Life on the bleeding edge

[Walter Dnes]

On Thu, Sep 21, 2006 at 11:07:23PM -0400, Evan Leibovitch wrote

> > As for Gentoo, I have it running on a few servers.
> I suspected it was great for that. What's it like on the desktop?

  Using it and loving it on my desktop.  The package-management rocks.
Install basic text-console-only setup.  I then say "emerge bbkeys".
bbkeys is the keyboard config for blackbox WM, so it obviously depends
on blackbox.  blackbox obviously depends on X, which depends on a whole
bunch of other stuff.  Portage will figure out the dependancies and pull
them in and build them in the right order.  So issuing the single
command "emerge bbkeys" takes the system from text-mode only to one with
a fully functional X gui and WM.  Mind you, on an older machine, building
X might be an overnight job, but you don't do it very often.  With the
new modular X, only updated pieces get rebuilt.

  The package-management can be annoying at times, if it pulls in stuff
you didn't want.  It's always recommended to do a "--pretend" emerge
first, to see if you really want all the optional dependancies it pulls
in.  There's a very large selection of ebuilds covering just about every
package you want.  Failing that, you can always compile stuff manually
into /usr/local.  You can even do your own custom ebuilds, if you want
portage to manage the package just like regular ebuilds.

  In Gentoo, there aren't major version changes, named after different
animals.  Gentoo's update process is sort of like a "rolling upgrade".
If you installed Gentoo 2 years ago, and applied the updates every
couple of weeks, today you would have the same system as if you had done
a fresh install today.  None of this blowing away / and installing
fresh.  The closest you come to this is during major upgrades to gcc.
Going from 3.4.x to 4.1.1 involved a rebuild of all programs, but it's
only two commands, and let it run overnight.

  Gentoo is not perfect, and just like any other distro, there are
occasional hiccups.  That's what the Gentoo mailing list is for.  To
excercise the control Gentoo gives you, there are a few extra config
files.  If you want something that works out of the box, and you'll take
someone else's defaults, Ubuntu is OK.  Gentoo is for people who want
full control.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes-SLHPyeZ9y/tg9hUCZPvPmw at public.gmane.org> In linux /sbin/init is Job #1
My musings on technology and security at http://tech_sec.blog.ca
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