Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Thu, February 5, 2009 9:12 pm, Neil Bothwick wrote: On Thu, 5 Feb 2009 21:03:30 +0100 (CET), Jes�s Guerrero wrote: Gentoo is not a distro. You don't use it, It's a metadristro that can be used to build a proper distro, after that you can use the final product. It's a flatpack distro ;-) Can anyone tell me in which section of IKEA i can find the install set? :)
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
* Neil Bothwick (n...@digimed.co.uk) [07.02.09 22:42]: On Sat, 7 Feb 2009 20:43:04 +0100, Sebastian Günther wrote: If i have to do *multiple* installs for several copumters, which I do not use myself, I choose debian, because fai rocks. Shouldn't this fai be adopted for Gentoo? I should investigate if this is possible... Did you look at quickstart, mentioned earlier in this discussion? Nope, unless fai-quickstart was meant... Any links? Sebastian -- Religion ist das Opium des Volkes. Karl Marx s...@sti@N GÜNTHER mailto:sam...@guenther-roetgen.de pgpu9WIEuafuf.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Sun, 8 Feb 2009 01:57:39 +0100 (CET), Jesús Guerrero wrote: Yes. That's true and I agree. But since emacs was proposed as a way to overcome the natural limitations of info, I guess that's completely fair if others point out also the disadvantages of doing so. All in all, we could also say how nice is man in konqueror, but that wouldn't be fair, would it? Everyone's more or less agreeing here, that the info format is useful but the standard info reader sucks. Once you start reading info pages in a decent reader, like Konqueror, they are useful for more complex documents. Although I'd still prefer HTML, mainly because of the wide choice of readers available. -- Neil Bothwick Don't take life too seriously, you won't get out alive. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
Neil Bothwick n...@digimed.co.uk writes: Everyone's more or less agreeing here, that the info format is useful but the standard info reader sucks. Once you start reading info pages in a decent reader, like Konqueror, they are useful for more complex documents. Although I'd still prefer HTML, mainly because of the wide choice of readers available. Yet much (I would even suggest most) HTML documentation does not take much advantage of the HTML format. It is rare for it to contain many hyperlinks within the text. Often it is formatted more like a book with each page just having previous, next, up and contents links at top and/or bottom with few, if any, hyperlinks in the text.
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Sun, 8 Feb 2009 09:54:48 +0100, Sebastian Günther wrote: Did you look at quickstart, mentioned earlier in this discussion? Nope, unless fai-quickstart was meant... Any links? Yes, posted twice already but not to hand now. -- Neil Bothwick Math and alcohol don't mix. Don't drink and derive. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Sat, 7 Feb 2009 08:17:04 +0100, Sebastian Günther wrote: *Install* Mandrake, to install Gentoo? Where were you when Klaus invented Koppix... An installed distro is better if you have work to do. When I ought this Eee PC, I couldn't install from the default Xandros, so I installed EeeXbuntu and got on with some productive stuff while gcc was stress testing the CPU in the background. -- Neil Bothwick CW music backward: get yer dog, wife, job, truck, kids, and sobriety back. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Fri, 6 Feb 2009 14:25:07 + (UTC), Grant Edwards wrote: You'd expect to find a list of contents, chapters and an index in a printed reference book, electronic documentation should be no different. Perhaps, but I think info is an awful implementation. A single large man page is much better, and a single large html page with links in it is far, far, better. Info is far from a perfect solution (very far)and I generally use it in Konqueror anyway, but the idea that any product, no matter how complex, should be documented in a single, unindexed page is ridiculous. Searching in a single page is fine, as long as the term you are looking for is fairly unique, try searching for something like avi in the mplayer man page and see how many times you need to press n before you find what you want. The Gentoo handbook is an excellent example of how documentation should be arranged. -- Neil Bothwick Of all the people I've met you're certainly one of them signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Fri, 6 Feb 2009 22:08:46 +0100, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: and what do I, if I need to read info to be able to install emacs to read info? RTFM of course ;-) -- Neil Bothwick He who laughs last probably made a back-up. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Feb 7, 2009, at 4:52 AM, Neil Bothwick n...@digimed.co.uk wrote: On Fri, 6 Feb 2009 14:25:07 + (UTC), Grant Edwards wrote: You'd expect to find a list of contents, chapters and an index in a printed reference book, electronic documentation should be no different. Perhaps, but I think info is an awful implementation. A single large man page is much better, and a single large html page with links in it is far, far, better. Info is far from a perfect solution (very far)and I generally use it in Konqueror anyway, but the idea that any product, no matter how complex, should be documented in a single, unindexed page is ridiculous. Searching in a single page is fine, as long as the term you are looking for is fairly unique, try searching for something like avi in the mplayer man page and see how many times you need to press n before you find what you want. The Gentoo handbook is an excellent example of how documentation should be arranged. -- Neil Bothwick Of all the people I've met you're certainly one of them While I do like how the handbook is aranged, I'd much rather go through condensed manpages if I were looking for how to do something. The handbook is easy to read and all, and tends to provide decent reasoning for each step it suggests, but it's far too bulky for my taste.
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Sat, 7 Feb 2009 06:48:07 -0500, Saphirus Sage wrote: While I do like how the handbook is aranged, I'd much rather go through condensed manpages That's the problem, not all man pages are, or can be, condensed. As I said before, man is fine for short reference documents, but some programs have way too many features to fit on a single page. -- Neil Bothwick A closed mouth gathers no foot. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Sat, 07 Feb 2009 15:53:20 +0200, Nikos Chantziaras wrote: I'm not gonna duplicate what I wrote. Read it again :P Repeating something does not increase its validity. You stated that Gentoo needs a GUI installer. The number of people using it without one shows that is simply not true. You want one, that much is clear, but Gentoo does not *need* one. -- Neil Bothwick Time is an illusion but never so much as when you're using a modem. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Sat, February 7, 2009 12:23, Nikos Chantziaras wrote: Neil Bothwick wrote: On Sat, 07 Feb 2009 15:53:20 +0200, Nikos Chantziaras wrote: I'm not gonna duplicate what I wrote. Read it again :P Repeating something does not increase its validity. That's why I didn't repeat it in the first place maybe? You stated that Gentoo needs a GUI installer. The number of people using it without one shows that is simply not true. Hmm. OK, how 'bout this: Someone says that Linux is general is needed. The number of people using their computers without it shows that is simply not true. if Gentoo needs anything, it's a more accessible method of installing for those users who can't actually see the screen. Don't get me wrong, I love the distro for several reasons, but if I were to install linux locally on any of my desktops, it would probably be debian or ubuntu simply for the fact their methods of instalation are actually useable to me.bbb
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
Neil Bothwick wrote: On Sat, 07 Feb 2009 15:53:20 +0200, Nikos Chantziaras wrote: I'm not gonna duplicate what I wrote. Read it again :P Repeating something does not increase its validity. You stated that Gentoo needs a GUI installer. The number of people using it without one shows that is simply not true. You want one, that much is clear, but Gentoo does not *need* one. I agree. I got a CD with the installer on it here somewhere. I always boot with the gentoo nox option to disable the thing. By the time that thing loads up I can mount my partitions and edit a file that needs changing and be back out again. I'm not sure that the GUI really makes anything easier either. You still have the learning curve to deal with after the CD is gone. Basically, if you use the CD installer, you are still pretty much clueless when it comes to what is under the hood of Gentoo. Without it, you have learned several things that come in handy later on for sure. I'm not totally against it but I don't really see any need for it either. Dale :-) :-)
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
El Vie, 6 de Febrero de 2009, 22:00, Harry Putnam escribió: Grant Edwards gra...@visi.com writes: The cynic in me says that it's because Tim Berners-Lee invented HTML, not Richard M Stallman. Info has been around a lot longer than HTML, but I think you're largely correct. [...] I recommend that people use emacs to read `info'. They work really well together and the vast arsenal of search and other tools in emacs are brought to bare in `info' reading. Once you used emacs for `info' reading the standalone `Info' reader will seem pretty primitive. Well, I'd first need to use info to use emacs to use info, you get the point :p A manual system should be simple enough that a newbie can start to use it without knowing anything about emacs. Hell, even less is a hard thing to use on man pages for a newcomer, let alone emacs or vi. Once you are proficient with emacs, then info vs. man is probably a non-issue for you anyway, so I don't get your point there. -- Jesús Guerrero
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
El Vie, 6 de Febrero de 2009, 23:55, Dale escribió: This was one thing I liked about Mandrake, now Mandriva. Put in the CD, boot up, set up drives, select ALL the software you can stand, let it install and then reboot. What really made it good, when you reboot, ALL your software is already installed. Dang that was cool. It doesn't run as fast as Gentoo but if you want a Linux install in a hurry, that is one way to get it. Then you can use Mandrake to do your Gentoo install. chroot works wonderfully. Run into a problem, just go to a browser and search the forums etc to get help. Weird like hell. Just boot a knoppix livecd and install gentoo from there. Or any livecd of your liking. If you like Mandriva and you install it to use it, then it's ok, but to install it just to use it as a Gentoo installer it's a weird thing to say the least. -- Jesús Guerrero
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
Jesús Guerrero wrote: El Vie, 6 de Febrero de 2009, 23:55, Dale escribió: This was one thing I liked about Mandrake, now Mandriva. Put in the CD, boot up, set up drives, select ALL the software you can stand, let it install and then reboot. What really made it good, when you reboot, ALL your software is already installed. Dang that was cool. It doesn't run as fast as Gentoo but if you want a Linux install in a hurry, that is one way to get it. Then you can use Mandrake to do your Gentoo install. chroot works wonderfully. Run into a problem, just go to a browser and search the forums etc to get help. Weird like hell. Just boot a knoppix livecd and install gentoo from there. Or any livecd of your liking. If you like Mandriva and you install it to use it, then it's ok, but to install it just to use it as a Gentoo installer it's a weird thing to say the least. Mandrake was what I switched from. I used Mandrake for about six months when I decided to switch, mostly because the upgrade process sucked. I didn't install Mandrake just to install Gentoo, it was what was already installed. That said, if I thought I would run into trouble and needed my dial-up to work during the install, I would stick in a old drive and install Mandrake and install from there. I'm not saying someone else should but setting up dial-up on most bootable CDs is not fun. Dale :-) :-)
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
El Sab, 7 de Febrero de 2009, 19:37, Dale escribió: Jesús Guerrero wrote: El Vie, 6 de Febrero de 2009, 23:55, Dale escribió: [...] If you like Mandriva and you install it to use it, then it's ok, but to install it just to use it as a Gentoo installer it's a weird thing to say the least. Mandrake was what I switched from. I used Mandrake for about six months when I decided to switch, mostly because the upgrade process sucked. I didn't install Mandrake just to install Gentoo, it was what was already installed. Well, that makes more sense of course. That said, if I thought I would run into trouble and needed my dial-up to work during the install, I would stick in a old drive and install Mandrake and install from there. I'm not saying someone else should but setting up dial-up on most bootable CDs is not fun. I know from experience how funny winmodems can be. That's why when I used to use a modem I decided to buy a serial true modem and crapped out my conexant hsf winmodem. True modems work out of the box without any problem. All you need is to configure your dialer. -- Jesús Guerrero
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
El Sab, 7 de Febrero de 2009, 19:40, Harry Putnam escribió: Jesús Guerrero i92gu...@terra.es writes: El Vie, 6 de Febrero de 2009, 22:00, Harry Putnam escribió: Grant Edwards gra...@visi.com writes: The cynic in me says that it's because Tim Berners-Lee invented HTML, not Richard M Stallman. Info has been around a lot longer than HTML, but I think you're largely correct. [...] I recommend that people use emacs to read `info'. They work really well together and the vast arsenal of search and other tools in emacs are brought to bare in `info' reading. Once you used emacs for `info' reading the standalone `Info' reader will seem pretty primitive. Well, I'd first need to use info to use emacs to use info, you get the point :p Ahh no. You'd first need to pay attention to the thread. Then if you want to learn about emacs you might consider using emacs to learn about emacs rather than info. Emacs is thoroughly documented on board. So wrong on both counts. ; ) Well, you might still get the point of my post: if you are not an emacs user and you don't want to use emacs just to read info pages, you are stuck with plain info, which is just as bad and sometimes even worse than man. Info is nice when you already know what you are looking for. But it's a pain to handle when you need to find something quick. Emacs helps with that, but first a non-emacs user would need help with emacs, which negates all the benefit. That's what I meant. I follow the thread since it started, by the way. Far as I know... no one but newbies think the manuals are written for newbies. They are not. But the truth is that newcomers need to use the man pages, like it or not. Be realistic. Neither is the info system. But it does have considerably more detail in some manuals and usually a hypertexted index and tables of contents. That alone (in many cases) renders it more usable. That entirely depends on the concrete man and info pages we are talking about, and how careful and smart its creator was. Once you are proficient with emacs, then info vs. man is probably a non-issue for you anyway, so I don't get your point there. Please... if you paid attention you'd know that the emacs thing was offered as an advanced method of using info. Note the keyword advanced. That already precludes newbies. Already commented on that. Further, how is that being proficient in emacs renders man or info a non-issue? Because if you know emacs you can probably find your way around the docs, it doesn't matter if they are man, info, readmes, html or whatever else you might imagine. Once more for those who are unwilling to read the thread before posting. Errm... I'll better not answer to that. There should be no posts beyond this point proclaiming how tuff it is to use emacs if you have no network on a fresh install... Or having to suffer through learning info to learn emacs to ah but who knows. So you word is definitive and infallible. -- Jesús Guerrero
