I don't want a Linux box anymore

[TGS]

emerge world

or

apt-get update

12 versus 14 characters, and apt-get forces your finger to move further to hit "-". Technically speaking, short of doing aliasing emerge wins by default.

 

[GTaudiophile]

Originally posted by: TGS
emerge world

or

apt-get update

12 versus 14 characters, and apt-get forces your finger to move further to hit "-". Technically speaking, short of doing aliasing emerge wins by default.

What if you haven't updated Gentoo in like 2 years? Could I expect some problems?

 

[drag]

Ubuntu is always a good place to start. Read on their website on how to enable the extra online repositories so that you can easily install a much wider veriaty of software, including many different server-related items.

Ubuntu is closely related to Debian so most anything that applies to debian applies to Ubuntu. Debian is a very popular Linux distro for server duties.

However if you want to get more familar with the Redhat side of things, which is commonly used in government and corporate spaces, check out Fedora Core project.

Be sure to get the latest versions that aren't beta.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile

Originally posted by: TGS
emerge world

or

apt-get update

12 versus 14 characters, and apt-get forces your finger to move further to hit "-". Technically speaking, short of doing aliasing emerge wins by default.

What if you haven't updated Gentoo in like 2 years? Could I expect some problems?

YES.

 

[TGS]

I think you might run into some problems by not updating software in two years. More so than the process actually running correctly. Let alone any hardware issues that may be lurking unnoticed.

 

[lxskllr]

Originally posted by: SleepWalkerX
Yeah it would ease the learning curve a lot. Especially if you become used to using the command prompt with your desktop distro or just use it occasionally.

It depends on what kind of laptop you have, but I'd recommend getting debian since it seems to run great on even slower pcs, has a huge repository for apt, and seems easy to maintain. Not sure which type of server you want to run, but this guide shows how to get them up and running with debian. But check out the site howtoforge, it has guides on setting up servers with SuSE/openSuSE, Mandriva, FC4, Ubuntu, and others.

My laptop isn't that old. It's a Inspiron 1000 with a socket 478 2.2ghz Celeron. It's just my beater laptop that's mostly used as a oversized mp3 player .

I checked out the Ubuntu website, and I liked the looks of it. I preordered the latest release and I guess I'll get it sometime in October. I don't want to download because I'm on 56k .

I don't know what kind of server I want to run. I don't know much about networking and I'd like to learn the Linux side of things. It's nice because it's free, so I can play at no cost. I'll have to get some books to learn the Microsoft way of networking. I guess my ultimate goal is to take over computer administration at my company in a couple of years. I work in a engineering and surveying firm and we currently outsource our computer maintainence for about 10 computers. I'm a little burned out on surveying, so I think that adding computer work to my job will keep things interesting.

Who knows? Maybe nothing will come of it, but I'd still like the knowledge for personal satisfaction.

 

[M00T]

"emerge world" was always a scary process for me.

 

[GTaudiophile]

Originally posted by: TGS
I think you might run into some problems by not updating software in two years. More so than the process actually running correctly. Let alone any hardware issues that may be lurking unnoticed.

Don't worry. I won't do it. But I'll be building a new one shortly. Gentoo has done me well. But I would like someone to try to persuade me to use something else. I am only running SAMBA, SSH, APACHE...

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile

Originally posted by: TGS
I think you might run into some problems by not updating software in two years. More so than the process actually running correctly. Let alone any hardware issues that may be lurking unnoticed.

Don't worry. I won't do it. But I'll be building a new one shortly. Gentoo has done me well. But I would like someone to try to persuade me to use something else. I am only running SAMBA, SSH, APACHE...

Try Debian. Or maybe debian unstable.

Why?
You don't have to compile stuff. There is more software aviable. The tough part is learning to get along with apt-get. Use Debian Stable if you want to have only very small amount of updates to worry about.

