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

[Andrew Savchenko]

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