Calculate Linux Desktop & Calculate Linux Scratch

[Fx]

Has anyone used one of the Calculate Linux distributions as a stepping-stone into a Gentoo installation? They claim to be 100% Gentoo-compatible; not sure if that means that one can migrate seamlessly to Gentoo.

My thinking is that you could install Calculate Linux Desktop to get a working system, and from that point you could download and recompile the latest version of the Gentoo kernel.

[John R. Graham]

Stop trying to dip your toe in and jump in instead. It's not that hard and there's lots of help.

- John

[Fx]

[dol-sen]

I just checked it out, downloaded the directory server iso and testing it in an old x86 using the livecd.

It is a customized gentoo system, complete with portage, eix,...
It has it's own "calculate" custom profile,... comes with most everything for that type of server.

A quick look of it, to change it to a "pure" gentoo system would be a matter of changing the profile, unmerge the sys-apps/calculate* apps, "emerge --sysnc && emerge -uDNv world"
They've just done most of the work for you. You will be much better off by doing your own install, you'll learn more about your system and how to keep it running, and you'll have only the software you want installed and the satisfaction of having accomplished it yourself

[Fx]

I just checked it out, downloaded the directory server iso and testing it in an old x86 using the livecd.

It is a customized gentoo system, complete with portage, eix,...
It has it's own "calculate" custom profile,... comes with most everything for that type of server.

A quick look of it, to change it to a "pure" gentoo system would be a matter of changing the profile, unmerge the sys-apps/calculate* apps, "emerge --sysnc && emerge -uDNv world"
They've just done most of the work for you. You will be much better off by doing your own install, you'll learn more about your system and how to keep it running, and you'll have only the software you want installed and the satisfaction of having accomplished it yourself

Wow... it seems like you went to a lot of trouble on my behalf to check it out. Thank you!

I've noticed that everyone seems very helpful here.... gives me a good feeling about the Gentoo community and that I may just be able to do it with the help offered here.

[Shining Arcanine]

SInce this is the first that I have heard of Calculate Linux and I now know that it is meant to compete with Windows, RedHat Enterprise Linux and the like in corporate environments, I have a few questions about it that I thought I would ask here. Does it use binary packages and its own package manager that runs on top of portage like Sabayon Linux?

[d2_racing]

Yeah Shining Arcanine, it's a good question.

If we compare with Red Hat or Sabayon, maybe Calculate use binary too because of the coporate support.

[dol-sen]

From my quick look at it:

There are a couple sys-apps/calculate* pkgs, one I know is the livecd image installer, the other may be a wrapper for emerge to download and install the updates (probably binpkgs) that they'll make available every 3 months.

[Raniz]

I've noticed that everyone seems very helpful here.... gives me a good feeling about the Gentoo community and that I may just be able to do it with the help offered here.

The forums is a really good reason to go with Gentoo, lot's of experienced users and you can find a lot by searching the forums for whatever you've encountered, there's a good chance you'll find someone else with the same issue and a solution so you can make your errors go away in a few minutes

[Fx]

I've decided to go down the 'pure' Gentoo route as y'all have suggested, but was struck by another possible use for Calculate Linux.

Calculate Linux Scratch (CLS) seems to be a neat way to create specialized Gentoo-based LiveCD distros, and it might be interesting (fun?) for example to create a 'nanoGentoo' (nantoo? lol) to provide Samba access to XFS/JFS/ReiserFS/btrfs filesystems through a Virtual Machine running on a Windows OS. It might also be useful for those needing to deploy a custom version of Gentoo across a corporate system of PCs (or to a world-wide community of hobbyists wanting to run a version of Gentoo on a game system, NAS, or some other non-PC device).

[tomk]

Moved from Gentoo Chat to Unsupported Software, even though you've been convinced to go down the Gentoo route the original question was about Calculate Linux so it belongs in US as we don't officially support other distributions, even if they are Gentoo-based.