Screenshot of QEMU VM showing an ASCII Gentoo Logo + system info
I followed Mental Outlaw’s 2019 guide and followed the official handbook to get up-to-date instructions and tailored instructions for my system, the process took about 4 hours however I did go out for a nice walk while my kernel was compiling. Overall I enjoyed the process and learnt a lot about the Linux kernel while doing it.
I’m planning on installing it to my hardware soon, this was to get a feel for the process in a non-destructive way.
Everyone should do this at least once
Agreed. It’s such a great learning process. I ultimately gave up on Gentoo but learned a lot by using it for about 2 years way back in around 2005.
Linux From Scratch brings a huge leap in understanding too.
I found Gentoo more helpful than LFS because with LFS you compile about 80 packages from source one at a time but you don’t learn too much about the packages.
LFS gave me much more awareness of what packages actually come with a Linux install but Gentoo taught me more about configuring and booting a Linux system.
Although I’d definitely recommend both to anyone wanting to learn. I’d do Gentoo first then LFS.
Edit: LFS is also a masterclass in cross compiling so if that’s something you’re curious about LFS is the way to go.
Back in like 2011 I was living out of state for college. Had decided to drop out at the time so had limitless free time for a bit. I definitely used that time to compile my own kernel and setup gentoo lol. I haven’t played with gentoo since but it was fun and helped my appreciation for Linux.
How much maintenance does Gentoo need once installed? I don’t mind a complicated install but it’s the constant tinkering I can’t deal with.
If you’ve done arch, it’s like long arch
Gentoo probably doesn’t have all packages. One of the reasons I love Arch is because it almost always has any package in the AUR. It’s a lot more work to try and get something installed on Ubuntu related distros. They try to keep up by using snaps and stuff but it’s still no comparison. Arch has everything.
Still it’s gets a bit boring now since I know it so well, so want to try Gentoo at some point also.
one of the reasons I love gentoo is how easy it is to package things for it.
You know how for pkgbuilds you have to explictly write out the whole configure make make install stuff that pretty much every package uses some variation on? Gentoo abstracts that out to libraries (eclasses) that handle that sort of thing for each build system so you can focus down on anything unique to the package, like build system options.
Also sounds really cool.
Try lfs
Yeah I did when I was new to Linux, several times. It was an awesome learning experience.
Gentoo has overlays which are similar to AUR, I haven’t felt like I’m missing packages compared to when I ran arch
Ok cool, even more interested in trying it now.
Not much. Updates take a bit longer because you’re compiling, although Gentoo now has an official binary package host if you want to skip that step - you’ll only compile things that you’ve changed compile-time features to the extent that they don’t match the binhost now!
You don’t need to constantly tinker to keep the system running, at least, news is good for major changes, and we have a good ‘config file changed’ system.
Gentoo now has an official binary package host
With some limitations:
The binhost packages have the USE flags set as in an unmodified 17.1/desktop/plasma/systemd profile (with the exception of USE=bindist). The packages can be used on all amd64 profiles that differ from desktop/plasma/systemd only by USE flag settings. This includes 17.1, 17.1/desktop/*, 17.1/no-multilib, 17.1/systemd, but not anything containing selinux, hardened, developer, musl, or a different profile version such as 17.0.
Oh, I’m not talking about the experimental one. Keep an eye on news.
Haven’t seen any news about it.
I don’t have anything concrete to point you at, only conversations with developers, but the binhost project seems to have produced an official binhost that is just pending documentation and the formal announcement. :)
Edit: There’s a cool graph here that seems to line up with when I figure the non-experimental binhost started coming online with package numbers and things: https://www.akhuettel.de/~huettel/plots/mirrors/binpackages-month.png
It’s official now. ;)
My first Gentoo install took like a week to get X running. It was my first foray into Linux (Ok, I briefly tried mkLinux).
I learnt the hard way, but I learnt. And I’m still on that same path: Gentoo. Why I don’t bother switching? Because I can customize Gentoo to whatever I like, so instead of doing distro hop I just reconfigure things.
Because I can customize Gentoo to whatever I like
Can you customise it to support AAA videogames?
Yeah. Install steam.
I remember printing out the Gentoo installation manual in the compsci lab way back in 2004. It was my first Linux distro and have fond memories of tinkering around on it. I remember leaving it a few years later for a cool new distro that was on the rise called Ubuntu. I still think portage is one of the better approaches to package management though.
Dont want to offend, but this is the most environmentally harmful OS on this planet probably. Except maybe BitcoinOS or something XD
Might as well call linux the most polluting OS. It props up old inefficient systems with high TPW and takes longer to complete tasks. Whereas microsoft and apple makes sure their users are on the latest efficient hw. Maybe a bit offset by the ewaste but who cares, Apple and MS are out savingy the earth.
What?
To show how moronic your claim was to term it as “most environmentally harmful OS” on one single factor(cpu time).
And I dont believe in the efficiency advantages or selfcompiled software vs. immense compiling power needed especially when rolling. On ESR maybe you got me. I really believe code thats made for one platform can be faster. But then you have MacOS which is slower than Arch on their own damn M1 hardware.
I think its better to have older machines that use more energy, than to have new ones that need resources, are worse repairable and all.
Could you explain “TPW” and “hw” in your comment? I read it as hardware, and having an OS force you to buy new (of their own) hardware is not sustainable at all. Its basically planned obsolescense.
Proove me wrong, but cant you securely boot a BIOS on any PC using their old TPM and a security key? I am in the procees of installing Heads on my T430, which is pretty old, but I think this will be very secure even without the new TPM standard.
I am in agreement with most if not all the above points. Didn’t agree with terming a distro the worst of anything based on a single metric.
~~ TPW~~ CPU TDP to use it as a rough efficiency metric. Probably not very accurate but roughly representative. HW meant hardware.
Maybe in many cases repurposing hardware makes sense but based on the source and cost of electricity, hw process generation it might not even be feasible to run compared to modern hw. Might be better to recycle them responsibly than keep those running.
In end I guess you realise there are many factors to consider to determine something good, bad.
Of course, hats why I said bad for the environment. If it was not rolling, maybe. But if you do updates at least twice a week it will consume lots or energy. If you use old hardware or not I think its independend from that.
Even assuming all other factors remain same sure it uses more power but by how much? Best case by how much do you expect the increase to be ? 5-10% of their daily electricity consumption ?
And when you consider the power source, hw efficiency and so on theres no way to assess what the environmental effect an OS has.
Also you are assuming behavior of the person remains the same when using a precompiled packages v. compiling their own. I’ve installed many sw just to try for a few minutes and remove just to try various options. If it takes hours to compile I’d be very picky on what I install.
Oh I really hope this is satire.
It’s on my bucket list to do this also one day. It’s fun to mess around.
