Gentoo Forums
Gentoo Forums
Gentoo Forums
Quick Search: in
Thinking about giving gentoo a go
View unanswered posts
View posts from last 24 hours

 
Reply to topic    Gentoo Forums Forum Index Installing Gentoo
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
elmo
Guest





PostPosted: Tue Jul 09, 2002 10:20 am    Post subject: Thinking about giving gentoo a go Reply with quote

Hi there,

I am relatively new to the linux world. I have been using mandrake, red hat and currently using suse. however i am frustrated with the fact that all these distros fill up my harddisk with a lot of stuff that i don't use, and therfore make the system rather "untidy". Now I ahve been reading quiet a bit about gentoo now, in the forums / Linux.com / gentoo.org and so far I really like what I am hearing. There is just a view questions before I'll take the plunge.

Now I understand that .rpm is not a good idea to use on gentoo (although i heard that it is possible). Can you still install binaries, f.e photoimage from corel or civilisation - call to power (the only game i play), win4lin (i saw that someone has managed to install that) or other programms, were there no e-port eixts. how do i have to imagine it, is it terrible complicated or can you simply unzip and then run the iunstall/setup scripts - will it run stable, if at all - what kind of factors does this depend on ?

As I said I am really interrested in gentoo - just not sure if I would be taking on to huge a challange (I am not a programmer - just a webdesigner/technical author) and end up not being able to get it running, because i am to dumb, having wasted a lot of time (as well my wife would not be very pleased, mucking about with the computer too much ending up withh weeks of no computer :wink: !)

Also is a PIII 850Mhz and 256MB Ram enough power to compile fairly quickly ???

Thank you very much

[/code]
Back to top
klieber
Bodhisattva
Bodhisattva


Joined: 17 Apr 2002
Posts: 3657
Location: San Francisco, CA

PostPosted: Tue Jul 09, 2002 12:17 pm    Post subject: Re: Thinking about giving gentoo a go Reply with quote

elmo wrote:
I am relatively new to the linux world. I have been using mandrake, red hat and currently using suse. however i am frustrated with the fact that all these distros fill up my harddisk with a lot of stuff that i don't use, and therfore make the system rather "untidy".

Gentoo is better than most, but still has its areas of bloat. For instance, you can't install KDE without installing a whole LOTTA other crap with it. You can work around this by masking packages and editing the ebuilds, but its not a clean or easy process. Just FYI.

elmo wrote:
Can you still install binaries

Yes, and they should run fine as long as you have the required dependencies installed. The main drawback is that 'emerge -u world' will, obviously, not update anything that you've installed outside of the portage tree, so you'll have to update those files by hand.

elmo wrote:
Also is a PIII 850Mhz and 256MB Ram enough power to compile fairly quickly ???

Should be -- I imagine it might take you 2-3 hours to do the base install and 5-6 hours to compile KDE and XFree86. You definitely want to set aside some time for the install.

--kurt
_________________
The problem with political jokes is that they get elected
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
elmo
Guest





PostPosted: Tue Jul 09, 2002 1:44 pm    Post subject: wow - that was a quick reply Reply with quote

8O Wow - that was very quick replying - thanks guys

I think I will take the plunge and try installing it as soon as I have got some spare time.

Just one more question - is a 56K PCMCIA modem fast enough ??? Or would it be better to install from CD - i.e can you download (somewhere faster) the system and all the ebuilds and burn it onto cd - and then install it from CD ???


thanks
great forum - fantastic speed :D

greetings
Back to top
klieber
Bodhisattva
Bodhisattva


Joined: 17 Apr 2002
Posts: 3657
Location: San Francisco, CA

PostPosted: Tue Jul 09, 2002 1:53 pm    Post subject: Re: wow - that was a quick reply Reply with quote

elmo wrote:
Just one more question - is a 56K PCMCIA modem fast enough ???


Ouch. 56k is going to suck, not only for the install process, but also on an ongoing basis when you try to keep Gentoo up to date. Don't get me wrong -- it can be done, but you have to download a lot of source tarballs to get things like XFree86, KDE, etc. installed and working correctly. We're talking days of download time, not hours.

