Last week I had some undiagnosable problem at bootup and I decided to just backup my home directory, /etc and some other key files and reinstall Gentoo from scratch (stage 1). It turned out to take longer than I remembered, but it has proven to be well worth it.

Having run Gentoo before (for a few months now) I knew to set up the /etc/make.conf file with optimized USE tags. Basically, I put in everything I knew I would need and disallowed the rest. Being a fan of KDE my tags looked something like this: USE="kde kdeenablefinal qt -gtk -gnome".

Eleventy-billion hours later I had compiled my system (with only two commands, thanks to Portage). I noticed immediately when I started X that things were different from before. Window response was much faster, applications loaded much faster, and I had more free RAM. Sweet.

I’ve been looking into every distro that’s featured on DistroWatch for a while now and I just can’t imagine giving up my Gentoo. Now, if the Portage tree contained Yast2 for system configuration this would be a flawless OS.

My housemate is a jerk. Dumb jerk. He has a powerbook running Mac OS X and I told him tonight about Gentoo for Macs. I told him that there was a special version of the super-popular (and super hard to install) Linux distro that ran on Macs.

He had the thing running in a couple of minutes. That’s why he’s a jerk. I spent a whole evening and the next day installing, compiling, and configuring my Gentoo system. He only had to download a dmg file and double click it. Then he had Gentoo running.

Gentoo can run on Mac OS X
If you go to Gentoo-Wiki.com you’ll find detailed instuctions on a not-so-difficult process of installing Gentoo. What takes a significant amount of time when starting from scratch only takes a few minutes when you’re embedding it into a running OS. Here are the steps required:

• Download the .dmg file available here
• Double click the installer (it’s called “Gentoo For Mac OS X Installer.pkg”) inside the image.
• type # emerge --sync
• Now you have Gentoo running. Perfectly.

It’s a frustrating thing that one of the most difficult to install Linux distros can be so simple if you’ve already got a host system. It just takes the glory out of it. However, this is a keen illustration of how Gentoo is less like a proper distribution and more like a meta-distribution. Gentoo is mostly just Portage (Gentoo’s package manager) and it can be run on any POSIX-compliant OS (FreeBSD, Mach, Linux). If it can run on a Mac, I really want to see what else it can run on.

For over a month now I’ve been using Gentoo as my primary operating system. It’s been a real treat to get to install it (twice, actually) and learn the ropes by getting my hands dirty. Overall I think it’s my favorite OS because of the transparent way it does packages and the super-ease of upgrading everything. Despite that, I plan to switch to Suse 9.3 soon. Let me explain why.

First, the stuff about Gentoo that excells:

• Gentoo lets you compile everything.
  From the kernel to every single program you run you get to compile it on your own machine. While this doesn’t necessarily offer extra speed, it can dramatically increase system performance if you understand how to use your USE=”" variable in /etc/make.conf. You can set flags that offer your program Gnome supportbut not KDE (USE=”gtk2 -kde -qt”), or the otherway around (USE=”-gtk2 kde qt”). This’ll keep your programs optimized.
  And because compiling everything can be a hassle if you don’t want to wait forever, Portage (the Gentoo package system) also lets you use pre-compiled packages when available through the –usepkg flag. Some things probably aren’t worth the wait to compile them yourself.
• Gentoo lets you upgrade in place
  I remember reading a few years ago that a certain user hated that RedHat didn’t let you upgrade without losing everything. Even Windows gives you the option to not reformat if you want. Lucky for us Gentoo has improved the Linux experience so much that it takes only a second and a single file copy to fully upgrade your system.
  Gentoo uses profiles as release numbers. They are very simply named: 2004.2, 2004.3, and the most current one is 2005.0. To update all the programs on your machine you simply type # emerge --update world and when there is a new profile that you can switch to Portage will tell you to edit your profile to reflect the newly downloaded version of Gentoo that’s available as a folder in /usr/portage/profiles/. To upgrade to the new profile just point the symlink /etc/make.profile to the new folder.
• Huge package warehouse
  The Gentoo package system is full of goodies. There’s everything from the basics of apacha, kde, gnome, php, etc., to obscure stuff like the games ‘Wakkabox’ (?) and even commercial software like VMWare and Heroes of Might and Magic 3 for Linux. For commercial stuff your original CD or serial key are required, but Portage will install the program for you. I’ve only twice found a program that I wanted to install which was not already in the Portage tree. For these situations, rpm and make work as well as they do on any other system.

