Gentoo 2008.0 Beta LiveCD

[givemesugarr]

i'm the other one. oh, but i'm already running it

me too. the thing that i find awesome in gentoo is the amd64-multilib profile. there isn't a single distro around that runs better and faster in this arch.
also i found out recently that compiling into ram (on gentoo wiki there's an article on how to set portage) speeds-up the update time in about 50% or more in terms of time. now i'm looking to the opensuse 10.3 init scripts and try to see if i can speed up the startup process of gentoo (on my machines the last opensuse seems faster to boot into kde of about 8-10 seconds).
for the rest i found out gentoo having the best update and install package around, there's no versioning, the profile can be updated with ease and only in the packages that need update, the rebuild broken is also very good.

i can say that after going with gentoo for about 3 years now, it is the best linux distro if you update frequently and stay tuned on the bleeding edge.
on the other hand if i want to update from time to time and just use the system for little time it's better to use a precompiled distro since it's faster to install and update.

now, speaking of this 2008.0 release, if there isn't any major profile update there isn't a need to bump another release. at most it'd be useful a new stage package once a month and portage snapshots 1 or 2 times a week.

[Malikith]

I've always really liked Gentoo, my only problem with it is compiling everything since I don't really have the patience for that haha. Maybe if I had a faster CPU like a Intel Core 2 dual or quad core processor I'd take a look at full time use. Either that or when I get over myself, hehe.

Its definitely a very clean and fun distribution. One of the top dogs out there.

[yoshi314]

Am I the only non-developper-end-user wanting to run Gentoo ???

i'm the other one. oh, but i'm already running it

[Fixxer_Linux]

Fascinating. I didn't even realize Gentoo had a graphical LiveCD now much less one based on the excellent Xfce desktop and I've had Gentoo running as my primary OS on every machine in my house and at work for the past 4 years. But in any case that should be very helpful for new users and of course for not having to browse for solutions to problems using lynx or some other command line browser.

And as for why I use Gentoo. For me, it's never been about speed or crazy hardware optimizations, but rather getting precisely only what you need, efficiency and above all else learning and understanding about the various pieces of a GNU operating system such as the kernel, the toolchain, the libraries, the window managers, the applications and how all the pieces fit and interact with each other seamlessly.

In addition, Gentoo lends itself very well to experimentation by it's very nature. Both my primary home matchine and work machine run bleeding edge applications that are up to date the moment the developer deems them fit for public consumption. Sometimes even before. That's very fun and exciting for me. Of course you can do those things with other distributions as well, I just find Gentoo and Portage are particularly well-suited for the task, but also allow for complete stability if you desire that instead.

True, Gentoo is awesome for learning purposes. I feel really strength now when using some more "user-oriented" distro.
Because, I think it's what kills Gentoo : it's definitely not end-user oriented.
Who has ever upgraded a Gentoo (emerge -UvdN world) without having a break during the compile process ???
A break that finishes in console-only mode, with the text-based navigator "links" in the forums to grab some help.
You always discover on compile breaks the changes made to Gentoo. I'm speaking of course of stable Gentoo, not about ~x86.
Anyway, the strength of gentoo is the forum : I could always have some usefull help in a record time, so I always managed to make my upgrades in less than a week.

Am I the only non-developper-end-user wanting to run Gentoo ???

[yoshi314]

i use gentoo for 4 years now. and i've never used its livecd :]

i always installed it from knoppix - any livecd or linux system running on separate partition will do. that's pretty cool about it.

[Pseus]

Wow, it's nice to finally see them making progress again. I thought Gentoo would continue to be stuck in internal political debates for a long time (well, in fact, it has become a long time already). I started using Gentoo in the 1.4 days and its an awesome distro if you want to learn, tweak every setting, and do hardcore programming.

I switched to Arch a while ago as I didn't generally feel the need to tweak my USE flags and I also like to live on the bleeding edge. Arch gives you all of that plus an awesome package manager (which I actually like much more than Portage, though it may be simpler in some terms) AND binary packages.

[Bigm8]

Former Gentoo user

I ran Gentoo for years, beginning shortly after its inception. I even donated money before the political stuff. Learned more about linux the hard way and for that I am extremely thankful. Before gentoo I would get stuck in Red Hat/Mandrake dependency hell get mad and reinstall. That said, I am now a steady ubuntu user since hoary. I reckon it was having children that took up all my spare time. I still highly recommend it to anyone really wanting to learn. I have even found some converts to ubuntu, never for gentoo.

[immudium]

Fascinating. I didn't even realize Gentoo had a graphical LiveCD now much less one based on the excellent Xfce desktop and I've had Gentoo running as my primary OS on every machine in my house and at work for the past 4 years. But in any case that should be very helpful for new users and of course for not having to browse for solutions to problems using lynx or some other command line browser.

And as for why I use Gentoo. For me, it's never been about speed or crazy hardware optimizations, but rather getting precisely only what you need, efficiency and above all else learning and understanding about the various pieces of a GNU operating system such as the kernel, the toolchain, the libraries, the window managers, the applications and how all the pieces fit and interact with each other seamlessly.

In addition, Gentoo lends itself very well to experimentation by it's very nature. Both my primary home matchine and work machine run bleeding edge applications that are up to date the moment the developer deems them fit for public consumption. Sometimes even before. That's very fun and exciting for me. Of course you can do those things with other distributions as well, I just find Gentoo and Portage are particularly well-suited for the task, but also allow for complete stability if you desire that instead.

[Morlyn]

Is there any bench about the performance of various linux distributions ??

I used Gentoo for about 4 years and now I'm using Suse 10.3 on a "temporary" computer.
However, this Suse seems to run very fine and, after having compiled all my stuff on Gentoo since so many years, I'm just wondering if there is a performance gain of compiling everything just for -march.
Anyway, Gentoo allows to have very sharp choices of what is setup on the computer but is there a real performance gain ?

Could this ever be tested on Phoronix one of these days ???

I'd say the difference in performance between gentoo and other distro's is minor, with some exceptions. Considering ubuntu for example, a lot of optimizations (prelinking, compiler settings) have already been included and you won't notice a difference. However, gentoo is awesome about creating a machine that is truly unique in terms of all the software/settings which are on it.

I'd would've much rather read about the updates in gentoo 2008.0, rather than seen screenshots. Unlike other distro's that are more gui-oriented, gentoo people are all about the command line, scripts etc. I'd liked to know where emerge/portage is headed and how the other gentoo projects (like gentoo GUIs) are progressing.

[Fixxer_Linux]

Is there any bench about the performance of various linux distributions ??

I used Gentoo for about 4 years and now I'm using Suse 10.3 on a "temporary" computer.
However, this Suse seems to run very fine and, after having compiled all my stuff on Gentoo since so many years, I'm just wondering if there is a performance gain of compiling everything just for -march.
Anyway, Gentoo allows to have very sharp choices of what is setup on the computer but is there a real performance gain ?

Could this ever be tested on Phoronix one of these days ???