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
Jesús Guerrero wrote: El Sab, 7 de Febrero de 2009, 19:37, Dale escribió: Jesús Guerrero wrote: El Vie, 6 de Febrero de 2009, 23:55, Dale escribió: [...] If you like Mandriva and you install it to use it, then it's ok, but to install it just to use it as a Gentoo installer it's a weird thing to say the least. Mandrake was what I switched from. I used Mandrake for about six months when I decided to switch, mostly because the upgrade process sucked. I didn't install Mandrake just to install Gentoo, it was what was already installed. Well, that makes more sense of course. That said, if I thought I would run into trouble and needed my dial-up to work during the install, I would stick in a old drive and install Mandrake and install from there. I'm not saying someone else should but setting up dial-up on most bootable CDs is not fun. I know from experience how funny winmodems can be. That's why when I used to use a modem I decided to buy a serial true modem and crapped out my conexant hsf winmodem. True modems work out of the box without any problem. All you need is to configure your dialer. Mine is a true external serial modem. I make sure it says it works with Linux or someone else tells me it does without the extra drivers. It's just that some don't include wvdial and other dialers at times. I don't know which ones do or don't and since I am on dial-up it is a HUGE deal. It can take me days to download a CD, even a fairly small one. Let's not even discuss a DVD one. :/ I can't download a huge CD just to find out it doesn't have a dialer or one that I can figure out. I am familiar with wvdial and pon/poff but I sort of like Kppp. lol Dale :-) :-)
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
Mine is a true external serial modem. I make sure it says it works with Linux or someone else tells me it does without the extra drivers. It's just that some don't include wvdial and other dialers at times. I don't know which ones do or don't and since I am on dial-up it is a HUGE deal. It can take me days to download a CD, even a fairly small one. Let's not even discuss a DVD one. :/ I can't download a huge CD just to find out it doesn't have a dialer or one that I can figure out. I am familiar with wvdial and pon/poff but I sort of like Kppp. lol Dale True. I've been in that team for a long time. I also used kppp for a long time, because the conexant seemed not to like anything else that I tried. However, by that time, it was probably due to my inexperience, but definitely the buggy hsf driver has a big part on it as well. The demo driver wouldn't even work. It only permitted up to 14kbps (of those 56 that the modem and the line where capable of) which provoked the connection to abort usually in less than 1 min. So I had to buy it without really knowing if it would work. It was a dumb buy, I should have invested in a true modem from the start, even if the price was a bit higher. -- Jesús Guerrero
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
* Nikos Chantziaras (rea...@arcor.de) [07.02.09 18:25]: Neil Bothwick wrote: On Sat, 07 Feb 2009 15:53:20 +0200, Nikos Chantziaras wrote: I'm not gonna duplicate what I wrote. Read it again :P Repeating something does not increase its validity. That's why I didn't repeat it in the first place maybe? You stated that Gentoo needs a GUI installer. The number of people using it without one shows that is simply not true. Hmm. OK, how 'bout this: Someone says that Linux is general is needed. The number of people using their computers without it shows that is simply not true. Faulty argument: We did not state that GUI installers are not needed in general, but that Gentoo in specific does not need one. For several reasons. Sebastian -- Religion ist das Opium des Volkes. Karl Marx s...@sti@N GÜNTHER mailto:sam...@guenther-roetgen.de pgp7akUeRH22k.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
* James Homuth (ja...@the-jdh.com) [07.02.09 18:29]: if Gentoo needs anything, it's a more accessible method of installing for those users who can't actually see the screen. Don't get me wrong, I love the distro for several reasons, but if I were to install linux locally on any of my desktops, it would probably be debian or ubuntu simply for the fact their methods of instalation are actually useable to me.bbb If i have to do *multiple* installs for several copumters, which I do not use myself, I choose debian, because fai rocks. Shouldn't this fai be adopted for Gentoo? I should investigate if this is possible... -- Religion ist das Opium des Volkes. Karl Marx s...@sti@N GÜNTHER mailto:sam...@guenther-roetgen.de pgpGueLOk3Rkd.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Sat, 7 Feb 2009 20:43:04 +0100, Sebastian Günther wrote: If i have to do *multiple* installs for several copumters, which I do not use myself, I choose debian, because fai rocks. Shouldn't this fai be adopted for Gentoo? I should investigate if this is possible... Did you look at quickstart, mentioned earlier in this discussion? -- Neil Bothwick Things are more like they are today than they ever have been before. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
El Dom, 8 de Febrero de 2009, 1:42, Harry Putnam escribió: Jesús Guerrero i92gu...@terra.es writes: There should be no posts beyond this point proclaiming how tuff it is to use emacs if you have no network on a fresh install... Or having to suffer through learning info to learn emacs to ah but who knows. So you word is definitive and infallible. Where did that come from? I'm saying the mumbo jumbo about some kind of catch22 with emacs and info is non-sense. The item has been cleared up. Using emacs to read info was only proposed as an advanced way to read info. That's all nothing more. Yes. That's true and I agree. But since emacs was proposed as a way to overcome the natural limitations of info, I guess that's completely fair if others point out also the disadvantages of doing so. All in all, we could also say how nice is man in konqueror, but that wouldn't be fair, would it? If you expose something the good part of something, everyone has the right to know also the disadvantage. Stating that from now on the rest of arguments should be ignored doesn't make that true. -- Jesús Guerrero
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Fri, 6 Feb 2009 08:17:46 +0100 (CET), Jesús Guerrero wrote: Well, in that sense, ALL the man pages of for anything that's more complext than ls will be horrible. There's no way to can shorten it unless you take features off from bash. It's a very powerful shell. Same goes for my other example: fvwm. And for mplayer/mencoder. The problem is that man pages are single pages and therefore only suitable for fairly short documents. The alternative, as used by zsh, is to split the information into several man pages, then you never know which one to look at. procmail is a good example of how to do this badly, with procmailrc's documentation being split across three man pages. That's why info is a much better format for complex or multipurpose programs. You'd expect to find a list of contents, chapters and an index in a printed reference book, electronic documentation should be no different. -- Neil Bothwick The sooner you fall behind the more time you'll have to catch up. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Fri, 6 Feb 2009 07:46:02 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote: Man pages are mostly written as reference documents. Like technical specs, they tend to list the capabilities of the app without giving the bigger picture overview as that is assumed to be known. That's right,they tend to assume that you already know what you want to do and are just a means of finding the syntax to do it. The problem is that for most software, they are the only documentation provided. -- Neil Bothwick EMail - garbage at the speed of light. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA512 Mike Edenfield wrote: On 2/5/2009 7:01 AM, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: no. He is an idiot if he does not read the docs. Simple. Like people who don't read the manual to their car or vcr and then complaining if something does not work. Idiots. They should read the manual is *not* a valid design goal for a system. At best, it's a justification or rationalization when outside constraints force a design to be non-intuitive. Given the choice between two otherwise equally functional systems (of any sort -- electronic, mechanical, digital, etc); if one requires me to spend extensive time reading an instruction manual to use and the other is designed to be easy to use out of the box -- the idiot is the person wasting their time reading instead of being productive. To use your own example, I have no problem figuring out how to start my car, turn on the A/C, tune my radio, and drive to work without reading the automobile manual. snip I am afraid I am going to have to disagree with you on this issue. If you don't read your car's manual, you'll have no idea what kind of maintenance schedule that is recommended by the maker of the car, nor will you know what the appropriate tire pressure is, and the recommended tires for your car. Of course, if you plan to do your own maintenance on your car, you'll need not only the manual, but also a technical manual and some tools, as well as a garage. Gentoo provides the tools and the equivalent of the manual and technical manual, and you provide the garage (the hard drive) and car (the memory, CPU, etc.) It is up to you how you use those tools, and if you feel you shouldn't have to read the docs to have a working distro, then maybe you should consider Ubuntu or something similar, where no reading is really required, and no familiarity with programming is needed. Sorry, but it just had to be said. I believe that Gentoo was made for programmers and others who wish to tinker under the hood to make a better, faster and more efficient distro suited to their needs. I have absolutely NO problem reading the docs, looking at source code, and the like, since these thing help me to learn more. The thing that separates Gentoo from other metadistributions (kudos to the person who first coined this term), is that Gentoo has a relatively large number of maintainers who write patches to fix bugs, test new versions of packages, and new packages for stability on a range of different systems, set up USE flags for each new version or package, and so on. So long as you know the system, and know one or more programming languages, you can also submit packages, patches and ebuilds for consideration, or just use them on your system. Real speed improvements may be achieved, if and only if, you know how a package is coded, gcc compiler options, and linker flags, and so long as you have optimized the kernel for *your* system, as well as the system libc (glibc for Gentoo). The compiler and linker will only do what you have told them. As has already been stated in this debate, the main benefits of Gentoo over binary distros are the virtually endless configurability, and being able to merge a package without a ton of additional required packages that you neither need nor want. In contrast, the binary distributions are compiled with all package options on (this can pull in hundreds of unnecessary packages, just for the want of one), and for maximum usability on just about any system: Case in point, for 64-bit systems, Debian and its child Ubuntu, have packages compiled to use the generic x86_64 option, so they can be used on an AMD64 and an IA64 system. In addition, all kernel options are either directly in the kernel, or modules that will eventually be required by some package. While it is possible to get the source and compile packages yourself, these distributions don't exactly make it easy. They are geared to people who don't want to read the docs - who want something that will set up a desktop environment out of the box. They are not geared to people who want to tinker around under the hood (to keep the car analogy going). JMHO. Oh, and one final question, and observation. Observation: Anyone who tries to fly an airplane (or repair one) without reading the docs, assuming no flight experience, is truly an idiot, and a dangerous one, at that. I think that it is better to compare Gentoo to an airplane than to a car or a VCR. Although both of the latter are certainly complex, they in no way come close to the complexity of aircraft. Whether your Gentoo will be a single engine propeller plane, or a fast jet is up to you... Again, JMHO. Regards, Chris -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- iQIcBAEBCgAGBQJJi/yMAAoJEIAhA8M9p9DAjzkP/0pJ0eEVSDW1u1mcGCMrvTck +FXPob9XWwjJHlfitGV6AZPXv+QJqBbIZYdxw+eT+Vhq2Th98pvZTK23yojhE8/1 yiLwHd7ujioSBpO4EQz/plTKQBAcRTvxZPBYO/clehcOM8SO4LB6N78BPsDdqH8b
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Friday 06 February 2009 10:57:51 Neil Bothwick wrote: On Fri, 6 Feb 2009 07:46:02 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote: Man pages are mostly written as reference documents. Like technical specs, they tend to list the capabilities of the app without giving the bigger picture overview as that is assumed to be known. That's right,they tend to assume that you already know what you want to do and are just a means of finding the syntax to do it. The problem is that for most software, they are the only documentation provided. And in the true open-source tradition, where the supplied documentation (aka man pages) is inadequate, someone else will write better documentation, or howtos, or publish Dummies Guide to $ARB_APP and let Google figure out where it is. If Grandma can easily use Google to find new shortcake recipes (an entirely reasonable thing for Grandma to do in this day and age), then it is not unreasonable for savvy users to have a look at the man page and say Oh look, this is a technical doc. Let me ask Google where better docs are ... -- alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Fri, 6 Feb 2009 11:11:07 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote: If Grandma can easily use Google to find new shortcake recipes (an entirely reasonable thing for Grandma to do in this day and age), then it is not unreasonable for savvy users to have a look at the man page and say Oh look, this is a technical doc. Let me ask Google where better docs are There are two drawbacks to this. First you need Internet access, not so good if you need help with ifconfig or route, or you are using your laptop on a train. Secondly, the Internet is full of useful advice, and some of it is even accurate. Only documentation supplied with the package can be assumed to be correct and up to date. -- Neil Bothwick When you said you wanted to live in sin, I didn't know you meant sloth signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Freitag 06 Februar 2009, Neil Bothwick wrote: On Fri, 6 Feb 2009 08:17:46 +0100 (CET), Jesús Guerrero wrote: Well, in that sense, ALL the man pages of for anything that's more complext than ls will be horrible. There's no way to can shorten it unless you take features off from bash. It's a very powerful shell. Same goes for my other example: fvwm. And for mplayer/mencoder. The problem is that man pages are single pages and therefore only suitable for fairly short documents. The alternative, as used by zsh, is to split the information into several man pages, then you never know which one to look at. procmail is a good example of how to do this badly, with procmailrc's documentation being split across three man pages. That's why info is a much better format for complex or multipurpose programs. You'd expect to find a list of contents, chapters and an index in a printed reference book, electronic documentation should be no different. except that info is horrible. I hate info. If you don't know exactly what you are looking for, you are lost. And you can never sure in which part they hid the information you are looking for. Oh - and the navigation? A nightmare. I prefer man. Even huge manpages. You can easily search them and if you don't know what you are looking for you can glanze them over quickly. I hate info.
