First stab at Gentoo Linux (CONFIRMED: I've found my distro!)UPDATED)

[DnetMHZ]

<< I've never run Linux behind Windows ICS which is what I have set up on my DSL connection. Do I need to set the NIC to get an IP at boot or manually config it to the 192.168.x.y addressing convention that Windows uses? >>



I believe ICS functions better if your let it give out addresses automatically.

 

[DnetMHZ]

<Update>
Well I can now say that I've finally found a Linux distro that I can live with. I've tried several and so far Gentoo by far best fits my needs.
The portage system work great. no fighting with RPMs/dependencies/etc.

I've got a fully fintional apache/samba/openssh server as well as desktop setup.

<< going to dispose of all his redhat/mandrake/slackware/turbo/storm/corel/and other disks

DnetMHZ

<edit>
This also means yet another windows box dies.. the count in my house is now

3 - OpenBSD 3.0
1 - Gentoo Linux
4 - Win2K
1 - NT 4.0

 

[n0cmonkey]

<< 3 - OpenBSD 3.0 >>



Balance is restored! I finally have more OpenBSD machines than you

Ive got 4, and thankfully no Windows machines

 

[bigrash]

Hey guys I have a couple of question for those of you who installed Gentoo Linux. I've installed/used Redhat and Mandrake before. Compared to those two, how hard is it to install Gentoo? I admit, I have no experience when it comes to ports and all that stuff. And how hard is it to configure it?

 

[TonyRic]

bigrash9 (don't want to know how you took that nick)

Gentoo, like slackware is for those that want to know how linux really runs. Or, just for those that want a REALLY optimized system.

I installed Gentoo within VMware on my laptop (Running RH 7.2) and was duly impressed. I cut my teeth on Slackware in 1995 and have literally bounced distros since. RH, Mandrake, Suse, Redmond, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Debian, Progeny, Corel (For a day), and many others. I have settled on RH until I find one that I actually like. I think Gentoo has that capability. Gentoo within VMware on top of RH 7.2 w/XF 4.2.0 and Fluxbox and or KDE 3 is FAST. Normally I see a 20% performance drop in VMware running Windows XP vs. my wifes install native. However, with Gentoo in VMware It runs AS FAST as RH natively.

Maybe this weekend.

:edit: BTW, I am an OS/2 convert. Was running OS/2 from the BETA 2.0 days before the Workplace shell. Now, THAT was an Operating System.

 

[DnetMHZ]

<< Balance is restored! I finally have more OpenBSD machines than you >>





<< looking around for another machine to install

 

[ineedsleep]

<<

<<

<< I want to know your thoughts on their "portage" system. I really want to know if they are telling the truth when they say it is sooo much better than BSD ports. >>



Well so far I'm pretty impressed with the portage system.. so far I've installed apache, lynx, xf86, and a few others without any snags,
usage is really straight forward, for example to install apache I simply typed;

# emerge apache .. doesn't get much easier than that i guess. At this point with what little experience I have with it I'd have to say the portage system is at least on par with the BSD ports system. I'll have to play with it a little more to say for certain which system i prefer.



DnetMHZ

<edit>


<< So far it seems like a lot of work to install the damn thing. >>


I agree on it being a lot of work to install.. still less work than LFS though.
Personally I know that I learned a bunch of new stuff from going through the whole process.
It might not be good for a total linux noob, but for someone trying to get deeper into it I'd say it's a good place to start. >>



Is there any way to search through portage (ie make search key=php on OpenBSD)? >>



You can do this: emerge -s [search]
So your search for php would be emerge -s php

then you can do an emerge --pretend php << will show you what it's going to install and what dependencies will be filled.

I have installed gentoo just yesterday after i stumbled on this thread I have to say, i'm amazed at how easy the emerge management is. From what i understand, this is something that BSD users have been enjoying for a while.... well i love it.

The install instructions were easy to follow, i got my system up and running.... but i ran into a problem when i forgot to compile devfs into my kernel. I did a quick search on the forums and found out what to do and why when i recompiled nothing happened.

Gentoo has converted slack/obsd/fbsd and even debian users. I love it... i learned so much just during install...

Similar to DnetMHZ, i chose level 1 install using the 16mb cd. Although i'm still installing software, i do have a fully functional x install and xfce Next up i have a few more servers to do...

The thing i like about this is that i know exactly what's going on under there. Unlike my previous distro (redhat) I know exactly what's installed, and what i need to install.

