[gentoo-user] I'm up, at long last!

[gentoo-user] I'm up, at long last!

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hi, Gentoo.

After a few weeks of effort, I've just gone live with my very own Gentoo
system.  :-)

The last stage was copying most of my files over from my old box, which
involved a significant degree of screwing the disk drives.

It is such a relief to say goodbye to my ancient Debian system, which no
longer had a functioning package system.  Also, my ten year old hardware
was feeling ever more underpowered as time went by.

Installing and configuring Gentoo was significantly easier than Debian,
even though it took about the same amount of time.  The approach "insert
the DVD, press the button, and everything will work OK" is fine, until
something _doesn't_ work OK; then you've got several hours (or days) of
tedious searching for the answer.  By contrast, with Gentoo's 41 pages
of detailed instructions, you really can't go far wrong.  And at the end
of it, there's further detailed documentation to get X and window
manager etc. set up.

I think there's really only two ways to install Linux: you either go the
Ubuntu route, where everything's done for you and you accept somebody
else's defaults, or you go with Gentoo, where you do everything
yourself.  I think anything in the middle, like Debian, just leads to
confusion and uncertainty.  I don't know where Fedora and SuSE fit into
all this.

Anyhow, I'm now up and running, with some installation and config still
to do: things like how to get British English and German keyboard
layouts in XFCE, how to make it's terminal have a black background and
things like that.  I also need to find a decent PDF viewer, and a decent
jpeg viewer.

So, thanks for all the help, everybody!

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).

Re: [gentoo-user] I'm up, at long last!

[James Wall]

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On Apr 17, 2011 10:40 AM, "Alan Mackenzie" <acm@muc.de> wrote:
>
> Hi, Gentoo.
>
> After a few weeks of effort, I've just gone live with my very own Gentoo
> system.  :-)
>
> The last stage was copying most of my files over from my old box, which
> involved a significant degree of screwing the disk drives.
>
> It is such a relief to say goodbye to my ancient Debian system, which no
> longer had a functioning package system.  Also, my ten year old hardware
> was feeling ever more underpowered as time went by.
>
> Installing and configuring Gentoo was significantly easier than Debian,
> even though it took about the same amount of time.  The approach "insert
> the DVD, press the button, and everything will work OK" is fine, until
> something _doesn't_ work OK; then you've got several hours (or days) of
> tedious searching for the answer.  By contrast, with Gentoo's 41 pages
> of detailed instructions, you really can't go far wrong.  And at the end
> of it, there's further detailed documentation to get X and window
> manager etc. set up.
>
> I think there's really only two ways to install Linux: you either go the
> Ubuntu route, where everything's done for you and you accept somebody
> else's defaults, or you go with Gentoo, where you do everything
> yourself.  I think anything in the middle, like Debian, just leads to
> confusion and uncertainty.  I don't know where Fedora and SuSE fit into
> all this.
>
> Anyhow, I'm now up and running, with some installation and config still
> to do: things like how to get British English and German keyboard
> layouts in XFCE, how to make it's terminal have a black background and
> things like that.  I also need to find a decent PDF viewer, and a decent
> jpeg viewer.
>
> So, thanks for all the help, everybody!
>
> --
> Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).
>
I recommend xpdf for the PDF viewer

James Wall

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Re: [gentoo-user] I'm up, at long last!

[Mark Shields]

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 On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 10:22 AM, Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> wrote:

> Hi, Gentoo.
>
> After a few weeks of effort, I've just gone live with my very own Gentoo
> system.  :-)
>
> The last stage was copying most of my files over from my old box, which
> involved a significant degree of screwing the disk drives.
>
> It is such a relief to say goodbye to my ancient Debian system, which no
> longer had a functioning package system.  Also, my ten year old hardware
> was feeling ever more underpowered as time went by.
>
> Installing and configuring Gentoo was significantly easier than Debian,
> even though it took about the same amount of time.  The approach "insert
> the DVD, press the button, and everything will work OK" is fine, until
> something _doesn't_ work OK; then you've got several hours (or days) of
> tedious searching for the answer.  By contrast, with Gentoo's 41 pages
> of detailed instructions, you really can't go far wrong.  And at the end
> of it, there's further detailed documentation to get X and window
> manager etc. set up.
>
> I think there's really only two ways to install Linux: you either go the
> Ubuntu route, where everything's done for you and you accept somebody
> else's defaults, or you go with Gentoo, where you do everything
> yourself.  I think anything in the middle, like Debian, just leads to
> confusion and uncertainty.  I don't know where Fedora and SuSE fit into
> all this.
>
> Anyhow, I'm now up and running, with some installation and config still
> to do: things like how to get British English and German keyboard
> layouts in XFCE, how to make it's terminal have a black background and
> things like that.  I also need to find a decent PDF viewer, and a decent
> jpeg viewer.
>
> So, thanks for all the help, everybody!
>
> --
> Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).
>
>
Gentoo has it's places, but at the end of the day, I just want my desktop
system to work with little effort on my part.  And be consistent.  Ubuntu
gives me that on a desktop -- well, it did, until they decided to switch to
Unity.  But that's another topic...

For everything else (re: servers), there's Gentoo :)

I run a Gentoo VPS for a website.  I love the flexibility of Gentoo, the
speed, the nothingness you start with and have to mold it together like you
would an artist with a block of clay.

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Re: [gentoo-user] I'm up, at long last!

[Pandu Poluan]

On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 06:58, Mark Shields <laebshade@gmail.com> wrote:
>  On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 10:22 AM, Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> wrote:
>>
>> Hi, Gentoo.
>>
>> After a few weeks of effort, I've just gone live with my very own Gentoo
>> system.  :-)
>>

Hi Alan!

Welcome to the club :-)

[-- snip --]
>>
>> So, thanks for all the help, everybody!
>>
>> --
>> Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).
>>
>
> Gentoo has it's places, but at the end of the day, I just want my desktop
> system to work with little effort on my part.  And be consistent.  Ubuntu
> gives me that on a desktop -- well, it did, until they decided to switch to
> Unity.  But that's another topic...

How I wish I can use *any* kind of Linux for my desktop :-/

> For everything else (re: servers), there's Gentoo :)

Can't agree more ;-)

> I run a Gentoo VPS for a website.  I love the flexibility of Gentoo, the
> speed, the nothingness you start with and have to mold it together like you
> would an artist with a block of clay.

I was about to post something similar to what you wrote, but you did
it much more poetically.

Rgds,
--
Pandu E Poluan
~ IT Optimizer ~
Visit my Blog: http://pepoluan.posterous.com

[gentoo-user] Re: I'm up, at long last!

[Harry Putnam]

Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> writes:

> I think there's really only two ways to install Linux: you either go the
> Ubuntu route, where everything's done for you and you accept somebody
> else's defaults, or you go with Gentoo, where you do everything
> yourself.  I think anything in the middle, like Debian, just leads to
> confusion and uncertainty.  I don't know where Fedora and SuSE fit into
> all this.

Jumping into the asbestos drawers... the sterling things about Debian
are that it is more oldschool than ubuntu and its good for when you
get sick of compiling everything from scratch over and over.

For some things, I don't care if I'm accepting someone elses' defaults.

I've stuck with Gentoo for several yrs now for my main desktop and
would be very unwilling to switch for that usage, however, I prefer
Debian for virtual guests on windows.  It just installs right off,
when you need a full linux OS in a bit of a hurry.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: I'm up, at long last!