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Freitag 06 Februar 2009, Alan McKinnon wrote: On Friday 06 February 2009 14:36:12 Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: except that info is horrible. I hate info. If you don't know exactly what you are looking for, you are lost. And you can never sure in which part they hid the information you are looking for. Oh - and the navigation? A nightmare. I prefer man. Even huge manpages. You can easily search them and if you don't know what you are looking for you can glanze them over quickly. The kde ioslave for info makes this somewhat tolerable. At least you move around in a webpage-like environment that feels familiar. usually when I need the 'help' of info pages stuff like X is not available
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Fri, 6 Feb 2009 14:58:56 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote: I prefer man. Even huge manpages. You can easily search them and if you don't know what you are looking for you can glanze them over quickly. The kde ioslave for info makes this somewhat tolerable. At least you move around in a webpage-like environment that feels familiar. Which begs the question, why not use HTML? It can be read on just about anything, searched and either split into chapters or presented as a single page. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Friday 06 February 2009 15:29:21 Neil Bothwick wrote: On Fri, 6 Feb 2009 14:58:56 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote: I prefer man. Even huge manpages. You can easily search them and if you don't know what you are looking for you can glanze them over quickly. The kde ioslave for info makes this somewhat tolerable. At least you move around in a webpage-like environment that feels familiar. Which begs the question, why not use HTML? It can be read on just about anything, searched and either split into chapters or presented as a single page. The cynic in me says that it's because Tim Berners-Lee invented HTML, not Richard M Stallman. -- alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Freitag 06 Februar 2009, Neil Bothwick wrote: On Fri, 6 Feb 2009 14:58:56 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote: I prefer man. Even huge manpages. You can easily search them and if you don't know what you are looking for you can glanze them over quickly. The kde ioslave for info makes this somewhat tolerable. At least you move around in a webpage-like environment that feels familiar. Which begs the question, why not use HTML? It can be read on just about anything, searched and either split into chapters or presented as a single page. because gnu is too l33t for html?
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On 6 Feb 2009, at 13:29, Neil Bothwick wrote: ... Which begs the question, why not use HTML? It can be read on just about anything, searched and either split into chapters or presented as a single page. AIUI info pages are compiled from Texinfo source and thus can be automagically produced in other formats, including HTML. Stroller.
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Feb 6, 2009, at 9:27 AM, Grant Edwards gra...@visi.com wrote: On 2009-02-06, Alan McKinnon alan.mckin...@gmail.com wrote: On Friday 06 February 2009 15:29:21 Neil Bothwick wrote: On Fri, 6 Feb 2009 14:58:56 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote: I prefer man. Even huge manpages. You can easily search them and if you don't know what you are looking for you can glanze them over quickly. The kde ioslave for info makes this somewhat tolerable. At least you move around in a webpage-like environment that feels familiar. Which begs the question, why not use HTML? It can be read on just about anything, searched and either split into chapters or presented as a single page. The cynic in me says that it's because Tim Berners-Lee invented HTML, not Richard M Stallman. Info has been around a lot longer than HTML, but I think you're largely correct. -- Grant Edwards grante Yow! LBJ, LBJ, how many at JOKES did you tell today??! visi.com I'd wager to think that if we did use HTML, we'd simply argue about the order of it's presentation or use of bold and underlines.
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Friday 06 February 2009 14:36:12 Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: except that info is horrible. I hate info. If you don't know exactly what you are looking for, you are lost. And you can never sure in which part they hid the information you are looking for. Oh - and the navigation? A nightmare. I prefer man. Even huge manpages. You can easily search them and if you don't know what you are looking for you can glanze them over quickly. The kde ioslave for info makes this somewhat tolerable. At least you move around in a webpage-like environment that feels familiar. -- alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Freitag 06 Februar 2009, Christopher Walters wrote: for 64-bit systems, Debian and its child Ubuntu, have packages compiled to use the generic x86_64 option, so they can be used on an AMD64 and an IA64 system. In addition, all kernel options are either directly in the kernel, or modules that will eventually be required by some package. ugh, sooo wrong. amd64/x86_64 is the same. Intels emt64 is the clone. IA64 (itanium) is a completly different beast. Itanium doesn't even run x86 software (well). They have nothing in common.
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
Grant Edwards wrote: On 2009-02-06, Saphirus Sage saphirus...@gmail.com wrote: Which begs the question, why not use HTML? It can be read on just about anything, searched and either split into chapters or presented as a single page. The cynic in me says that it's because Tim Berners-Lee invented HTML, not Richard M Stallman. Info has been around a lot longer than HTML, but I think you're largely correct. I'd wager to think that if we did use HTML, we'd simply argue about the order of it's presentation or use of bold and underlines. And let's not forget blinkFlashing Text!/blink (shudder). Oh no, it's 1999's geocities all over again! Yeah, I'd rather not see man or info come to that...well, at least man.
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA512 Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: On Freitag 06 Februar 2009, Christopher Walters wrote: for 64-bit systems, Debian and its child Ubuntu, have packages compiled to use the generic x86_64 option, so they can be used on an AMD64 and an IA64 system. In addition, all kernel options are either directly in the kernel, or modules that will eventually be required by some package. ugh, sooo wrong. amd64/x86_64 is the same. Intels emt64 is the clone. IA64 (itanium) is a completly different beast. Itanium doesn't even run x86 software (well). They have nothing in common. I am well aware that AMD64 and IA64 are different, use different instruction sets, and different kernel configurations (AMD and Intel diverged many years ago). Perhaps I mistyped, or perhaps you misunderstood me, but my main points remain the same. It is not cool to pick one part of a person's message and criticize it, while ignoring the remainder of said message. Especially when said message is supporting your points. Regards, Chris -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- iQIcBAEBCgAGBQJJjJZZAAoJEIAhA8M9p9DAQGoP/1Lsc7EVsfwE7u4MRyExw4kr 3wQJkzYBUzLR8DfMH3Vf0eGgf8am59vmiJFDnOS/ko31R4weUU4Q1xOjeIwkqXjS Mlw+HzrHcMmVYk0steAXj8DLExEs8vxAPhEFWr4jvXOmL6AWtOv05cps1zYmXTbk D5UEdqsoz2RfYCj4EhcH3SPEv+Vtr7dZLc+cmjOrVlOGokywPQwsa+/oU59bLfPd 4nxqHRSNh+sc6AEYriKEHnd1svO6hCHweug/56G/DaquviEy7iy3j69pAE+IMXNM JvQC5zIcLjzKKWXu7TLA1U/TGwUDnL+btfmRZ83LqaTqNB/QcRJynm+9aJiHmRUi V7bFBUlPOWCJ8F2BQCs06EbcdEUbhzD6lTlKYAIx6SIaYjk+CJTlqal9cv9jk+is 1lPAFWmIOOgwZ9smtpuvOgtjbVllPuDI5M8rzYUixS3mDJt6wmq7NQdaPGDJe3J6 KdRxpjf7vwcBsvs+DbE9kVtUa+bHQjsA8GQ/vsGpnYCtN6RMOC+VlqjLiVXClXXs GTO40LjBkPc/kgKD18XOxe0nGg8Ozws+o0jYt8S0y1F7d33mDQjwy2nNqya3q229 FFk0W5URZfbhhBQNrK9MZyybeygk25s8XtK58CKf6hCVwcIV9adDTA07wBLDwjfu 1/zUiDVRZrGPUFq1rSMh =LkWr -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Freitag 06 Februar 2009, Christopher Walters wrote: Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: On Freitag 06 Februar 2009, Christopher Walters wrote: for 64-bit systems, Debian and its child Ubuntu, have packages compiled to use the generic x86_64 option, so they can be used on an AMD64 and an IA64 system. In addition, all kernel options are either directly in the kernel, or modules that will eventually be required by some package. ugh, sooo wrong. amd64/x86_64 is the same. Intels emt64 is the clone. IA64 (itanium) is a completly different beast. Itanium doesn't even run x86 software (well). They have nothing in common. I am well aware that AMD64 and IA64 are different, use different instruction sets, and different kernel configurations (AMD and Intel diverged many years ago). Perhaps I mistyped, or perhaps you misunderstood me, but my main points remain the same. It is not cool to pick one part of a person's message and criticize it, while ignoring the remainder of said message. Especially when said message is supporting your points. Regards, Chris because the message was wrong. You can't compile for 'generic x86_64' and have the software run on itanium.
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
and what do I, if I need to read info to be able to install emacs to read info?
