What is Digg?114 Comments
- Phocion55, on 10/12/2007, -6/+112I installed Gentoo. Blind folded. Upside down. While fighting Chuck Liddell. On a Commodore 64.
I win. - Mejogid, on 10/12/2007, -6/+60I'm lost... is this some sort of 'I can install Gentoo!' bragging competition? I could care less if you've got Gentoo installed.
Anyway, Gentoo's a great distro and portage in particular is fantastic. Good to see another release. - borninda818, on 10/12/2007, -15/+60i installed ubuntu once...does that count?
- ricodued, on 10/12/2007, -1/+32It is a sad, sad day on digg when we need to actually say in the headline when a link is a direct one and not blogspam :(
- Rubis, on 10/12/2007, -3/+26you have just killed my favorite mirror for the next 3 weeks
- lesface, on 10/12/2007, -2/+21Portage is fantastic and has every package you could ever ask for. The system's easy to maintain once you know how! Compilation time isn't a big deal on modern systems, its not like it stops you from using your computer for other things anyway.
- boltmasterzero, on 10/12/2007, -1/+19That's the main feature.
- toucci, on 10/12/2007, -3/+19All I can say is: Finally!
Link to torrent: http://torrents.gentoo.org/torrents/livecd-i686-installer-2007.0.torrent
Other versions at http://torrents.gentoo.org - jamend, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15Finally? It's a versionless distro. The "installation" cd just has the tools to download and deploy the latest base image (stage 3) so that you can install the rest of the system from the latest packages available. You're not missing much if you did "emerge -uDN world" yesterday.
- Redemption289, on 10/12/2007, -5/+20I have been using Gentoo for 3 years. This article was a nice change (thank you). I have seen tons of Ubuntu articles (and don't get me wrong Linux > any other OS), but I think the real winner in the linux catagory is Gentoo. People complain about how hard it is to install but:
1. Don't be lazy
2. There are online docs that tell you exactly what to do
3. It really is a good learning experience.
4. Customization (thumbs up)
The end result of gentoo is well worth the little extra effort you put in to installing it.
Also for people just trying out gentoo, may I recommend Gentoo Wiki for all your hardware installation questions. They have GREAT how-to's on virtually any subject worth writing about. Good luck with the installation! - JonForTheWin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14Gentoo isn't a "product". It's a system for those of us who don't get sent the url http://*****.com by our friends when we ask them for help. If you want a "product" to use and you need your hand held, you don't deserve to benefit from what Gentoo offers.
- tpink, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13Gentlemen, start your compilers!
- JonForTheWin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13I installed Gentoo GNU+Linux, not a big deal. What is a big deal, is the operating system as deep as the kernel toolchain and lowest-level system libraries are about _always_ at the latest versions. There are no major "versions" of the operating system for the majority of us Gentoo users. That's what the guy with the first comment meant to say.
- statmobile, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12@ democracysucks
For someone not criticizing, you seem awfully vocal. I initially ignored your first post, but I feel compelled to respond to this one. Compiling from source is more useful than you think. For instance, I don't have or want Gnome running on my desktop. I can then have it so that no application that has special compiling flags for Gnome used when it's compiled or installed. This is just one example of where portage is quite useful. On debian, downloading the binary you get all the extras that the package maintainer decides to include. This can be wasteful, and add up. I believe there was an article recently on Digg explaining the benefits of such a system, but I can't seem to find the link. - kev009, on 10/12/2007, -4/+15If you think Gentoo is about speed, you shouldn't be using it...
- chrisharcourt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10This a much needed release. The old (2006.1) install media had several outdated core system packages (glibc springs to mind) which required upgrading immediately, as well as some issues caused by baselayout upgrades (dhcpcd broken!). All fixed in 2007.0 though...!
- jamend, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11One of the principles of Gentoo is performance. Consider the name: gentoos are an exceptionally fast species of penguins. That aside, I think Gentoo is mostly about customization (USE flags).