[Pandu Poluan]

On 2011-04-19, Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> wrote:
> Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> writes:
>
>> I think there's really only two ways to install Linux: you either go the
>> Ubuntu route, where everything's done for you and you accept somebody
>> else's defaults, or you go with Gentoo, where you do everything
>> yourself.  I think anything in the middle, like Debian, just leads to
>> confusion and uncertainty.  I don't know where Fedora and SuSE fit into
>> all this.
>
> Jumping into the asbestos drawers... the sterling things about Debian
> are that it is more oldschool than ubuntu and its good for when you
> get sick of compiling everything from scratch over and over.
>
> For some things, I don't care if I'm accepting someone elses' defaults.
>
> I've stuck with Gentoo for several yrs now for my main desktop and
> would be very unwilling to switch for that usage, however, I prefer
> Debian for virtual guests on windows.  It just installs right off,
> when you need a full linux OS in a bit of a hurry.
>

I still think Debian installed too many things I don't use. When I
need a Linux VM in a hurry, I'd go Arch. Some people worry about its
unsigned packages, but as long as I stick to well-known mirrors, I
should be okay.

The beauty of Arch is that its installation is very granular; I can
truly pick components I want to have, and leave out those I won't ever
use.

But if I *do* have the time, I'll always take the Gentoo-route :)

--
Pandu E Poluan - IT Optimizer
My website: http://pandu.poluan.info/

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: I'm up, at long last!

[Mick]

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On Tuesday 19 April 2011 04:35:09 Pandu Poluan wrote:
> On 2011-04-19, Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> wrote:
> > Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> writes:
> >> I think there's really only two ways to install Linux: you either go the
> >> Ubuntu route, where everything's done for you and you accept somebody
> >> else's defaults, or you go with Gentoo, where you do everything
> >> yourself.  I think anything in the middle, like Debian, just leads to
> >> confusion and uncertainty.  I don't know where Fedora and SuSE fit into
> >> all this.
> > 
> > Jumping into the asbestos drawers... the sterling things about Debian
> > are that it is more oldschool than ubuntu and its good for when you
> > get sick of compiling everything from scratch over and over.
> > 
> > For some things, I don't care if I'm accepting someone elses' defaults.
> > 
> > I've stuck with Gentoo for several yrs now for my main desktop and
> > would be very unwilling to switch for that usage, however, I prefer
> > Debian for virtual guests on windows.  It just installs right off,
> > when you need a full linux OS in a bit of a hurry.
> 
> I still think Debian installed too many things I don't use. When I
> need a Linux VM in a hurry, I'd go Arch. Some people worry about its
> unsigned packages, but as long as I stick to well-known mirrors, I
> should be okay.
> 
> The beauty of Arch is that its installation is very granular; I can
> truly pick components I want to have, and leave out those I won't ever
> use.
> 
> But if I *do* have the time, I'll always take the Gentoo-route :)

Perhaps I'll try Debian next time I'm in a rush.  In the past I've run CentOS 
and it was a relatively quick exercise to get it installed and running as a 
webserver.  However, I still ended up spending some time I hadn't budgeted for 
shutting down (unnecessary) processes, uninstalling apps and what not.
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] I'm up, at long last!

[Kfir Lavi]

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> things like that.  I also need to find a decent PDF viewer, and a decent
> jpeg viewer.
>

I use evince for PDFs and Gqview for photos.

Kfir

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Re: [gentoo-user] I'm up, at long last!

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Wed, 20 Apr 2011 01:30:00 +0300, Kfir Lavi wrote:

> I use evince for PDFs and Gqview for photos.

Gqview is no longer in development. Try Geeqie, an active fork of Gqview.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

The word 'Windows' is a word out of an old dialect of the Apaches.
It means: 'White man staring through glass-screen onto an hourglass...')

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Re: [gentoo-user] I'm up, at long last!

[Kfir Lavi]

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On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 3:32 AM, Neil Bothwick <neil@digimed.co.uk> wrote:

> On Wed, 20 Apr 2011 01:30:00 +0300, Kfir Lavi wrote:
>
> > I use evince for PDFs and Gqview for photos.
>
> Gqview is no longer in development. Try Geeqie, an active fork of Gqview.
>
>
> Thanks,
I didn't know that. As is Gqview is just brilliant. Everything is fast via
the keyboard shortcuts.
I'lll try Geeqie as you suggested.

Thanks again,
Kfir

 --
> Neil Bothwick
>
> The word 'Windows' is a word out of an old dialect of the Apaches.
> It means: 'White man staring through glass-screen onto an hourglass...')
>

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