Re: [gentoo-user] Is Gentoo for me?

[Claudio Roberto França Pereira]

I'm not here to discourage you of using Gentoo, but I'd take a look at
ArchLinux.

Re: [gentoo-user] Is Gentoo for me?

[Dale]

John wrote:
> On Sunday, February 26, 2012 07:36 Dale wrote:
>> Alan McKinnon wrote:
>>
>>  I'm the resident old fart around here
>>
>>
>>
>> I beg your pardon.  ;-)
>>
>> Dale
>>
>> :-)  :-)
> 
>   Heh, if I can find someone close by that has a fast connection, I bet 
> *I'll* be the new 
> resident old fart at 50 years of age just this last Monday the 20th.
> 
>   I figure if I can find a fast connection, I can get what I need downloaded 
> and burned 
> onto a dvd. I'll just 'update' things one or two at a time so that it's easy 
> on my dial-up 
> connection. If I really, really need to update something like a kernel or 
> something else 
> that's huge for a dial-up download, I'll just find that fast connection again 
> and put it 
> on a cd or dvd (I *can) 'update' (emerge? still trying to get all the 
> nomenclature down) 
> from a cd or dvd, right?) and do it that way.
> 
>   A question about the stage 3 tarball thing...if I download that instead of 
> the iso 
> (which is for 486 and up, whereas the tarball is 686 and better), how do I 
> burn it (the 
> tarball) as an iso onto a dvd so I can install Gentoo? Also, Distrowatch.com 
> says that 
> Gentoo has the latest in 'packages' as Feb 26, yet when I downloaded the 
> tarball of 
> CONTENTS, it shows mostly things (gcc, glibc, kernel, etc) that are used in 
> the January 
> release of Gentoo 12.0, not what Distrowatch has in their list of up-to-date 
> lib's and 
> such for the 26th of Feb. Where do I find the 'package' that Distrowatch 
> seems to have 
> found with almost everything being the latest and greatest?
> 
> 


In a small nutshell.  First, find something Linux to boot and install
from.  It can be a CD/DVD or a full Linux install of some other distro.
 It can be a image on a USB stick thingy.  You need that first. It needs
to have the chroot command.  I have yet to see or hear of a Linux ISO
that doesn't but just saying.  If that is a install on a hard drive, be
prepared to have something else to install to.  Another drive, separate
partitions or whatever you got planned.

Second thing, you need a stage3 tarball.  Put that on something:  DVD,
CD, stick thingy to get it back to your machine.

Third thing:  Get a portage snap shot.  That's what tells portage the
packages that can be installed, what they need to install first and all
sorts of other goodies.  Put that on something to get it back to your
machine.  The same thing #2 is on will be fine.  Just separate things
into different directories so YOU know where they are.

Forth, download the grub source tarball and a kernel tarball at least.
Remember the version of the tarball too.  You will have to tell emerge
the exact version or it will try to download some other version.  Most
other tarballs can be downloaded over dial-up and not take to long.
Even grub can be.  The kernel is pretty good size for dial-up.

You need those things first to even start.  Make sure you can get to the
docs on Gentoo's website.  You can get that over dial-up since it is
text and not much else.  You can also get to this mailing list most
likely.

With that, it should get you to a point where you can boot into Gentoo.
 Then you can emerge -fvp kde/gnome/fluxbox or whatever to get the list
of tarballs.  Keep in mind, it will list the sizes of those.  The small
stuff, let it get those over dial-up if you want.  Me, I'd just get the
larger stuff that takes a hour or so to get over dial-up and leave the
rest to dial-up.  You can sort of judge your patience on that one.

Keep in mind, you will have to drive off the reservation when it comes
to copying the tarball and snap shot over.  Instead of copying it from
the location the docs say to, you will have to substitute where YOU put
it.

I will say this, Gentoo over dial-up is a bitter pill but the install
and KDE upgrades are the worst parts.  When I first started using Gentoo
the sources were MUCH smaller.  I even considered switching to something
else just because it took ages to download something even small.  Also,
if you use KDE, it is going to be fun.  Open Office, LibreOffice, is
going to be at least as much fun.  By the way, OOo and LOo are what we
generally call Open Office and LibreOffice.  Shorter.  lol

Given your situation, I would update about once a month maybe two
months.  I'd set aside a FULL weekend to do it if you plan to use only
dial-up.  Also, be ready for down time.  KDE has got to where it does
not like being used while the upgrades are being installed.  I have
Fluxbox installed as a back-up to KDE.  If you do the same and you can't
get the login manager to come up, try this command:  startx
/usr/bin/startfluxbox and see if that works.

Also, by all means learn tab completion.  When you are typing in a
command, trying to get to a location you can use the tab key to help
keep things along.  If it beeps once, there are more than one matching
commands/location.  If it beeps twice, nothing matches.  Back up and try
again.  Tab completion can s

Re: [gentoo-user] Is Gentoo for me?

[Dale]

Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On Sun, 26 Feb 2012 07:36:49 -0600
> Dale  wrote:
> 
>> Alan McKinnon wrote:
>>
>>  I'm the resident old fart around here
>>>
>>
>>
>> I beg your pardon.  ;-)
> 
> 
> Yes Dale, *I* am the resident old fart.
> 
> *You* are the hal breaker and finder/destroyer of stupid software.
> 
> We discussed all this and agreed months ago, or did you forget already?
> 
> 
> :-)
> 
> 
> 


We did?  Really?  O_O

Dale

:-)  :-)

-- 
I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or
how you interpreted my words!