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
* Nikos Chantziaras (rea...@arcor.de) [05.02.09 09:12]: Than I'll rephrase my statement: Gentoo would need a non-bugged GUI installer ;) No, Gentoo needs no GUI or CLI installer. It is very good, that if you install Gentoo for the first time, you must actually read the documentation, because it introduces you in the whole managing Gentoo stuff. What is important in the Handbook are not the commandline examples, but the surrunding text. Also you cannot just click away any defaults: Gentoo is about choise and YOU have to make the choices even when you are just installing. And you can only make good choices, when you read about them. BTW: Most of the choices have no meaningful default. What would make things easier is a fully automated installer, that just duplicates/repeat your well-thought-out choices on reinstalls or multiple installs. Something like: Her is an xml file, eat this and see you tomorrow at lunch time with a smiling SLiM. Then they ran away yelling how bad this gentoo crap is that doesn't work at all unless you do a lot of black magic on the command line! Because I want full control over my system, but only clicking next. The OS should read my mind! I don't think anyone should care about that. Installation and maintenance are two different things. A good GUI installer would pretty much allow you to do the same things as the CLI installer. It's just a different interface. And besides, installation is much more standardized than actual maintenance. There's no reason why a GUI installer can't do the same things as the CLI one. You'll just have GUI widgets instead of text-mode characters, maybe with a lot of automation and safe defaults thrown in. Well, there isn't even a CLI installer. And on Gentoo I have to disagree on the fact that that installation is always the same, the very fact of kernel configuration makes it impossible to standardize anything. And Genkernel is so Un-Gentoo: If you don't know how to configure your kernel, you have chosen the wrong way at the very beginning. Personally, even though I'm an old fart (I installed Slackware when it first came out, used it for years), I prefer GUI installers. Installation is *boring*. I need to do the steps manually even though they're pretty much the same every time you install. You don't need a GUI: you need an automatic installer. I'm OK with CLI maintenance. But for the installer I really prefer GUI. If we clear that from the beginning so everyone knows what to expect from gentoo AND WHAT GENTOO EXPECTS FROM YOU then that problem is gone. You don't need to make such a statement through the installer. There are other, more suitable places for this. Like in the docs, website, or a notice in the... installer :) Also, Gentoo isn't really black magic. There's no good reason why emerge for example isn't GUI based. Or revdep-rebuild. Or layman. Or... I hope you get the point ;) Yes, those things need a lot of work and there are no people willing to do the task. But I'm just trying to make a point here: the way you do maintenance in Gentoo isn't based on the traditional Unix tools. That means, you could have GUIs for all of them. Well, you have to have CLI, because X is not mandatory. Besides: If you want GUI, write it. It is not that hard to write a wrapper around those tools, which uses gtk or qt or whatever gui toolkit. But I'm drifting. The installer is pretty much separated from all this. After all, all it needs to do is set up stage3 and tweak the settings. GUIs for the simple things is good. Maybe CLI for the hairy stuff. I hate GUIs. Clicking is for Apple Users... Someone would argue that's too hard to start, but that's why we have excellent docs, mailing lists, forums and irc, with a very high traffic and lots of friendly people giving away their time for free to help you. So, whomever can't find a way is either too lazy or too shy to talk to the people around. Gentoo was never meant to win a popularity price. I prefer to stay without nothing at all that to have the lot of problems that the installer has been creating during 3 years of existence. It harmed the gentoo popularity (if you like that argument) much more than the lack of a installer. But popularity is good for the project. It ensures that it stays healthy, supported and can draw in new devs. If popularity gows down, devs leave, more bugs show up that don't get fixed, etc. But Gentoo is for nerds. For those who know what they are doing. For the ones that what to learn what is really going on and the ones that only want those things they need, not what a maintainer thought would be useful to have. Gentoo does not need the usual computer user nor can it serve them: There is too less knowledge to make appropiate choices. This does not disclose people who have the faintest idea what a kernel config from using it, but from maintaining and
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
Am Freitag, 6. Februar 2009 22:27:12 schrieb Sebastian Günther: Did you ever read anything the Windows Installer What the heck is a Windows Installer? *SCNR* Bye... Dirk signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Freitag 06 Februar 2009, Harry Putnam wrote: Volker Armin Hemmann volkerar...@googlemail.com writes: and what do I, if I need to read info to be able to install emacs to read info? You appear to be taking a potshot, not really adding to the discussion. I know you are not incapable of installing emacs and we both know you can read info without it quite well. So I'm left wondering why you add this combative post. easy - what if you need info to get networking working - and without networking you can not download emacs? man is easy to read. Always. Info? Not. People are discussing HTML, which of course needs some reader... I'm pointing out a more advanced way to use info that may appeal to some. less can do html just fine. And of course you can install emacs... for lots of reasons as I do. Its an excellent editor in console or X. Reading info with it is just one more of its excellent capabilities. I used xemacs in the past - which is even better. But today kate and nano replaced it for me.
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Fri, Feb 6, 2009 at 1:38 PM, Harry Putnam rea...@newsguy.com wrote: Dirk Heinrichs dirk.heinri...@online.de writes: Am Freitag, 6. Februar 2009 22:27:12 schrieb Sebastian Günther: Did you ever read anything the Windows Installer What the heck is a Windows Installer? *SCNR* Thirty five reboots and several hours Isn't it amazing that this is still true? I just brought up XP under vmware for the first time. To get through SP3 with virus protection but no applications was around 15-20 reboots. At least they are fast in vmware... - Mark
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
Harry Putnam wrote: Dirk Heinrichs dirk.heinri...@online.de writes: Am Freitag, 6. Februar 2009 22:27:12 schrieb Sebastian Günther: Did you ever read anything the Windows Installer What the heck is a Windows Installer? *SCNR* Thirty five reboots and several hours Sorry, can't resist as I am currently setting up another gentoo box. A few reboots are kind of expected during a normal gentoo install. 1) after following directions need to reboot into your new system. 2) after updating gcc to the latest and recompiling the system. 3) after finding stupid oversight in fstab (replace ROOT,BOOT,SWAP with real devices - embarrassed that I missed that one) 4) while installing X and find that kernel has nvidia FB enabled. 5) while installing kde-meta and find that kernel doesn't have HWMON enabled. Admittedly #3 was oversight and the last two are optional but serve as an example that you probably will not get your kernel config right the first time. As for the hours to set up, if you include compile time for X and KDE, several hours starts to look really optimistic for a BE-2400, even when using distcc to a OC (3GHz) Q9300. LEt's face it, it's a two day job to install gentoo desktop. The time savings come later, like trying to get HD Audio over HDMI (at least that's my hope). Using this real world example, I originally tried kubuntu 8.10 but that didn't have alsa 0.18 (it had 0.17 while gentoo ~x86 has 0.19), so had to use two different package management systems (dpkg and apt) to get their toolchain installed, then used a third package to try to build alsa, which naturally failed. Instead of trying to hack around with their inconsistent system, I said time for gentoo... Have fun, Roy
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
Roy Wright wrote: Harry Putnam wrote: Dirk Heinrichs dirk.heinri...@online.de writes: Am Freitag, 6. Februar 2009 22:27:12 schrieb Sebastian Günther: Did you ever read anything the Windows Installer What the heck is a Windows Installer? *SCNR* Thirty five reboots and several hours Sorry, can't resist as I am currently setting up another gentoo box. A few reboots are kind of expected during a normal gentoo install. 1) after following directions need to reboot into your new system. 2) after updating gcc to the latest and recompiling the system. 3) after finding stupid oversight in fstab (replace ROOT,BOOT,SWAP with real devices - embarrassed that I missed that one) 4) while installing X and find that kernel has nvidia FB enabled. 5) while installing kde-meta and find that kernel doesn't have HWMON enabled. Admittedly #3 was oversight and the last two are optional but serve as an example that you probably will not get your kernel config right the first time. As for the hours to set up, if you include compile time for X and KDE, several hours starts to look really optimistic for a BE-2400, even when using distcc to a OC (3GHz) Q9300. LEt's face it, it's a two day job to install gentoo desktop. The time savings come later, like trying to get HD Audio over HDMI (at least that's my hope). Using this real world example, I originally tried kubuntu 8.10 but that didn't have alsa 0.18 (it had 0.17 while gentoo ~x86 has 0.19), so had to use two different package management systems (dpkg and apt) to get their toolchain installed, then used a third package to try to build alsa, which naturally failed. Instead of trying to hack around with their inconsistent system, I said time for gentoo... Have fun, Roy This was one thing I liked about Mandrake, now Mandriva. Put in the CD, boot up, set up drives, select ALL the software you can stand, let it install and then reboot. What really made it good, when you reboot, ALL your software is already installed. Dang that was cool. It doesn't run as fast as Gentoo but if you want a Linux install in a hurry, that is one way to get it. Then you can use Mandrake to do your Gentoo install. chroot works wonderfully. Run into a problem, just go to a browser and search the forums etc to get help. All this beats winders hands down. Dale :-) :-) P. S. Can anyone tell I hate winders? Is it obvious? LOL
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
* Dale (rdalek1...@gmail.com) [06.02.09 23:56]: This was one thing I liked about Mandrake, now Mandriva. Put in the CD, boot up, set up drives, select ALL the software you can stand, let it install and then reboot. What really made it good, when you reboot, ALL your software is already installed. Dang that was cool. It doesn't run as fast as Gentoo but if you want a Linux install in a hurry, that is one way to get it. Then you can use Mandrake to do your Gentoo install. chroot works wonderfully. Run into a problem, just go to a browser and search the forums etc to get help. *Install* Mandrake, to install Gentoo? Where were you when Klaus invented Koppix... All this beats winders hands down. This surely not... Dale Sebastian -- Religion ist das Opium des Volkes. Karl Marx s...@sti@N GÜNTHER mailto:sam...@guenther-roetgen.de pgpRHxrx0K2Vv.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
Sebastian Günther wrote: * Dale (rdalek1...@gmail.com) [06.02.09 23:56]: This was one thing I liked about Mandrake, now Mandriva. Put in the CD, boot up, set up drives, select ALL the software you can stand, let it install and then reboot. What really made it good, when you reboot, ALL your software is already installed. Dang that was cool. It doesn't run as fast as Gentoo but if you want a Linux install in a hurry, that is one way to get it. Then you can use Mandrake to do your Gentoo install. chroot works wonderfully. Run into a problem, just go to a browser and search the forums etc to get help. *Install* Mandrake, to install Gentoo? Where were you when Klaus invented Koppix... At the time I had never heard of Knoppix and I am not even sure if it was around then. Also, I already had Mandrake installed. That was my first Linux. All this beats winders hands down. This surely not... Yep, when I saw winders 3.1 and what a mess it was, I quit my puter job and went to work for a magazine company. Got out of the puter mess. I have never bought anything M$ either. I have never had anything winders on my computer either. Dale Sebastian Dale :-) :-)
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Samstag 07 Februar 2009, Harry Putnam wrote: Volker Armin Hemmann volkerar...@googlemail.com writes: On Freitag 06 Februar 2009, Harry Putnam wrote: Volker Armin Hemmann volkerar...@googlemail.com writes: and what do I, if I need to read info to be able to install emacs to read info? You appear to be taking a potshot, not really adding to the discussion. I know you are not incapable of installing emacs and we both know you can read info without it quite well. So I'm left wondering why you add this combative post. easy - what if you need info to get networking working - and without networking you can not download emacs? Once more: users can read info with the stand alone info reader just fine. (No need to install anything) no they can't. The standard info reader is a horrible, horrible mess. Navigating is a nightmare, the information you are looking for might be hidden *somewhere* and if you are really lucky isn't even there at all. But you can't find out quickly. I had to help a lot of people in the past who were not able to find anything in info because of the chapters and hard ways to navigate it. man is easy to read. Always. Info? Not. I respect your experience, talent and especially many contributions to this list. But, you present your opinions as if they are acts of nature. Its good to remember its only your opinion not a law of physics or some other indisputable fact. Thanks for the sweets but I am not the only one who thinks that info is the worst way to display information. Sure, some people love it. But a lot of people don't. And what you just told me is true for you too: just because you like it doesn't make info a good tool. If you do then an indexed document with a table of contents, is going to be `easier', in the sense that you will be able to navigate it better and pull in relevant comments on related matters easily. Therefore you will learn more, quicker. I have never been able to find information in info quickly. I do have found information in man pages VERY quickly. People are discussing HTML, which of course needs some reader... I'm pointing out a more advanced way to use info that may appeal to some. less can do html just fine. None the less, a second application is required. If I recall correctly less is not part of a stage[23] install and therefore must be installed. you recall wrongly. less is part of stage1 and stage3. But even if I'm wrong, and it is, and you don't have to install something, we aren't necessarily talking here about the barest bone case. You keep raising that but I've seen no one argue against man in that event. At least not me. even busybox has an built in less. You can't go much 'barest bone' than just busybox. In a `no network' situation: Once I've tried `man' and still have trouble, I use the stand alone info reader.. In other words, man is my first choice. I agree that for many things man can't be beat, but for something like the bash documentation info is vastly superior. and for everything else from cat, dd, tar to unzip, watch, wget, zcat. man is superior. Even gcc manpage is much easier to read than info gcc. And if you have the opportunity to use emacs to read the info documents.. that's all the better. or maybe the only way without getting lost? [...] I used xemacs in the past - which is even better. But today kate and nano replaced it for me. Once again your opinion is presented as hard fact. where? Because of the 'xemacs is even better'? Well, you are stating all the time that info is perfect for big things like bash - and then you are critizing me for stating unsupportable hard facts? Pretty ironic, don't you think? My opinion is that Xemacs is NOT better and in fact is inferior in many ways, but that is for another thread... and probably not worth the effort anyway since that argument will take on religious overtones very quickly. which does not change the fact, that for me (!): a) xemacs was better b) katenano are better than xemacs and c) when I have to use emacs, I am missing both nano and kate.
