March 2011 - WLUG - wlug.mailman3.com

Re: [Wlug] Gentoo

by John Stoffel

Just for hysterical counterpoint, I tried running gentoo about... dunno, six or so years ago. Having to compile everything was compelling when just a simple compiler flag change to optimze for a particular i686 type processor. But now days, the speed improvements are down in the noise. I've been a happy Debian user for years nad years now. I run Ubuntu Alphas on my desktop, but since I mount all my data from NFS, I run that server on Debian Squeeze. 175 days of uptime at my house, even with lots of patches. Probably should reboot to get the updated kernel into things. But anyway, I find that Debian gives me most of the control I want, and none of the hassle of having to compile stuff from scratch, though I do realize that Gentoo does off pre-compiled stuff now too. Dunno... just a data point, no strong feelings one way or another. John --

March 25, 2011

Re: [Wlug] Gentoo

by Gary Hanley

Where is Barbara Billingsley when you need her? :-) On 03/24/2011 04:27 PM, joel d wrote: > Wow. > I have never been to Gentoo is Rice before. > That guy has some issues but I missed why he was so upset ;-) > Was very entertained by the highly visually modified but still stock > underpowered autos. > Pics are a "People of Walmart" for the auto world. > > That Gentoo's install numbers are fading: > everyone that wants it is upgrading as Jamie mentioned > dying due to Ubuntu adoption/popularity from the article > developers numbers dwindling from the article > no longer the cool distro for techies or average users (we want to > be cool too) > some other reasons... > or is it the end of it's technology "wave" > > IMHO, most technology comes and goes in 1 to 8 year waves. > > A technology wave example is the Slackware disto. > Who else remembers running Slackware (back when it was rather cool)? > Not sure I even know if they still release Slack anymore (I did just > go there and yup they do). > > Three related waves which took longer admidedly were > centralized processing and dumb terminals of the simpler good old days > modern servers and intelligent desktops with processing power > back to virtual machines (and thin clients which are really akin to > fancy terminals) > > Joel > _______________________________________________ > Wlug mailing list > Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org > http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug > >

March 25, 2011

Re: [Wlug] Gentoo

by John Platt

I run slackware-current since I stopped being able to cope with Gentoo's XPDF dependency -- I forget which package it is which requires it. About the only problem I have with it is it keeps updating me to Seamonkey 2.0 beta 2 when I don't want it (I've given up fighting that). I actually would recommend it -- and of course this is the unstable version which should become Slackware 14. On Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 4:27 PM, joel d <joelgroup(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Wow. > I have never been to Gentoo is Rice before. > That guy has some issues but I missed why he was so upset ;-) > Was very entertained by the highly visually modified but still stock > underpowered autos. > Pics are a "People of Walmart" for the auto world. > > That Gentoo's install numbers are fading: > everyone that wants it is upgrading as Jamie mentioned > dying due to Ubuntu adoption/popularity from the article > developers numbers dwindling from the article > no longer the cool distro for techies or average users (we want to > be cool too) > some other reasons... > or is it the end of it's technology "wave" > > IMHO, most technology comes and goes in 1 to 8 year waves. > > A technology wave example is the Slackware disto. > Who else remembers running Slackware (back when it was rather cool)? > Not sure I even know if they still release Slack anymore (I did just > go there and yup they do). > > Three related waves which took longer admidedly were > centralized processing and dumb terminals of the simpler good old days > modern servers and intelligent desktops with processing power > back to virtual machines (and thin clients which are really akin to > fancy terminals) > > Joel > _______________________________________________ > Wlug mailing list > Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org > http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug >

March 24, 2011

Re: [Wlug] Gentoo

by joel d

Wow. I have never been to Gentoo is Rice before. That guy has some issues but I missed why he was so upset ;-) Was very entertained by the highly visually modified but still stock underpowered autos. Pics are a "People of Walmart" for the auto world. That Gentoo's install numbers are fading: everyone that wants it is upgrading as Jamie mentioned dying due to Ubuntu adoption/popularity from the article developers numbers dwindling from the article no longer the cool distro for techies or average users (we want to be cool too) some other reasons... or is it the end of it's technology "wave" IMHO, most technology comes and goes in 1 to 8 year waves. A technology wave example is the Slackware disto. Who else remembers running Slackware (back when it was rather cool)? Not sure I even know if they still release Slack anymore (I did just go there and yup they do). Three related waves which took longer admidedly were centralized processing and dumb terminals of the simpler good old days modern servers and intelligent desktops with processing power back to virtual machines (and thin clients which are really akin to fancy terminals) Joel