Miss the compile output?  Hint:
EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS="--quiet-build=n"

Re: [gentoo-user] Is Gentoo for me?

[John]

On Sunday, February 26, 2012 11:44 Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On Sun, 26 Feb 2012 11:10:50 -0600
> 
> John  wrote:
> > On Sunday, February 26, 2012 09:50 Alan McKinnon wrote:
> >   
> >   
> > > Assuming you have a handy Linux LiveCD (any distro) it's better to
> > > download the stage3 as these are built daily and of all the
> > > available methods, it's the most recent. But beware that you will
> > > still need to download almost all the source code all over again
> > > with the first update, and this is somewhere around 2G if you use
> > > KDE or Gnome.
> > > 
> >   Aha! So the stage 3 tarball's I'm seeing at
> > 
> > http://distfiles.gentoo.org/releases/x86/autobuilds/current-stage3/
> > won't be the same as what the 12.0 DVD will have, correct? The stage
> > tarballs are just the barest minimum stuff, with only a few window
> > managers and no DE's, correct?
> 
> Yes, that's pretty much it. It's not a problem having only the basics
> in the tarball as with the first major update you will download all the
> source code for the bits you don't have yet. And those are the same
> bits that will probably be updated anyway.
> 
> >   So, what I basically was right about at first, the only *real*
> > 
> > problem I'll have with trying to run a Gentoo system is my dial-up
> > (presuming I can get along just fine with command line stuff and
> > whatever). Still...if I absolutely *must* do an update of some kind
> > of huge MB download thing, can I not just go to the gentoo sources
> > webpage, download whatever it was I needed (being on someone's fast
> > pipe of course), put that on a CD or DVD, take it back home and have
> > the update app install it from said CD or DVD? If this is possible,
> > then I just might have this thing licked!
> 
> There's some tricks you can use. Portage can display the URLs of code
> it will want to download, so you can take that list and feed
> it into a downloader. Like so:
> 
> emerge -pvuNDf world

  Okay, great. Thanks to everyone who's been trying to help me out here. Now to 
work on 
finding someone with a fast connection and see what kind of damage I can do!

Re: [gentoo-user] Is Gentoo for me?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Sun, 26 Feb 2012 11:10:50 -0600
John  wrote:

> On Sunday, February 26, 2012 09:50 Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > 
> 
>   
> 
> > Assuming you have a handy Linux LiveCD (any distro) it's better to
> > download the stage3 as these are built daily and of all the
> > available methods, it's the most recent. But beware that you will
> > still need to download almost all the source code all over again
> > with the first update, and this is somewhere around 2G if you use
> > KDE or Gnome.
> > 
> 
>   Aha! So the stage 3 tarball's I'm seeing at 
> http://distfiles.gentoo.org/releases/x86/autobuilds/current-stage3/
> won't be the same as what the 12.0 DVD will have, correct? The stage
> tarballs are just the barest minimum stuff, with only a few window
> managers and no DE's, correct?

Yes, that's pretty much it. It's not a problem having only the basics
in the tarball as with the first major update you will download all the
source code for the bits you don't have yet. And those are the same
bits that will probably be updated anyway.

>   So, what I basically was right about at first, the only *real*
> problem I'll have with trying to run a Gentoo system is my dial-up
> (presuming I can get along just fine with command line stuff and
> whatever). Still...if I absolutely *must* do an update of some kind
> of huge MB download thing, can I not just go to the gentoo sources
> webpage, download whatever it was I needed (being on someone's fast
> pipe of course), put that on a CD or DVD, take it back home and have
> the update app install it from said CD or DVD? If this is possible,
> then I just might have this thing licked!

There's some tricks you can use. Portage can display the URLs of code
it will want to download, so you can take that list and feed
it into a downloader. Like so:

emerge -pvuNDf world

-- 
Alan McKinnnon
alan.mckin...@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] Is Gentoo for me?

[James Broadhead]

On 26 February 2012 17:10, John  wrote:
> On Sunday, February 26, 2012 09:50 Alan McKinnon wrote:
>>
>
>  
>
>> Assuming you have a handy Linux LiveCD (any distro) it's better to
>> download the stage3 as these are built daily and of all the available
>> methods, it's the most recent. But beware that you will still need to
>> download almost all the source code all over again with the first
>> update, and this is somewhere around 2G if you use KDE or Gnome.
>>
>
>  Aha! So the stage 3 tarball's I'm seeing at
> http://distfiles.gentoo.org/releases/x86/autobuilds/current-stage3/ won't be 
> the same as
> what the 12.0 DVD will have, correct? The stage tarballs are just the barest 
> minimum
> stuff, with only a few window managers and no DE's, correct?
>
>  So, what I basically was right about at first, the only *real* problem I'll 
> have with
> trying to run a Gentoo system is my dial-up (presuming I can get along just 
> fine with
> command line stuff and whatever). Still...if I absolutely *must* do an update 
> of some kind
> of huge MB download thing, can I not just go to the gentoo sources webpage, 
> download
> whatever it was I needed (being on someone's fast pipe of course), put that 
> on a CD or
> DVD, take it back home and have the update app install it from said CD or 
> DVD? If this is
> possible, then I just might have this thing licked!

To do an install offline , you will need:
- An installation environment (any LiveCD at all, or another
linux/freebsd(?) install on the same machine)
- A stage3 to unpack (this is the base of your install)
- A portage snapshot (today's list of packages which are installable
and scripts to install them).