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Thursday 05 February 2009 09:57:38 Dale wrote: Alan McKinnon wrote: On Thursday 05 February 2009 09:28:50 Jesús Guerrero wrote: There are enough easy-to-use distros. Let us, masochists, live in peace. We love pain, why do people care so much about what we do with our privacy? :P [it's a joke, in case anyone didn't notice] There have been several attempts to make a decent installer. They all failed miserably and got abandoned. Why? Because to tell the truth, no one has an authentic interest in the matter. The simple answer is most probably the right one. To add to you (excellent) arguments: There is no GUI admin tool for gentoo. You drive this puppy on the command line with tools like emerge, equery, genlop, layman and q. That's how it works, we are all comfortable with this, and this is good. I can't think of a single reason why the installer should operate in a different manner to the way the thing will be used. Does porthole count? I use it sometimes and it is well all right. I miss etcat myself. Just as I was starting to get used to it, it disappeared. You're just stirring the pot Dale :-) I know for a fact that you can hold your own with emerge and eix :-) -- alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
Alan McKinnon wrote: On Thursday 05 February 2009 09:57:38 Dale wrote: Alan McKinnon wrote: On Thursday 05 February 2009 09:28:50 Jesús Guerrero wrote: There are enough easy-to-use distros. Let us, masochists, live in peace. We love pain, why do people care so much about what we do with our privacy? :P [it's a joke, in case anyone didn't notice] There have been several attempts to make a decent installer. They all failed miserably and got abandoned. Why? Because to tell the truth, no one has an authentic interest in the matter. The simple answer is most probably the right one. To add to you (excellent) arguments: There is no GUI admin tool for gentoo. You drive this puppy on the command line with tools like emerge, equery, genlop, layman and q. That's how it works, we are all comfortable with this, and this is good. I can't think of a single reason why the installer should operate in a different manner to the way the thing will be used. Does porthole count? I use it sometimes and it is well all right. I miss etcat myself. Just as I was starting to get used to it, it disappeared. You're just stirring the pot Dale :-) I know for a fact that you can hold your own with emerge and eix :-) I do OK with emerge. Eix, I know two uses. eix-sync and eix package-name. I do know a few equery commands tho. I suspect it will disappear soon since I am learning a little bit about it. lol Dale :-) :-)
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 3:29 AM, Nikos Chantziaras rea...@arcor.de wrote: Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: On Donnerstag 05 Februar 2009, Nikos Chantziaras wrote: Sebastián Magrí wrote: The installation experience with the traditional method must be mandatory... That's why I think we are better now that GLI is deprecated... That's not good. It hurts Gentoo's popularity if it's not easy to install. But since there are not enough devs left for the GUI installer, not much that can be done. Gentoo isn't unsuitable for a GUI installer. It's stage 3, after all. gentoo had its highest popularity when there were no gui installer (and no stable tree). This kept the stupid ' I don't want to read docs' crowd away. That's a contradicting statement. How was the popularity at highest if it kept a crowd away? Because once those who know what they were doing have to resort to Learn to read, Read The Friendly Manual, and Ever heard of Google? so often, after likely having answered the same questions 10+times each, they all get a bad reputation, hurting the real popularity of the system. Also, you can't count popularity of something like Gentoo from the number that start to try it and give up half way through the install... but rather by those who're still using it some meaningful amount of time. All... *entirely* wild guesses, though. -- Poison [BLX] Joshua M. Murphy
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
El Jue, 5 de Febrero de 2009, 9:11, Nikos Chantziaras escribió: Jesús Guerrero wrote: El Jue, 5 de Febrero de 2009, 7:07, Nikos Chantziaras escribió: Sebastián Magrà wrote: The installation experience with the traditional method must be mandatory... That's why I think we are better now that GLI is deprecated... That's not good. It hurts Gentoo's popularity if it's not easy to install. But since there are not enough devs left for the GUI installer, not much that can be done. Gentoo isn't unsuitable for a GUI installer. It's stage 3, after all. That's definitely good. It never worked and newbies came to Gentoo thinking that it as some kind of uberfaster ubuntu thing that could be installed by just clicking next. Than I'll rephrase my statement: Gentoo would need a non-bugged GUI installer ;) I wouldn't have anything against that. But after seeing one failure after another I think that lots of users are scared to see yet-another-one that will only make our lives more difficult. I wouldn't mind about it if it's developed as experimental stuff and NEVER ever again included as a valid method of installation in the handbook unless A) it's as rock solid as the command line B) the user ends the procedure knowing the same things about gentoo that you would know if you installed by hand (i am particularly concerned about this one, and I simply can't see how a GUI would accomplish this one at all) Then they ran away yelling how bad this gentoo crap is that doesn't work at all unless you do a lot of black magic on the command line! Because I want full control over my system, but only clicking next. The OS should read my mind! I don't think anyone should care about that. Well, I only said that because you talked about popularity. Otherwise, we agree: I don't care at all. You made some good arguments about GUIs, and I understand them. We could have a simplified and standardized installer that work with a standard config. However I don't wanna live yet another nightmare. Also, Gentoo isn't really black magic. There's no good reason why emerge for example isn't GUI based. Or revdep-rebuild. Or layman. Or... I hope you get the point ;) Yes, those things need a lot of work and there are no people willing to do the task. But I'm just trying to make a point here: the way you do maintenance in Gentoo isn't based on the traditional Unix tools. That means, you could have GUIs for all of them. But I'm drifting. The installer is pretty much separated from all this. After all, all it needs to do is set up stage3 and tweak the settings. Well. I suppose it's about tastes. But the shell is where emerge and ebuilds belong for me. After all, the ebuilds are nothing but bash scripts. You could do frontends to it, but it would still be a lot of python and bash code behind that. With these tools it happens the same that with the installer. At one point, tools like these appear, they are developed for some time and work mostly ok but not perfect, then they get stagnated, they break more and more and more with the time, until it comes the day they are unusable and the project dies. I guess that -again- because there's zero interest. When you need to compile something: A) it can't get any simpler, nicer nor faster than doing emerge something, really B) the last thing you needs is a heavy interface taking away your ram and cpu, emerge itself is heavy enough as it is, there's no need to add weight to the thing C) you won't like when X is closed in the middle of emerge that's why you run emerges on an vt or a screen session, in text mode And probably many more. I would love, though, to see a curses frontend where I can dive into my portage dirs in an mc-ish fashion, which is where portage frontens make any sense for me: when you just want to take a look around and see what's in there :) -- Jesús Guerrero
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Thu, 05 Feb 2009 10:13:54 +0200, Nikos Chantziaras wrote: I can't think of a single reason why the installer should operate in a different manner to the way the thing will be used. Because installation is boring. The easier it is, the better. There is an automated installer in development. It is script based, so you avoid the boredom factor without shielding people from the fact that they will need to use the terminal and text files once it is installed. http://agaffney.org/quickstart.php -- Neil Bothwick A phaser is the universal communicator. þ Worf signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: optimized for your system -- huh?
A downside is that you'll need fast machines to comfortably build packages. I wouldn't use it on my Pentium 3 800Mhz for example. That would take ages to compile system/world with recent GCC versions. I guess GCC was much faster in the 2.x versions back then? How painful is it, really, to run the job when you are asleep or away from the machine? Cron the update or use at to get the changes you want when you are away from the console. -- Steven Lembark85-09 90th St. Workhorse Computing Woodhaven, NY, 11421 lemb...@wrkhors.com +1 888 359 3508
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: optimized for your system -- huh?
On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 12:12 PM, Steven Lembark lemb...@wrkhors.com wrote: How painful is it, really, to run the job when you are asleep or away from the machine? Cron the update or use at to get the changes you want when you are away from the console. Not painful, uncomfortable: When I get back home my room will be hot and the current build would probably fail again on kde-base/systemsettings :) Regards Dirk
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Donnerstag 05 Februar 2009, Nikos Chantziaras wrote: Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: On Donnerstag 05 Februar 2009, Nikos Chantziaras wrote: Sebastián Magrí wrote: The installation experience with the traditional method must be mandatory... That's why I think we are better now that GLI is deprecated... That's not good. It hurts Gentoo's popularity if it's not easy to install. But since there are not enough devs left for the GUI installer, not much that can be done. Gentoo isn't unsuitable for a GUI installer. It's stage 3, after all. gentoo had its highest popularity when there were no gui installer (and no stable tree). This kept the stupid ' I don't want to read docs' crowd away. That's a contradicting statement. How was the popularity at highest if it kept a crowd away? because it kept the 'i am too cool to read the docs' idiots away. Being forced to read the documentation is a good thing - and it did not hurt gentoo's popularity. Only after it started to catering to idiots and more and more of loud mouthed 'I am the centre of the universe, I don't need to read docs, use google or bugzilla. I demand an answer and help NOW' assholes came on board, the popularity went down.
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
my style has always been to get the minimal installer. chroot, install kernel to my specs then boot to hard drive, then start building it to how i want it built. the handbook is pretty specific and straight-forward. one just has to follow it. i've done N installs over the years and i still turn to the handbook, just to keep track. anyway. if people find the installer difficult maybe gentoo isn't for them. On 02 5, 09, at 7:01 PM, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: On Donnerstag 05 Februar 2009, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:. I can't think of a single reason why the installer should operate in a different manner to the way the thing will be used. Because installation is boring. The easier it is, the better. wrong. The installation needs a certain difficulty to keep idiots away. Nobody needs idiots (except maybe ubuntu). yes, installation is VERY boring. that's part of the compromise, i guess. Cocoy www.twitter.com/cocoy People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware -- Alan Kay
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Donnerstag 05 Februar 2009, Nikos Chantziaras wrote: Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: On Donnerstag 05 Februar 2009, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:. I can't think of a single reason why the installer should operate in a different manner to the way the thing will be used. Because installation is boring. The easier it is, the better. wrong. The installation needs a certain difficulty to keep idiots away. Nobody needs idiots (except maybe ubuntu). That is insulting. My mother uses Ubuntu. Thanks for calling her an idiot. no, I didn't call her 'idiot'. I am just stating that ubuntu tries to cater for idiots. Obviously if someone wants to use his computer in order to get something done without doing a Ph.D on Portage and /etc first, then that person is an idiot. no. He is an idiot if he does not read the docs. Simple. Like people who don't read the manual to their car or vcr and then complaining if something does not work. Idiots.
