On Tue, 2002-05-14 at 01:40, Jacob Meuser wrote: > So, in BSD land there's the notion of a base system, and then you add > packages. This makes basic installs simple. I can install OBSD in about > 10 minutes on modern hadrware. Does gentoo do this or do you have to pick > and choose the base system? Do you have to build everything, or is there > an actual binary basic install? I think the last time I checked it out, > the only way to install was with 'emerge' or something like that.
There is a base system like OpenBSD. If you have a 686, you can get an ISO image to install from. Otherwise, you compile *everything* from source doing the install. You can also compile from scratch if you are using a 686. Portage, the Gentoo package management system, does clean up the object files. The tarballs stay around, but you can move/delete them as you see fit. The install from source works like this. First, you download a 17MB ISO image and burn a CD. You boot from the CD and partition your hard drive. Then, you tell the compiler how you want the system optimized. The install program then unpacks necessary libraries and compilers from the CD, builds them, and installs them in a RAM disk. Then, it goes out and downloads and compiles the latest libraries and compilers and installs them in RAM. Finally, it recompiles the newest compilers and libraries and installs them on the hard drive. Now, it starts downloading, building, and installing your basic system. After this is done, you have to do your normal configuration file editing and download, build, and install your kernel. Then you reboot and install whatever. You do use 'emerge' to do the installation. Cheers, Dennis