- Redemption289, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9The thing about Gentoo is it doesn't really matter how old the release is. When you install (this is assuming you have an internet connection), you download the latest portage tree, install the latest updates, and the newest software. There wouldn't be that many things that need updating post installation.
As for the elitism part, yeah... I guess we can't help it. Sorry. (I don't think we do it on purpose, and a lot of us will recommend Ubuntu to users if we think it will fit them better. I see a lot more Ubuntu people hating on Gentoo users though so I think the elitism argument goes both ways.) - Redemption289, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Installing from stage 3 takes me about an hour (and that includes downloading and installing the entire portage tree as well as updating during the install). I think you are confusing the installation bit with emerging things like KDE (which takes ages). But then again, I don't like my systems to have a bunch of useless crap that I will never use, which is why I choose gentoo. Its really not a big deal. Theres this really cool trick I use.
#: emerge -av kde
--goes to sleep--
The next morning its installed :-D. Its not like you have to do 30 hours of work, it just requires patience.
(see below for other reasons).
cheers! - borninda818, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10nice [waits for review]
- williamdyer, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7@cry0x
Let me 'splain:
Java compiles inner loops when you RUN piece of code.
Gentoo compiles an application when you install it.
The reason is: Your compiler should be optimal for your CPU's instruction set, memory size, disk speed, etc.
Gentoo brings the benefit of Just-In-Time (JIT) compilation to all Linux applications. - mtekk, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6@democracysucks
Please try not to resort to the vocabulary of a raging hormone teenager. I know it is difficult; it really is. But try. Keep attacks on person out of the discussion, its immature.
Gentoo for everyday applications no longer has a speed advantage. However, the increase in speed all Linux distros experienced in the early part of this decade are thanks to the work of the Gentoo developers and their fixes to the GCC. Without Gentoo Debian and the others would still be 10%– 200% slower (Wikipedia article on Gentoo).
Gentoo is about choices, almost every component of the operating system is exchangeable. In Gentoo you only install the software you need/want, not what the distribution maintainers think is necessary. Sure you can compile your sources by hand, but sometimes a little help or automation is nice, and portage allows for that. Portage, as stated by others takes care of dependencies as well, compiling ‘by hand’ does not. That is an advantage. If that is not your thing, then go ahead use one of the several other great distributions out there (e.g., Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, etc.). This is about choice, as is the entire FOSS movement. Want to run on RiserFS instead of ext2/3/4, go ahead Gentoo lets you do that from the beginning. Want vixicron instead of crontab, that’s fine too. Don’t need Emacs, you can use nano (among other choices). Like LILO, use that instead of GRUB if you must. This is the Gentoo difference, Gentoo lets you make the decisions. If you don’t like that don’t use it. - burke, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5"emerge -uDN world"
Ouch... you're living on the edge. Don't feel the need for --ask or --verbose? :) - stalefries, on 10/12/2007, -16/+21Please don't post direct links to mirrors.
- NoOneButMe, on 10/12/2007, -6/+11arch is based on gentoo. thanks for endorsing gentoo.
- weizbox, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5A 'Better' distro is the one that fits you or your goals the best, period.
- handsoffme, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7Don't get me wrong, I've been a Gentoo user for a long time. However, for your average desktop user, Gentoo will likely end up being significantly slower than Ubuntu.
- shuffle2, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4cool. but the best thing is.....i don't really have to care, since even though i installed off of 2006.0, all i have to do to update is "emerge -uDN world". That is the reason I love gentoo. No incremental releases (in the sense of what other distros offer).
- GMorgan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Yeah 'emerge -auvDN' is the way to go. Even then don't read it properly of course and just type yes but it's nice to scan through all those things Debian won't have for a few weeks ;).