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 1:36 PM, Nikos Chantziaras rea...@arcor.de wrote: Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: wrong. The installation needs a certain difficulty to keep idiots away. Nobody needs idiots (except maybe ubuntu). That is insulting. My mother uses Ubuntu. Thanks for calling her an idiot. Obviously if someone wants to use his computer in order to get something done without doing a Ph.D on Portage and /etc first, then that person is an idiot. Great thinking. Fortunately, there are people (like the Ubuntu folks) who don't think that way and are trying to make Linux more popular to people who need a computer to do tasks that are not related to the computer itself. Idiot is such a strong word (I should probably get another name for my dog). The type of user I don't like is the ignorant type. Innocent users are ok, they don't know, but ignorant users choose not to know. And so often these ignorant users demand that they should be able to do anything on a computer. If you wish to benefit from using computers, you should be prepared to spend some time to get to know how the stuff works. The more you want to do, the more you need to know. Not: I want amarok without mysql and xyz plugin running all silky and smooth, but don't give me any command line run-arounds or lots of talk about USE flags. Regards Dirk
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Thu, 05 Feb 2009 13:36:45 +0200, Nikos Chantziaras wrote: Great thinking. Fortunately, there are people (like the Ubuntu folks) who don't think that way and are trying to make Linux more popular to people who need a computer to do tasks that are not related to the computer itself. Kudos to Ubuntu for that and for what they have done in popularising Linux. But Gentoo is not Ubuntu, the distros have different aims and a different set of users. Gentoo should no more aim for their target user base than their colour scheme. -- Neil Bothwick Cereal Killer Strikes Again! Cap'n Crunch found dead... signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: optimized for your system -- huh?
On Thu, 05 Feb 2009 12:22:35 +0200, Nikos Chantziaras wrote: How painful is it, really, to run the job when you are asleep or away from the machine? Cron the update or use at to get the changes you want when you are away from the console. Well, to answer you question, it is very painful. man at will ease the pain. Neil - compiling KDE 4.2 on a 900MHz netbook. -- Neil Bothwick We are Microsoft of Borg. Prepare to The application assimilation has caused a General Protection Fault and must exit immediately. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Donnerstag 05 Februar 2009, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:. I can't think of a single reason why the installer should operate in a different manner to the way the thing will be used. Because installation is boring. The easier it is, the better. wrong. The installation needs a certain difficulty to keep idiots away. Nobody needs idiots (except maybe ubuntu).
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Thu, Feb 05, 2009 at 02:26:40AM -0600, Dale wrote: Alan McKinnon wrote: On Thursday 05 February 2009 09:57:38 Dale wrote: Alan McKinnon wrote: On Thursday 05 February 2009 09:28:50 Jesús Guerrero wrote: There are enough easy-to-use distros. Let us, masochists, live in peace. We love pain, why do people care so much about what we do with our privacy? :P [it's a joke, in case anyone didn't notice] There have been several attempts to make a decent installer. They all failed miserably and got abandoned. Why? Because to tell the truth, no one has an authentic interest in the matter. The simple answer is most probably the right one. To add to you (excellent) arguments: There is no GUI admin tool for gentoo. You drive this puppy on the command line with tools like emerge, equery, genlop, layman and q. That's how it works, we are all comfortable with this, and this is good. I can't think of a single reason why the installer should operate in a different manner to the way the thing will be used. Does porthole count? I use it sometimes and it is well all right. I miss etcat myself. Just as I was starting to get used to it, it disappeared. You're just stirring the pot Dale :-) I know for a fact that you can hold your own with emerge and eix :-) I do OK with emerge. Eix, I know two uses. eix-sync and eix package-name. I do know a few equery commands tho. I suspect it will disappear soon since I am learning a little bit about it. lol [OT] I give you another nice use for eix: update-eix-remote update [/OT] === TopperH === pgpplx6fJfiAY.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: On Donnerstag 05 Februar 2009, Nikos Chantziaras wrote: Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: On Donnerstag 05 Februar 2009, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:. I can't think of a single reason why the installer should operate in a different manner to the way the thing will be used. Because installation is boring. The easier it is, the better. wrong. The installation needs a certain difficulty to keep idiots away. Nobody needs idiots (except maybe ubuntu). That is insulting. My mother uses Ubuntu. Thanks for calling her an idiot. no, I didn't call her 'idiot'. I am just stating that ubuntu tries to cater for idiots. Obviously if someone wants to use his computer in order to get something done without doing a Ph.D on Portage and /etc first, then that person is an idiot. no. He is an idiot if he does not read the docs. Simple. Like people who don't read the manual to their car or vcr and then complaining if something does not work. Idiots. And this is why RTFM is a good and common acronym.
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
Cocoy Dayao wrote: my style has always been to get the minimal installer. chroot, install kernel to my specs then boot to hard drive, then start building it to how i want it built. the handbook is pretty specific and straight-forward. one just has to follow it. i've done N installs over the years and i still turn to the handbook, just to keep track. anyway. if people find the installer difficult maybe gentoo isn't for them. On 02 5, 09, at 7:01 PM, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: On Donnerstag 05 Februar 2009, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:. I can't think of a single reason why the installer should operate in a different manner to the way the thing will be used. Because installation is boring. The easier it is, the better. wrong. The installation needs a certain difficulty to keep idiots away. Nobody needs idiots (except maybe ubuntu). yes, installation is VERY boring. that's part of the compromise, i guess. Cocoy www.twitter.com/cocoy People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware -- Alan Kay There are certain situations where the step-by-step installer isn't adequate. For instance, when I was installing gentoo on my G4, it was straight forward and easy, but when I decided to do a minimal install on my Everex laptop, I needed to use initrd, which I previoiusly had no experience with and the Gentoo handbook didn't mention. Granted, it eventually worked, but I would be hesitent to say that there was adequate documentation on it.
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Donnerstag 05 Februar 2009, Saphirus Sage wrote: Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: On Donnerstag 05 Februar 2009, Nikos Chantziaras wrote: Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: On Donnerstag 05 Februar 2009, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:. I can't think of a single reason why the installer should operate in a different manner to the way the thing will be used. Because installation is boring. The easier it is, the better. wrong. The installation needs a certain difficulty to keep idiots away. Nobody needs idiots (except maybe ubuntu). That is insulting. My mother uses Ubuntu. Thanks for calling her an idiot. no, I didn't call her 'idiot'. I am just stating that ubuntu tries to cater for idiots. Obviously if someone wants to use his computer in order to get something done without doing a Ph.D on Portage and /etc first, then that person is an idiot. no. He is an idiot if he does not read the docs. Simple. Like people who don't read the manual to their car or vcr and then complaining if something does not work. Idiots. And this is why RTFM is a good and common acronym. exactly. If someone read the docs and still has a question - that is ok. Googled and did not find what he looked for. Happens all the time. Nothing wrong with asking a question. Nobody expects somebody to understand everything or find every answer in the manuals. But somebody who didn't even try to find the answer for himself - that person does not deserve help. Only pity that he is such an idiot.
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Donnerstag 05 Februar 2009, Grant Edwards wrote: On 2009-02-05, Dirk Uys dirkc...@gmail.com wrote: The type of user I don't like is the ignorant type. Innocent users are ok, they don't know, but ignorant users choose not to know. Surely there are things you use without knowing how they work. You probably use a phone, but do you _really_ know how the cellular system works? that is not needed. But reading the manual of the phone is. How about the landline phone system? The water supply system? Sewage treatment? Do you know how a refinery works? A chemical plant? How about the CPU in your computer. Do you actually know how it works? irrelevant to the problem discussed. But yes, I know how sewage treatment works. We're all ignorant about 99% of the things we use. You just happened to choose a different 1% than some other people. no. Some people read the manuals that come with the tools they get, others don't and then complain when something does not work or sue someone because they hurt themselves. The second group are idiots. There are lots of idiots - but you should NEVER cater for them or you create more of them. And the last thing this world needs is more idiots.
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: optimized for your system -- huh?
On Thu, 5 Feb 2009 15:26:30 + (UTC), Grant Edwards wrote: If you can spend a week installing Gentoo, it's not a problem. If you need to have a machine up and running in an hour, it's a problem. Building OOo on the last install I did took well over 30 hours. The GRP packages were certainly useful for that. I installed Gentoo on an iBook, including a full KDE desktop, in a little over an hour. But that was several years ago,when GRP CDs were available. Of course, it wasn't optimised to my needs, but changing the USE flags and an emerge -e world (while the computer was in use) fixed that. Compiling that lot on a 1GHz G4 took over a day, about 2 days when you included OOo. -- Neil Bothwick WinErr 003: Dynamic linking error - Your mistake is now in every file signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: optimized for your system -- huh?
On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 10:18 AM, Nikos Chantziaras rea...@arcor.de wrote: Stroller wrote: [...] To be honest, I am surprised this notion of optimised executables has stuck around long enough that you've heard it, but it's an old joke to many of us who were around in 2004. But AFAIK, it *was* faster because Gentoo used the egcs fork of GCC which did produce faster code. This was probably the origin of the Gentoo performance thingy. It was true. Wikipedia also notes this, and further states that the name Gentoo was chosen (previously it was Enoch) because of this speed difference between Gentoo and other Distros (the Gentoo species is the fastest swimming penguin). Soon after though, egcs merged back to gcc and all other distros became just as fast. So it was good while it lasted. But this Gentoo performance cliché seems to stick around till today. The power of good marketing! ;-) - Mark
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: optimized for your system -- huh?
On Donnerstag 05 Februar 2009, Nikos Chantziaras wrote: Stroller wrote: [...] To be honest, I am surprised this notion of optimised executables has stuck around long enough that you've heard it, but it's an old joke to many of us who were around in 2004. But AFAIK, it *was* faster because Gentoo used the egcs fork of GCC which did produce faster code. gentoo never did that.
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On 2/5/2009 7:01 AM, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: no. He is an idiot if he does not read the docs. Simple. Like people who don't read the manual to their car or vcr and then complaining if something does not work. Idiots. They should read the manual is *not* a valid design goal for a system. At best, it's a justification or rationalization when outside constraints force a design to be non-intuitive. Given the choice between two otherwise equally functional systems (of any sort -- electronic, mechanical, digital, etc); if one requires me to spend extensive time reading an instruction manual to use and the other is designed to be easy to use out of the box -- the idiot is the person wasting their time reading instead of being productive. To use your own example, I have no problem figuring out how to start my car, turn on the A/C, tune my radio, and drive to work without reading the automobile manual. If Gentoo's installer *has* to be difficult because it's the only way to supply additional benefits or features, that's a perfectly reasonable argument. If Gentoo's installer is *stuck* being difficult because there is a lack of resources interested in making it better, that's an upsetting, but equally reasonable argument. If Gentoo's installer is difficult *on purpose* just to make Gentoo hard to use, that's ridiculous. --K
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Donnerstag 05 Februar 2009, Mike Edenfield wrote: On 2/5/2009 7:01 AM, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: no. He is an idiot if he does not read the docs. Simple. Like people who don't read the manual to their car or vcr and then complaining if something does not work. Idiots. They should read the manual is *not* a valid design goal for a system. At best, it's a justification or rationalization when outside constraints force a design to be non-intuitive. Given the choice between two otherwise equally functional systems (of any sort -- electronic, mechanical, digital, etc); if one requires me to spend extensive time reading an instruction manual to use and the other is designed to be easy to use out of the box -- the idiot is the person wasting their time reading instead of being productive. and not one single complex system is 'idiotproof'. To use your own example, I have no problem figuring out how to start my car, turn on the A/C, tune my radio, and drive to work without reading the automobile manual. but before you were even allowed to drive a car you had to take lessons and pass a test. If Gentoo's installer *has* to be difficult because it's the only way to supply additional benefits or features, that's a perfectly reasonable argument. If Gentoo's installer is *stuck* being difficult because there is a lack of resources interested in making it better, that's an upsetting, but equally reasonable argument. If Gentoo's installer is difficult *on purpose* just to make Gentoo hard to use, that's ridiculous. gentoo's installer is EASY if you just read the docs.
