broadband?

      Putting this distribution on CD would basically defeat the entire reason it exists. This distribution is intended for people who have fast connection, and want to have the fastest, most current system possible. Putting it on CD ROM would still allow you to optimize for your system, but you couldn't take advantage of the easy updates. Personally, a 5-10% speed boost doesn't justify the switch. The ease of upgrading & administration, however, makes it worthwhile.

    • You need a decent connection to install Gentoo, because that is when you will do most of your downloading. It is doable to maintain a Gentoo system over a modem line because you should only need to do a long download when a package like kde or gnome bumps up in revision.

      There is talk on the webpage and on irc about selling cd's with the up-do-date portage tree and packages within the next few weeks.

  • The new iMac (Score:4, Funny)

    by burtonator ( 70115 ) on Sunday March 31, 2002 @04:53PM (#3261904)
    Gentoo also has a picture of the new iMac [gentoo.org]

    :)

    What the hell is that thing anyway?!

  • Kudos to Gentoo (Score:2, Informative)

    by Kaypro ( 35263 )
    I've dabbled in every possible Linux distribtution imaginable and have been using Gentoo exclusively for about 6 months now. I must say that I'm pretty sure I've settled on using Gentoo Linux as my sole distribution from now on. I've even gone ahead and put them on some production servers as well. Between portage and the ability to have a system that's totally optimized for your particular hardware is beyond perfection. This may not be a newbie distribution but for most hardcore Linux users and even those with some serious servers on hand, Gentoo takes the cake. The first time I tried Gentoo I was blown away at the clean file system, powerful portage system, and shear increase in speed that I had gained. If you give it a shot, you'll be hard pressed going back to another ditribution. I HIGHLY recommend giving it a shot. For those you go ahead and try it, don't be set back by the time it takes to install. It will take a while (I mean youre basically building the whole system from scratch) but it will be worth the wait. If for the speed alone.... it's great. Ok... I'm done plugging Gentoo (just a user, not part of the Gentoo team or anything). So give it a shot some weekend... if nothing else.... you'll learn a lot!

    Cheers!

    • Sure, Gentoo's nice, but... Even on fairly decent hardware (Duron 850@1GHz), compilation takes FOREVER. Who on earth has three days to spend selecting, compiling, and installing various packages? Everything definitely was faster, and bootup was 4x shorter than Mandrake, but sheesh. Now that I'm working full time, I don't have time to set up and install a source-based distribution to the point of productivity. Also, for some reason, no matter how many times I recompiled X and various libraries, Quake 3 would always hardlock on spawn.

      • I agree.... compilation is time consuming, but understandable. I think making the i686 and ix86 versions available will at least help in getting a base system setup quickly. For the most part you only have to do it once. After that its pretty much minor upgrades here and there. Not much different than the time it takes using Debian and apt-get for upgrades.
    • I'll echo that! I've just gotten my gentoo system up and running last week, and it's incredible. My main system is a PIII 966 with 512 MB of RAM and it's running RH 7.2. My installation of Gentoo onto my old Celeron (overclocked to 450 MHz) with 256 MB RAM feels faster than my main machine... The hype about it being fast is for real. :)

      Try it out!

  • Just Like Sorcerer? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Webz ( 210489 )
    Is this somewhat like Sorcerer Linux? The mention of automagical scripts and optimized installs made me think of it right away... Since I'm no Linux guru, anyone care to shed some light?

    • Re:Just Like Sorcerer? (Score:5, Informative)

      by al3x ( 74745 ) on Sunday March 31, 2002 @05:22PM (#3261988) Homepage
      Yes, it is like Sorceror, and the two projects began around the same time. However, I would venture to say that Gentoo is less of a "hobbyist" effort, with an eye more towards production servers. They have the support of some cool companies, and generally feel more "professional" than Sorcerer without loosing geekiness. And, of course, the Sorcerer community recently split, so those looking for a long-term commitment on their distro might feel safer with Gentoo.
      • And, of course, the Sorcerer community recently split, so those looking for a long-term commitment on their distro might feel safer with Gentoo.

