Re: [tlug] First impressions of Gentoo

[Josh Glover <jmglov@example.com>]

On 26/01/06, Stephen J. Turnbull <stephen@example.com> wrote:

> As a livecd it leaves a bit to be desired; it seems a lot like the netbsd install system.  It's not
> really a way to test-drive Gentoo

Right, it isn't. It isn't mean to be, either, so I don't know why they
insist on calling it a LiveCD. Oh, that's right, they don't anymore:

http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/where.xml

It is now back to being called an install CD. (I'm not being
sarcastic, I really cannot keep up with all of the changes in Gentoo
nomenclature, and I'm a freakin' developer!)

> (although I guess the point is that until you've done an emerge, you're not really doing Gentoo).

I don't know if this was part of their reasoning, but it certainly makes sense.

The Gentoo install CD is a hell of a mean rescue disk, though. :)

If you want a LiveCD, you want FizzleWizzle:

CD:   http://tracker.netdomination.org/torrents/fizzlewizzle-fosdem-x86-r3.iso.torrent
DVD: http://tracker.netdomination.org/torrents/fizzlewizzle-fosdem-x86-dvd-r3.iso.torrent

I am sure you can find FTP downloads somewhere, since you seem to be
dead-set against BitTorrent... ;-P

Speaking of FizzleWizzle, I have a copy of the CD version, which I
will gladly burn for people who want it and bring it to the nomikai /
next tech meeting. I also have a few other install CDs that I'll give
away to good (or bad, I care not) homes, like Knoppix, Ubuntu, etc.

> Some of the stuff in the manual is potentially confusing (and some I
> thought it was just plain wrong for my system ;-).  Eg the description
> of setting up grub says that paths are supposed to be relative to the
> grub device, but the ones they show aren't, not for the example
> system.

Yeah, you should report that as a bug. It has been wrong forever, and
tripped me up a couple of times when GRUBbing on a non-Gentoo system.
Blerg.

> Nothing really horrible, but definitely this isn't for n00bs.

I thought there was a documentation project where they have tried to
remove a lot of the fluff for people who already understand how this
stuff works and want a more checklist-y approach, but I cannot seem to
find it. There is always:

http://www.qnd-guides.net/gentoo-checklist.html

which I need to update, as it is current only as of the *1.4
release*!? Holy shit, that's old!

> The emerges I've tried so far seem to be working well (although it was
> a little shocking to ask for links---a text-mode browser---and get all
> of xorg pulled in!)

As Stoyan and Edward noted, this can easily be fixed with USE flags
(which are *the* single thing that has kept me loyal to Gentoo--and
for that matter, Linux, as I intended to jump ship for NetBSD about
two years back).

One thing that I would like to see is a server-based profile that
turns off all of the X and GUI USE flags by default. If there is such
a profile and I don't know about it, ぜひ教えってね！

It is probably correct for Gentoo to default to enabling X-related
junk, because people who are running Gentoo on servers are more likely
to be able to easily figure out how to change them. It
is--ahem--mentioned in TFM:

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=1&chap=6#doc_chap2_sect3

> All-in-all, it's pretty impressive; it's been a while since I tried
> installing a system that's more or less at the leading edge (Debian
> sid doesn't really count), so I'm as much impressed with Linux 2.6 as
> I am with Gentoo, I suppose.

Even with the qualifiers, this is praise indeed, coming from you! :)
(And I don't mean that in a snide way, I just mean that you are not
easily impressed.)

Cheers,
Josh