What puts you off most about Gentoo?

Message

skyfolly · Post by **skyfolly** » Mon Apr 05, 2004 6:12 pm

Gentoo's Installation takes soooooooooooooooooooo long to finish. I never want a fresh installation now(hope my harddisks won't got corrupted)
Apart from this, Gentoo is a perfect Linux Distro.

Reminder: Can't think of other weaknesses, so all options are made up except Time Consuming.

miunk · Post by **miunk** » Mon Apr 05, 2004 6:55 pm

It takes me about a day to do a fresh installation of gentoo, but only about an hour of actually sitting in front of the computer. The rest is spent doing compilations. I suppose with a slow machine all the compilations can be time consuming, but there are always binary packages - especially for the initial packages.

Something else you should do to speed up the process is back up important configuration files such as your kernel's .config file and your XF86Config file. Possibly even your fstab (depending on how involved it is).

Once you have your basic system set up, you then save lots of time setting up the extras such as mplayer. For example, an "emerge mplayer" takes much less time than trying to set up something similar on XP. You don't need to worry about tons of unsupported codecs, etc.

I haven't used any other linux flavor in a long time, but I have to assume that whatever package management system they are using is not as good as portage.

spb · Post by **spb** » Mon Apr 05, 2004 7:00 pm

I don't actually find it that time-consuming. A fresh install takes me about 3 1/2 hours to go from stage1 to xfree, and then I usually install fluxbox to use while Gnome is compiling, since it only takes a couple of minutes. And USE flags more than make up for the extra time it might take compared to something like Apt.

skyfolly · Post by **skyfolly** » Mon Apr 05, 2004 7:03 pm

thebell wrote:I don't actually find it that time-consuming. A fresh install takes me about 3 1/2 hours to go from stage1 to xfree, and then I usually install fluxbox to use while Gnome is compiling, since it only takes a couple of minutes. And USE flags more than make up for the extra time it might take compared to something like Apt.

including all nessessary packages like Xfree, kde, gnome, server apps?

dvc5 · Post by **dvc5** » Mon Apr 05, 2004 7:03 pm

I put time consuming only because I know I'm going to redo my laptop (see sig) here in the near future. It's just got way too many packages (plus my world file is horribly messy

). Oh well, off to compile for 2 days.

NightSpirit · Post by **NightSpirit** » Mon Apr 05, 2004 7:12 pm

I have a fast enough machine not to worry about compile times, the fact that I don't have to re-install once I have a working installation is reward enough not to care about the installation procedure.

I voted for other: The only thing that annoys me about gentoo right now is the ebuilds that INSIST on depending on pam even when you have -pam in USE.

But atleast that is only a case of correcting the ebuild before emerging so no real hardship

Markrian · Post by **Markrian** » Mon Apr 05, 2004 7:20 pm

Other: various features that are (currently) lacking in Portage.

I know that gentoolkit usually has the right tool for the job (e.g., finding out reverse dependencies for, say, X), but that REALLY needs to be part of portage, directly.

And yes, I know that this and many other features are coming

In short, I want portage to be as mature and robust as the APT system.

syph3r2001 · Post by **syph3r2001** » Mon Apr 05, 2004 7:23 pm

I wish portage had binary packages on the server. like, gept-get or something

codergeek42 · Post by **codergeek42** » Mon Apr 05, 2004 7:32 pm

I wish portage had binary packages on the server.
Can't you just do
Code: Select all
emerge -k some-package
? It may be just me being confused....

lightvhawk0 · Post by **lightvhawk0** » Mon Apr 05, 2004 7:36 pm

Nothing puts me off about gentoo I love it! It's simple enought to use, yet hard enough to be a chanllege.

miunk · Post by **miunk** » Mon Apr 05, 2004 7:52 pm

Make it too easy to use and these forums will be flooded with....

ed0n · Post by **ed0n** » Mon Apr 05, 2004 7:57 pm

Maybe the long time puts me off a bit , but I mean that's the fun part,
anyway nothing puts me off , that's why I use it and I will use it in the future

.

kraylus · Post by **kraylus** » Mon Apr 05, 2004 8:04 pm

the time it takes is a bit off putting, but that's soon to be rectified when they release binary packages.

the only other thing i can think of that would be rather nice is a semi-automatic installation routine. something that gives you a base system with a gui, sound modules, nic modules, video modules, and enables you to customize from there. we're not talking something bloated, of course. just a base system with only the neccessary drivers and software.

and of course, for those who wish to remain l33t, they can still do it the hard way. it's just that... for me, no two gentoo installs have ever been the same. even when dealing with the same livecd, the same hardware, the same week, even. i would like a bit more consistency.

ryan

HydroSan · Post by **HydroSan** » Mon Apr 05, 2004 8:05 pm

I love Gentoo and the installation has become like second nature to me (after breaking around five Gentoo installations.

).

One thing that really puts me off, though, IS the actual installation. It isn't very user-friendly at all, and scares away potential people. I recommend Gentoo to my friends at school wanting to try Linux, but they get put off by the fact that there isn't any graphical tools or interface to get to know. I know that it's kind of the 'easy way out', but I figure a lot more people would consider Gentoo if it had something like YaST based on Portage which allows you to search through Portage and select various 'default' setups or just ones from scratch. I mean, my standard installation looks like:

scripts/bootstrap.sh
emerge system
emerge (various tools)
reboot

How hard would it to be to make a very light-weight X with an installer which can guide the less Linux-Savvy people through the installation and configuration, yet still provide the good Gentoo Edge? It could easily be like 'Press F1 for Text-Based Installation; Press F2 for Graphical Installation'.