Debian Desktop Survival guide.
http://www.togaware.com/linux/survivor/
( love the wajig. )
(edit: if you activate the advanced autocompletion stuff for bash it'll work with wajig (python-based front end to apt-get dpkg and other utilities) to help you find/spell package names. Something like 'wajig install mozi <tab><tab>' however if you hit tab tab with no input it'll hang for a while then output every package and package name variation that exists in debian... which takes a long long time..)

Otherwise Gentoo is fine.

 

[nweaver]

emerge gnome (from a stage 2 install) took about 8 hours, compared to 20 minutes on ubuntu (server install, no GUI). I worry about instability with gentoo, not as much testing before pushing updates out. Although I have one ubuntu box, and 5+ gentoo boxes.

 

[R3MF]

Originally posted by: lxskllr
On a related note, I'd like to learn how to setup and maintain a Linux server. I know nothing about Linux, but have a spare laptop I can experiment on. I was wondering how much of Linux desktop application applies to running a Linux server. I realize that it's not the same thing, but was wondering if running a Linux desktop would ease the learning curve a bit.

If it would help, what distro would you recommend? I'm very familiar with Windows, and don't mind tinkering with things, but I'm not a masochist either. I prefer quick and easy to torturous every time . Any advice you all can offer would be greatly appreciated.

SUSE 10.0
http://www.howtoforge.com/perfect_setup_suse_10.0

 

[hooflung]

Well If you want a good distro for a server and don't really know how to set it up... then Ubuntu is the distro for you.

Follow this linkypoo

my mandriva installs are going over to ubuntu and I think I will be doing so for all my machines except for my gentoo/windoze box.

 

[groovin]

What if you haven't updated Gentoo in like 2 years? Could I expect some problems?

Yes, but it its not something you cant deal with. youll have to play with your make.profile a bit and probaly update portage first since the version of portage you have might not support cascading profiles. also since 2005.0 gentoo uses udev so you will have to emerge that and configure your kernel properly. i cant remember the exact steps i took to update my 2 year install, but i relied on the gentoo forums heavily.

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: TGS
Strangely enough I don't see many using anyone bashing other OSes much. Frankly the respective camps tend to offer up the benefits on their side. Or give the answers to the fixes that either side may require the end user to run through.

Except for the occasional OSS/Windows plinking from some people. *cough cough*

Each solution has it's place. I don't see many people recommend BSD or Solaris for a gaming machine, or windows for a simple web/file server...

Use Fedora Core, * else sucks!

 

[nweaver]

Fedora is for old women and homosexual monkeys. Gentoo > all, except maybe ice cream....so make that ice cream > gentoo > all

 

[hooflung]

Gentoo owns DiY distros

Ubuntu owns debian distros ( I have a sarge 3.1 DVD I refuse to use because of Xfree )

Mandriva owns all RPM based distros for the simple networks.

OpenSuse 10 owns all RPM based distros if you want massive rollouts with no support.

RHES owns all RPM based distros if you are serious about support.

Edit :
Cent OS owns all RPM based distros if you are serious about RHES and hate NOVELL.

 

[drag]

I don't like Gentoo because compile crap all the time is annoying. It takes away cpu time from more important things... like blobwars or doom3.

Personally I use Debian... but I am going to be installing Fedora Core 4 for a AMD64 machine that I'm building for my brother.

The reason that I am doing this is because I want have him run Cinelerra 2.0 in a native 64bit enviroment and Fedora Core 4 is what the developers use and they have rpms for. Cinelerra is a b1tch to get working since it has weird depdancies and hand-optimized assembly code. Stuff like that sucks to get working properly in ideal situations. So using the same distro as the developers is advantagous. (64bit Cinelerra version is more mature/stable nowadays then the 32bit version...)

Debian Etch and Sid use X.org btw. The XFree in Sarge isn't the same as the standard XFree stuff... it's heavily patched and has many many bug fixes and improvements that have been backported from the X.org project. There isn't realy any reason to avoid using it just because it's called 'Xfree'.

 

[TGS]

The gentoo crowd will have to chip in, but as long as there is a precompiled ebuild there really shouldn't be any difference between apt-get and emerge.

