[plug] Gentoo

[W.D. Kenworthy]

the first machine was an old (read slow) cyrix 200mhz used as a test
bed.  It was ~2 days before a bootable base system, an approximately
just over a week before a basic gnome system with evolution etc was
usable.  Note that this included some backtracking and redoing areas of
the install as I got more familiar with the process.  The majority of
the time was compilation, not waiting for the downloads.  Other than
things like gcc, java and OO (many X apps in fact), most tarballs for
the basic system are not all that big, and could be downloaded ahead of
time - you are not limited to downloading during the build process.

The last system, a 1ghz dell laptop: started Friday lunch time, was
configuring X on Saturday, and was productively using evolution (mozilla
is a dependency of this, takes just this side of foreverto compile!) and
OO etc (OO is a ~10 hour compile on its own!)on Monday morning at work. 
This was just compile/config time (but includes normal sleep and weekend
gardening etc as well!!): used the nfs mount as the tarball store!

Alternatives are using the "stage 2 or 3" images: they have the basic
system packages on disc, stage 3 has binaries.  Whilst I have always
started from scratch, if you do a binary stage 3 install, and then
recompile the whole system at leisure which will leave only
supplementary apps (admittedly X, OO etc) to download, which is supposed
to be the fastest way to get a working system.

I would reccomend that you use a test bed machine (or even vmware) to
get a familiar with it before you start.  Note that modem support for a
standalone install used to be a kludge: not sure now, but worth reading
up on before you zap your existing system ...

BillK

On Fri, 2002-10-25 at 08:37, Dion wrote:
> excellent. Out of curiosity tho, how long did it take from your modem 
> connection  for gentoo to produce  a useable machine??  
> 
> D.
> 
> William Kenworthy wrote:
> 
> >just a point - try not to delete the tarballs, save em off onto CD if
> >space is a problem (I share an nfs mount between systems so only one set
> >is needed).  Why? - one of the advantages of gentoo is that it is tuned
> >to your hardware/profile: want to change to a higher/lower level of
> >optimisation?, compile kde stuff into the appropriate applications?,
> >then just change the profile and recompile, for which you will need the
> >original tarball.  Same when gcc2.3 and gnome2 came out - a few commands
> >and a recompile and I am again at the (b)leeding edge
> >
> >Mind you, after a few months and 3 systems and vmware images, I have
> >nearly 2g of tarballs - all via modem!!!
> >
> >BillK
> >
> >
> >On Fri, 2002-10-25 at 00:32, Tony Clark wrote:
> >  
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >  
> >
> 
> -- 
> "Never ascribe to malice that which may adequately be explained by incompetence." - Napoleon Bonaparte
> 
> 
>