Once you have the stage and snapshot unpacked, you will hit a point
where you need the source of some packages to continue (grub and a
kernel, as a bare minimum). At this point, the handbook will tell you
to "emerge foo". If instead you run "emerge -fp foo >> get-these.txt",
you will get a list of links to all the files that you will need to
download to continue. Take this to the nearest internet, and put the
files in /usr/portage/distfiles, and compile away!

Re: [gentoo-user] Is Gentoo for me?

[John]

On Sunday, February 26, 2012 09:50 Alan McKinnon wrote:
> 

  

> Assuming you have a handy Linux LiveCD (any distro) it's better to
> download the stage3 as these are built daily and of all the available
> methods, it's the most recent. But beware that you will still need to
> download almost all the source code all over again with the first
> update, and this is somewhere around 2G if you use KDE or Gnome.
> 

  Aha! So the stage 3 tarball's I'm seeing at 
http://distfiles.gentoo.org/releases/x86/autobuilds/current-stage3/ won't be 
the same as 
what the 12.0 DVD will have, correct? The stage tarballs are just the barest 
minimum 
stuff, with only a few window managers and no DE's, correct?

  So, what I basically was right about at first, the only *real* problem I'll 
have with 
trying to run a Gentoo system is my dial-up (presuming I can get along just 
fine with 
command line stuff and whatever). Still...if I absolutely *must* do an update 
of some kind 
of huge MB download thing, can I not just go to the gentoo sources webpage, 
download 
whatever it was I needed (being on someone's fast pipe of course), put that on 
a CD or 
DVD, take it back home and have the update app install it from said CD or DVD? 
If this is 
possible, then I just might have this thing licked!


-- 
There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The 
only man who 
is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else.  -Theodore 
Roosevelt, 
1915

Re: [gentoo-user] Is Gentoo for me?

[Neil Bothwick]

On Sun, 26 Feb 2012 17:33:24 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:

> Yes Dale, *I* am the resident old fart.

I feel a Spartacus moment coming on...


-- 
Neil Bothwick

An expert is nothing more than an ordinary person away from home.


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature

Re: [gentoo-user] Is Gentoo for me?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Sun, 26 Feb 2012 08:41:41 -0600
John  wrote:

> On Sunday, February 26, 2012 07:36 Dale wrote:
> > Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > 
> >  I'm the resident old fart around here
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > I beg your pardon.  ;-)
> > 
> > Dale
> > 
> > :-)  :-)
> 
>   Heh, if I can find someone close by that has a fast connection, I
> bet *I'll* be the new resident old fart at 50 years of age just this
> last Monday the 20th.
> 
>   I figure if I can find a fast connection, I can get what I need
> downloaded and burned onto a dvd. I'll just 'update' things one or
> two at a time so that it's easy on my dial-up connection. If I
> really, really need to update something like a kernel or something
> else that's huge for a dial-up download, I'll just find that fast
> connection again and put it on a cd or dvd (I *can) 'update' (emerge?
> still trying to get all the nomenclature down) from a cd or dvd,
> right?) and do it that way.
> 
>   A question about the stage 3 tarball thing...if I download that
> instead of the iso (which is for 486 and up, whereas the tarball is
> 686 and better), how do I burn it (the tarball) as an iso onto a dvd
> so I can install Gentoo? Also, Distrowatch.com says that Gentoo has
> the latest in 'packages' as Feb 26, yet when I downloaded the tarball
> of CONTENTS, it shows mostly things (gcc, glibc, kernel, etc) that
> are used in the January release of Gentoo 12.0, not what Distrowatch
> has in their list of up-to-date lib's and such for the 26th of Feb.
> Where do I find the 'package' that Distrowatch seems to have found
> with almost everything being the latest and greatest?

gentoo is vastly different from almost every other distro out there.

It's a funny quirk of computers that you have to have a working OS
already running on the computer to install an OS. There's nothing magic
about an install, basically some software asks you a bunch of
questions, then copies a bunch of files to disk and writes appropriate
config files. When you reboot, the software that went on the disk just
happens to be correct so that the whole system will reboot and start
properly.

So how do you get this first running OS on the go so that it can do the
install? Well, it's on the install CD or flash drive. SuSE gives you a
customized SuSE on the CD that does things appropriately to install
SuSE.

This is where Gentoo is different. You don't have to use Gentoo to
install Gentoo, in fact you can use anything as long as it can connect
to the internet and write to the disk. There is a Gentoo install CD
available (updated infrequently) but I usually use Ubuntu (I just happen
to have a handy Ubuntu memory stick).

DistroWatch always quotes today as the most up to date version, because
there's always at least one package updated today. The date of the
install CD is whenever it was built (sometimes this gets to be 6 months
old). This is why Gentoo does not really have version numbers - the
"version" you have is whatever software you have running right now.

Assuming you have a handy Linux LiveCD (any distro) it's better to
download the stage3 as these are built daily and of all the available
methods, it's the most recent. But beware that you will still need to
download almost all the source code all over again with the first
update, and this is somewhere around 2G if you use KDE or Gnome.

It gets really painful really quick doing all that on dialup. Omit one
package from the list and you might not be able to complete a full
update.

None of this is unusual, the maintainer of Ubuntu and SuSE do all these
steps when they build their packages. They just shield you from the
hard bits and give you the final product nicely package. Gentoo gives
you the tools you need to do all that yourself, the key thing is "do it
yourself" - there is no way to "not do it yourself"

You should chat to Dale and listen closely. He's the guy who was most
recently forced to use dialup routinely, he can tell you what it's like.