That’s the really good stuff about Gentoo. It has some problems though. Not big ones, but problems that are real enough for me to be switching to Suse 9.3.

• You have to configure everything
  This is usually a plus, but at times it’s really a horrible idea. I’ve been struggling with my Intel ProWireless 2200BG for the entire time I’ve used Gentoo. I’ve followed every tutorial and manual online and I can’t get the thing working. It’s supposed to be hard but possible, this is just frustrating. There are other things I’d like to try that may not be possible for me until I get a distro that supports it a little better (Like the Xen Hypervisor). The ipw2200 (my wireless card) package worked with some bugs on Suse 9.2 - I figure by 9.3 they’ll have an updated version that runs smoothly.
• Speed
  Sometimes it’s just nice to have a system that you know you can install in an afternoon. If something goes wrong you can just make sure you have a backup of key files, wipe the drive clean, and start over in time for dinner. With Gentoo, there’s been at least two nights where I gave it a long list of files to install and I went to sleep - only to find it still at work by breakfast time.

It should be noted that this is not a real criticism of Gentoo. If your hardware (especially networking) is supported natively by the Linux kernel you may never find any need to switch out of Gentoo. In fact, as soon as ipw2200 support becomes reliable enough that I can compile it as a module in my kernel I’ll be switching back to write more. Until then, y’all might be hearing lots about Suse.

I recently attempted a world update on my Gentoo system. This involves checking every program you’ve installed for a potential new release and installing it if available. There’s a way to do this quickly and painlessly with Gentoo (praise the Lord for Portage):
# emerge -pu world

Portage (Gentoo’s package manager) tells you whether a package is already installed, missing, needs to be upgraded, or is blocked by another package. The natural understanding of dependencies is wonderful and has helped me a number of times.

When I last attempted a world update I was told that SysVinit was blocking a program I was trying to install. Not knowing quite what it was I figured I’d trade it for the new program. As soon as I completed the update I had lost the following commands:
# reboot
# shutdown
# restart
and I realized that I’d never learned an alternative way to shutdown my computer.

Moral of the story: Portage is great, SysVinit is necessary, you should install Gentoo.

I’ve been using DVD::RIP for a while now (that means a week) but ever since I upgraded to KDE 3.4 I’ve been having troubles getting it to work reliably will all of the components that it needs. It’s become common for DVD::RIP to tell me that it can’t read dvd’s, encode anything, get a table of contents, or preview a frame. Mind you it can do all of these things - just not at the same time.

And despite this I’ve had an overwhelmingly positive experience with Gentoo. I’m still not smart enough to get a recent release of IPW2200 working with it yet, but I’ve really enjoyed portage. Something about the transparency and fluidity of a package manager that can upgrade and install anything - even itself - is really desirable.

Gentoo has released their first version for the 2005 year. Named (cleverly) Gentoo 2005.0, this includes all the latest pieces of Gentoo.

It wasn’t long ago (and it still is with many distros) that upgrading your version of Linux meant reformatting and reinstalling from scratch. The greatest thing about the Gentoo distribution is that any current user can immediately upgrade their installation by using Portage. Portage is the package manager for Gentoo and works based on downloading and installing necessary programs upon request. Portage can automatically calculate program dependencies and install the required packages for you. For information on installing Gentoo check out my Gentoo installation guide

Those who want to try out Gentoo 2005.0 can get it at: Gentoo Torrents. (get the Universal LiveCD)
For current users, upgrade simply by typing:
# emerge –sync
# emerge -u world

A week ago I spent the weekend installing Gentoo Linux on my Dell 600m laptop. I had decided on a stage 3 (the easiest of 3) install from a Universal LiveCD and I documented the whole procedure. I figure it’ll be useful for other’s who try to do it to know some of what I went through. I know I could have used some help by people describing what glitches they ran into along the way.

So here it is: The Gentoo Stage 3 Install

On my new Gentoo installation I’ve decided I’m ready to upgrade to the new KDE 3.4. When I typed #emerge –pretend kde it showed me there were no updates. This was disconcerting because I was sure the new version had been released.