        While what you say about Sorcerer is for the most part true, it should be noted that the "post-split" Sorcerer community, of which I am a (very small) part, has actually stabilized significantly, and is probably now at a point where it is more dependable longterm than it was under its original leadership. Specifically, there was one person, Kyle Sallee, in control before, who did an admirable job given the vast amount of work required for him. However, he often refused to be flexible in his ideals, so when people made suggestions, instead of considering them, he would get angered and insulted by them. Anyway, to make a long story short, it is now run in a much more democratic fashion, and the people in charge are constantly putting safeguards in place to make sure that they won't screw everything up if they suddenly decide to "abort" the project in a way similar to what Kyle did a month ago.

        The new Sorcerer is growing quickly, and it's definitely something worth taking a look at (and the same can be said about Gentoo). While both distributions clearly have a lot of the same benefits, one thing that I must say is nice about Sorcerer is the built-in mnemonic it has for its commands. While some find the commands corny, they are definitely easy to remember and it makes installing programs pretty fun. Just type "cast name-of-program" and Sorcerer takes care of the rest. Typing "sorcery update" will update the "grimoire" (database of "spells" or programs) and then automatically update any programs that are dated (after asking you to confirm, of course). For those concerned about stability, I think a new version of Sorcerer supporting separate "stable/test/devel" grimoires is in the work (like Debian, though the stable version would still be far more up-to-date). Another nice feature of Sorcerer is its fairly straightforward, guided installation (though of course this is still not as newbie-friendly to set up, as, say, Mandrake, I found it very usable after only a few months experience with Linux and I definitely learned a lot by using it). Finally, it's really nice and easy to create new spells; if you want a program added to the grimoire, it's generally just a matter of copying one or two files from another spell and modifying a few fields to reflect different download urls/filenames.

        Hopefully I've sold a few of you on Sorcerer - I encourage you to give it a shot (as well as Gentoo, which from what I hear is also great). The web site is sorcerylinux.org [sorcerylinux.org], oh and while the documentation isn't yet that comprehensive, the mailing lists are very helpful for finding out stuff, so feel free to ask there (see the web site for info about the mailing lists).

  • Gentoo's portage is nice... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rsidd ( 6328 ) on Sunday March 31, 2002 @05:03PM (#3261930)
    I mainly use FreeBSD and when I wanted to install linux on my second partition, I picked gentoo because of its "BSD-like" ports system. Personally, it has some nice features and improvements over the FreeBSD system, the flip side is it may take more disk space. For example, it seems to automatically figure out the contents of the package, by first installing in a dummy area and then copying it all to the real destination. (That's basically what you're recommended to do when creating a port in FreeBSD, but it's not automatic.)

    The number of ports available doesn't compete with FreeBSD (or, I imagine, the other BSDs) at this point, but that could change quickly.

    On the minus side, some of the author's tuning instructions are dubious, or downright silly. He recommends using "noatime" in the filesystem everywhere -- now that may be ok for /home, or for /usr, say, but for /var, which holds mailboxes, it's not a good idea -- the atime is used to tell whether you have new mail. (In fact, the default partitioning doesn't even create a separate /var or /tmp, and the install guide [gentoo.org] doesn't suggest you do it. This is not unique to Gentoo, it's a common attitude in the linux world, but it looks like a bad idea to me.)

    Also, the global CFLAGS sets -O3, which looks overambitious to me -- the only change -O3 has over -O2 is function inlining, which sometimes helps and sometimes hurts, you definitely don't want to build your system with it. (The FreeBSD project doesn't support anything beyond -O, though I generally have no problem with -O2.)

    Anyway, it's easy to fix these small caveats. (Another good thing is Gentoo doesn't clobber your config files when you upgrade; however, something like FreeBSD's "mergemaster" for upgrading /etc would certainly be welcome.) That apart, Gentoo looks like a nice system and I'm happy with it.

    • Re:Gentoo's portage is nice... (Score:5, Informative)

      by athakur999 ( 44340 ) on Sunday March 31, 2002 @05:09PM (#3261950) Journal
      I'm not familiar with FreeBSD's mergemaster, but Gentoo has a nice utility named "etc-update". I think it's in the gentoolkit package. It'll find the config files that need updating, show you a diff between them and choose to keep your old one, use the new one, more merge them together.
      • It'll find the config files that need updating, show you a diff between them and choose to keep your old one, use the new one, more merge them together.


