Strange, Childish Dilemma

Myrddin · n00b Joined: 06 May 2003 Posts: 1

Hey,
I want to point out this isn't meant to put down Gentoo in anyway.

I've been using Linux for 3 or 4 years, mostly Mandrake and Red Hat.

About 3 or so months ago, I installed Gentoo on several of my systems after experimenting with it -- I was in love!

Now the problem is... Within a month I have to move back to dialup from broadband and maintaining and setting up Gentoo box's is gonna be bloody hard.

As much as I love Gentoo I find myself thinking it would be easier to pack it all in and use Red Hat or Mandrake or something.

You understand? I'm thinking that if I just buy the CD's of RH or MDK when they release a new edition and upgrade using that theres no downloading involved no problems ... 'cept I lose Gentoo..

As far as one can love an Operating System... I love using Gentoo. Theres no way I'm going back to Windows.

So the choices are... either struggle along with Gentoo on dialup.. gah I doubt I could cope.. I'm a very impatient person for downloads.. when things are compiling I know there'll be a good outcome so it's not as bad

or I use Mandrake/Red Hat and don't upgrade anything manually and follow their upgrade path (e.g. 8.0 --> 9.0 -- 9.1 --> Whatever) by buying the release CD's.

Argh... You understand my rather childish problem?

Help? :roll:

I don't know what to do....

Is Gentoo managable on (slow) dialup?
I know this is a Gentoo site.. but is RH/MDK really so bad compared? (After using Gentoo and portage etc. for a while now my head tells me it is..)

Argh!
_________________
Myrddin

AlterEgo · Veteran Joined: 25 Apr 2002 Posts: 1619

Sure gentoo is manageable on dialup. It won't be bleeding edge though.
Make sure you're happy with your system, and only update security stuff and things you really, REALLY need.

idl · Posted: Tue May 06, 2003 2:00 pm Post subject:

I first used Gentoo on a dial-up. It didnt bother me at all.. i'd just fetch huge packages over night and be carefull when cleaning my distfiles.
Theres allways something you can do to pass the time while waiting for downloads

_________________
a.k.a port001
Found a bug? Please report it: Gentoo Bugzilla

guero61 · l33t Joined: 14 Oct 2002 Posts: 811 Location: Behind you

I agree -- once your system is set up initially, the bandwidth requirements can be far less. Get yourself a backup binary (SuSE's good, I hear, if you're buying) just in case you can't cut it with dialup, but give it a shot with the big purple G first!

Ellidi · Posted: Tue May 06, 2003 2:37 pm Post subject:

Quite a few people here on the forums are using dial-up.
They seem to be coping but of course there are harder times than others :)
_________________
What if God smoked cannabis...
What do you mean with 'What if' ?

avenj · Posted: Thu May 08, 2003 3:51 pm Post subject:

I used Gentoo on dialup for a long time - in fact, the first five months of my Gentoo development career were spent on a 56k dialup. It's not so bad.

charlieg · Posted: Thu May 08, 2003 4:15 pm Post subject:

Do you have physical access (ie Real Life - don't be shocked, it exists) to somewhere with more bandwidth and a CD burner?

You can download the current portage tree and the larger distfiles from one of the Gentoo mirrors, then copy into /usr/portage and /usr/portage/distfiles and you're away, only a few small packages to download to complete the set.
_________________
Want Free games?
Free Gamer - open source games list & commentary

Open source web-enabled rich UI platform: Vexi

charlieg · Posted: Thu May 08, 2003 4:20 pm Post subject: Re: Strange, Childish Dilemma

carambola5 · Apprentice Joined: 10 Jul 2002 Posts: 214

RdsArts · Posted: Thu May 08, 2003 6:01 pm Post subject:

Well, depending on what you want, maybe you should look at FreeBSD for the time between broadbands. Most of the benifits of Gentoo, and a full compiled distro every so often. It's the same price as Red Hat and Mandrake, more of what you do on FreeBSD is applicable on Gentoo, and vice versa. And 5.1 is planned for June, so hey.

Cossins · Posted: Thu May 08, 2003 6:27 pm Post subject:

I just wanted to say that feel very sorry for you, going from broadband to dial-up... Doesn't it say something about that somewhere in the Geneva-convention?

</OT>

- Simon

gsfgf · Veteran Joined: 08 May 2002 Posts: 1266

Just dl over night anf only what you need.
_________________
Aim:gsfgf0

Seoushi · Posted: Fri May 09, 2003 6:47 am Post subject:

I recently went from 1.5mbit t1 to 26.4 dial-up. while using the net is slower, it doesn't really hurt my system in the least. I got everything I thought I needed for the summer (till I get back to college) and so far I have been happy. I have access to my friends cable modem if I really need it but I haven't yet. Although its only been about a week sibce I had to make the switch I think I will be fine for the summer. Only think I would dread is installing over dial-up without the dist files on a cd.
_________________
-Seoushi