-- 
Alan McKinnnon
alan.mckin...@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] Is Gentoo for me?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Sun, 26 Feb 2012 07:36:49 -0600
Dale  wrote:

> Alan McKinnon wrote:
> 
>  I'm the resident old fart around here
> > 
> 
> 
> I beg your pardon.  ;-)


Yes Dale, *I* am the resident old fart.

*You* are the hal breaker and finder/destroyer of stupid software.

We discussed all this and agreed months ago, or did you forget already?


:-)



-- 
Alan McKinnnon
alan.mckin...@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] Is Gentoo for me?

[John]

On Sunday, February 26, 2012 07:36 Dale wrote:
> Alan McKinnon wrote:
> 
>  I'm the resident old fart around here
> 
> 
> 
> I beg your pardon.  ;-)
> 
> Dale
> 
> :-)  :-)

  Heh, if I can find someone close by that has a fast connection, I bet *I'll* 
be the new 
resident old fart at 50 years of age just this last Monday the 20th.

  I figure if I can find a fast connection, I can get what I need downloaded 
and burned 
onto a dvd. I'll just 'update' things one or two at a time so that it's easy on 
my dial-up 
connection. If I really, really need to update something like a kernel or 
something else 
that's huge for a dial-up download, I'll just find that fast connection again 
and put it 
on a cd or dvd (I *can) 'update' (emerge? still trying to get all the 
nomenclature down) 
from a cd or dvd, right?) and do it that way.

  A question about the stage 3 tarball thing...if I download that instead of 
the iso 
(which is for 486 and up, whereas the tarball is 686 and better), how do I burn 
it (the 
tarball) as an iso onto a dvd so I can install Gentoo? Also, Distrowatch.com 
says that 
Gentoo has the latest in 'packages' as Feb 26, yet when I downloaded the 
tarball of 
CONTENTS, it shows mostly things (gcc, glibc, kernel, etc) that are used in the 
January 
release of Gentoo 12.0, not what Distrowatch has in their list of up-to-date 
lib's and 
such for the 26th of Feb. Where do I find the 'package' that Distrowatch seems 
to have 
found with almost everything being the latest and greatest?


-- 
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely, in a 
pretty and
well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside on your Harley at 130 mph, 
thoroughly 
used and worn out, loudly proclaiming, "Hot damn! WHAT A FRIGGIN' RIDE!"

Re: [gentoo-user] Is Gentoo for me?

[Dale]

Alan McKinnon wrote:

 I'm the resident old fart around here
> 


I beg your pardon.  ;-)

Dale

:-)  :-)

-- 
I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or
how you interpreted my words!

Miss the compile output?  Hint:
EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS="--quiet-build=n"

Re: [gentoo-user] Is Gentoo for me?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Fri, 24 Feb 2012 21:03:47 -0600
John  wrote:

> 
> Hi folks,
> 
>   I've been using linux for about 12 years now, but only used DE's.
> I've got ADD in the extreme and have poor memory retention so trying
> to learn things 'UNIX' (command line and such) is just too difficult
> for me. I can do some command line stuff but nothing more than
> getting time from someplace to make my clock be correct, heh.

Maintaining a Gentoo install does involve a lot of CLI work, and
usually fanatic attention to detail. It's complex software we are
dealing with and it has to be done. When you use a binary distro like
Ubuntu, someone else is doing all that hard work for you and with
Gentoo you get to do it yourself.

I don't know much about ADD, but I do know that Gentoo is ideal for
OCD people - people like me :-) I'm the resident old fart around here

Someone else mentioned Sabayon, I think that would be good for you to
investigate if you don't like where the big binary distros are going.
You don't have to compile everything by yourself as it has packages but
if you need to tweak stuff under the hood you can do that as well.

Maybe also look into linuxmint, this one is amazingly popular. After
Fedora and Ubuntu it's one of the most popular downloads on my ftp
server. The users say it's because it's easy, simple, it just works and
doesn't force you to install huge amounts of things every time you
want a simple new function. So it appeals to folks who like to just keep
it simple but not so simple that it's hard to use.


> 
>   I've been using SuSE/openSUSE now for all those 12 years but I'm
> becoming somewhat disgruntled with the direction I feel it's going
> (don't ask, it'll just get me started rantin' and ravin'). I've
> looked at Slackware, but the package management looks just a little
> bit more than I can try to handle at first without getting frustrated
> and scrubbing it off my hard drive.
> 
>   I've looked at a *LOT* of other distro's and too many use Gnome (I
> can't stand it, that's my opinion so don't try to argue with me to
> change), some are a bit too minimalistic and others too much like
> openSUSE is now - huge.
> 
>   I finally came upon Gentoo and for the past few days I've been
> reading and looking at things and so far it seems to be what I'm
> wanting to switch to, but here's my quandary:
> 
>   I'm dirt-poor and have only a dial-up connection. The Portage
> package management seems extremely nice, but will it be a problem for
> me to upgrade say just one package/app at a time? Will I be able to
> find a tarball of an app I want to try out and be able to build it
> like I would with rpmbuild (will it be as relatively easy as that)?
> Is there a 'repository' of apps anywhere that I can go to to look and
> see if the app I normally use for something is there?
> 
>   There's probably more questions, but I best keep this short for
> now, lol. Thanks for any replies and help with these things and I
> hope I made enough sense for everyone to understand what I'm trying
> to get at.
> 
>   JB
> 
> 



-- 
Alan McKinnnon
alan.mckin...@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] Is Gentoo for me?

