Where can I get Linux?

SwiRly · Aug 20, 2005, 07:13 PM

Where can i get linux?

UberLord · Aug 22, 2005, 04:24 AM

http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/where.xml

EcPercy · Sep 4, 2005, 10:30 AM

Mine is nothing special. It's basically default KDE with the ArchLinux background.

ArchLinux .7

EcPercy · Sep 4, 2005, 11:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SwiRly

Where can i get linux?

www.linuxiso.org

If you have never used linux then you do not want to try Gentoo for your first install.

I really wish that people would stop pimping Gentoo on DH since most people have not ever even used Linux. If you are a nerd, have no life, and want to spend days compiling applications then by all means get Gentoo. If you don't have time for that then go with another distro that has the applications pre-compiled. (e.g. red hat, fedora, mandriva, debian)

RIV@NVX · Sep 5, 2005, 03:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EcPercy

I really wish that people would stop pimping Gentoo on DH since most people have not ever even used Linux. If you are a nerd, have no life, and want to spend days compiling applications then by all means get Gentoo. If you don't have time for that then go with another distro that has the applications pre-compiled. (e.g. red hat, fedora, mandriva, debian)

What about Gentoo version that has an installer and doesn't need you to compile anything?
For me, what's so cool about Gentoo is that is the only distro where almost every single package is up to date and if it isn't, you are more than welcome to contribute an ebuild. Also, there are many packages available, even some uncommon (ET, Quake3, NWN Linux Client, Skype, Opera...).

EcPercy · Sep 5, 2005, 02:26 PM

RIV, I am aware of the Gentoo installer project and I think that it is a good thing.

I remember that it took me 9 hours or so to install Gentoo the first time and that was from a stage 3 install. Not to mention that the installation guide is like 90 pages. I know that Gentoo is pretty up-to-date as far as packages are concerned, but I just cant deal with the insane compile times.

I am not saying that Gentoo is bad, but you have to agree that Swirly's post asked the simplest question; "Where can i get linux?" I would not recommend Gentoo to anyone that does not even know where to download linux.

There have been a lot of "I am a noob to linux posts that I have run across, as of late, and the standard answer I am seeing is "get Gentoo." This version will leave a very bad taste in a person's mouth when they are new to linux.

I would easily recommend something thats really easy to install. Something that has a easy package update system and works with most hardware. I took a crapload of Ubuntu cd's to work and gave them out to people that trash linux regularly. These were the cd's that they ship to you free. Most people were really surprised that the live cd worked with all of their hardware, even wireless network cards.

So that's the answer to the Gentoo thing concerning people new to linux.

On another note, I have had the hardest time trying to figure out what Distro I liked best. See I like some things about Gentoo, but there are other things that really bother me. This is the same for other Distros. I have used many including, Red Hat, Fedora, Suse, Mandrake, Mandriva, Debian, Progeny, Mepis, Knoppix, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Slackware, ArchLinux, FreeBSD (UNIX), and Solaris 10 (UNIX). I have used various versions of these distros going back a few years. There are pros and cons to each, but lately I have been using archlinux.

Arch is much like slack and gentoo where you have to setup pretty much everything from the fstab file to building the xconfig file. It has up-to-date packages and if you want really bleeding edge you can take out the "current" repository from the pacman package tool and add the testing branch. As I stated in another post, Gentoo and Arch appear to be the easiest to keep updated. It's as simple as one command and your system is brought up to the latest version of everything and all currently installed packages are updated.

The main advantage I see at this point is that Arch is made for newer systems seeing that all packages are pre-compiled for i686. I will use a real-life example here. In Gentoo, it took me about 4 hours to download compile and install Gnome. Arch, and any other distro that is pre-compiled, I have Gnome and KDE downloaded and installed in about 5 mins.

That said, if you are new to linux. Please, please, please, don't start with Gentoo. You will thank me for that advice.