        That's exactly what I was looking for (and what mergemaster does). I can't find it in my Gentoo in any of /sbin, /usr/sbin, /bin, /usr/bin (I last updated the system around 2 weeks ago). Where is it, which port does it come with?

    • Re:Gentoo's portage is nice... (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Also, the global CFLAGS sets -O3, which looks overambitious to me -- the only change -O3 has over -O2 is function inlining, which sometimes helps and sometimes hurts, you definitely don't want to build your system with it. (The FreeBSD project doesn't support anything beyond -O, though I generally have no problem with -O2.)

      From my experience with Gentoo, -O3 is reasable. My system is stable. Never had a problem with it.
    • I never really understood the rationalization for having seperate /var or /tmp partitions on a single harddrive. It just makes filesystem space allocation less dynamic and flexible. In general, most installations don't bang /var and /tmp hard enough to necessitate putting them on seperate drives, and its a little unreasonable to expect documentation writers to cater to those with very specific needs for /var and /tmp (like news servers). Also, I don't quite understand how lack of atime can effect whether you have new mail. If mail is stored in one big file (which is an evil practice that should be relegated to the dust-bins of history) then mtime is what should be read. If mail is stored as seperate files, then its the mtime of the directory which should be read.
      • The Filsystem Hierarchy Standard has a good explaination on what /var and /tmp should be used for. You can pickup a copy at http://www.pathname.com/fhs/.

        Files in /tmp should be disappear when the app is shut down. Put files in /var if you need them between instances of the app.

        It doesn't make much differance when there is only one user but is very important when there are many users.

      • In general, most installations don't bang /var and /tmp hard enough to necessitate putting them on seperate drives,

        You'd be surprised how often /tmp gets filled up if you're not careful. Yes, it doesn't particularly matter if you're a laptop user but it does matter if it's a server or even a multi-user workstation. You don't want people to be locked out of their accounts because the lack of a separate /tmp filled up the entire root filesystem.

        BTW, it's also good practice to make a small / partition and a larger partition for /usr etc (as the BSD's do, and as the Linuxes usually do not). The reason is that, in case of filesystem damage, you have a better chance of at least being able to boot to single-user mode and fix things from there.

        As for /var, of course, you should have an idea of its required size before doing the installation; if it's not a server there's probably no harm in symlinking it to /usr/var or something.

        Also, I don't quite understand how lack of atime can effect whether you have new mail. If mail is stored in one big file (which is an evil practice that should be relegated to the dust-bins of history) then mtime is what should be read. If mail is stored as seperate files, then its the mtime of the directory which should be read.

        Yes, but once you have read the mail, you don't want the mailbox to be showing "new mail" any more. That's where the atime comes in. If the atime is newer than the mtime, you don't have new mail. Ditto for a maildir type system.

    • noatime everywhere is silly? Come on! Sacrificing performance of a whole partition just to have your shell say "You've got SPAM[tm]" is what is downright silly. I use noatime since ages on everything (mail comes from imap anyway) and won't look back.
    • Actually, -O3 does both function inlining AND invokes -frename-register which makes use of left over registers after regular allocation -- in short adding more performance for machines with lots of registers.

      Also, in cases where -O3 is too progressive for a package, like glibc, the Gentoo package overides the -O3 and uses -O2 (in that specific instance)

  • Gentoo's got some great tutorials also (Score:4, Informative)

    by DrunkenPenguin ( 553473 ) on Sunday March 31, 2002 @05:08PM (#3261943) Homepage
    I've been using Gentoo [gentoo.org] for the last 6 months or so and I've been very impressed. The speed is simply amazing - no other distro is this fast and clean. Gentoo is also very well documented! Daniel Robbins, the main man behind Gentoo has written some excellent tutorials which can be found here [gentoo.org]. I suggest you go and have a look. I have learned a lot by reading his tutorials. BTW, do you know where that name "Gentoo" comes from? Gentoo is a species [k12.in.us]of a small and fast penguins ;)

  • Guidance, please? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by n2dasun ( 467303 )
    I always liked that I could run Linux on old hardware. Is there anyway that I can install Gentoo or Sorcerer Linux on an old 386 with 16mb of ram? The posted minimum specs to install them are a little more daunting than this.
    • You probably could install Gentoo on this system, but you wouldn't want to. The compile process on such a slow machine would likely take weeks. Sorceror requires 1GB of virtual memory for the install, so that's probaly out also. Stick with Red Hat or the like & you'll probably be much happier.

      On the otherhand, it is possible to compile on a fast machine & install to the solwer machine. There are some documents detailing this process, and people on the mailing list have done it, so it is possible, but I'm not sure how easy it is. Might be worth looking into if you want to setup several slow machines.

      (Note, though, that I tend to agree with the previous poster. With the price of hardware nowadays, it's not going to be worth the hassle for most people)

    • You could certainly run Gentoo on that system. But you wouldn't want to compile on it. You'd want to have another, faster machine do the compiles for it.

      If you don't have the luxury of a faster machine to serve as a compile farm, I would say just get Slack [slackware.com] instead.

  • Uhm (Score:1)

    by Flous ( 554194 )
    I'm just polishing my shiny new 1.0-rc6 install of gentoo (and madly enthousiastic about, best distro ever IMHO).

    What's the difference between 1.0 and 1.0-rc6? I can't seem to find a changelog anywhere.

    For those in doubt: check it out, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

    Greetz

    • Re:Uhm (Score:2)

      by ibbey ( 27873 )
      I'd just install what you have. aller will automagically download the newest versions of the packages, so there is no real advantage to download the latest ISO.

  • My Gentoo Experience (Score:5, Informative)

    by al3x ( 74745 ) on Sunday March 31, 2002 @05:14PM (#3261966) Homepage
    I became interested in Gentoo when a source distribution sounded like an interesting challenge, and just different from the usual binary distros. I chose it over Sorceror because at that point the Sorceror world was falling apart (some ex-Sorcerors have found their homes with Gentoo, btw). I found the Gentoo documentation to be right on course, and the install was comfortable and informative if you're used to Linux/BSD (it's not for the newbies, but it would make a good learning experience). The portage system is wonderful, it has all the graces of APT and more, is amazingly current, and can do "fake" installs ala OpenBSD (one my favorite *nixices). Getting your system going may take a few hours while stuff compiles, but everything runs smoothly.

    If I didn't have to use a wireless card, I'd be writing this from inside a Gentoo install right now. However, getting my 802.11b card operable proved to be a trial, though the kind folks on the Gentoo mailing lists were beyond helpful. Ultimately I went back to RedHat, as I had lost too much time trying to get wireless support, but this wasn't a fault of the distro, just my crunch for time (note to kernel and pcmcia-cs folks: standardize your functions and modules together!).

    If you're looking for a distro that's very active and, above all, enjoyable, I reccomend Gentoo. It does take some work, and the performance benefits of source vs binary are debatable, but what matters is the pleasantness and effectiveness of the Gentoo community. Daniel Robbins, the project's architect, is really a neat, smart guy, and the other folks involved are helpful and motivated. Using a Gentoo system is great for experienced folks who want serious control while retaining more community than a "Linux from Scratch" build. It's also a great way for a less experienced user to get familiar with Linux, or a good bridge from Linux to *BSD (if you need one). I don't think the folks out there saying "yet another distro?" understand that the beauty of the open community is choice. If you don't like it , ignore it, but good things are happening around Gentoo.

  • First person experience (Score:5, Interesting)

    by CyberDruid ( 201684 ) on Sunday March 31, 2002 @05:20PM (#3261982) Homepage
    As a Gentoo-user since, hmmm, early november I think (when rc6 was just released anyway), I can testify that it *ROCKS*. Thinking back to the time when I had to bother with the dirty RPM's of Mandrake, I don't think I could ever go back. In this way, all I have to do to keep my system updated with the latest versions and the latest security patches is type 'emerge update' or if I'm not gonna touch the computer for a while, 'emerge update --world'. The entire dependency nightmare from using RPM's is also gone. If you emerge something that needs a lib or whatever, the program neatly emerges all dependencies first.
    Also, the guys behind the distribution definitely seems to know what their doing. In conclusion, if you are not afraid of compiling your own kernel and you can live with having to edit a few of the files in /etc for customisation, you should definitely give this distro a try.
    Mmmm.... I can feel myself growing into a zealot ;)

  • Signifigance of the name Gentoo (Score:5, Informative)

    by Monkelectric ( 546685 ) <slashdot AT monkelectric DOT com> on Sunday March 31, 2002 @05:24PM (#3261990)
    I used to be involved with these guys when they were called "Enoch" ... I was working on some automatic compiler optimization thing (which I never got working straight) ...