[Chris Brennan]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On Sat, 25 Feb 2012 19:56:27 +0800 William Kenworthy > articulated:

> On Sat, 2012-02-25 at 05:34 -0600, Dale wrote:
> > Carlos Sura wrote:
> > > 
> > > 
> > > On 24 February 2012 22:04, John  > > > wrote:
> > > 
> > > On Friday, February 24, 2012 21:12 Pandu Poluan wrote:
> > > > On Feb 25, 2012 10:06 AM, "John"  > > > wrote:
> > > 
> > >  
> > > 
> > > >
> > > > Have a look at Sabayon. It's Gentoo-based, but it comes
> > > > with binary repository (although you can easily use portage
> > > > if you want).
> > > >
> > > > It offers 'out of the box' support for KDE4, xfce, or
> > > > gnome3.
> > > Others are
> > > > available but you have to compile them yourself (via
> > > > portage).
> > > >
> > > > Rgds,
> > > 
> > >  Will do. Thank you!
> > > 
> > > 
> > > --
> > > There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good
> > > American. The only man who
> > > is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing
> > > else. -Theodore Roosevelt,
> > > 1915
> > > 
> > > 
> > > Gentoo is for everyone. And I love it!
> > > 
> > > -- 
> > > Carlos Sura.-
> > > www.carlossura.com 
> > > 
> > 
> > 
> > I used to be on dial-up as most old timers here may recall.  Here
> > are the bad things:  Libreoffice and a full KDE upgrade.  It would
> > take me DAYS to download everything.  Heck, it takes me a while and
> > I have DSL now.  Just be prepared.
> > 
> > I don't know about your area but here, DSL was cheaper than dial-up
> > when I first got it.  Right now, they are the same price, last I
> > checked on the dial-up prices anyway.  You may want to check those
> > prices IF you can get DSL.
> > 
> > Is Gentoo doable, yea.  Does it take patience, yep it does.
> > Dial-up is slow.
> > 
> > Dale
> > 
> > :-)  :-)
> > 
> 
> gentoo over dialup is do-able - but be smart about it.  If you have
> access to a fast link, build a list of packages and download, burn to
> CD/usb key and take them back home.
> 
> You only need to download a package once ... don't delete anything
> in /usr/portage/distfiles as over time you might want to make changes,
> or a library change creeps in so you will occasionally need to
> recompile a package.
> 
> If you have more than one system, look into http-replicator or share
> over nfs
> 
> Use "emerge -f package_list" to download into the distfiles directory
> files well ahead of when the "emerge package_list" will need them ...
> there is no need to waste time waiting for compilation to finish and
> letting the bandwidth go to waste.
> 
> Other users on the link complainiung about the bandwidth your using? -
> look into bandwidth limiting arguments for whatever fetch process you
> are using.
> 
> I am sure there are others Ive missed :)
> 
> BillK

If the update is small, or even if it's not, parrallel fetching is your
best friend. Portage will fetch in the background what else is needed
while the first package is building. You can drop to a new terminal and
grep for that fetch process, when it's complete, kill the DUN link.

- --
Chris Brennan
> A: Yes.
> >Q: Are you sure?
> >>A: Because it reverses the logical flow of conversation.
> >>>Q: Why is top posting frowned upon?
> http://xkcd.com/84/ | http://xkcd.com/149/ | http://xkcd.com/549/
> GPG: D5B20C0C (6741 8EE4 6C7D 11FB 8DA8  9E4A EECD 9A84 D5B2 0C0C)
- 
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Re: [gentoo-user] Is Gentoo for me?

[Neil Bothwick]

On Sat, 25 Feb 2012 20:33:26 +0800, William Kenworthy wrote:

> > Portage has done parallel downloads for years, it no longer waits for
> > one package to finish installing before starting to download the
> > next. It's controlled by FEATURES="parallel-fetch".

> A new one on me ... tkx, added it to my FEATURES!

It seems to be enabled by default

[nelz@yooden ~ 0]% grep parallel /etc/make.conf
[nelz@yooden ~ 1]% emerge --info | grep parallel
FEATURES="assume-digests binpkg-logs buildpkg distlocks ebuild-locks
fixlafiles news parallel-fetch preserve-libs protect-owned sandbox
sfperms strict unknown-features-warn unmerge-logs unmerge-orphans
userfetch"
[nelz@yooden ~ 0]% eselect profile show
Current /etc/make.profile symlink:
  default/linux/amd64/10.0/desktop/kde


-- 
Neil Bothwick

How do you know when it's time to tune your bagpipes?


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Re: [gentoo-user] Is Gentoo for me?

[Dale]

Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Sat, 25 Feb 2012 19:56:27 +0800, William Kenworthy wrote:
> 
>> Use "emerge -f package_list" to download into the distfiles directory
>> files well ahead of when the "emerge package_list" will need them ...
>> there is no need to waste time waiting for compilation to finish and
>> letting the bandwidth go to waste.
> 
> Portage has done parallel downloads for years, it no longer waits for one
> package to finish installing before starting to download the next. It's
> controlled by FEATURES="parallel-fetch".
> 
> 

Yep, I might add, when upgrading KDE, download everything first then
start the emerge.  KDE doesn't like mixing versions sometimes.  It can
get a bit weird.

