Gentoo Linux

First Impressions of Gentoo

Purpose

Give an idea of some of the advantages of Gentoo

Provide suggested requirements for installing and running a Gentoo system

Inform about some differences with other distributions

Warn about some of the shortcomings of Gentoo

Notes

Based on several installations of Gentoo including server, workstation and laptop

All installations were done using Stage1 install and have all packages compiled (no binary packages used)

My Background

Using Linux for over 6 years

Distributions tried

Mandrake 9.x – 10.x

Red Hat 7.x

Slackware (early versions)

Why Gentoo

Latest Software

Stable

Great Performance

Customizable

Easily maintained / updated

Good support and documentation

Completely free and open

Latest Software

Packages (ebuilds) are easy to create (they are simple shell scripts)

Packages are tested and quickly moved into stable tree

Packages are not heavily customized from the original source (other than patching)

A central list of all packages (ebuilds)

Ability to selectively install “testing software”

Stable

Personal experience – no vital systems problems in total 14 months run time (xine and evolution2 have had small problems on the desktops)

Several ISPs offer servers with Gentoo loaded and some use it for their backend systems as well

Gentoo Server Project is working toward a more stable branch indicating there are some concerns at the enterprise level

Great Performance

Considerably faster than Mandrake 10 on similar systems (some package differences but same hardware and basic functions)

NPTL - Native POSIX Thread Library support

Install only what you want and need producing a leaner system

Software compiled and optimized for your specific architecture

Customizable

Can choose different base components (such as syslog and cron daemons)

Load only packages you need or want

Can easily see what packages will be loaded to install each package (emerge --pretend)

Much quicker and leaner package selection than Mandrake

Easily Maintained / Updated

Portage (Gentoo's package management system) handles updating of one package or all packages

The system is a collection of packages so by updating all the packages you update your system

System upgrade: emerge --update world

Portage has been a one-stop shopping source for me (no looking for RPMS)

Lowest maintenance system I've used yet

Good Support and Excellent Documentation

Gentoo Handbook

Forums (forums.gentoo.org)

Irc, bug tracking database, mailing lists

Gentoo.org (excellent portal)

Lots of other sites (google provides a lot of good links)

Completely Free and Open

There is no charge and the packages can be freely distributed

Community organized similar to Debian

Free support through forums and excellent free documentation

Questions??

What You Need for Gentoo

Broadband internet connection

Willingness to use the command line

Willingness to learn

Patience

Broadband Connection

Gentoo packages are automatically downloaded and installed so access to a broadband connection is essential

Documentation and Support are accessable via the internet

Command Line Necessities

Package management tools (emerge, etcat, equery)

Installation is done from the command line (step by step instructions are provided)

Willingness to learn

Gentoo does some things differently, if you are willing to work with them they can be a great plus, if not they can cause problems

Patience

Each system install took 2 – 3 days (from a stage 1 install)

Updates and installs of large packages can take some time (need to download and compile)

Support via forums can take several days or more to get an answer (especially for more difficult questions)

Questions??

Gentoo Differences

Package management

RC scripts

Config file management

Package Management

Portage keeps a local view of the package tree

The local Portage tree can be synced with the global one (emerge --sync)

emerge is used to add / remove packages

etcat and equery (from gentoolkit) are used to provide information about packages

Dependencies are automatically resolved (except when something blocks an install)

RC Scripts

RC scripts are used to determine what services are started for each runlevel

Gentoo does not use number prefixes as other distros do, their system is a bit more complex but is managed through a tool

rc-update handles rc script management

Gentoo's rc system allows for faster boots because some services can load concurrently and more reliable service loading

Config File Management

When installing or updating packages some changes to the config files are sometimes made

etc-update handles this function by showing which config files have a new version installed and offering options to handle the changes

Questions??

Gentoo Shortcomings

Uninstalling packages is not as mature as installing (I have not thoroughly tested this but there are warnings in emerge about it)

Little niceties sometimes missing (default prompt is basic, xine not configured to use alsa, file associations not set)

No commercial support (as far a I can tell)

Questions??

Some suggestions

Emerge gentoolkit (contains equery and etcat)

Install NPTL

Use -O2 user flag (not -O3) for USE flag

Emerge --sync before emerging new apps to get the latest stable versions

Install only what you need (uininstall is not as mature as install)

Questions??

Impression

Overall I find Gentoo a goodfit for the way I work

Fast and Lean

The way I want it

Reliable

A good productivity system

Resources

Gentoo portal: http://gentoo.org

Gentoo Handbook: http://gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/index.xml

Forums: http://forums.gentoo.org

Gentoo Server Project: http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/server/

Gentoo packages: http://packages.gentoo.org

Resources

NPTL: http://people.redhat.com/drepper/nptl-design.pdf

Trev Peterson: trev<at>advanced-reality.com

2004-06-01T14:20:37