Gentoo not just from source

[Simon Slaytor]

Sorry one thing that seems to have slipped through the net.

Using Gentoo you don't have to build everything from source. Gentoo also
maintain a Packages resource of pre-built binaries. How up-to-date they
are I don't know as I prefer to build from source.

Using the packages collection as a source for Gentoo it's possible to
install a complete Gentoo system without an Internet connection.

Don't get me wrong I'm an avid user of YDL on my PM7500, and yes APT is
a great tool, but it's by no means flawless. Where for example do you
configure apt to access package collections and which is the best
collection for the most current up-to-date RPM's? Freshrpms is my
favorite but what do you do when apt can't find the tool your after? or
you can't exactly remember what it's called?

To complement apt I install synaptic mainly for the search tool. This
again brings me back to YDL being several steps behind the current x86
distro's, both APT and Synaptic are older versions.

Yellow Dog is great but a shorter release cycle with more up-to-date
builds would broaden it's appeal.

The big question is where is YDL going to go now that RedHat Linux is
Fedora, which by the way seem to be developing a PPC release of FC Core
1. 

Check out 

http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/development/ppc/Fedora/RPMS/

for a great source of more up-to-date PPC rpm's.

If Fedora PPC and YDL are both descended from the same tree how will YDL
differentiate itself?

At the end of the day it's all Linux and that's the coolest thing.

On Tue, 2004-03-23 at 22:44, Greg Hamilton wrote:
> I run much slower hardware than you and don't have the time to wait for 
> large packages to build from source. I have a feeling that getting a 
> Gentoo install running on my iBook would take days. I'd rather install 
> pre-built binaries.
> 
> Binary package managers work much the same as portage but without the 
> delay while the source is compiled.
> 
> To install Ogle for YDL all you need to do is:
> $ ydl install ogle
> 
> And then a (probably really old) version of Ogle installs. Magic.
> 
> In Debian much the same:
> $ apt-get install ogle
> 
> If I wanted access to more up-to-date packages I'd probably install 
> Debian in preference to Gentoo, gotta love those binary packages.
> 
> On 23/03/2004, at 9:29 PM, Simon Slaytor wrote:
> 
> > I wouldn't call myself a Geek, but I'm currently running Gentoo on my
> > Dual G4 Gigabit.
> >
> > No Gentoo dosn't have an installer like Yellow Dog so it takes a little
> > more work to install and get running, but it's not difficult and the
> > instruction are actually very good.
> >
> > So why run Gentoo? well two reasons for me first it's way way way more
> > up-to-date than YD. I'm writing this e-mail on Ximian 1.4 running on
> > Gnome 2.4.2, Mozilla is 1.5 (popup blocking yeah!) and my kernel is
> > 2.4.24 The second reason for installing Gentoo over YD was portage.
> >
> > If your familiar with FreeBSD / NetBSD etc you'll know all about the
> > ports collection. If not let me give a brief example.
> >
> > On Gentoo if I wanted to install OGLE (DVD Video Player, requires DeCSS
> > etc), I simply call up a shell do a CD to /usr/portage/media-video/ogle
> > I then type emerge ogle. The Gentoo emerge system then takes care of
> > downloading OGLE and all dependencies, builds each one from source and
> > finally installs OGLE onto my Gnome menu.
> >
> > No RPM's no missing / outdated libs etc it just works. You can update
> > your entire system as easily as emerge sync (get's the latest portage
> > collection) emerge --update --upgradeonly world (upgrades everthing to
> > the latest version included in the portage list)
> >
> > All I can say is Gentoo is worth the little extra effort needed to get
> > it installed and running, plus you'll have a much better understanding
> > of Linux after it's done.
> >
> > Regards
> >
> > Simon
> >
> >
> > On Tue, 2004-03-23 at 11:51, Thierry de Coulon wrote:
> >> On Tuesday 23 March 2004 00:30, Larry Autry wrote:
> >>> It only took a glance at the Gentoo install doc to help me decide 
> >>> not to
> >>> install Gentoo. The document does not read like an install guide as 
> >>> does
> >>> the YDL install doc. It reads more like a reference book than a 
> >>> how-to.  If
> >>> I need a reference book, I'll download it. As an install document, 
> >>> the
> >>> document attempts to cover way too much territory. That's about as 
> >>> kind as
> >>> I can be.
> >>
> >> The point is: you'll need that reference book to install Gentoo 
> >> (which I did
> >> on the PC but not on the Mac). I did it mostly to get a better 
> >> understanding
> >> in how Linux works.
> >>
> >> Gentoo is not in the same league as YDL. It's clearly a distribution 
> >> for
> >> Geeks.
> >>
> >> Thierry
> >
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