Dale

:-)  :-)

-- 
I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or
how you interpreted my words!

Miss the compile output?  Hint:
EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS="--quiet-build=n"

Re: [gentoo-user] Is Gentoo for me?

[Urs Schutz]

On Fri, 24 Feb 2012 21:03:47 -0600
John  wrote:

> 
> Hi folks,
> 
...
> that)? Is there a 'repository' of apps anywhere that I
> can go to to look and see if the app I normally use for
> something is there?
> 
...

http://packages.gentoo.org

Urs

Re: [gentoo-user] Is Gentoo for me?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

Am Freitag, 24. Februar 2012, 21:03:47 schrieb John:
> Hi folks,
> 
>   I've been using linux for about 12 years now, but only used DE's. 

no problem.

>   I've got
> ADD in the extreme and have poor memory retention so trying to learn things
> 'UNIX' (command line and such) is just too difficult for me. I can do some
> command line stuff but nothing more than getting time from someplace to
> make my clock be correct, heh.

then gentoo and its derivates are not for you. The first time you need to think 
about a problem (like compilation fails because some symbol in some lib is 
pointing to some outdated and not installed other lib) and you will be 
frustrated.

> 
>   I've been using SuSE/openSUSE now for all those 12 years but I'm becoming
> somewhat disgruntled with the direction I feel it's going (don't ask, it'll
> just get me started rantin' and ravin'). I've looked at Slackware, but the
> package management looks just a little bit more than I can try to handle at
> first without getting frustrated and scrubbing it off my hard drive.

if you want to have something easy that works, opensuse and co do that. Their 
'direction' is caused by the fact that they try to be fitting for people like 
*you*. Gentoo is for people who either new what they are doing or are able and 
willing to learn - and to spend some hours fixing stuff if something goes wrong.

Just mentioning, getting my printer so far that it
a) worked with current cups
and
b) printed nice pictures

took 8h.

Are you willing and able to go through that? Are you able to google for 
answers? Are you able and willing to read manuals, howtos and manpages and 
adapt to your situation? Are you at least willing to try really hard before 
you start asking others to solve your problems for you (ok, this list is full 
with people asking questions that could be solved with google, grep and 
thinking.. so.. forget this part...)

If you said 'no' to one of the above, gentoo and its derivates are not for 
you.
> 
>   I've looked at a *LOT* of other distro's and too many use Gnome (I can't
> stand it, that's my opinion so don't try to argue with me to change), some
> are a bit too minimalistic and others too much like openSUSE is now - huge.
> 
>   I finally came upon Gentoo and for the past few days I've been reading and
> looking at things and so far it seems to be what I'm wanting to switch to,
> but here's my quandary:
> 
>   I'm dirt-poor and have only a dial-up connection. The Portage package
> management seems extremely nice, but will it be a problem for me to upgrade
> say just one package/app at a time?

no

> Will I be able to find a tarball of an
> app I want to try out and be able to build it like I would with rpmbuild
> (will it be as relatively easy as that)? Is there a 'repository' of apps
> anywhere that I can go to to look and see if the app I normally use for
> something is there?

yes, on your harddisk

> 
>   There's probably more questions, but I best keep this short for now, lol.
> Thanks for any replies and help with these things and I hope I made enough
> sense for everyone to understand what I'm trying to get at.

yes, and I am afraid you will be more happy with Suse, Slackware or Mepis.

-- 
#163933

Re: [gentoo-user] Is Gentoo for me?

[Frank Steinmetzger]

On Sat, Feb 25, 2012 at 05:34:25AM -0600, Dale wrote:

> > There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good
> > American. The only man who
> > is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else.
> >  -Theodore Roosevelt,
> > 1915

Reminds me of the new P.C. term for a blonde -- a breasted American. ;-)

> > Gentoo is for everyone. And I love it!

> I used to be on dial-up as most old timers here may recall.  Here are
> the bad things:  Libreoffice and a full KDE upgrade.  It would take me
> DAYS to download everything.  Heck, it takes me a while and I have DSL
> now.  Just be prepared.
> 
> I don't know about your area but here, DSL was cheaper than dial-up when
> I first got it.  Right now, they are the same price, last I checked on
> the dial-up prices anyway.  You may want to check those prices IF you
> can get DSL.
> 
> Is Gentoo doable, yea.  Does it take patience, yep it does.  Dial-up is
> slow.

It's just as slow for binary people. And if you're not using something very
static, you have just as much download volume I reckon. I have Debian testing
on my old laptop and when I update it just after a few weeks on absence,
there's always a new patch release of KDE, libreoffice and the kernel. All in
all there's always more than 500 megs of DL.
The only difference for us Gentooans is that we always have the development
files included which create some overhead. OTOH, for new kernel version we even
have the advantage -- on binary distros, each patch release means to download
35-40 megs of precompiled modules, whereas we only download the 80 MB sources
once for a subrelease, and for each subsequent patch only need a few
additional kB.

I second the suggestion that, if you decide to stay with Gentoo, you just need
to keep the sources of all installed packages. I used to have an unstable VPN
connection which counted my traffic, so I kept all installed distfiles in case
I needed to rebuild someting (changed useflags, revdep-rebuild, etc).
eclean-dist is a good helper here, which will delete only those files whose
packages aren't installed (any more).
-- 
Gruß | Greetings | Qapla'
I forbid any use of my email addresses with Facebook services.

The perfect diet: no breakfast in the morning,
in return forego pudding at lunch and then go to bed without dinner.