Pottsy306 · Sep 5, 2005, 04:18 PM

I do like Gentoo, however i prefer debain based systems, i find the apt-get solution to be the best, and theres some great Debain resources out there. My fav distro is ubuntu - its not fast, gentoo is a better distro, however i just find Ubuntu just works. No problems (cept sound, but its ok to configure)

RIV@NVX · Sep 6, 2005, 04:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pottsy306

I do like Gentoo, however i prefer debain based systems, i find the apt-get solution to be the best, and theres some great Debain resources out there.

That is why Debian-based distros are my favourite too. I find Ubuntu beeing only that is up to date to my taste, others (including Debian) are quite behind Ubuntu in version numbers (for example, Debian has currently GNOME 2.10 in unstable branch for at most a month and a half, while Ubuntu had it for five months in stable) to be compatible with Debian.
But it is still a great thing that you can easily install things like VLC, mplayer, MP3 support...

Quote:

Arch is much like slack and gentoo where you have to setup pretty much everything from the fstab file to building the xconfig file. It has up-to-date packages and if you want really bleeding edge you can take out the "current" repository from the pacman package tool and add the testing branch. As I stated in another post, Gentoo and Arch appear to be the easiest to keep updated. It's as simple as one command and your system is brought up to the latest version of everything and all currently installed packages are updated.

A quick check gave me the idea that some packages there are a bit out of date, however, updates are pending since they have already been marked out of date. I'll give it a shot when 0.8 comes out.
Did I understand correctly - can I update Arch in the same way as Gentoo, updating it to the lastest regardless of the version?

EcPercy · Sep 7, 2005, 11:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RIV@NVX

Did I understand correctly - can I update Arch in the same way as Gentoo, updating it to the lastest regardless of the version?

Yes, you did! Here are the differences in the commands needed to update all packages and dependencies on Gentoo and Arch.

As you can see. With both platforms you have one command to completely update the system. The main difference, of course, is the lack of compile times in Arch.

Also, in Arch you can edit the pacman conf file to skip certain updates. For instance. You may not want to automatically update the kernel every time there is a new version released.

In Gentoo you can use:

Code:

emerge --sync
emerge --update world
emerge --update --deep world

--sync
Initiates a portage tree update with one of the rsync.gentoo.org mirrors. Note that any changes you have made to the portage tree will be erased. Except for special circumstances, this uses rsync to do the update. See make.conf(5)'s description of PORTDIR_OVERLAY for a method to avoid deletions.
--update (-u)
Updates packages to the best version available, which may not always be the highest version number due to masking for testing and development. This will also update direct dependencies which may not be what you want. In general, use this option only in combination with the world or system target.
--deep (-D)
When used in conjunction with --update, this flag forces emerge to consider the entire dependency tree of packages, instead of checking only the immediate dependencies of the packages. As an example, this catches updates in libraries that are not directly listed in the dependencies of a package.

In Arch:

Code:

pacman -Syu

-S, --sync
Synchronize packages. With this function you can install packages directly from the ftp servers, complete with all dependencies required to run the packages. For example, pacman -S qt will download qt and all the packages it depends on and install them. You could also use pacman -Su to upgrade all packages that are out of date (see below).
-u, --sysupgrade
Upgrades all packages that are out of date. pacman will examine every package installed on the system, and if a newer package exists on the server it will upgrade. pacman will present a report of all packages it wants to upgrade and will not proceed without user confirmation. Dependencies are automatically resolved at this level and will be installed/upgraded if necessary.
-y, --refresh
Download a fresh copy of the master package list from the ftp server defined in /etc/pacman.conf. This should typically be used each time you use --sysupgrade.

RIV@NVX · Sep 9, 2005, 05:06 AM

OK, you convinced me to try it. It's probably closest to "Gentoo without compiling" distro, if that exists.

And it's simply great; Coloured text in console (as cool as Knoppix and Gentoo), rc.conf in Gentoo style, simple and short, relatively painless install. And I haven't found pacman to be slow at all (perhaps I don't have many that packages yet). I had to update kernel to get Centrino wireless working, but it's OK.

I will report more when I install GUI desktop and some more apps. It doesn't have as much packages as Gentoo, but it has almost all I need, which is really cool.