what is Gentoo ?

ninja · October 2003

i like to know what is Gentoo wherecan i find it .

Ghent · October 2003

Gentoo is a linux distro. As long as you've got the bandwidth to download it, you can get all things linux from linuxiso.org for free. Or if you don't have the bandwidth, try linuxcd.com. They will sell you the distro on CD for like $5.

Ghent · October 2003

Correction, to buy linux it'd linuxcd.org

FR29 · October 2003

Or, you can try cheapbytes.com
I got Mandrake 9.0 from them for like $10. All three disks.

volrathxp · November 2003

www.gentoo.org

Gentoo is a linux distribution that aims to allow the user to do what the user wants or needs to accomplish without getting in the way of that. Their entire philosophy is based around allowing the user to work with the technology, not against it.

I love Gentoo, it's one of the fastest distributions there is, as you can completely optimize it for whatever system you're installing it on (right down to compiler flags in make.conf).

I mean, heck, I have a Gentoo 1.4 system running at work as my workstation and it screams.

Portage is awesome.

westseattle935 · November 2003

Gentoo is kool because you can install Linux from source compiled on your own system. There are fewer pre-compiled binaries so you get maxiumum performence and custimazation from your system.

timharpur · November 2003

Gentoo:

a penguin which has a wide white stripe that goes across the tops of its heads from one eye to the other. These penguins have a very bright orange beak.

see http://www.siec.k12.in.us/~west/proj/penguins/gentoo.html

Just

kidding, but it really is a penguin.

crc32 · August 2004

ninja wrote:

i like to know what is Gentoo wherecan i find it .

Gentoo is the cool distro of Linux that has portage as its main selling point (ITs actually free). The real charm of gentoo is that you compile everything from source and can potimize it to what ever CPU your useing. IE you don't have to settle for old i386 binaries. I'm not talking about "./make", "make install" type compiles either its all automated with portage, the only thing you have to do is "emerge KDE" and be willing to wait for it to compile. Example KDE and gnome along with their support libraries took around 19 hours to compile on my 1.25Ghz machine but you really feel the speed difference but so far KDE is the only thing that took a while to compile. Gentoo of course is trying to grow so if waiting for a compile isn't your thing they offer Stage 3 installs that do use precompiled binaries if you insist, but really such an installation defeats the purpose of useing Gentoo as debian, mandrake, and redhat do that already.

I think Gentoo is a good learning platform for linux as it tends to have
no snazzy tools to help you configure your system. In fact installation is done by booting a tiny 80meg boot CD that allows you to set up
a network connection (DHCP or ifconfig depending on how you want it) then slurp (it sucks down the the real installation). You end up actually useing commands like "mke2fs -j /dev/hda?" to make a ext3 file system. Admittedly no gui or menu does this for you but the install doc file is very straight forward and walks you through the process this is totally command line driven and is very good if your useing it as a learning platform. After that you download bootstrapping compile then download a kernel and follow the usual methods for compiling a kernel ("make menuconfig" etc, this is resonable since it is standard for all linux distros so its not like you cheated or anything. ), Gentoo typically doesn't use portage to install or compile a kernel which is wise as portage is more concerned with packages and stuff after a good kernel is put in.

Be aware that gentoo's instructions install and configure everything and anything from command line but really thats what your after if you wanted to learn more about linux. You build your own /etc/fstab on your own too a task most distros do for you these days but hey your learn more this way.

I don't know what slackware offers anymore these days. Last time I used slackware was back in 94 and it sucked back then and I hear it still does.

Try for gentoo if you have a fast cable connection or something as its pretty big and seems to be the preffered method of installation. Unless you have a friend that can download and burn stage 3 disks. (Stage 3 means precompiled packages, stage 1 means download source code and compile on the fly with portage)

I can't stress how nice portage is. You type something like "emerge kde" portage downloads it, its dependencies unpacks it then you see what appears to be the output of "./configure" as if portage is doing this on the fly then poof you the source code being compiled. You have a /etc/make.conf to tell the system what kind of processor you have what kind of optimizations you prefer if you prefer gnome or kde support stuff like that and portage configures each package according to your global preferences. No more having to manually tweak makefiles anymore.

Give it a try if your not happy with precompiled binaries and stuff. Or again if you prefer yuo can go with stage 3 installs from burned discs.

www.gentoo.org

tunerX · September 2004

Isn't Gentoo moving away from portage and adopting the more recognized RPM format for source and binary distribution.

crc32 · October 2004

tunerX wrote:

Isn't Gentoo moving away from portage and adopting the more recognized RPM format for source and binary distribution.

No Gentoo won't ditch portage as its their prized feature that made it so popular. For those who arn't comfterbal waiting for sources to compile can opt to download binaries. It should be known that maintainers/distributers of packages loath that idea as it means they will now have to either A) store binaries for each platform of processors,

settle for the lowest common denominator the old 80386 (Well maby a pentium more likely) for their binaries or something to that effect. Portage is the core of Gentoo as developers were trying to take the best features of the (Free/Open/Net)BSD family and bring it towards the wider Linux platform where it would be appreciated by more people. The are packages like "Alien" that allow you to intsall your favorite RPMS, but it doesn't look like you really need to anymore. Even yahoo messanger was released as a binary portage package (It was translated from the RH9 RPM lol )

Getting the Gentoo system installed is the catchy part that the developers should work to streamline for the average user. But once thats done poof portage is so stable. No circular RPM dependency. No more RPM hell.

what is Gentoo ?

Comments