Installation/Distfile Identification Suggestions

[TheLegend81]

Hello All.

SCOPE OF THE IDEA
Suggestion of a configuration creation utility that identifies/downloads all distfiles necessary to install a system w/o having to use Linux. The utility would:
-be a 3rd party executible available for any number of architectures/operating systems, or ideally a web page with drop downs menus/input fields (for use flags, etc).
-allow a user to input his architecture settings, hardware, useflags etc.
-based on the users input (configuration / use flags, etc.) The utility would identify all the packages and distfiles necessary to install ideal Gentoo system and either output them in a format that the user could use get to download, or have them download in 3rd party download client.

THE MOTIVATION BEHIND THE IDEA

I'm not sure how many people are dealing with he same thing I am, but my computer set up at home uses a wireless internet connection. When booting from a Live CD, my wireless internet card does not get recognized. It's b/c it uses the Mad-Wifi Drivers which are not currently supported/distributed with the LiveCD, something I hope to see changed ASAP! Anyhow, I've taken lessons learned with older installs and tried to download all the distfiles necessary to perform a complete installation so when I reboot, my network card works without issues and I can get right into using Gentoo.

Unfortunately, recently I've found that there are ALWAYS dependancies that I didn't have the means to identify at the time (or a newer version had been released) and unfortunately w/o an operational internet connection, there wasn't a means to fetch these files.

A utility like the one I'm suggesting would allow people in my position to be certain that they had all the files they needed to perform an install b/c they could go to another internet-connected computer that wasn't using Gentoo (like my work computer which absolutely needs full M$ access/products), input a configuration for any other machine and have all the ebuild/distfiles identified. Then the user could download the files, burn them to a CD/DVD/portable hard-drive and be ready for an install on the other computer.


Is this idea feasible? Is anyone else interested in a utility like this?

[mark_alec]

Moved from Installing Gentoo to Gentoo Chat.

Sounds like a good idea for those that want to download distfiles from other operating systems.

[BitJam]

For your situation, it might be easier to find a LiveCD that supports the madwifi drivers you need. I think Knoppix would be worth a shot.

One of the beautiful things about Gentoo is that it can be installed from within just about any Linux system. All you need are support for your target file system(s) and a working chroot command.

[Chaosite]

Well... You can get a nice list of the files needed like this:

Code: Select all

emerge world -uDpf 2> foo.txt

(I like your idea, though - it would be a bit tough to implement, since you need the entire portage tree in order to calculate deps... But if you made the aforementioned text file first, making a program that just downloads all URLs mentioned is nearly trivial =)

[SirYes]

Well... You can get a nice list of the files needed like this:

Code: Select all

emerge world -uDpf 2> foo.txt

(I like your idea, though - it would be a bit tough to implement, since you need the entire portage tree in order to calculate deps... But if you made the aforementioned text file first, making a program that just downloads all URLs mentioned is nearly trivial =)

I always thought that:

Code: Select all

$ wget -i foo.txt

is the preferred way of downloading multiple files listed in a text file.

BTW, there's even a port of wget for (pardon) Windows, which can be found on the GNU utilities for Win32 page, so I'd recommend trying this approach anyway (simpler -> better ).

HTH,