March 24, 2011

Re: [Wlug] Gentoo

by Mike Frysinger

On Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 1:18 PM, Jamie Guinan wrote: > On Wed, 23 Mar 2011, Joshua Demallistre wrote: >> I was thinking about giving Gentoo a try. It would be nice for some one in >> the group could give me a hand. > > Another distro to consider is Arch. I haven't used it, but it appears > to be similar in spirit to Gentoo. meh, Arch is the poor man's Gentoo ;) > it contains a lot of relatively low-level configuration stuff that one > would not need to know for a plug-and-play distro. *hopefully* not need to know, but we all know how often that comes up ... -mike

March 24, 2011

Re: [Wlug] Gentoo

by Jamie Guinan

On Wed, 23 Mar 2011, Joshua Demallistre wrote: > I was thinking about giving Gentoo a try. It would be nice for some one in > the group could give me a hand. Another distro to consider is Arch. I haven't used it, but it appears to be similar in spirit to Gentoo. Looking at the beginner's guide, https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners%27_Guide it contains a lot of relatively low-level configuration stuff that one would not need to know for a plug-and-play distro. So as a "learning Linux" platform, Arch does looks promising. -Jamie

March 24, 2011

Re: [Wlug] Gentoo

by Gary Hanley

Gentoo is nice and has a lot of great advantages but it requires a lot of attention...which I became tired of doing. I switched to Ubuntu about three years ago and have been generally happy with it. But if you want to learn the ins and outs of Linux and how a distribution is built or in need a highly customized build there is no better platform than Gentoo. (At least that I'm aware of.) Just be prepared for some pain and suffering along the way. -- Gary On 03/23/2011 12:19 PM, Joshua Demallistre wrote: > I was thinking about giving Gentoo a try. It would be nice for some one > in the group could give me a hand.

March 24, 2011

Re: [Wlug] Gentoo

by John Platt

Just a couple of thoughts. 1. for a good commentary on the gentoo handbook I recommend the blog postings of Vincent Zoonekynd. He's French, he's modest and he's very insightful. http://zoonek.free.fr/blosxom/Linux/2006-01-01_Gentoo.html 2. You can probably install it with a slax cd. Or a gentoo disk of course. Either has a /proc/config.gz which will work very well with genkernel to compile a kernel. After you have emerged genkernel type: zcat /proc/config.gz > /usr/share/genkernel/x86/kernel-config-2.6 Then genkernel all to create a kernel and initramfs. Of course for a 64-bit machine you should zcat it to the appropriate subdirectory which I believe is x86_64 On Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 2:10 PM, Jamie Guinan <guinan(a)bluebutton.com> wrote: > On Wed, 23 Mar 2011, Eric Martin wrote: > >> On 03/23/11 12:19, Joshua Demallistre wrote: >> > >> > I was thinking about giving Gentoo a try. It would be nice for some >> > one in the group could give me a hand. >> > >> What sort of help are you looking for? There used to be a >> disproportionately large Gentoo user base in WLUG, although I don't know >> how large it is anymore. I use it at home and work and I'd be glad to >> help you out. For me, the great thing about Gentoo is the learning >> experience; I learned a lot about GNU/Linux by doing my first Gentoo >> installs, and I'm still learning. If you haven't already, grab the >> install discs and peruse through the install docs. If you have a 64bit >> machine, I suggest grabbing the 64bit disc. Maintaining Gentoo x64 >> isn't terribly hard, and you can use memory more efficiently. > > Gentoo user here, too. Although I haven't done a fresh install in > quite a while, I just keep updating. > > What I like best about Gentoo is picking and choosing which packages > to include and leave out, both applications and libraries. For > example, the other day I wanted to install "gtkpod", but I really > don't want to have Mono or QT4 installed on my system, for various > reasons. Doing a test install, I can verify that they are left out: > > # emerge -ptv gtkpod > > These are the packages that would be merged, in reverse order: > > Calculating dependencies... done! > [ebuild N ] app-pda/gtkpod-1.0.0 USE="aac flac mp3 ogg -curl" 1,856 kB > [ebuild N ] media-libs/libgpod-0.8.0 USE="gtk iphone python udev -mono -static-libs" 975 kB > [nomerge ] media-libs/libgpod-0.8.0 USE="gtk iphone python udev -mono -static-libs" > [nomerge ] sys-apps/sg3_utils-1.30 > [ebuild N ] sys-apps/rescan-scsi-bus-1.48 21 kB > [ebuild N ] sys-apps/sg3_utils-1.30 863 kB > [ebuild N ] app-pda/libimobiledevice-1.0.4 USE="python" 404 kB > [ebuild N ] app-pda/usbmuxd-1.0.6 57 kB > [ebuild N ] app-pda/libplist-1.3 67 kB > [ebuild U ] dev-util/cmake-2.8.3-r1 [2.8.0-r2] USE="ncurses -emacs -qt4 -vim-syntax" 5,310 kB > ... > > The USE= "-mono" and "-qt4" flags indicate that the listed packages > will be built without that support. Gentoo handles that by passing > the necessary options to "configure" when it builds the package, and > that is IMO the main point of using a source-based distribution. > > If you *did* want support for mono, you could edit "/etc/make.conf" > (system-wide) or "/etc/portage/package.use" (package-specific), add > the "mono" flag (or remove "-mono"), and try again. > > For better or worse, I think gentoo kind of peaked in popularity > several years ago. Related article, > > http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10047439-16.html?tag=mncol;title > > But it still meets my needs on several of my computers. > > And finally, yes, I am aware of "http://funroll-loops.info/", and I > don't care. :) > > -Jamie > _______________________________________________ > Wlug mailing list > Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org > http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug >

March 23, 2011

Re: [Wlug] Gentoo

by Jamie Guinan

On Wed, 23 Mar 2011, Eric Martin wrote: > On 03/23/11 12:19, Joshua Demallistre wrote: > > > > I was thinking about giving Gentoo a try. It would be nice for some > > one in the group could give me a hand. > > > What sort of help are you looking for? There used to be a > disproportionately large Gentoo user base in WLUG, although I don't know > how large it is anymore. I use it at home and work and I'd be glad to > help you out. For me, the great thing about Gentoo is the learning > experience; I learned a lot about GNU/Linux by doing my first Gentoo > installs, and I'm still learning. If you haven't already, grab the > install discs and peruse through the install docs. If you have a 64bit > machine, I suggest grabbing the 64bit disc. Maintaining Gentoo x64 > isn't terribly hard, and you can use memory more efficiently. Gentoo user here, too. Although I haven't done a fresh install in quite a while, I just keep updating. What I like best about Gentoo is picking and choosing which packages to include and leave out, both applications and libraries. For example, the other day I wanted to install "gtkpod", but I really don't want to have Mono or QT4 installed on my system, for various reasons. Doing a test install, I can verify that they are left out: # emerge -ptv gtkpod These are the packages that would be merged, in reverse order: Calculating dependencies... done! [ebuild N ] app-pda/gtkpod-1.0.0 USE="aac flac mp3 ogg -curl" 1,856 kB [ebuild N ] media-libs/libgpod-0.8.0 USE="gtk iphone python udev -mono -static-libs" 975 kB [nomerge ] media-libs/libgpod-0.8.0 USE="gtk iphone python udev -mono -static-libs" [nomerge ] sys-apps/sg3_utils-1.30 [ebuild N ] sys-apps/rescan-scsi-bus-1.48 21 kB [ebuild N ] sys-apps/sg3_utils-1.30 863 kB [ebuild N ] app-pda/libimobiledevice-1.0.4 USE="python" 404 kB [ebuild N ] app-pda/usbmuxd-1.0.6 57 kB [ebuild N ] app-pda/libplist-1.3 67 kB [ebuild U ] dev-util/cmake-2.8.3-r1 [2.8.0-r2] USE="ncurses -emacs -qt4 -vim-syntax" 5,310 kB ... The USE= "-mono" and "-qt4" flags indicate that the listed packages will be built without that support. Gentoo handles that by passing the necessary options to "configure" when it builds the package, and that is IMO the main point of using a source-based distribution. If you *did* want support for mono, you could edit "/etc/make.conf" (system-wide) or "/etc/portage/package.use" (package-specific), add the "mono" flag (or remove "-mono"), and try again. For better or worse, I think gentoo kind of peaked in popularity several years ago. Related article, http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10047439-16.html?tag=mncol;title But it still meets my needs on several of my computers. And finally, yes, I am aware of "http://funroll-loops.info/", and I don't care. :) -Jamie

March 23, 2011

Re: [Wlug] Gentoo

by Eric Martin

On 03/23/11 12:19, Joshua Demallistre wrote: > > I was thinking about giving Gentoo a try. It would be nice for some > one in the group could give me a hand. > What sort of help are you looking for? There used to be a disproportionately large Gentoo user base in WLUG, although I don't know how large it is anymore. I use it at home and work and I'd be glad to help you out. For me, the great thing about Gentoo is the learning experience; I learned a lot about GNU/Linux by doing my first Gentoo installs, and I'm still learning. If you haven't already, grab the install discs and peruse through the install docs. If you have a 64bit machine, I suggest grabbing the 64bit disc. Maintaining Gentoo x64 isn't terribly hard, and you can use memory more efficiently. -- eric GnuPG Fingerprint = D1C4 086E DBB5 C18E 6FDA B215 6A25 7174 A941 3B9F

March 23, 2011