I have one minor gripe about it though. I've fallen in love with vi and vim and never learned another editor. Reason being when i first got introduced, it was encouraged to learn vi since most unix boxes only come with vi installed. Included with gentoo is nano (a pico clone). Although i was able to use it... i really would have preferred to have vi installed. Thinking back on all the gripes i've had with other distro's, this one is minimal and just a matter of preference.

I have to say, i'm loving this distro already... and much like DnetMHZ:

/me has found his distro!!!

 

[gaidin123]

Hah! I just found this thread while doing my 'emerge -u world' command on my Gentoo running laptop.

I have to say that Gentoo Linux is definitely my new distribution of choice. As long as the development continues at the pace it's been going I'm "sold". There was an issue with libpng and KDE 3 for a short time where, if you updated to the newest package of libpng it hosed all your programs that depend on it (ie KDE and all of its apps no longer had any icons). The problem was fixed by recompiling X, KDE, and a few other apps after updating to the new libpng.

And other than a problem I have with a USB mouse, everything is working how I want it to. Being able to emerge almost any program really quickly is great. Being able to have portage check your system and update every single package that's out of date is awesome. And having portage resolve any dependencies automagically is a major time saver. Also the rc-update command to add services to run at the various runlevels is a nice convenience.

For something where the entire distro is compiled straight from source, Gentoo Linux is about as simple as it gets imho though it is targeted towards developers and semi-experienced linux type people.

Still, if you're new to Linux and interested in really learning about the system layout and how things work, Gentoo would be a great distribution for you.

Gaidin

 

[n0cmonkey]

<< Included with gentoo is nano (a pico clone). Although i was able to use it... i really would have preferred to have vi installed. >>



Cant use a UNIX-like system without vi! Its just not possible :Q :disgust: :frown:

 

[mcveigh]

<<

<< Included with gentoo is nano (a pico clone). Although i was able to use it... i really would have preferred to have vi installed. >>



Cant use a UNIX-like system without vi! Its just not possible :Q :disgust: :frown: >>



I agree!!

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

<<

<<

<< Included with gentoo is nano (a pico clone). Although i was able to use it... i really would have preferred to have vi installed. >>



Cant use a UNIX-like system without vi! Its just not possible :Q :disgust: :frown: >>



I agree!! >>


i guess they're probably trying to make it somewhat newbie friendly, something that vi is not. i imagine it is not very hard to install vi though, so it cant be that big of a deal

i should get around to looking at gentoo....i need more computers

 

[torreyk]

For what its worth im a total Linux noob but this thread got me interested in Gentoo and I was bored. Managed to compile right the first go around, now to add X and KDE :|

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

<< For what its worth im a total Linux noob but this thread got me interested in Gentoo and I was bored. Managed to compile right the first go around, now to add X and KDE :| >>


cool, way to go

i just read over the install manual at gentoo.org and it appears that gentoo uses /etc/modules.autoload instead of /etc/modules.

am i correct, and if so, what is up with that?

edit: oh yeah, the 64MB ram thing sucks too, sort of. i have 256MB ram in both of my machines, and my 386 isnt even a consideration but still, if someone handed me a p133 with simms or something, i'd want to install gentoo on it. debian's 10MB requirement is nice in comparison

 

[Tiger]

Good thread.
I've got the stage1 iso burnt and ready to go in the morning.
I'm currently dual booting Win2K and Mandy 8.2. Unfortunately I've got to protect the dual boot for a while so instead of using grub I'm going to emerge LILO when the time comes.
We'll see what happens with the Linksys NIC when the time comes.
I've done a Debian 2.2r2 install in the past, on dial-up even, so I'm no starnger to this minimalist stuff.
Lets see how long it takes to get a system with the functionality I currently enjoy with Mandrake.

BTW, what exactly is wrong with pico other than not having to be a cryptologist to use it?

 

[n0cmonkey]

<< BTW, what exactly is wrong with pico other than not having to be a cryptologist to use it? >>



I know vi.

 

[fivepesos]

ive been running gentoo for about a month and its been great for me. i realy like portage (reminds me of my limited bsd experiences). its much better than apt on debian and OF COURSE it is superior to RPMs (which suck).

theres just a few weird issues im having relating to startup scripts and following of multiple symlinks, but ill get those resolved.