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Donnerstag 05 Februar 2009, Nikos Chantziaras wrote: Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: gentoo's installer is EASY if you just read the docs. I'd rather be installing and waiting for the installer to tell me what to do rather than go read docs somewhere else :P and when the nice installer fucks up, you are screwed.
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
El Jue, 5 de Febrero de 2009, 12:36, Nikos Chantziaras escribió: Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: On Donnerstag 05 Februar 2009, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:. I can't think of a single reason why the installer should operate in a different manner to the way the thing will be used. Because installation is boring. The easier it is, the better. wrong. The installation needs a certain difficulty to keep idiots away. Nobody needs idiots (except maybe ubuntu). That is insulting. My mother uses Ubuntu. Thanks for calling her an idiot. Obviously if someone wants to use his computer in order to get something done without doing a Ph.D on Portage and /etc first, then that person is an idiot. Great thinking. Fortunately, there are people (like the Ubuntu folks) who don't think that way and are trying to make Linux more popular to people who need a computer to do tasks that are not related to the computer itself. I don't agree with the way to see it of Nikos. However, even if I agree with you in that having Ubuntu (which is another choice) is a good thing, I don't agree that Gentoo should be yet-another-ubuntu. Gentoo is Gentoo, and Ubuntu is Ubuntu. If your mother uses Ubuntu, that's fine. But we don't need to lower the acceptance level of Gentoo so your mother can use it. I think that it's fair to ask a minimal degree of will to read and learn for a distro like Gentoo. The rest of Gentoo users do it, no one died that I know of because of it. -- Jesús Guerrero
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Donnerstag 05 Februar 2009, Nikos Chantziaras wrote: Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: On Donnerstag 05 Februar 2009, Nikos Chantziaras wrote: Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: gentoo's installer is EASY if you just read the docs. I'd rather be installing and waiting for the installer to tell me what to do rather than go read docs somewhere else :P and when the nice installer fucks up, you are screwed. You're screwed anyway if you can't use the CLI installer correctly. Reading the docs is fine, but they're written for geeks, not normal people. Normal people don't have a clue what the docs are talking about :) and gentoo was never meant for the clueless.
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
Nikos Chantziaras wrote: Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: On Donnerstag 05 Februar 2009, Nikos Chantziaras wrote: Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: gentoo's installer is EASY if you just read the docs. I'd rather be installing and waiting for the installer to tell me what to do rather than go read docs somewhere else :P and when the nice installer fucks up, you are screwed. You're screwed anyway if you can't use the CLI installer correctly. Reading the docs is fine, but they're written for geeks, not normal people. Normal people don't have a clue what the docs are talking about :) I think the Handbook and other Official gentoo docs are well and written. I feel they are so well written and informative that a new user could read and follow what the doc is trying to convey. --Joshua Doll
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
Nikos Chantziaras wrote: Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: On Donnerstag 05 Februar 2009, Nikos Chantziaras wrote: Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: gentoo's installer is EASY if you just read the docs. I'd rather be installing and waiting for the installer to tell me what to do rather than go read docs somewhere else :P and when the nice installer fucks up, you are screwed. You're screwed anyway if you can't use the CLI installer correctly. Reading the docs is fine, but they're written for geeks, not normal people. Normal people don't have a clue what the docs are talking about :) It seems to me that not to many normal people would use Gentoo anyway. By and large, we're probably geeks...I mean, c'mon, this is a mailing list for users of a distro of linux. Your normal My computer gets myspace group isn't exactly our audience.
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
El Jue, 5 de Febrero de 2009, 14:53, Saphirus Sage escribió: Cocoy Dayao wrote: There are certain situations where the step-by-step installer isn't adequate. For instance, when I was installing gentoo on my G4, it was straight forward and easy, but when I decided to do a minimal install on my Everex laptop, I needed to use initrd, which I previoiusly had no experience with and the Gentoo handbook didn't mention. Granted, it eventually worked, but I would be hesitent to say that there was adequate documentation on it. And that's why we speack about a community effort, and bugtrackers exist. So you can let the relevant people know and the next one to read the handbook will find a solution if s/he has the same problem. The handbooks didn't magically appear out of thin air in 1 second as they are now, nor did Gentoo. It's not The community vs. you, you are part of the community since the very moment you start using linux. No manual is perfect, the difference is that here at least you have the chance to change it to make it better. -- Jesús Guerrero
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
El Jue, 5 de Febrero de 2009, 16:23, Grant Edwards escribió: On 2009-02-05, Dirk Uys dirkc...@gmail.com wrote: The type of user I don't like is the ignorant type. Innocent users are ok, they don't know, but ignorant users choose not to know. Surely there are things you use without knowing how they work. You probably use a phone, but do you _really_ know how the cellular system works? How about the landline phone system? The water supply system? Sewage treatment? Do you know how a refinery works? A chemical plant? How about the CPU in your computer. Do you actually know how it works? And so often these ignorant users demand that they should be able to do anything on a computer. If you wish to benefit from using computers, you should be prepared to spend some time to get to know how the stuff works. The more you want to do, the more you need to know. Not: I want amarok without mysql and xyz plugin running all silky and smooth, but don't give me any command line run-arounds or lots of talk about USE flags. We're all ignorant about 99% of the things we use. You just happened to choose a different 1% than some other people. That's completely unfair. If you don't want to know how a fridge work you buy a fridge, not the tools to make a fridge, which is what Gentoo is. If you don't want to make the fridge yourself, go Ubuntu and let us build our fridges ourselves. Why do you want to spoil our fun? Isn't there enough premade distros that are easy to handle around? -- Jesús Guerrero
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
El Jue, 5 de Febrero de 2009, 20:00, Mike Edenfield escribió: On 2/5/2009 7:01 AM, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: no. He is an idiot if he does not read the docs. Simple. Like people who don't read the manual to their car or vcr and then complaining if something does not work. Idiots. They should read the manual is *not* a valid design goal for a system. At best, it's a justification or rationalization when outside constraints force a design to be non-intuitive. Gentoo is not a distro. You don't use it, It's a metadristro that can be used to build a proper distro, after that you can use the final product. Given the choice between two otherwise equally functional systems (of any sort -- electronic, mechanical, digital, etc); if one requires me to spend extensive time reading an instruction manual to use and the other is designed to be easy to use out of the box -- the idiot is the person wasting their time reading instead of being productive. To use your own example, I have no problem figuring out how to start my car, turn on the A/C, tune my radio, and drive to work without reading the automobile manual. No. Your point is valid but in the other sense. If you are choosing the wrong tool for you, it's your problem. If you don't want to build a system from scratch but you insist on using Gentoo and you insist that it MUST be easy to use, then you are the one that screw the thing up. I want to remove some screws, but I want to do it with my hammer!!! If Gentoo's installer *has* to be difficult because it's the only way to supply additional benefits or features, that's a perfectly reasonable argument. If Gentoo's installer is *stuck* being difficult because there is a lack of resources interested in making it better, that's an upsetting, but equally reasonable argument. As said in other posts, I think that the true reason is that there's not any interest in doing it. Many attempts have been started and abandoned in the past. If Gentoo's installer is difficult *on purpose* just to make Gentoo hard to use, that's ridiculous. It's not dificult. You can read, you can do it. -- Jesús Guerrero
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Thu, 5 Feb 2009 21:03:30 +0100 (CET), Jesús Guerrero wrote: Gentoo is not a distro. You don't use it, It's a metadristro that can be used to build a proper distro, after that you can use the final product. It's a flatpack distro ;-) -- Neil Bothwick Hi, I'm not a signature virus. Why don't you just copy me into your signature? signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 11:45 AM, Volker Armin Hemmann volkerar...@googlemail.com wrote: SNIP and gentoo was never meant for the clueless. Ah, come on Volker, say what's true. My 81 year old dad uses Gentoo and he cannot use vi. Maybe you really meant, but didn't say, 'Gentoo was never meant for the clueless administrator'. Once it's up and running it's Linux. Nothing more. Nothing less. What's the big deal? - Mark
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 11:49 AM, Joshua D Doll joshua.d...@gmail.com wrote: I think the Handbook and other Official gentoo docs are well and written. I feel they are so well written and informative that a new user could read and follow what the doc is trying to convey. --Joshua Doll I agree. Everything except the grub part. It's well written but it requires more knowledge about the actual hardware than the rest of it, especially if you do it wrong and have to recover. - Mark
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 2:20 PM, Mark Knecht markkne...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 11:49 AM, Joshua D Doll joshua.d...@gmail.com wrote: I think the Handbook and other Official gentoo docs are well and written. I feel they are so well written and informative that a new user could read and follow what the doc is trying to convey. --Joshua Doll I agree. Everything except the grub part. It's well written but it requires more knowledge about the actual hardware than the rest of it, especially if you do it wrong and have to recover. I helped my brother install Ubuntu and the lack of control over grub was frustrating. It just did what it wanted to do without asking (which was install grub onto the wrong drive with the wrong drive numbers, because the BIOS boot order did not match Ubuntu's detected drive order). If that drive had been part of a RAID or had some important metadata in the boot sector, it could have been a disaster. No distro is perfect. Gentoo is perfect for me, though :)
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: because it kept the 'i am too cool to read the docs' idiots away. Being forced to read the documentation is a good thing - and it did not hurt gentoo's popularity. Only after it started to catering to idiots and more and more of loud mouthed 'I am the centre of the universe, I don't need to read docs, use google or bugzilla. I demand an answer and help NOW' assholes came on board, the popularity went down. The above statement is ridiculous and I've said my piece on it several times. Not worth the bother of debunking it yet again so I'll just link the infamous Elitist Chowderhead thread from four years ago. http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.user/109660/focus=109984 What people forget is that a well built installer has to run through a number of steps that get you a running system. Ideally a system that has exactly what you expect to be installed and how. Whether this is a GUI, ncurses based, whatever is besides the point. An installer project builds a set of tools that eventually can be used to install hundreds of machines in a uniform way and that is damn useful. kashani
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Donnerstag 05 Februar 2009, Mark Knecht wrote: On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 11:45 AM, Volker Armin Hemmann volkerar...@googlemail.com wrote: SNIP and gentoo was never meant for the clueless. Ah, come on Volker, say what's true. My 81 year old dad uses Gentoo and he cannot use vi. Maybe you really meant, but didn't say, 'Gentoo was never meant for the clueless administrator'. in that case it is YOU who had to read the documentation.