    Anyways, one day the boss decided to change the name, and we had a meeting ... and the patron saint of linux is obviosuly the penguin... So I found some sites about penguins that said that the "Gentoo" penguin was the fastest and best swimmer ... and it stuck ;)

  • Gentoo Alternate Install Directions [gentoo.org]

    The big reason that I want a small Linux distribution instead of a 15-CD RedHat set is so I can run Linux on wimpy machines. I've got a number of antiques hanging around my lab doing nothing, and few of the Pentium60s and none of the 486s have CDROMs, and all of them have wimpy disk drives. Netbooting is important - it makes it possible to install the basic operating system on a small machine and get it up and running, with the disks partitioned enough to install any other software.

    It's also important to have distributions that can install the basic system from one CD! (Or alternatively, at least to be able to install it from separate CDs that aren't all merged into one ftp directory.) Even most of my server machines don't have enough space to copy multiple CDs to one filesystem for FTP, so it's also really important to be able to work with separate CD images - ideally to mount the CDROM and publish it with FTP, or at least to have the different CD images stashed in different directories (which also makes it possible to do two-CD sets by storing one in ~ftp/pub/linux/cd1/ and symlinking or mounting the CDROM for the other disk.)

    • I am happily running Gentoo on a 1ghz Athlon, but I also tried an install on a wimpy machine (P200, 96MB) and it took literally days to get the base install to compile (not that it failed, just took that long to run). When all was done, an emerge update took another 2 days to complete, by which time there were more updates.

      If you are running on an underpowered machine, be prepared to wait... a lot.

      But once it is done, it seems worth the wait.

  • GARsh that's cool! (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Syberghost ( 10557 )
    A Linux distribution with a BSD-like ports system [lnx-bbc.org]. How revolutionary.
  • I run gentoo and its amazing, if I want Mozilla 0.9.9 I type emerge mozilla and its perfectly installed. Gentoo is amazing, fast, I can even say perfect. this is the best distro ever in my mind.. Every app is compiled FOR my system and gentoo doesnt use any Binary packages. If you want a speedy install you can use the precompiled packages. And if there isnt a package you want you just write a simple ebuild for your package. sudo emerge phpnuke for example....
  • I've been on the lookout for a decent distribution I can customize heavily. I have a P133 laptop with a 1.2Gb HD, and I really like the machine (excellent footprint, good screen, best laptop keyboard I've ever used). To get the most out of it, I really need something that is easily customized. Right now I run RedHat 6.2 on it, but it's time to move forward.

    I like the idea of a source distro; 5% to 10% performance matters a lot more on a machine like this, than on a large, modern desktop. Unfortunately, Gentoo seems not to be the distribution I was looking for. I would not mind long installation time, but the recommended minimum specs (especially disk space) is way over this little machine, and it seems like a fairly substantial hassle to install it without a CD-ROM.

    Does anybody have a recommendation for a distro that can be built small and efficient enough to for this machine, and does offer decent support for all those laptop-centric issues like no CD, networking through PCMCIA and so on? I've been considering Debian as a possibility but I feel that too seems a little heavy. Roll-your-own distros could be fun, but they generally assume you'll be able to boot and install from a CD at the end of the process. Also, this extreme form of customization means you are all on your own, with nary a mailing list archive to search through if you get into trouble.

    I can't be the only one with this problem; any feedback would be welcome.

    /Janne

    • Sure, try FreeBSD :>

      Seriously, I just installed FreeBSD on an old NEC Versa 4000C laptop (P75, 24MB RAM, 6GB HDD) and it works great, sans the minor adjustments I had to make for various components (Xircom 10/100 realport NIC-- not cardbus, ESS sound chip). Base install was just over 500 MB, system sources included. The nice thing about FreeBSD is that you can completely rebuild the system from source after its installed (in fact, it is suggested as keeping part of the STABLE release branch). Once I let the machine sit overnight and recompile itself, it did improve performance a little (much more so on a faster machine, but there you go).
    • check out the RULE project [fsf.org] to install Red Hat 7.2 on less capable systems.

