On Tue, 20 Aug 2002, Meir Kriheli wrote:
> On Tuesday 20 August 2002 06:13, Tzafrir Cohen wrote:
> > On Tue, 20 Aug 2002, Oleg Kobets wrote:
> > > Guys, I just finished installing Gentoo 1.2 with X and KDE 3.0.2.
> > >
> > > 1. It rocks.
> > > 2. It is very fast.
> > > 3. It took me 2.5 days non stop compiling to install base, xfree 4.1.2,
> > > kde 3.0.2 and koffice 1.2-rc2
> >
> > XFree 4.1.2? just like debian's stable, I see.
>
> He's wrong. XFree is 4.2.0 and There's a masked one for cvs version (4.2.99)
> as well.
>
> > > 4. IT ROCKS :-)))))))
> > >
> > > If you want super fast linux that is simple to maintain (not install) as
> > > debian, Gentoo is your choice.
> >
> > Allow to to suggest a different route to the same goal:
> >
> > install {Your-Favorite-Binary-Distribution}. If YFBD is worth its salt
> > then it is based upon some sort of packages system. Make sure that you can
> > get those source packages as well.
> >
> > (YFBD can be at least debian, mandrake or redhat).
> >
> > 1. install it. You'll have an installed and functioning system in much
> > less than 2.5 days (even for a low-life 486).
> >
> > 2. start with the packages that are used (by the CPU) the most: kernel,
> > glibc, (what else: XLib?): rebuild those packages with the best
> > optimzation options. Compiling them should take much less than 2.5 days.
> >
> > 3. install those packages. You have just optimized 20% of the code that
> > does 80% of the job. If you feel a need to optimize some more packages: go
> > ahead.
>
> The main feature/advantage of Gentoo (and other source based distros) is not
> optimization. It is control.
>
> 1. Control of dependenices. With binary distros you're bound to the
> dependencies as decided by the package maintainer. Let's for example take vim
> in Debian. If you install vim lipgpm will be installed as well. I hate gpm
> and never use it, don't want the stuff on my system.With Debian you have no
> choice. With Gentoo you can set USE="-gpm" before buliding the package.
> If you hate QTyou can add -qt to your use flags and no optional qt
> interfaces to packages will becompiled. Same goes from gtk, gnome or
> whatever. For a list and usage of USE flags see:
> http://gentoo.org/doc/use-howto.html
fine.
in the case of debian, you simply need to do the minimal editing of the
control files. In case of RPM files: you need to edit the rpm spec.
Normally I don't want to care about such things. But when I want to care,
it is not a problem to control them. Not a hassle, either.
>
> 2. Control of packages. You can easily change and add your own ebuilds
> (package descriptions), while the creation of rpms and debs is more involved
> and cubersome. With moderate bash scripting knownledge you can create your
> own packages for obscure apps or modify extisting ebuilds.
If you want to shoot yourself in the foot, install from tarballs. Fine by
me. There are a number of wrapper systems for installing from tarballs
under /usr/local . But this is not what you want: you want files that will
be part of one distribution.
FWIW, I have installed many programs on my Mandrake workstation. All of
them were RPMs. Packed by me, if necessary. In most cases it wasn't
necessary.
The debian project has many developers, working with very loose
cooperation. They had to define strict interfaces between the different
packages, or else it will be a mess.
>
> After getting pissed by the slow delivery rate of Debian (severla months ago)
> of xfree and kde/koffice I switched to LinuxFromScratch and couldn't be
> happier (so I have no problem compiling from source as you've guessed). The
> only chink in the armor was the control and tracking of dependencies.
I am currently using debian with unofficial KDE3 debs. Works great.
I also know of many people who use redhat and mandrake with unofficial
KDE3 packages.
Frankly, I can't blame any distro for not having KDE3 so far. KDE3.0.2 has
had quite a few desktop crashes (not mere application crashes). Currently
KDE2 is the "stable" KDE, whereas KDE3 is still the "bleeding edge". I
figure that it will be the same way until 3.1 or so.
(I know bidi is a killer feature for us, but this about the rest of the
world for a moment)
The same applies for gnome2.
>
> Gentoo was like a dream come true. It is the perfect cross between Debian and
> LinuxFromScratch, you have the complete control of LFS and the dependencies
> handling of apt (with portage).
>
> You can also create binary packages (tbz2) for use on other machines without
> the need to compile them again if you wish.
>
But then they wouldn't be optimized. Furthermore, there is no guarantee
that they would even run (if you used some instructions that are not
available on the target CPU: MMX2 (?))
--
Tzafrir Cohen
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.technion.ac.il/~tzafrir
=================================================================
To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with
the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command
echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
