[gentoo-dev] Re: gentoo 1.0_rc6_r12 impressions...

[Donny Davies]

>
> My overall impression is that this distro really *kicks ass*.
>
It *does*, doesn't it? <g> Glad to hear you're enjoying it!


>
> Is it possible to take advantage of multitasking in Linux kernel to
> compile and download at the same time?
>
Oh definately. I'm fairly certain this has been suggested before as well.
While the idea is very good, it is the implementation that is troublesome.
I'll defer this to drobbins to further comment on. But I would note that
1) the bootstrap thing is essentially a script of emerge commands and
2) emerge supports a --fetchonly option, which as you would guess,
downloads only; no compiling. This option is popular amongst several
of our users with dialup Internet access.


>
> Perl 5.6.0 <snippage> /etc/hosts
>
This was actually discussed on the list recently. I think it was decided
that the install docs will be updated. I'm not certain why we're not including
this record in our default /etc/hosts (I'd support that choice). Note to those
interested, in /etc/hosts 'localhost' should be *after* localhost.localdomain,
never before it! Ie: 127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost. So if we
decide to do that, it must be added thusly, not the other way around! =)


>
> I've seen numerous complaints about pharmacy package.
>
This was corrected a couple of days ago. If you 'emerge rsync' you'll
get the "fixed" ebuild and will be able to install it. Note: portage allows
a package name to contain one hyphen in it's version part, and one
optionally in the revision part.


>
> If the output from bootstrap/emerge is not logged, it should be!
>
I personally dont find that neccesary, because it's already doable by the
end-user anyway, if they wish, via either shell redirection or something like
nohup. Ie: either issue the command thusly: "command > output.out 2>&1 &"
or make a shell script with the work you wanna do:

-- myfile.sh --
#!/bin/sh
echo "DOING bootstrap"
bootstrap.sh bootstrap-packages
echo "DOING system"
emerge system
-- myfile.sh --

and execute it like this: "nohup myfile.sh &", which logs everything to the
file nohup.out in the current directory. I personally like this way because
it ensures the work gets done if you log out, etc. The 'nohup' command is
included on the buildimage.tbz2 build system, so I find it redundant to make
portage do that unconditionally. Others may feel differently.


>
> some kind of total progress indicator would be helpful
>
Another noble idea, but not so 'easy as it sounds'. There's no decent
candidate for 'work units' other than packages themselves. Im not sure
how useful that really is because comparing say glibc to less is not even
fair :P. And how do you indicate that? Ie: a simple "echo", a full blown
ncurses interface? Another high-level question, so again, I anticipate
others to reply, and I choose to simply tail -f nohup.out to see where I am.
However I'm fairly certain that something like this is basically inevitable,
ie: it will probably be implemented in one form or another eventually! =)


>
> nothing in /usr/src <snippage> I wonder why?
>
I'm farily certain the linux-headers are downloaded during bootstrap, not
emerge system. Indeed its because glibc depends on the kernel headers.
We (as blessed by Linus himself, and in accordance with "the right way")
install the kernel headers used to build glibc into /usr/include/{linux,asm},
not in the older, libc5 tradional symlinks to /usr/src/linux way. Too many
reasons to laundry list here, but rest assured this is the "right place" for
kernel headers; at least at this point in time.


>
> "unresolved symbol" errors from depmod.
>
Maybe you just need to run: "depmod -a"? If not, we'll have to investigate
a little here. Anybody else have a suggestion for this?


>
> I think it should be static by default.  Generally, I think default configs
> can be much better.  I am talking about 2.4.10-r1 kernel.
>
Well if you want, just "rm .config" *before* you run make menuconfig. I'm
not exactly sure why the default .config is the way it is, but I agree it can
be slightly annoying to setup the kernel when you try to menuconfig with
our current .config. Drobbins, remember I mentioned this same thing just
the other day? Also, I've seen others hitting the 'IDE as module" thing;
I agree we should do some tweaking in this respect. As for everything
being static in the kernel, I personally prefer to modularize as much as I
can, depending on what I'm building (a workstation, a fileserver, a NAT
box, etc, etc). For one, it makes the kernel smaller, which also means
it loads faster, it runs faster, and it uses less memory. This is a personal
perferenece issue so YMMV.


>
> Emerging vim installed XFree86 4.1.0?!!! Holy cow, man!
>
This is probably related to you having X in your USE variable. This is
how we control the build-time support of various goodies in Gentoo Linux.
This is also how we can do cool stuff like compiling/installing a truckload
of stuff with one simple command, tailored to your specific tastes. Example,
take a fresh system, setup your USE variable, and emerge a high-level
package, like "emerge kde-base/kdebase". That'll get a *lot* accomplished
with a few quick keystrokes =)


>
> There is a mistake in your installation doc.  In Code Listing 21 you say:
> # mv bzImage bzImage.orig but you probably mean
> # mv /boot/bzImage /boot/bzImage.orig
>
OK, I've fixed this on cvs.


Thanks a lot for your feedback and suggestions. =)


Cheers
--
Donny