    • Debian too heavy? (Score:2, Informative)

      by CentrX ( 50629 )
      How is Debian too heavy, when you can do a basic install in 40MB of disk space? You want more stuff, you just install the (not bloated) packages with apt-get. Debian works great on a 486, so even better on a P133.
    • You can reduce some requirements by installing the pre-compiled version.

  • Why I like gentoo... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Raleel ( 30913 ) on Sunday March 31, 2002 @07:41PM (#3262663)
    I'ma fairly die-hard redhat user, but I wanted to try out gentoo.

    What impressed me most was the speed once you installed it. It was astounding. My desktop is a 1.2 Ghz athlon with 1/2 a gig of ram, and I saw _huge_ performance gains. I am guessing about 20%, maybe more. Granted, this is not empirical, but it really did feel much faster. Compiler optimizations rock!

    Anyone know of a nice system to be able to rebuild all your rpms with all optimizations? I'm looking for a script that figures out what's on your system, downloads the dev packages it needs, and then recompiles all the .src.rpms with optimizations...

  • Gentoo Review (Score:3, Informative)

    by ctar ( 211926 ) <christophertar@gma i l . c om> on Sunday March 31, 2002 @08:44PM (#3262946) Homepage
    I installed rc6 a few weeks ago.
    This thing is smart, and it works! I am not a programmer, nor linux guru, but their documentation to get you up and running is flawless. I built up a desktop system and have installed all the applications I need and they are all working great. I've avoided KDE completely and run blackbox as a wm. I've successfully gotten my DVD player, CDR, TV Tuner card and sound card working great. Also, MPlayer (which doesn't allow binary installations like RPM) compiled and runs great. (Much better than Windows Media Player)


    When I first read about Gentoo, I was afraid that if software I used wasn't in their portage list, I would be SOL. But, the list of applications available is very comprehensive...There haven't been any applications I've needed that aren't available via their Portage system. As I am not familiar with C, I have always had problems installing programs from source. If the makefile has problems, I usually can't figure out what to change in order to get it working...But, I haven't had any installations fail in Gentoo. The automatic configuration and dependencies calculation works and works well...


    I can't imagine ever running Red Hat again. My Gentoo system is stable, fast and lean.

  • Slackware (Score:2, Insightful)

    by ljaguar ( 245365 )
    Real men use Slackware.
    No RPM. Not very friendly install. You better know what you are doing.
    Mod me.
  • I do admit I'm interested in this sort of idea, and I'm sure I'll end up trying it in a machine once I get some spare time (currently scheduled to happen on March 3, 2005 :)

    To answer a few questions I've seen in the comments:

    1. If you want something like this on a "wimpy" machine, then you might look at Debian. I'm sure you've all heard about the magic of apt, which is similar to this, but with binaries. This way, your machine doesn't have to do all that compiling. Leading to:

    2. You can do similar things like this with Debian by using deb-src lines in sources.conf. You can just do "apt-get source " to get the source, along with the patches, rules, etc. to make an officially compliant Debian package from it. You can even add the -b option to build it automatically after downloading.

    3. Debian has binaries for many platforms; they haven't abandoned SPARC, and their PPC distribution has been solid for some time now.

    Anyway, I think that Gentoo is cool and a good idea, but I wanted to make sure this stuff was known. I've done all of the above (run Debian on very wimpy machines, run it on PPC, and had it compile GAIM packages for me, since GAIM isn't in potato, but the sources are available via deb-src).

  • Gentoo for ppc (Score:2, Informative)

    by pvdabeel ( 302559 )
    A ppc version of gentoo linux is in the make :-) and will probably be online by the end of the week

    read gentoo-dev@gentoo.org for more information
  • Yeah. As the author of the gentoo filemanager [obsession.se], I really wish the headline here would have included the phrase "Gentoo Linux", to make it clear. Not that the risk for confusion outside my own head is, er, overwhelmingly large, or anything. Incidentally, I just released 0.11.23 [sourceforge.net] of gentoo-the-filemanager-for-GTK+ yesterday, if someone would like to try it out...

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