What I had yet to figure out was that Portage does not automatically update it’s information on what packages are available. That must be done through the command #emerge –sync. When that’s finished, it’s possible to update any packages you want.

The shortage of posts recently has been because I’ve been attempting to install Gentoo on my laptop and been having a ball. While enjoying myself, however, I’m often too browser-lacking to do any posts.

Right now I’m doing an emerge (Gentoo-speak for ‘install’) of the entire KDE package on my Dell 600m laptop. I started it late last night and i’ll be done sometime this afternoon.

When it’s done I’m going to do as many packages as I can quickly. I’m following the advice of Clete who’s updating his whole system before KDE 3.4 comes out in three days. It’s a good idea to only have KDE to update when it comes out - because it takes 16 hours on my 1.6GHZ to install.

Of all the distributions that a new user could actually install themselves Gentoo is quickly becoming regarded as the most code-optimized and versatile. Because of Portage, its clever package manager which compiles source code into packages, it offers machine-specific settings in a semi-friendly way. I’m not going to use the phrase “user-friendly” to describe any Linux distribution (except maybe Linspire) because Linux is hard at a pretty fundamental level, but if you’re going to run a fast Linux machine and embedded Perl doesn’t happen to be your native language, then Gentoo is as close as you or I will get.

The Linux Blog has a two-part article on optimizing Gentoo that’s worth a read. I’ve yet to install Gentoo on my laptop, but one of these days I’ll get around to it and I’ll write about it in detail for you. Until then, check out Optimizing Gentoo and Optimizing Gentoo (Part 2)

I’m getting fed up with the way Suse 9.2 is running on my Dell 600m. Things are responding slowly, there’s hangups with the Intel ProWireless 2200 BG package (IPW2200) or its installation, and I’m starting to feel an itch for a new distro.

I’ve heard pretty good things about Gentoo lately, namely that their package installer, Portage, is excellent and unique in its field. Portage relies mostly on source code package for installations, rather than binary packages. Compiling a program from its source code is a little slower, a lot harder, but much more reliable because it creates a product that is honed to your specific system. Its because of this that I’m thinking Portage might be a much better choice for me. I wrote about Gentoo when I first heard about it, wondering if Gentoo could be better than others

If I do an install I’ll likely have another computer by my side so I can record all the stuff I encounter. If it turns out not to be worthwhile I don’t want all of the rest of us to have to go through the same muck.

While this site talks much of the difficulties of Linux, there is a new trend that has drastically reduced the pains of trying Linux for the first time. Live CD’s are disks that you put into your drive when the computer is off. When you start your computer you’ll find that you’re looking at and interacting with Linux. When you take the disk out and restart your computer you’re looking at Windows (or whatever) again.

Some common Live CD’s are Knoppix, Linspire (formerly Lindows), Gentoo, and several others. Some of the distributions, like Mepis Linux offer the ability to install straight to your hard drive from the Live CD. This is useful if you want to try it out at first, but then want to make the switch.

For those who are thinking of starting work with Linux, go for it. Yes, it’s hard, but you don’t have to master it to get started. Even if you don’t know the command line or what a shell is or even what this KDE and Gnome business is all about you can start using Powerpoint for Linux and writing emails on Linux immediately. So get yourself a Live CD and take a risk free tour of Linux.

I have heard about Gentoo a few times, but I always wrote it off as an unnecessary distribution until today. Thanks to reading the Gentoo ‘about’ page (Gentoo Linux — About Gentoo Linux) I’m beginning to realize that Gentoo Linux might be my next distribution to try. In fact, maybe sometime next week I might switch over. If I do I’ll keep y’all posted on how that works. Here’s one of the things that really hooked me from the Gentoo site:

Thanks to a technology called Portage, Gentoo Linux can become an ideal secure server, development workstation, professional desktop, gaming system, embedded solution or something else — whatever you need it to be. Because of its near-unlimited adaptability, we call Gentoo Linux a metadistribution.

If you’re thinking of setting up a webserver that runs linux (and why would you run anything else (besides BSD)) here’s a guy who’s making a server that runs Gentoo. If you’re in the process of deciding which linux distribution is best to run a server or if you’re interested in running Fluxbox on a server, here ya go: My First Linux Server: Setting Up Gentoo