I did a stage 3 load with the precompiled apps and even slugging through the directions methodically the install didn't take very long. Now if you are a glutton for punishment and want to compile gnome or kde...

I understand using a build compiled for your system, but once the proper* flags are set for the initial compile, why couldn't you just grab those opposed to wasting time reinventing the wheel. Unless there is something fundamentally different about the way you have your compile flags set at?

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: nweaver
Fedora is for old women and homosexual monkeys. Gentoo > all, except maybe ice cream....so make that ice cream > gentoo > all

I hate you now.

 

[GTaudiophile]

Originally posted by: hooflung
Well If you want a good distro for a server and don't really know how to set it up... then Ubuntu is the distro for you.

Follow this linkypoo

my mandriva installs are going over to ubuntu and I think I will be doing so for all my machines except for my gentoo/windoze box.

I've set up both Slack and Gentoo servers. Gentoo was easier. I don't want to run X Windows or any kind of GUI. I just want something that's quick to install, easy to keep updated regularly, and is easy to secure. Gentoo was a little long on the install but like I said, has served me well.

I have also considered Debian and will also look at Ubantu.

 

[nweaver]

I'm pretty hardcore gentoo, but I've been threatening to go to Debian. Learning curve is the problem, I'm too used to Gentoo. Pisses me off when I am trying to do something and forgot to emerge a simple package, like tcpdump or minicom

 

[thirdlegstump]

If you want something as powerful as Unix but with simplicity, just get a Mac OS X system.

 

[drag]

We'll see how this goes.

Debian wasn't suitable, because nobody has Debian packages aviable for Cinelerra 64bit and Cinelerra is a b1tch. They have the compiling all weirded out and I just don't want to deal with it.

Fedora Core 64 64bit is my next choice because that's what the developer's use and they have pre-compiled packages... however for other programs that may be usefull I'd have to compile them anyways. Which is what is great about Debian. It has 95% of everything else that would be usefull. But Fedora isn't like that and they are best supported by some third party guys that they pretty much ignore, which is irritating.

But Gentoo is next if I don't like how Fedora works out. I definately need this to be as end user freindly as possible because my brother realy doesn't have the patience for computers. Gentoo, if I set it up correctly and in a clever way should be much easier to deal with because despite the compiling crap portage works and they have a lot of programs aviable.

As far as other distros go I don't considure them realy worth thinking about... at least for me and my purposes. (other people will be different). Mandriva and such lacks the package infrastructure like Debian or Gentoo, and to a lesser extent, Fedora has.

But I think Fedora should work out.

BTW for anybody using 64bit linux I've found that the blackdown java packages include mozilla plugins.. which are lacking with Sun's 1.50 (or 5.0 or whatever) java stuff. Blackdown is still 1.4, but it works and screw java.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: nweaver
I'm pretty hardcore gentoo, but I've been threatening to go to Debian. Learning curve is the problem, I'm too used to Gentoo. Pisses me off when I am trying to do something and forgot to emerge a simple package, like tcpdump or minicom

There are linux distros that don't have tcpdump in their base install?

 

[hooflung]

As far as other distros go I don't considure them realy worth thinking about... at least for me and my purposes. (other people will be different). Mandriva and such lacks the package infrastructure like Debian or Gentoo, and to a lesser extent, Fedora has.

Mandriva lackes package infrastructure? UM... UM... UM... Urpmi 'U' RPM 'I' ... commonly reffered to as "URP ME" and "Universal RPM Installer."... has better support than YUM on x86, and if all else fails RPM AND EVEN YUM are available to mandriva. Suse 9.3 down are the only distros I would ever consider having problems with some RPMs but thats because of their once-proprietary package manager. Uprmi is RPM with a apt-get interface but RPM and the the Xwindow front ends work. Anything that applies to Fedora Core can be applied to Mandriva and if something is pretty stubborn that is what symbolic links and knowing the operating system's directory structure are for.