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
Paul Hartman wrote: On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 2:20 PM, Mark Knecht markkne...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 11:49 AM, Joshua D Doll joshua.d...@gmail.com wrote: I think the Handbook and other Official gentoo docs are well and written. I feel they are so well written and informative that a new user could read and follow what the doc is trying to convey. --Joshua Doll I agree. Everything except the grub part. It's well written but it requires more knowledge about the actual hardware than the rest of it, especially if you do it wrong and have to recover. I helped my brother install Ubuntu and the lack of control over grub was frustrating. It just did what it wanted to do without asking (which was install grub onto the wrong drive with the wrong drive numbers, because the BIOS boot order did not match Ubuntu's detected drive order). If that drive had been part of a RAID or had some important metadata in the boot sector, it could have been a disaster. No distro is perfect. Gentoo is perfect for me, though :) I think you mean to say no boot loader is perfect. ;-) --Joshua Doll
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 12:32 PM, Paul Hartman paul.hartman+gen...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 2:20 PM, Mark Knecht markkne...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 11:49 AM, Joshua D Doll joshua.d...@gmail.com wrote: I think the Handbook and other Official gentoo docs are well and written. I feel they are so well written and informative that a new user could read and follow what the doc is trying to convey. --Joshua Doll I agree. Everything except the grub part. It's well written but it requires more knowledge about the actual hardware than the rest of it, especially if you do it wrong and have to recover. I helped my brother install Ubuntu and the lack of control over grub was frustrating. It just did what it wanted to do without asking (which was install grub onto the wrong drive with the wrong drive numbers, because the BIOS boot order did not match Ubuntu's detected drive order). If that drive had been part of a RAID or had some important metadata in the boot sector, it could have been a disaster. No distro is perfect. Gentoo is perfect for me, though :) I completely agree. I like the control also. I only took a *very* small exception to Joshua's statement that a 'new user' could read, follow it and understand what it's telling him/her to do and then do it and come out with a working machine. I think it's true if the new user builds exactly the 3 partition example shown in the docs and does *only* the very basic install on a machine that doesn't have Windows, etc. However I think that the docs (not the software!) could be improved to handle things like dual-boot, either another distro or windows, etc. which personally I think 'new users' come up against. Issues about stuff like where to put the MBR, why and why not to do that sort of thing, requires (or is vastly enhanced) if that new user has some knowledge about hard drives, booting, etc. - Mark
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
El Jue, 5 de Febrero de 2009, 21:25, Nikos Chantziaras escribió: Jesús Guerrero wrote: It's not The community vs. you, you are part of the community since the very moment you start using linux. Most people don't want to be some part of some weird community. They just want to use a computer. If they were looking for friends, they might try the local sports club. Right. But people who don't want to do some work to change the things have no right to complain either. Unless they are paying a monthly bill how you do on your sports club. Do you pay here? -- Jesús Guerrero
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
El Jue, 5 de Febrero de 2009, 22:01, Jesús Guerrero escribió: El Jue, 5 de Febrero de 2009, 21:25, Nikos Chantziaras escribió: Jesús Guerrero wrote: It's not The community vs. you, you are part of the community since the very moment you start using linux. Most people don't want to be some part of some weird community. They just want to use a computer. If they were looking for friends, they might try the local sports club. Right. But people who don't want to do some work to change the things have no right to complain either. Unless they are paying a monthly bill how you do on your sports club. Do you pay here? To reword it, if you like it use it, if you don't then don't use it. It's not about joining a weird community as you defined it or about making friends here. I am not here to make friends since I -as most people here I guess- do have a social life that's not inside my monitor. This is about people that's giving you for free a tool to do your work. And you can't even bother to fill in a bug? Well, whatever... I supposed that complaining on mailing lists instead will fix the issue faster... -- Jesús Guerrero
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Thu, 05 Feb 2009 22:25:11 +0200, Nikos Chantziaras wrote: Most people don't want to be some part of some weird community. They just want to use a computer. If they were looking for friends, they might try the local sports club. Who are these people on whose behalf you speak? Why should Gentoo try to cater for them when there are already a zillion distros doing that? Gentoo is not a distro for most people. Linux has reached a point where it tries to appeal to users. You don't ask them anymore to go fix the problems. You have to fix them yourself. I believe any distro that doesn't adopt a development model where user support and QA are important, is going to die at some point. Linux doesn't seem to have gathered new users since ages; 2003 maybe? Or 2004? No visible growth since then. With no new users, and most users converting to Ubuntu and openSUSE, there's simply not enough users left to keep other distros alive. On what do you base these claims? Stating that Linux has no new users does not make it true, but reading emails from people stating I am new to Linux, as I do most days, would indicate that the opposite is true. QA is important to the Gentoo devs. As for user support, I thing we get tremendous value for money from the devs, worth every penny we pay them. Gentoo arose out of a dissatisfaction wit the way other distros did things, so using them as a yardstick now renders the whole project pointless. If you don't like the way Gentoo does things, you can either work to improve it or use something else more suited to your needs. If all you want is a GUI for the installer, take a look at Quickstart and see if there is a way to add a configuration GUI to it. -- Neil Bothwick ... Yummy, said Pooh, as he hilted his paw into the honeypot. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
Mark Knecht wrote: On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 12:32 PM, Paul Hartman paul.hartman+gen...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 2:20 PM, Mark Knecht markkne...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 11:49 AM, Joshua D Doll joshua.d...@gmail.com wrote: I think the Handbook and other Official gentoo docs are well and written. I feel they are so well written and informative that a new user could read and follow what the doc is trying to convey. --Joshua Doll I agree. Everything except the grub part. It's well written but it requires more knowledge about the actual hardware than the rest of it, especially if you do it wrong and have to recover. I helped my brother install Ubuntu and the lack of control over grub was frustrating. It just did what it wanted to do without asking (which was install grub onto the wrong drive with the wrong drive numbers, because the BIOS boot order did not match Ubuntu's detected drive order). If that drive had been part of a RAID or had some important metadata in the boot sector, it could have been a disaster. No distro is perfect. Gentoo is perfect for me, though :) I completely agree. I like the control also. I only took a *very* small exception to Joshua's statement that a 'new user' could read, follow it and understand what it's telling him/her to do and then do it and come out with a working machine. I think it's true if the new user builds exactly the 3 partition example shown in the docs and does *only* the very basic install on a machine that doesn't have Windows, etc. However I think that the docs (not the software!) could be improved to handle things like dual-boot, either another distro or windows, etc. which personally I think 'new users' come up against. Issues about stuff like where to put the MBR, why and why not to do that sort of thing, requires (or is vastly enhanced) if that new user has some knowledge about hard drives, booting, etc. - Mark I 100% agree that the docs can and should cover more. Maybe a flowchart would be useful? --Joshua Doll
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
Sorry for top posting, it's BlackBerry's behavior. I cannot agree when you say that gentoo docs are written for geeks. Gentoo's install guide is very well written and i18ed, at least in my native language. It takes the user step by step to prepare his enviroment, to install the distro, and to finalize it, always explaining every step and giving choices. First time I installed gentoo my only linux experience was 8 months of suse, I am not an IT person, but I haven't found the installation that painful. === TopperH === Momesso Andrea -Original Message- From: Nikos Chantziaras rea...@arcor.de Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 21:43:43 To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Subject: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh? Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: On Donnerstag 05 Februar 2009, Nikos Chantziaras wrote: Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: gentoo's installer is EASY if you just read the docs. I'd rather be installing and waiting for the installer to tell me what to do rather than go read docs somewhere else :P and when the nice installer fucks up, you are screwed. You're screwed anyway if you can't use the CLI installer correctly. Reading the docs is fine, but they're written for geeks, not normal people. Normal people don't have a clue what the docs are talking about :)
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 2:38 PM, Joshua D Doll joshua.d...@gmail.com wrote: Paul Hartman wrote: On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 2:20 PM, Mark Knecht markkne...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 11:49 AM, Joshua D Doll joshua.d...@gmail.com wrote: I think the Handbook and other Official gentoo docs are well and written. I feel they are so well written and informative that a new user could read and follow what the doc is trying to convey. --Joshua Doll I agree. Everything except the grub part. It's well written but it requires more knowledge about the actual hardware than the rest of it, especially if you do it wrong and have to recover. I helped my brother install Ubuntu and the lack of control over grub was frustrating. It just did what it wanted to do without asking (which was install grub onto the wrong drive with the wrong drive numbers, because the BIOS boot order did not match Ubuntu's detected drive order). If that drive had been part of a RAID or had some important metadata in the boot sector, it could have been a disaster. No distro is perfect. Gentoo is perfect for me, though :) I think you mean to say no boot loader is perfect. ;-) --Joshua Doll The ubuntu installer did not tell me which drive it was installing the boot loader onto, nor did it give me a choice -- it chose the one it thought was appropriate (and it was wrong). If you google for ubuntu grub sata ide you can see it happens to nearly everyone who has a mixture of IDE and SATA drives where they boot from IDE but linux gives sda to sata and sdc to IDE or whatever.
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
Paul Hartman wrote: On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 2:38 PM, Joshua D Doll joshua.d...@gmail.com wrote: Paul Hartman wrote: On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 2:20 PM, Mark Knecht markkne...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 11:49 AM, Joshua D Doll joshua.d...@gmail.com wrote: I think the Handbook and other Official gentoo docs are well and written. I feel they are so well written and informative that a new user could read and follow what the doc is trying to convey. --Joshua Doll I agree. Everything except the grub part. It's well written but it requires more knowledge about the actual hardware than the rest of it, especially if you do it wrong and have to recover. I helped my brother install Ubuntu and the lack of control over grub was frustrating. It just did what it wanted to do without asking (which was install grub onto the wrong drive with the wrong drive numbers, because the BIOS boot order did not match Ubuntu's detected drive order). If that drive had been part of a RAID or had some important metadata in the boot sector, it could have been a disaster. No distro is perfect. Gentoo is perfect for me, though :) I think you mean to say no boot loader is perfect. ;-) --Joshua Doll The ubuntu installer did not tell me which drive it was installing the boot loader onto, nor did it give me a choice -- it chose the one it thought was appropriate (and it was wrong). If you google for ubuntu grub sata ide you can see it happens to nearly everyone who has a mixture of IDE and SATA drives where they boot from IDE but linux gives sda to sata and sdc to IDE or whatever. Actually the kernel has assigned most hdd, etc. some form of sd* for awhile now. The only thing that is labeled different, that I've seen in awhile is my dvd burner. Anyways getting to my statement I was being facetious. I can't think of a single piece of software that is perfect, except for maybe hello, world!, but that's not very useful. --Joshua Doll
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
Mark Knecht wrote: On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 11:49 AM, Joshua D Doll joshua.d...@gmail.com wrote: I think the Handbook and other Official gentoo docs are well and written. I feel they are so well written and informative that a new user could read and follow what the doc is trying to convey. --Joshua Doll I agree. Everything except the grub part. It's well written but it requires more knowledge about the actual hardware than the rest of it, especially if you do it wrong and have to recover. - Mark What I find ironic here, I have been know to use copy and paste to install Gentoo. I may have to change a mount point or a partition location, hda2 to hda6 or something, but otherwise, copy and paste works well. Dale :-) :-)
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
Joshua D Doll wrote: Mark Knecht wrote: On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 12:32 PM, Paul Hartman paul.hartman+gen...@gmail.com wrote: I completely agree. I like the control also. I only took a *very* small exception to Joshua's statement that a 'new user' could read, follow it and understand what it's telling him/her to do and then do it and come out with a working machine. I think it's true if the new user builds exactly the 3 partition example shown in the docs and does *only* the very basic install on a machine that doesn't have Windows, etc. However I think that the docs (not the software!) could be improved to handle things like dual-boot, either another distro or windows, etc. which personally I think 'new users' come up against. Issues about stuff like where to put the MBR, why and why not to do that sort of thing, requires (or is vastly enhanced) if that new user has some knowledge about hard drives, booting, etc. - Mark I 100% agree that the docs can and should cover more. Maybe a flowchart would be useful? --Joshua Doll I wish the man pages had more examples. Give me a real world example and I can wrap my poor brain around what it should look like when I do something. Dale :-) :-)
