[oclug] distributions

[Peter]

--- Tim Hosking <tim at trhosking.com> wrote:
> 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
> 
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it took me a day to get the first install to work. then i started palying with
it and broke a couple of things. waited till i had a couple of days available
and installed again. after all the compiles i have everything working. 

Gentoo takes a white to install. It is not RedHat and Mandrake. However, i find
it is much faster than any Linux/BSD OS i have tried on my computer.Alhought
that could be due to a couple of reasons ( i never actually put the
optimization options into make.conf in FreeBSD). 

At any rate, Gentoo is the Linux disto that has the most similarities to *BSD.
Get the best of both worlds. All the new sotfware for Linux and the easy of
installation of *BSD systems. 

Petro


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