- Redemption289, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Let me clarify any misconceptions you had about my comment. I am not trying to put down any other distributions. I have used them and there are things that I like about them. All I mean is that if you want a fine tuned system Gentoo is definitely the way to go. There are stage 3 tarballs out that most users can install, but I still, more often than not, start from the beginning (bootstrap etc) because I like to have control over my performance. The argument for Gentoo not having a UI installer and thus being inferior is very similar to the argument that microsoft users use to justify sticking with their product. (Well, my grandma can't install gentoo ---> Well, my grandma doesn't know how to use linux). I'm not claiming that gentoo is for everyone, but in my experience it is WELL WORTH taking a little extra time to have an end system that is much easier to maintain in the long run than others.
Thanks for understanding. - zetsurin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I want to know who dugg down these two perfectly good replies?? God people are retarded. Anyway, thanks for your points of view.
- Redemption289, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3what particular problems were you having w/ your laptop, I know that ATI cards cause a lot of users a lot of grief. Because, in general, if it works on your desktop it shouldn't be too different than on your laptop.
- weizbox, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4It's less about speed, and more about flexibility. You can tune it to be fast as hell if you want, or you can beef things up and make it a lot more portable as far as hardware changes go without having to configure anything. It's completely up to you, and thats what Gentoo is about.
Compiling from source is just one part of Gentoo, but they also have a massive set of tools that help configure your system to be what you want it to be. Gentoo can be anything you want it to be, and thats the part I like most about Gentoo, its flexibility.
I def wouldn't say its for everyone, its for the people that want to play around with they're system more while learning more about Linux, and just tweaking it to be exactly what you need and want. - burke, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Gentoo is about choice. You have the option to compile out features you won't use in just about any package you can find. Don't use GNOME? Add the -gnome flag, and a lot of programs will be compiled without GNOME features. Add -X on your server and a lot of packages will be compiled for the command line only. (as opposed to binary-based distributions -- emacs-nox, anyone?). The fact is, to have the same feature options as gentoo, any binary-based distribution would have to maintain hundreds of different compilations of each version of many software packages.
In addition, Gentoo, being source-based, is slightly faster. I'll be the first to admit, it's nowhere near the increase a lot of Gentoo users claim it to be, but the fact is there -- being able to compile packages specifically for your processor (eg. march=nocona) does provide speed increases.
Yes, this can all be done on a binary-based distribution, just as binary packages can be downloaded for Gentoo. However, in both cases, the OS doesn't provide the automation and dependency checking of its default method. Gentoo makes compiling from source much easier than attempting the same on Debian. - democracysucks, on 10/12/2007, -7/+9Gentoo is alright, but I think the principle behind it is obsolete. Custom compiling gives barely noticeable speed differences (if at all). Not that many Gentoo users did much beyond the default options anyway.
If you want a light-weight, customizable distro, try Arch. If you want to compile everything from source, try Slackware. Better yet, just design and compile your own personal distro from scratch. Portage is great, yeah, but then again, Apt works wonderfully. GoboLinux's Compile is a truly wonderful program, as well. With all of these other options available, I'm not really sure why anyone praises/uses Gentoo anymore. That's not to say that I criticize people who use it, I just don't see how it has any objective benefits over other distros such as those mentioned above. - zetsurin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I love the idea behind gentoo, it's something that I had grown to love on freebsd. It's a great way to manage and install applications from the shell and to tune things to your likings. However, the thing that made me switch to ubuntu was the upgrading process. Resolving blocks, spending day long compile session etc as part of the "upgrade often" process drove me around the bend. Updates shouldn't take days, and I have a high end machine before anyone says something. Ironically Ubuntu feels just as fast and dare I say easier to manage, they got things right.
Another problem with gentoo is the bleeding edge nature. You are encouraged to update *everything* often. Every binary on your system. This makes it unsuitable for production servers where you are not going to want all the bleeding edge files. Summary: there is not 'stable' with gentoo. - burke, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Preschool is letting out later and later these days.
- kev009, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6@democracysucks
Why duplicate the effort, when it can be automated, tested, patched, and deployed in a convenient manner WITH dependency checking?
