[plug] GenToo article on Linuxplanet

[Daniel]

Hi Bill and Plug,
I just saw this article this morning - may be of interest.
Cheers,
Daniel.
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LINUXPLANET: GENTOO LINUX 1.2: GETTING BETTER EVERY DAY

Gentoo is a streamlined distribution of Linux that is aimed at
pleasing the discriminating developer audience. Dee-Ann LeBlanc
takes a second look at this distro to find out just how well
it performs.

COMPLETE STORY:
http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reviews/4302/1/
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On Wednesday 10 July 2002 07:29 pm, Bill Kenworthy wrote:
> At the plug meeting last night, I was looking to see if anyone was
> seriously using gentoo - but came up blank.  However there seems to be a
> fair bit of interest in this distro - I was asked to post my impressions
> of it:
>
> Gentoo is basicly a distibution that is set up to download software as
> tar.bz2 files, and control the compile and install to the "gentoo"
> specification.  The initial design for the this system was "pinched"
> from BSD (ports) and is called portage.  Its rather debianish, but
> compiles everything during install, not download 386 binaries.  You
> download a 17Mbyte cd image and boot from that to start the install.
> Everything else comes down the network as tar.bz2 files! (unless you
> start with one of the staged images with the most common bz2 files
> already present.  There is also a ready built binary install, but thats
> cheating! (and defeats the prime purpose of this distro - to chew up the
> users spare time!)
>
> My hope is that two years down the track, I will have an up-to-date,
> streamlined system that still works harmoniously.  With Mandrakes
> increasing complexity, a windows like clean,reinstall and reconfigure
> for me is getting more demanding each upgrade.
>
> Pro's
> 1) software is compiled and therefore optimised for your system under
> your control.
> 2) It has a quite obvious speed increase over Mandrake on the same
> hardware due to (1)
> 3) Flexible
> 4) well documented install
> 5) simplified install and maintenance (upgrade from gnome1.4 to gnome2
> was three commands, left overnight to download and logged into gnome 2
> the next morning!)  Copied the downloaded files to the second machine
> and compiled that the next night!
>
> Con's
> 1) Takes forever to install from the basic cd if you use a modem(2
> weeks! - I like to have a variety of kitchen sinks installed in case I
> ever need them!): yes there are ways around this, but if you use them
> you will understand they dont fully alleviate the problem (no kitchen
> sinks!)
> 2) No help from sophisticated gui applications for configuration - you
> really notice the lack when building a complex combination such as a
> working desktop/home server.
> 3) Requires a good to excellent knowledge of linux
> 4) many rough edges including broken builds etc.  Currently OpenOffice,
> VMware(win2kpro) and vnc require some hours and external help (mail
> lists) to sort out.
> 5) Definitely leading edge with little tollerance for legacy hardware
> compatibility (leading edge is one of the tennets!)
> 5) requires a network (internet access) to do the install.  There are
> now workarounds (cd's, images etc but a net connection will still ease
> things.  Modems are not supported (unless you attach it to another
> machine!)
>
> I started out doing a test install and config on an old machine and when
> I accidentally wiped the boot partition on my main machine, I was ready
> to go.  Only problems on install were getting grub to work on the
> kt7a-raid board (had to really read docs and google for this one),
> software raid and mail (jut too complex!, but thats not really gentoo's
> fault).  I already had a working system for the modem, most of the
> tar.bz2's etc which sped up and simplified things.  I decided to use the
> unstable install (gcc3 and gnome2) which is probably part of my
> vnc/vmware/oo woes.
>
> My impressions:
> Only experts need apply
> Suited for simple servers and specialist configurations
> Not suitable for the lesser skilled, or productive desktops (yet!) -
> this is where you see what the gnomes at RedHat, Mandrake etc really do
> with their time ...
>
> However if you have some *basic* linux knowledge and want to learn the
> real "under the hood" stuff, and your livelyhood doesnt depend on it, I
> cant think of a better distro!
>
> BillK