You can make the install process, at least, a bit faster by using the stage 3 ISO but you're still going to have to download things like XFree86 over your modem connection.

Some folks have successfully installed and maintained a Gentoo system over a 56k line, but they must have a lot more patience than I do. Without broadband access, I would never consider Gentoo. (again, that's just me.)

--kurt
_________________
The problem with political jokes is that they get elected
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
tomas
n00b
n00b


Joined: 05 Jul 2002
Posts: 62
Location: Sweden

PostPosted: Tue Jul 09, 2002 1:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Check out this thread..
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
fancypiper
n00b
n00b


Joined: 08 Jun 2002
Posts: 13
Location: Sparta NC USA

PostPosted: Tue Jul 09, 2002 5:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

It took me 3 days to get up and running with a gui (fluxbox), wine and winex and the progs I use most.

I would connect when I was going to bed and emerge with the --fetchonly flag to d/l the stuff overnight and compile the next day.

I had several failures with the portage tree that added to the time. I would just emerge --clean rsync and emerge -u the next day and it was fixed.

I installed inside of Redhat (on another drive I was planning to migrate to) after the basic system was on the drive and ran the compiles/more downloads while working in RedHat. It slowed the comp down quite a bit for launching programs, etc when you use 100% cpu and have tons of processes running, but it did good. :D
_________________
Linux: Viagra for your PC
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
STiAT
Tux's lil' helper
Tux's lil' helper


Joined: 06 May 2002
Posts: 117
Location: Vienna, Austria

PostPosted: Wed Jul 10, 2002 5:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hmm....

Of course, we did it on 64kbit ISDN - around one day. I did take the distfiles i had from my cable host, and took them on a cd to the friend with ISDN (1 CD)... but we had to download LOTS of. We did it with the stage1 install (getting a already configured router in front of it, to connect with ethernet until the gentoo box can take the routing...).

I am running gentoo on a 600 celeron machine with 192 MB SDRam, X and fluxbox - no problems so far....

I think some parts of the package system are a little bit "bloody", but i think its so far the best package system out there!!

I am still driving windows for playing games, but all my work is done in gentoo (of course, i have more than one PC there...). i don't want to loose hours of work with a blue screen again... also in win2k, several times a day, gentoo computer now runs around... when was 1.2 released?? ;).. I don't like that wine thing... don't ask why, i don't like it...

Gentoo is the system i ever dreamed of, a linux with bsd-like package system ;)...
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
elmo
Guest





PostPosted: Wed Jul 10, 2002 7:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

:? well - shame - of course i should have thought that 56k is to slow - I will just have to use the connection in the office :P - DSL-Flat rate that should be enough, it is just a question of getting past the firewall - does that work ??? otherwise i will have to pesture one of my friends or get DSL Flat rate myself - alternatively I will burn a iso-cd with gnome and some other packages already on it (thanks for the thread thomas ! :D ) and then update the system in the office. Is there such a cd (sth. like a weekly snapshot - I think there were talks about it) on gentoo.org already for download ???

greetings
and again - great forum, never seen one so helpful with such quick replies !!!
Back to top
Infra
Tux's lil' helper
Tux's lil' helper


Joined: 12 Jul 2002
Posts: 131
Location: Vantaa, Finland

PostPosted: Fri Jul 12, 2002 10:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Kind of having the same problem as elmo. I'm thinking about putting Gentoo in my pc, but the biggest problem is my internet connection which is ISDN. If i do the stage3 install do I lost something like speed or somthing?

burzmali: Does your image consist all the needed stuff to get Gentoo running? I don't actually like KDE so much but it can be replaced with window maker or fluxbox

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=7812 would like to get answers to these questions.

Well that's all for now...thanks for everybody for the beforehand help
_________________
If it works don't mess with it
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic    Gentoo Forums Forum Index Installing Gentoo All times are GMT
Page 1 of 1

 
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum