[oclug] distributions

[Tim Hosking]

On 8/18/02 2:32 PM, "Ross Jordan" <rjordan at student.math.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:

>> 
>> Where does gentoo get its source from?  CVS?  Its own set of servers, or
>> directly from the author's site?
> Usually, directly from the authors site.
> 
> Here's a sample .ebuild file which is what gentoo uses to describe
> its packages:
> http://www.unixcode.org/downloads/monopd/monopd-0.5.0.ebuild
> 
> "
> A="${P}.tar.bz2"
> DESCRIPTION="board game server"
> SRC_URI="http://unixcode.org/~cap/monopd/${P}.tar.bz2"
> HOMEPAGE="http://unixcode.org/monopd/"
> [...]
> DEPEND=">=libcapsinetwork-0.1.0 >=libmath++-0.0.3"
> [...]
> "
> 
> The SRC_URI is where the packge is grabbed from.
> 
> 
>> Does gentoo take care of making sure that the proper version of
>> differnet "packages" exists so that dependencies aren't broken?
> Yes. Portage (the gentoo package system) is a cross between Debian
> apt and FreeBSD ports packages. Compiles everything from source (with
> system optimizations), and handles dependencies.
> 
> It's the nicest Linux I've seen in a long time (although you need
> a decent CPU and/or patience).
> 
> More information about portage here:
> http://www.gentoo.org/doc/portage-manual.html
> 
> -Ross

I too have just started using Gentoo and it is everything the above posters
say it is, and above all it is very fast due to it's ground-up optimisation
for your system. I have found many operations to be close to twice as fast
as Redhat on the same machine.

The only thing missing from the Portage package management system is the
ability to automatically update packages which depend on a package you are
upgrading, or at very least tell you what you may break. RPM will at least
tell you of broken dependencies - even though it often ties itself in knots.

I guess the secret of using portage is to create your initial install and
then to simply use 'emerge world' after that. My bet is that it will improve
in due course.

It is very, very nice indeed overall.

I recently installed Redhat 7.3 at work and I have found that it's package
management has vastly improved over the past year - it just works. Maybe
when I beat the machine up a little more it may start to stuble, but so far,
so good. Why do Redhat insist on only distributing i386 binaries???

Mandrake has also served me well, although it has it's fair share of quirks.
Like Gentoo, it supports Reiserfs out of the box, which made me smile, and
the binary distributions are i586. Again, an i686 option would be nice.

My opinion? If you want something which is easy to install and upgrade then
go for Redhat. If you don't mind spending a day or more installing the thing
and would like a distro which by it's very nature is completely customised
and optimised to your taste, and consequently lean and fast, try Gentoo.

If you are installing on a clean machine, why not try Gentoo first and if it
ends in tears retreat to Redhat?

One point though (if you try Gentoo). If this is your only machine and you
don't have the luxury of a LAN, make sure you read the newsgroups to find
out exactly you will connect to the internet to download the necessary files
to build your system.

-- 
Tim Hosking