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*NIX: Relatively Minimal Host OS for VirtualBox Use
40hz:
When was the last time you tried? I think I originally tried Gentoo 7 or 8 years ago (remember stage 1 and 2?) with much less powerful hardware and this time around it definitely felt much easier.
-ewemoa (May 25, 2014, 01:02 AM)
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According to my logbook I go back to the summer of 2003 with Gentoo when I did my first install of it. And I did do a stage-1 install apparently. And no, I don't remember it all that much - but I have about 75 pages worth of notes on it from when I did! ;D
I do recall it was really interesting. But from the number of times I wrote "bloody hell!" in my notes, I apparently didn't consider it "fun" in the usual sense of the word. I remember how annoying it was since I had been using Linux for quite a while before Gentoo came out. (My first Linux foray was Slackware, which I installed for the first time in late-93/early-94 - at which point I decided this Nix stuff was for me! Been hooked ever since.) Gentoo was like starting over.
Every so often I think about trying Gentoo again. But like the dog up above, my very next thought is "what for?" So many distros...so little time y'know? And my main areas of interest don't revolve around the standard desktop environment anyway.
Arch I do like and will continue to use because it's so easy to craft a custom environment owing to how very little it assumes - or does for you.
Gentoo is interesting, and I applaud them for doing something different. And I really like what they did with portage. Borrowing from ports was a smart move on their part. I only wish that had become the dominant installation method for Linux software. Arch apparently felt that way too when they designed pacman. Portage certainly would have save a huge amount of grief in the early days - although those installation hassles are almost completely a thing of the past with today's maintainers and repositories.
The apt/yum/RPM triad works well enough. I'm less happy with the app store and ppa approaches introduced by Ubuntu that some other distros are now starting to look at. But since I'm not about to do my own fork, I guess I can learn to live and work with it. Especially since I built a career on learning to live and work with whatever Microsoft doles out. When in Rome..."think toga" as the saying goes.
:)
ewemoa:
Every so often I think about trying Gentoo again. But like the dog up above, my very next thought is "what for?"
-40hz (May 25, 2014, 06:09 AM)
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I thought so too the last time I considered Gentoo -- but the recent turn of events with systemd finally convinced me that I'd better try again.
I didn't know about their overlay system until this time around, and I'm finding it to my liking. I much prefer it to AUR which feels more like its existence is "tolerated".
I didn't get the hang of USE flags before, but it's starting to make more sense.
Perhaps I'll have Funtoo to look forward to before long ;) (On a side note, if only Nixos hadn't gone the systemd way...a shame.)
Especially since I built a career on learning to live and work with whatever Microsoft doles out. When in Rome..."think toga" as the saying goes.
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You will survive I reckon :)
40hz:
I didn't know about their overlay system until this time around, and I'm finding it to my liking.-ewemoa (May 25, 2014, 09:31 AM)
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Wasn't aware of it either. Just looked it up and it appears to be a pretty smart way to do things. But Gentoo always was a little smarter about that sort of thing than most, wasn't it? Bloody! Now I'm getting the G-bug again. Why oh why did I have to read that? Why??? :-\
I didn't get the hang of USE flags before, but it's starting to make more sense.
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USE. It's a lovely thing. But not all that essential to the average deployment. For desktops, it makes less sense since you'd need to check the dependencies of each app you'd want to install, either with emerge or run that package query utility (I forget what they tool use to do that) if you deviate from the default set of 'includes' as I tend to think of them. And since you'll be adding apps from time to time it's probably best to just accept the default USE statement which handles almost anything a desktop user would need to have available.
For crafting bespoke servers or appliances however, USE flags are the bees knees! :greenclp: Maybe even a little bit sexier(?) :mrgreen: a way to do it than building your server up from zero as you (mostly) would with Arch. Great for security - but without the challenges of using OpenBSD :stars:- or the headaches of modding your kernal with Selinux. :wallbash:
At least that's how I see it.
P.S. I'm downloading the amd64-minimal ISO as we speak. I need this? (Like I said earlier: Bloody! >:( )
ewemoa:
He he -- wishing you the best this time around :Thmbsup:
BTW, here are some handy things I picked up this time around (but perhaps they are already familiar...):
* app-misc/pfl - Searchable online file/package database for gentoo -- provides e-file command -- can be helpful for determining which file a package is in (whether the package is installed or not)
* app-portage/ufed - Gentoo Linux USE flags editor -- provides curses-based ufed command
* app-portage/eix - Search and query ebuilds, portage incl. local settings, ext. overlays, version changes, and more -- specifically eix-sync may be of interest
40hz:
(but perhaps they are already familiar...):
-ewemoa (May 25, 2014, 09:55 PM)
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Nothing is familiar because it's been so long ;D - so thanks for that info. :Thmbsup:
Oh yeah, that utility for dependency checking I was trying to remember earlier is called equery. It's part of gentoolkit.
user $ equery
Gentoo package query tool
Usage: equery [global-options] module-name [module-options]
modules (short name)
(b)elongs list what package FILES belong to
(c)hanges list changelog entries for ATOM
chec(k) verify checksums and timestamps for PKG
(d)epends list all packages directly depending on ATOM
dep(g)raph display a tree of all dependencies for PKG
(f)iles list all files installed by PKG
h(a)s list all packages for matching ENVIRONMENT data stored in /var/db/pkg
(h)asuse list all packages that have USE flag
ke(y)words display keywords for specified PKG
(l)ist list package matching PKG
(m)eta display metadata about PKG
(s)ize display total size of all files owned by PKG
(u)ses display USE flags for PKG
(w)hich print full path to ebuild for PKG
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8)
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