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Re: [gentoo-user] Is Gentoo for me?

[William Kenworthy]

On Sat, 2012-02-25 at 12:16 +, Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Sat, 25 Feb 2012 19:56:27 +0800, William Kenworthy wrote:
> 
> > Use "emerge -f package_list" to download into the distfiles directory
> > files well ahead of when the "emerge package_list" will need them ...
> > there is no need to waste time waiting for compilation to finish and
> > letting the bandwidth go to waste.
> 
> Portage has done parallel downloads for years, it no longer waits for one
> package to finish installing before starting to download the next. It's
> controlled by FEATURES="parallel-fetch".
> 
> 

A new one on me ... tkx, added it to my FEATURES!

BillK

Re: [gentoo-user] Is Gentoo for me?

[Neil Bothwick]

On Sat, 25 Feb 2012 19:56:27 +0800, William Kenworthy wrote:

> Use "emerge -f package_list" to download into the distfiles directory
> files well ahead of when the "emerge package_list" will need them ...
> there is no need to waste time waiting for compilation to finish and
> letting the bandwidth go to waste.

Portage has done parallel downloads for years, it no longer waits for one
package to finish installing before starting to download the next. It's
controlled by FEATURES="parallel-fetch".


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Velilind's Laws of Experimentation:
1. If reproducibility may be a problem, conduct the test only once.
2. If a straight line fit is required, obtain only two data points.


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Re: [gentoo-user] Is Gentoo for me?

[William Kenworthy]

On Sat, 2012-02-25 at 05:34 -0600, Dale wrote:
> Carlos Sura wrote:
> > 
> > 
> > On 24 February 2012 22:04, John  > > wrote:
> > 
> > On Friday, February 24, 2012 21:12 Pandu Poluan wrote:
> > > On Feb 25, 2012 10:06 AM, "John"  > > wrote:
> > 
> >  
> > 
> > >
> > > Have a look at Sabayon. It's Gentoo-based, but it comes with binary
> > > repository (although you can easily use portage if you want).
> > >
> > > It offers 'out of the box' support for KDE4, xfce, or gnome3.
> > Others are
> > > available but you have to compile them yourself (via portage).
> > >
> > > Rgds,
> > 
> >  Will do. Thank you!
> > 
> > 
> > --
> > There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good
> > American. The only man who
> > is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else.
> >  -Theodore Roosevelt,
> > 1915
> > 
> > 
> > Gentoo is for everyone. And I love it!
> > 
> > -- 
> > Carlos Sura.-
> > www.carlossura.com 
> > 
> 
> 
> I used to be on dial-up as most old timers here may recall.  Here are
> the bad things:  Libreoffice and a full KDE upgrade.  It would take me
> DAYS to download everything.  Heck, it takes me a while and I have DSL
> now.  Just be prepared.
> 
> I don't know about your area but here, DSL was cheaper than dial-up when
> I first got it.  Right now, they are the same price, last I checked on
> the dial-up prices anyway.  You may want to check those prices IF you
> can get DSL.
> 
> Is Gentoo doable, yea.  Does it take patience, yep it does.  Dial-up is
> slow.
> 
> Dale
> 
> :-)  :-)
> 

gentoo over dialup is do-able - but be smart about it.  If you have
access to a fast link, build a list of packages and download, burn to
CD/usb key and take them back home.

You only need to download a package once ... don't delete anything
in /usr/portage/distfiles as over time you might want to make changes,
or a library change creeps in so you will occasionally need to recompile
a package.

If you have more than one system, look into http-replicator or share
over nfs

Use "emerge -f package_list" to download into the distfiles directory
files well ahead of when the "emerge package_list" will need them ...
there is no need to waste time waiting for compilation to finish and
letting the bandwidth go to waste.

Other users on the link complainiung about the bandwidth your using? -
look into bandwidth limiting arguments for whatever fetch process you
are using.

I am sure there are others Ive missed :)

BillK

Re: [gentoo-user] Is Gentoo for me?

[Dale]

Carlos Sura wrote:
> 
> 
> On 24 February 2012 22:04, John  > wrote:
> 
> On Friday, February 24, 2012 21:12 Pandu Poluan wrote:
> > On Feb 25, 2012 10:06 AM, "John"  > wrote:
> 
>  
> 
> >
> > Have a look at Sabayon. It's Gentoo-based, but it comes with binary
> > repository (although you can easily use portage if you want).
> >
> > It offers 'out of the box' support for KDE4, xfce, or gnome3.
> Others are
> > available but you have to compile them yourself (via portage).
> >
> > Rgds,
> 
>  Will do. Thank you!
> 
> 
> --
> There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good
> American. The only man who
> is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else.
>  -Theodore Roosevelt,
> 1915
> 
> 
> Gentoo is for everyone. And I love it!
> 
> -- 
> Carlos Sura.-
> www.carlossura.com 
> 


I used to be on dial-up as most old timers here may recall.  Here are
the bad things:  Libreoffice and a full KDE upgrade.  It would take me
DAYS to download everything.  Heck, it takes me a while and I have DSL
now.  Just be prepared.

I don't know about your area but here, DSL was cheaper than dial-up when
I first got it.  Right now, they are the same price, last I checked on
the dial-up prices anyway.  You may want to check those prices IF you
can get DSL.

Is Gentoo doable, yea.  Does it take patience, yep it does.  Dial-up is
slow.

Dale

:-)  :-)

-- 
I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or
how you interpreted my words!