 

[TonyRic]

emerge vim
ln -s /usr/bin/vim /usr/bin/vi

these 2 commands will take care of your jonesing for vi (I had it too)

The USB mouse will work fine if you compile the proper USB HID modules into the kernel.

I must say that I am loving this distro. Just got my kernel the way I want it and got X, KDE3, blackbox installed, now doing Mozilla, then galeon and I will be off to a great start.

I will do a little FAQ on installing from a Wireless NIC (Orinoco specifically), getting it to be automatically started on boot up, unlike some of the others that require you to start everything yourself, and booting into X.

As for the lilo/grub dual/triple booting thing. I did not instlal grub from gentoo, I use lilo and already had RH 7.3 installed, so I mounted the RH install as well as the boot partition while in the gentoo install stage 1, chrooted the environment and reconfigured lilo to boot gentoo.

hmmm, come to think of it, that is a good one for an faq as well.

cheers. This is really looking like a great little distro.

 

[DnetMHZ]

<< emerge vim
ln -s /usr/bin/vim /usr/bin/vi

these 2 commands will take care of your jonesing for vi (I had it too) >>



yes one of my first steps was installing vi also.. just more comfortable with it.. nano is kinda like using notepad

Good to see others have the same good experiences with this distro!

DnetMHZ

 

[Bremen]

<< BTW, what exactly is wrong with pico other than not having to be a cryptologist to use it? >>

It's not free software. Now most people don't care, but for a free (beer) program that isn't that complicated, not being able to fiddle with it annoys the stuffin' out of many a good programmer.

 

[dude8604]

Time to download Linux distro #4. (Mandrake, Redmond (which wouldn't install for some reason), Redhat, and now Gentoo).

edit: One question. Does the installer have a GUI? The installation instructions talk about a lot of command prompt commands.

 

[n0cmonkey]

<< Time to download Linux distro #4. (Mandrake, Redmond (which wouldn't install for some reason), Redhat, and now Gentoo).

edit: One question. Does the installer have a GUI? The installation instructions talk about a lot of command prompt commands. >>



God I hope not.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

<<

<< Time to download Linux distro #4. (Mandrake, Redmond (which wouldn't install for some reason), Redhat, and now Gentoo).

edit: One question. Does the installer have a GUI? The installation instructions talk about a lot of command prompt commands. >>



God I hope not. >>


i read through the install manual and i'm not sure there is much of an installer at all. you set up stuff with various standard tools, then use the "emerge" command to install the base stuff, then use emerge to install whatever other stuff you want to install.

gentoo looks cool, but i dont think its for the people who want to point and click their way into linux...

 

[ineedsleep]

<<

<<

<< Time to download Linux distro #4. (Mandrake, Redmond (which wouldn't install for some reason), Redhat, and now Gentoo). edit: One question. Does the installer have a GUI? The installation instructions talk about a lot of command prompt commands. >>

God I hope not. >>

i read through the install manual and i'm not sure there is much of an installer at all. you set up stuff with various standard tools, then use the "emerge" command to install the base stuff, then use emerge to install whatever other stuff you want to install.gentoo looks cool, but i dont think its for the people who want to point and click their way into linux... >>



There is no gui. Infact, installing any type of gui was one of the last things i did.... partly because it took so long to emerge x, and partly because i was busy emerging other things

On the boards, they make reference to how the setup is much like how it was early in the *nix install days. I know nothing of those days so i can't comment on the validity.

You setup your partitions, chroot yourself and start emerging. It's definately not for point and click users, but i would recommend it to anyone that can successfully compile a program using a terminal.

Be forewarned, compiling your base system as well as X takes a very, very long time.

The installation guide is very thorough... walks you step by step and explains what it's doing for you, and even suggests certain choices for those that aren't sure what they want. For example, for my system logger, it told me a little bit about each of them so that I could choose which one i wanted. It warned me of extra work from choosing one logger and told me that a lot of people are finding metalog a popular choice. So, instead of using the same old sysdlog (something like that) i chose metalog. The community at http://forums.gentoo.org are a great place to check out as well.

If you can compile a piece of software, then you could install gentoo as well

 

[XBoxLPU]

I wish I could get Gentoo ( at least everything built custom to my PC ) but all i have is 56k....

 

[CRH]

I downloaded the level 3 ISO on 56K a few weeks ago (around 116 MB) but have'nt installed it yet. I'm not quite brave enough.

Be sure and check the MD5 hash to make sure the ISO is good. This should make the install go a little smoother without having to download as much at install time.