[SOLVED] Getting to know Gentoo

[GivePeaceAChance]

So, being new to Gentoo, and in most cases new to Linux too, I've been surfing this forum (over a hundred thousand registered users...holy ****) and have noticed things like "I sync" or "I haven't synced in a while" and I've read about USE flags but still don't quite understand their full potential, and other stuff like that, and I was wondering, what can I do about learning the things about Gentoo that I should know as a Gentoo user? I ask this because as of yet, how can I learn if I don't know there exists something I should be learning?

So basically, what Gentoo (and Linux) things should I know when running Gentoo as a user that wants to have the most control over his system? Can someone point me in the direction of Gentoo websites and stuff that are for the absolute Gentoo wanna-be-power-user n00bs? (For example, I went through the entire site on use flags and fleshed out my make.conf, but I still don't get why they're so powerful, or even if I need some of them).

Perhaps I'm just too impatient and want to know everything I can right away. Maybe it just comes with working with the system. But if anyone has any tips or references for a Gentoo n00b (would-be power user) I would love to hear them.

[i13m]

Welcome, first.

The short answer to part of your question is that, the USE flag to control what you need and dont need in a program. Lets say, if you dont need printing functions on your Linux system, you could put USE="-cups" in your /etc/make.conf. This will disable the print function for certain program packages. This is one simple example about the USE flag. For more details you could found on some of the Gentoo Documentations.

And the Gentoo Handbook is very useful for you to understand some basic principles.

[i92guboj]

[d2_racing]

Good luck
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[GivePeaceAChance]

Thanks for the responses. Perhaps I'll have to read over the handbook again. I installed Gentoo using the handbook via Ubuntu, but the most recent time I was a lot faster, having already made a bunch of files and knowing the process (when I _attempted_ it in university, I got stuck so many times and it took forever - I ended up getting a commandline Gentoo, but couldn't get past that stage. Silly me, I know what to do now). As a result I may have skipped a few important things.

Well I'll check out those links, google away, and stay on these forums. They're a fun place to be, so that shouldn't be a problem anyway.

Cheers.

[GivePeaceAChance]

Well I've checked out the Linux documentation contents, and have a document full of links to things I feel important. When I get back to running Gentoo I'll have fun tweaking it all. But for the moment, I've got a few questions:

1. What is GnuPG?
2. Is Gentoo Linux VDR for watching TV on my laptop?
3. What's the difference between NX and ssh-ing?
4. Should I be worried about "pre-linking" when running Gentoo and Fluxbox?
5. What is IPv6?
6. Why bother with a cron daemon?
7. What is zsh?
8. What do I do about fragmentation in Linux? How can I minimalize it?
9. Should I have a swap partition on my second (data) hard drive?
10. Why do sysadmins dislike rebooting their system?
11. Does a laptop user need LVM?

[JeroenV]

Hi there, some things are actually explained better in docs you can find with one click in google....

1. wikipedia
   
2. It's an feature-rich video recorder, also for watching TV, but may be overkill. If you want to do just watch TV, you might try tvtime
   
3. NX will tunnel and very effectively compress X protocol over an internet link, which enables you to get graphical output (i.e. work with a remote desktop) quite smoothly. ssh is just merely used to open a remote console (terminal with a remote connection) or tunneling other protocols (read about "ssh tunneling"). You can also simply tunnel X over ssh, which will work a bit like NX but with much less performance.
   
4. If you worry about a few % performance gain and are willing to invest some learning, you might. There's plenty info out there about it.
   
5. wikipedia, .... ?
   
6. to periodically execute tasks, e.g. update your locate database (updatedb) etc. cron will normally run some "housekeeping" programs at scheduled times, which is typically the way to go on a normal linux system.
   
7. a shell, just like bash, which you are probably using now on your command line. I'm not sure about the diferences though.
   
8. In general, I believe modern linux filesystems (ext3, reiserfs) do a good job at limiting fragmentation (most effective if disk < ~85% full), but I read somewhere that someone hacked together a highly experimental (i.e. dangerous) program named "shuffle" (?) actually achieved significant performance gains (but also borked his system a few times?) There may be other ways, anyone?
   
9. No. Just put your swap on the fastest drive. If you want to take this idea further, you may want to read http://www.linux.com/howtos/Multi-Disk-HOWTO.shtml
   
10. because it causes downtime (i.e. server unavailability). It may also be a pride-thing: people (sysadmins) like bragging about an uptime of years. In my experience rebooting after a longer uptime may actually be a good thing, if only to test whether it still boots without problems, especially if you are only ocasionally near the server in question.
    
11. if you want to be continuously flexible in disk-space allocation, it's handy. Otherwise it may be overkill and not worth the hassle. Since on a laptopp you are less likely to add a second HD, in most cases I'd say you don't need it.
    

_________________
Cheers
Jeroen
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
May The Source be with you!

[GivePeaceAChance]

[tld]

[JeroenV]