Miss the compile output?  Hint:
EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS="--quiet-build=n"

Re: [gentoo-user] Is Gentoo for me?

[Carlos Sura]

On 24 February 2012 22:04, John  wrote:

> On Friday, February 24, 2012 21:12 Pandu Poluan wrote:
> > On Feb 25, 2012 10:06 AM, "John"  wrote:
>
>  
>
> >
> > Have a look at Sabayon. It's Gentoo-based, but it comes with binary
> > repository (although you can easily use portage if you want).
> >
> > It offers 'out of the box' support for KDE4, xfce, or gnome3. Others are
> > available but you have to compile them yourself (via portage).
> >
> > Rgds,
>
>  Will do. Thank you!
>
>
> --
> There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American.
> The only man who
> is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else.
>  -Theodore Roosevelt,
> 1915
>
>
Gentoo is for everyone. And I love it!

-- 
Carlos Sura.-
www.carlossura.com

Re: [gentoo-user] Is Gentoo for me?

[John]

On Friday, February 24, 2012 21:12 Pandu Poluan wrote:
> On Feb 25, 2012 10:06 AM, "John"  wrote:

  

> 
> Have a look at Sabayon. It's Gentoo-based, but it comes with binary
> repository (although you can easily use portage if you want).
> 
> It offers 'out of the box' support for KDE4, xfce, or gnome3. Others are
> available but you have to compile them yourself (via portage).
> 
> Rgds,

  Will do. Thank you!


-- 
There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The 
only man who 
is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else.  -Theodore 
Roosevelt, 
1915

Re: [gentoo-user] Is Gentoo for me?

[Pandu Poluan]

On Feb 25, 2012 10:06 AM, "John"  wrote:
>
>
> Hi folks,
>
>  I've been using linux for about 12 years now, but only used DE's. I've
got ADD in the
> extreme and have poor memory retention so trying to learn things 'UNIX'
(command line and
> such) is just too difficult for me. I can do some command line stuff but
nothing more than
> getting time from someplace to make my clock be correct, heh.
>
>  I've been using SuSE/openSUSE now for all those 12 years but I'm
becoming somewhat
> disgruntled with the direction I feel it's going (don't ask, it'll just
get me started
> rantin' and ravin'). I've looked at Slackware, but the package management
looks just a
> little bit more than I can try to handle at first without getting
frustrated and scrubbing
> it off my hard drive.
>
>  I've looked at a *LOT* of other distro's and too many use Gnome (I can't
stand it,
> that's my opinion so don't try to argue with me to change), some are a
bit too
> minimalistic and others too much like openSUSE is now - huge.
>
>  I finally came upon Gentoo and for the past few days I've been reading
and looking at
> things and so far it seems to be what I'm wanting to switch to, but
here's my quandary:
>
>  I'm dirt-poor and have only a dial-up connection. The Portage package
management seems
> extremely nice, but will it be a problem for me to upgrade say just one
package/app at a
> time? Will I be able to find a tarball of an app I want to try out and be
able to build it
> like I would with rpmbuild (will it be as relatively easy as that)? Is
there a
> 'repository' of apps anywhere that I can go to to look and see if the app
I normally use
> for something is there?
>
>  There's probably more questions, but I best keep this short for now,
lol. Thanks for any
> replies and help with these things and I hope I made enough sense for
everyone to
> understand what I'm trying to get at.
>
>  JB
>

Have a look at Sabayon. It's Gentoo-based, but it comes with binary
repository (although you can easily use portage if you want).

It offers 'out of the box' support for KDE4, xfce, or gnome3. Others are
available but you have to compile them yourself (via portage).

Rgds,

[gentoo-user] Is Gentoo for me?

[John]

Hi folks,

  I've been using linux for about 12 years now, but only used DE's. I've got 
ADD in the 
extreme and have poor memory retention so trying to learn things 'UNIX' 
(command line and 
such) is just too difficult for me. I can do some command line stuff but 
nothing more than 
getting time from someplace to make my clock be correct, heh.

  I've been using SuSE/openSUSE now for all those 12 years but I'm becoming 
somewhat 
disgruntled with the direction I feel it's going (don't ask, it'll just get me 
started 
rantin' and ravin'). I've looked at Slackware, but the package management looks 
just a 
little bit more than I can try to handle at first without getting frustrated 
and scrubbing 
it off my hard drive.

  I've looked at a *LOT* of other distro's and too many use Gnome (I can't 
stand it, 
that's my opinion so don't try to argue with me to change), some are a bit too 
minimalistic and others too much like openSUSE is now - huge.

  I finally came upon Gentoo and for the past few days I've been reading and 
looking at 
things and so far it seems to be what I'm wanting to switch to, but here's my 
quandary:

  I'm dirt-poor and have only a dial-up connection. The Portage package 
management seems 
extremely nice, but will it be a problem for me to upgrade say just one 
package/app at a 
time? Will I be able to find a tarball of an app I want to try out and be able 
to build it 
like I would with rpmbuild (will it be as relatively easy as that)? Is there a 
'repository' of apps anywhere that I can go to to look and see if the app I 
normally use 
for something is there?

  There's probably more questions, but I best keep this short for now, lol. 
Thanks for any 
replies and help with these things and I hope I made enough sense for everyone 
to 
understand what I'm trying to get at.

  JB


-- 
I meanif I went 'round sayin' I was an emperor just because some moistened 
bint lobbed
a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!   -Dennis from Monty Python and the Holy 
Grail