Just a thought.

kraylus · Post by **kraylus** » Mon Apr 05, 2004 8:05 pm

codergeek42 wrote:
I wish portage had binary packages on the server.
Can't you just do
Code: Select all
emerge -k some-package
? It may be just me being confused....
that's only if you have a binary existing in the portage tree (usually because you already have it compiled as a package - like GRP). you can't have portage download binaries from any rsync server, unfortunately.

lightvhawk0 · Post by **lightvhawk0** » Mon Apr 05, 2004 8:10 pm

HydroSan wrote:I love Gentoo and the installation has become like second nature to me (after breaking around five Gentoo installations. ).

One thing that really puts me off, though, IS the actual installation. It isn't very user-friendly at all, and scares away potential people. I recommend Gentoo to my friends at school wanting to try Linux, but they get put off by the fact that there isn't any graphical tools or interface to get to know. I know that it's kind of the 'easy way out', but I figure a lot more people would consider Gentoo if it had something like YaST based on Portage which allows you to search through Portage and select various 'default' setups or just ones from scratch. I mean, my standard installation looks like:

scripts/bootstrap.sh
emerge system
emerge (various tools)
reboot

How hard would it to be to make a very light-weight X with an installer which can guide the less Linux-Savvy people through the installation and configuration, yet still provide the good Gentoo Edge? It could easily be like 'Press F1 for Text-Based Installation; Press F2 for Graphical Installation'.

Just a thought.

There working on it
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php? ... t=anaconda

feliperal · Post by **feliperal** » Mon Apr 05, 2004 8:26 pm

I had to vote for lack of documentation. There are other subjects covered: Customizing for the different architectures, Setting up NFS or other networking topics. The documentation present so far is of high quality.

What I would like to see is that the documenation evolve to be something like the FreeBSD communitity's FreeBSD Handbook

Also, I would like to see a printable, hardbound compilation of documentation available at the gentoo store.

Seamaiden · Post by **Seamaiden** » Mon Apr 05, 2004 8:33 pm

I'm a week into Gentoo, and so far, while much more time-consuming than Redhat to install, there have been more "ease-of-use" features that I like better. The biggest problem I have with it has a lot more to do with me than the OS - not knowing the proper syntax (to call up) and/or names of apps and proggies I want to emerge. Last night I wanted to emerge Adobe Acrobat Reader. Well, I tried all the variations I could think of for it, and of course was getting error after error. Then the beau (bless his heart) tells me, "emerge acroread".

The one thing I didn't try was what worked (of course, then I had to find it!). Easy-peasy lemon-squeezy. I'll get the hang of it.. I think.

renderedbrian · Post by **renderedbrian** » Mon Apr 05, 2004 9:06 pm

Yes, gentoo is time consuming.

For example, a stage 3 install took me around 3 hours, compared to 45 minutes or so for a full fedora core 1 install.

However the biggest advantage is that *I* am in control, not some installation routine. - which means I can choose what to install or not install.

--
Brian

spb · Post by **spb** » Mon Apr 05, 2004 9:11 pm

skyfolly wrote:including all nessessary packages like Xfree, kde, gnome, server apps?

As I said, up to the end of 'emerge xfree'. After that, it's a few minutes to get a lightweight window manager up, and I can start using it while the rest compiles. I don't use many server apps, and I only have about half the gnome packages installed, so those take about another hour. The real wait is for firefox.

Besides, most of the installations I've done recently have been from within a complete gentoo system, onto another hard disk that I can then move to another machine and boot.

abzs2k · Post by **abzs2k** » Mon Apr 05, 2004 9:12 pm

I have a p2 so my answer is kind of obvious. However its worth it to get a cutting edge state of the art linux system.

squall14716 · Post by **squall14716** » Mon Apr 05, 2004 9:55 pm

kraylus wrote:
codergeek42 wrote:
I wish portage had binary packages on the server.
Can't you just do
Code: Select all
emerge -k some-package
? It may be just me being confused....
that's only if you have a binary existing in the portage tree (usually because you already have it compiled as a package - like GRP). you can't have portage download binaries from any rsync server, unfortunately.
Yeah, I hate that. I marked 'time consuming' because compiling KDE (and XFree86 and all them dependencies) took a day and a half. Total installation was about 2 days and that's from stage 3. And I'm not even going into how long it takes to compile other things.

I don't make much use of the USE flags (well, I just started learning Gentoo... I'll get to using them sometime, but I'm going to get a new computer first - this 1 GHz Celeron makes me want to buy a sledgehammer), so compiling everything isn't very useful for me.

ciaranm · Post by **ciaranm** » Tue Apr 06, 2004 12:54 am

catalyst requiring genkernel

ewan.paton · Post by **ewan.paton** » Tue Apr 06, 2004 2:16 am

a while back a etc-updated and one of the net files got updated with a bug and dhcp broke, i needed knopix to fix which was a bit of a pisser

as for binaries, well i use the openoffice-bin and i figure s few more of the biggies like xfree and kde-base would speed up the install no end, i dont mind compileing most package its just a few that take hours and prevent a usable system. that said i expect my next rig to be fast{1} enough to stop being an isssue, it already is for almost all already

{1} im not upgrading processors till realtime speach recogniton and video encoding is drasticly faster, odds are mid next year for a pair of duel core opterons or posibly a ibm chip.

Hypnos · Post by **Hypnos** » Tue Apr 06, 2004 5:30 am

I voted other: some of the devs/moderators are touchy and rude, but I concede that that's nitpicking ....

What puts you off most about Gentoo?

what puts you off most about Gentoo?

What puts you off most about Gentoo?

Not so bad...