Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: [RFC] Rebooting the Installer Project

[J.Rutkowski]

The problem I have with using Sabayon to ultimately install Gentoo is it
takes way too much work than just doing a Gentoo install...

You would have to uninstall all entropy applications and begin using
just portage, edit make.conf (look for sabayon mirrors), rebuild world,
replace Sabayon Kernel with Gentoo kernel, change framebuffer splash
from Sabayon, remove overlay and rebuild all over again, and then hunt
down the rest of the Sabayon-specific files. You will have breakage.
That doesn't even take into account downgrading from ~amd64. If you are
doing that much rebuilding, it's faster just to do it yourself
originally.

----
J. Rutkowski

On Tue, Jul 21, 2015, at 07:26 AM, Andrew Savchenko wrote:
> On Tue, 21 Jul 2015 08:34:00 +0000 (UTC) Duncan wrote:
> > Andrew Savchenko posted on Tue, 21 Jul 2015 03:05:04 +0300 as excerpted:
> >
> > > occasionally I need a tool to "fast install Gentoo and fine-tune it
> > > later". This happens quite often on a new job box,
> > > oh during visits where I'm given a workstation and 3-4 hours to set it
> > > up before doing real work and so on.
> > >
> > > The idea is to have binary-based Gentoo ready to work on general common
> > > hardware with such software out of the box as fully-fledged modern gui
> > > browsers (chromium, firefox), libreoffice, xterm, screen, vim,
> > > compilers, ldap support and other dev tools. Set of packages may vary,
> > > but the idea is that they should work out of the box due to tight
> > > constrains on initial system configuration (boss should see that I'm
> > > doing my job at the end of the day).
> > >
> > > But afterwards I'd like to tune this setup in a usual Gentoo way:
> > > configure kernel, USE flags, {C,CXX,F,FC,LD}FLAGS, select proper
> > > alternatives and so on more or less accordant to the devmanual.
> >
> > I've never used it myself, but from what I've read, that's pretty much
> > what the gentoo-based sabayon linux does.  It's a binary-based distro
> > that lists as a major feature (from its homepage):
> >
> > >>>
> >
> > Binary vs Source Package Manager
> >
> > It's up to you whether turn a newly Sabayon installation into a geeky
> > Gentoo ~arch system or just camp on the lazy side and enjoy the power of
> > our binary, dumbed down Applications Manager (a.k.a. Rigo). With Sabayon
> > you are really in control of your system the way you really want.
> >
> > <<<
> >
> > [After reading a bit on the sabayon site to satisfy my own curiosity as
> > well, something I had been meaning to do anyway...]
> >
> > When first installed, sabayon has a portage config synced with the sabayon
> > build servers, same USE, etc.  The recommendation is to choose either
> > entropy, the native sabayon binary package manager, or portage, and stick
> > with it, but there's documentation available for "advanced users" who
> > want to keep the two in sync and thus be able to use both, or who want to
> > switch (presumably from sabayon prebuilt binaries to gentoo build-from-
> > source) later.  Do note that sabayon is based on gentoo/~amd64, however,
> > so switching to stable amd64 will be downgrading.  Also, they use the
> > hard-masked-in-gentoo portage-9999 live-build version, so even switching
> > to ~amd64 portage will be a (generally minor) downgrade for it.
> >
> > So a quick sabayon install and update via entropy, followed by an update
> > of the portage config (the entropy package updates will have diverged
> > from the initially synced state) using the appropriate tool, should leave
> > you with a generally current and synced system built from binaries.
> >
> > That's your working system at end-of-day.
> >
> > At that point you can switch to portage using the instructions provided,
> > review and change any USE flags and other portage settings you wish, and
> > do an emerge --newuse --update --deep @system and @world, and the result
> > should be basically the same as if you'd done it the conventional gentoo
> > way.  The biggest caveat is likely to be if you were targeting stable
> > amd64, not ~amd64, since that'd be a downgrade, since sabayon is ~amd64
> > based.  But it should be as possible as it is on gentoo, since that's
> > essentially what you're left with after the switch to portage, a gentoo
> > ~amd64 system.
> >
> >
> > FWIW, this is the big reason I've never been a big booster of either a
> > gentoo GUI installer (automating things for mass installation using a
> > script is an entirely different thing, tho), or a gentoo binpkg project.
> > Gentoo is good at what it does, the stage-3, initial manual install, and
> > from-source ebuild scripts and the main tree, and gentoo-based distros
> > already provide good binary and GUI-install solutions.  As such, gentoo
> > itself trying to do either gui installs or binpkg primary packaging is
> > going to be coming late to the game and reinventing wheels other gentoo-
> > based distros have not only already invented, but are already quite
> > expert in.  Let each one keep to its strengths and the whole ecosystem
> > will be better for it. =:^)
> >
> > And while sabayon is apparently currently ~amd64 only, given their
> > experience doing a gentoo-based binary distro, I'd suggest that it'd be
> > far more efficient to join sabayon and get a build going that targets
> > gentoo stable or whatever alternative arch instead of ~amd64, than it
> > would be to try to do a full-fledged gentoo-binpkg alternative project.
> > Again, let each build on its strengths and together build a bigger and
> > stronger community, as a result. =:^)
> >
> > But like I said, I _do_ believe there's a place for an automated build-
> > script install solution operating from a pre-made configuration file, to
> > automate the mass-install end of things.  To my knowledge, there's no
> > existing gentoo-based distro doing that, yet, so it's a hole waiting to
> > be filled. =:^)
>
> Thank you for the information. I never investigated possibility to
> use Gentoo derivatives (aside from system rescue cd) for such task
> because I was not sure if they allow switching to pure Gentoo
> system afterwards.
>
> Looks like Sabayon is a good solution for such cases, so I'll test
> it on next occasion.
>
> Best regards,
> Andrew Savchenko
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