@ALL
Digg kiddies, do your homework before you speak. Just because Ubuntu works for you does not mean it is ideal for a server farm where I can deploy custom overlays, test servers, binary package distribution with NFS portage exports and much more very easily.. making my own uclibc compact flash distro.. having a FLUID OS that is constantly being updated and not worry about big bang release cycles, etc, etc. - MasterDwarf, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I was just going to say, "props for direct link and not blog crap".
- GMorgan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3@rabidstrikes
Stage-3 is quite simple indeed and only requires you to be able to read and type. The good ol' days of Stage-1 were much more difficult though.
Really I don't see the point of a new disc other than to run on new hardware. You download everything via the standard method so there is practically no point. - weizbox, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2thats def one part about it a like too. I have the newest version every day :)
- Redemption289, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3democracysucks:
Sigh, there seems to be this notion going around that people just install Gentoo so that they can brag about it. While I will admit this is true for some people, I think a majority of Gentoo users are more than willing to help others learn, and only encourage the use of Gentoo because they are excited about what it has to offer. This is exemplified in the many posts by Gentoo users that say, "Gentoo isn't for everyone". As for the benefits of Gentoo, you aren't looking very hard if you say that Gentoo is obsolete. There are plenty of reasons that make Gentoo stand out (portage, USE flags is a BIGGY, maintainability, customizability, and many more.) Furthermore, I enjoy the support base of Gentoo, and think it is much better than other distros (not bragging, just stating my opinion... feel free to disagree.) The Gentoo forums as well as gentoo-wiki are all great resources that have never failed to help me solve a problem. I haven't experienced this level of knowledge and support on other forums (that doesn't mean it doesn't exist). But, I'm rambling again.
Let me put it bluntly. Perhaps the reason people accused you of trolling and not using Gentoo is because your posts do seem a bit rude, even if that wasn't your intention. This post, however; is blatant:
You simply don't like that I find Gentoo to be obsolete. If you disagree, then say so. But don't come up with lame excuses for dismissing what I said.
Morons.
I think a lot of these people are happy that users are taking an interest in Gentoo (because it has a lot to offer --see above), and are upset when you make claims that aren't entirely true. For example, Gentoo is not just for hobbyists, USE flags mean you have a lot more control over what you want. This can increase performance, and greatly decreases on the bloated features that some people just don't want in their programs. Anyway, good luck with whatever distro you use (remember its still better than windows :-o). - st00ner, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3If you want to learn linux interworking and mechanics, or want a straight foward customizable machine just how you like it, gentoo is for you. Else, use ubuntu.
- paku, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3"Which is better Gentoo or Ubuntu?"
OpenBSD rocks my ballz personally. No one can get in or out of the securest OS on the planet bitches.
j/k :) Who uses BSD still? - weizbox, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2That's actually not very true as far as having to update everything. Most disros come with a lot of stuff pre-loaded, so the software stays old. If your doing a Stage3 install, you'll only have to update a few small programs that make up the base system, which should take less than 45min on most current machines. The rest of the programs such as Gnome/KDE, firefox, gaim, etc can be installed the first time with the most current version after syncing up portage.
I'm sure you'll get the hang of Gentoo at some point, and luckily the documentation is written pretty well to help you understand exactly what is going on.
I couldn't agree more with the fanboy, elitism and hate going on in a lot of these posts... and its pretty sad. Linux is made in a way where different people can do different things with different distros, and I think thats the way to go... it all depends on what your looking for. I certainly wouldn't want to use Ubuntu, but I know people that use Ubuntu certainly wouldn't want to use Gentoo... and thats fine, I'm just glad at least we have a choice in the matter... and that's what makes Linux great, not something to argue over. =) - weizbox, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3It may be osbolete to you since its not what you want. It's like saying Ubuntu is obsolete because I don't like everything pre-installed... I've had to deal with that crap in Windows long enough, and building my system from the ground up works for me.
I personally think being able to have bleeding edge versions of software, customized to what I want, is not obsolete. It's obsolete in the sense that you wish not to setup your system like, and thats a preference.. and thats what's great about Linux.
Don't bash a Linux distro because its not what your looking for, bash it for some better reasons. Everyone has preferences on what they want, but that doesn't mean that anything related to their opposing views is any less, its just different.
Instead of acting like a fanboy yourself, please elaborate on why you see it as obsolete... is it just your preference of what you want after an install.. or is there a real flaw that makes it no longer usable? - weizbox, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2That's actually not very true as far as having to update everything. Most disros come with a lot of stuff pre-loaded, so the software stays old. If your doing a Stage3 install, you'll only have to update a few small programs that make up the base system, which should take less than 45min on most current machines. The rest of the programs such as Gnome/KDE, firefox, gaim, etc can be installed the first time with the most current version after syncing up portage.
I'm sure you'll get the hang of Gentoo at some point, and luckily the documentation is written pretty well to help you understand exactly what is going on.
I couldn't agree more with the fanboy, elitism and hate going on in a lot of these posts... and its pretty sad. Linux is made in a way where different people can do different things with different distros, and I think thats the way to go... it all depends on what your looking for. I certainly wouldn't want to use Ubuntu, but I know people that use Ubuntu certainly wouldn't want to use Gentoo... and thats fine, I'm just glad at least we have a choice in the matter... and that's what makes Linux great, not something to argue over. =)
I'm not sure who gave you the thumbs down on that one, but I hope it wasn't a fanboy... I tried to push you back up. You shouldn't be silenced when stating something that you didn't understand completely. I simple reply can do wonders. I praise you for trying and obviously seeing the bigger picture. - weizbox, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4@Al3x
Most likely I'd say start with Ubuntu.. its going to be a lot smoother process, though the decision is completely yours. If your a more technical minded person and work on computers, and are familiar with partitions and your hardware.. maybe Gentoo can work great for you, but its hard to say without knowing more.
If your interested in learning more about Linux and already have a decent understanding of computers and hardware, and maybe did some coding/scripting before.. Gentoo might be the way to go, it was my first real distro (the other onces lasted less than a month for the most part). Some of this more technical knowledge inst needed, but it certainly will make it go by a lot more smoothly.
If you want a quick install with a lot of stuff up and running pretty quick, def go with Ubuntu. - weizbox, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Gentoo is bleeding edge if you want it to be, but it doesn't have to be as well. I have an incredibly stable system even with using some of the newest versions of software that have been masked.
I'm not sure where this 'encouragement' came from as far as updating everything all the time, but it is certainly not what I've seen on the Gentoo forums regarding portage. I personally do update often, about once a week... but thats because I do like the bleeding edge stuff, and its somewhat of a hobby for me as well while I learn more about Linux. If you system is working, stable, and has everything you want on there, you don't really have the need to update unless a newer version of some program you want that comes out and has better support for something, or a new feature, etc. Basically, you update when you want/need too... just as anything else in life.
One Example: http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?p=1060314
Ubuntu def is a lot easier to manage, but in order to make it that easy for the end user, they have to do a lot of stuff for you, and some people would rather do it themselves in the way they see fit... just as the Ubuntu developers did it their way, as they see fit.
Ignoring masked packages will certainly give you a bleeding edge Gentoo system, and from that, stability does suffer sometimes.... but that's only one way to go. By default the packages you would be getting are stable, and the versions are very close to the same, and sometimes older than those in other distros repositories.
Summary: there is not 'stable' with Gentoo if you purposely unmask packages and add overlays in order to get bleeding edge versions, update every single package every day, and mess around with your system before you know what your doing. - eugene259, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Long compiles are a drag, I agree. In that respect I feel Gentoo is ahead of its time because as computing power increases the compile time will decrease making it less of an issue.
Resolving blocks is annoying but relatively straightforward and thats the price of you having control rather than installer making the choice for you.
As for 'update *everything* often', I am not too sure about that. Is one really encouraged to recompile everything all the time? I have never done it and never had a problem. When I update a compiler, I do not bother recompiling everything, relying for everything to renew gradually as new versions come out and when updating libraries and components providing dependencies revdep-rebuild command fixes any potential dependency problems without the need to recompile everything. -
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