The Linux distro is due to release a version of its operating system that can be run directly off a CD-ROM, so that people can try Gentoo without installing it.
Linux goes Live on Gentoo CD release
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that we had Gentoo LiveCDs for years already… so thanks.
Surely the only liveCD anyone will need is Knoppix?
And isn’t the point of Gentoo to be optimised for your machine, and the simplicity of package management?
Aren’t these lost on a generic CD OS?
Personally I like the text installer – lean, quick, stupidly simple – but I can see that others would prefer a GUI installer – so good luck with it.
Ben
“Surely the only liveCD anyone will need is Knoppix?”
No, not that.
So how does it work? Do I put the CD into my computer, and 3 days later I’m greeted with a KDE login prompt?
(Psst, that’s a joke)
Knoppix isn’t available for PPC for instance. The Gentoo Live CD sounds like a good idea for users of platforms other than x86 to try Linux out.
there are already many live-cds available. i doubt that another live-cd is necessary, although, if they have the manpower to produce one, why not?… some people might find it interesting for taking a look to gentoo before failing/completing (on) a(n) installation and later deciding that it was not worth the time.
i for myself will erase my gentoo soon, because it takes up too much time. i do more work on it, rather than work with it.
will switch to ubuntu. better suited for my very own purposes.
I have installed Gentoo and found it a great learning experience. However, I can see how it may limit some that are maybe curious about Gentoo because of the time and how involved it is to install.
So as long as they have this version and other version of the install for others to learn from if they wish. The more Gentoo or any LInux distro has a chance to offer more to others the better.
Good ideas coming from Gentoo!
3 days if you’re lucky, and have a distcc compiling farm
Maybe the install is long, but then everything is easy. You never have to waste time installing software, that saves time for just using it.
Isn’t the real story in the article that gentoo will for the first time ship with a graphical installer?
Note, afaik the story isn’t quite acurate as there will only be a first beta release of the installer available at the time, but still, gentoo will get an installer and the first version will be shiped at the time of the February 2005 release.
I don’t know where this story came from but in talking with Gentoo developers I can conclude the story is 100% false. Most of the devs are not interested in a graphical installer. No one is interested in making a LiveCD with a graphical environment on it (for installation or otherwise) because it’s already been covered by Knoppix.
All this story is going to do is raise the hopes of users for no reason and then make Gentoo look bad when it doesn’t come out.
Well, the reporter in question did interview some Gentoo dev, but knew heads nor tails. I’m affraid that there are no finite plans for such a dvd, allthough it is an option that is not hard (mainly dependend on mirror-space). The reporter just went looking around, and exagerated the parts she found. (Like reporters do)
If you read the replies to the article you will find:
Name: Chris Gianelloni
Location: USA
Occupation: Gentoo Linux Developer
Comment: Well, what can I say except that quite a bit of the “meat” of this “interview” was ignored. I did make mention that the full-environment LiveCD would be an “experimental” CD available for x86 and amd64 and that it will have a “limited functionality, beta version” of the installer on the CD. At no point did I represent that there would be a 100% completed installer available by February, but now it appears that everyone under the sun thinks that there will be one.
There will not.
Trust me on this one. The Gentoo Installer project is working very hard, but they are not anywhere near completion and definitely will not be so quickly after the winter holidays.
“So how does it work? Do I put the CD into my computer, and 3 days later I’m greeted with a KDE login prompt? ”
Thanks for my first laugh of the day, lol
I doubt also that the installer would be finished in that short amount of time (being that it’s already December) and it seems like they would spend more time on to produce a better product rather than just release something to keep the public going.
As for a livecd as an operational desktop system, I think this would be a great idea honestly. Though I suppose Knoppix does the job, it would be nice to see it consolidated to sticking with one cd instead of more than one. I say more than one in this case because users might not be able to figure out how to install from Knoppix if they’re new to Gentoo installations. So hopefully that concept is actually true, or a possibility.
Haha three days for KDE, probably. I’d hope they would use the prebuilt packages.
http://www.gentoo.org/
As many of you already know, there was a recent article regarding the 2004.3 and 2005.0 releases posted on the ZDNet UK web site. In this article, the reporter presented much of the information given to her by Chris Gianelloni incorrectly. Chris does not think Mrs. Marson did this intentionally but rather out of a lack of understanding of some of the things she was told. Although the 2005.0 release will include an X-based experimental LiveCD, it will not be the primary release. The Release Engineering team plans to release 2005.0 just like 2004.3, with minimal, universal, and package CDs.
Another thing mentioned in the article was a graphical installer. Although there are plans on having a graphical installer for Gentoo, it is far from complete. Chris told Mrs. Marson that there would be a limited-functionality version of this installer on the experimental CD that would support AMD64 and x86. It will most likely be curses-based, or possibly GTK+, if the interface is completed, and it will not have any of the enterprise-ready features, such as machine cloning. At one point, Mrs. Marson quotes Chris as saying, “The graphical installer will have lots of facilities like Red Hat kickstart. You can create a script, containing details on, for example, what packages you want installed. You can then feed the same script to the installer on every machine, so that it will install identically.” Chris did say this, but he also said this functionality would not be available for some time.
Although Mrs. Marson was correct in the features that will some day come to Gentoo, her timetable was incorrect. One thing that is definitely positive is that this has shed quite a bit of light on our installer project, which has been working away and deserves all our support. We can only hope that this will end up a positive experience for us all.
purpose will this serve? the real reason people use gentoo is for it’s portage and of those alleged “performance” (fun-rolling-loops) enhancements.
I see no point in this release.
purpose will this serve? the real reason people use gentoo is for it’s portage and of those alleged “performance” (fun-rolling-loops) enhancements.
Nope. I don’t like compiling everything but Portage is a very powerful package manager and I just love the userland (the init system, the layout, etc).
I really wanted to try Gentoo but after 2000 keystrokes I gave up. Any sort of installer would be a great improvement.
if gentoo wants to be a mainstream distro and not one only for linux geeks they will need a graphical installer and probably more binary packages… Personally I would like to see the changes suggested by this article.. and perhaps a little more, like more of a bsd type portage system with binaries… It would help people getting their systems up and running without taking a few hours of compiling and I could use kde/gnome with some other applications without wasting a night or two. And would help getting the word out on this wonderful distributions simplify the install process for those who do not want to waste countless hours doing a stage1.
*********** disclamer ***********
This article and/or my suggestions might not be compatible with thos maintainers and developers of the gentoo system
all flames welcome,
anonymous coward
It is nice to have an GUI environment to play in while it installs in the background.
The way I would like the GUI installer to work is…
If select kdebase as the only package, that it would build me a KDE system, and only have the dependencies that KDE needs to be fully functional.
Now I know that everybody thinks that having their own distro is cool and everything but there are too many live cd distros. By adding another one only adds to the uselessmess of having so many. I’m not saying gentoo isn’t a good distro (in fact I believe it’s one of the premier distros out there but i think that we should cut back on how many distros exist (live cd or otherwise) it will actually help linux in the long run if we do.
And that was my opinon… and i belive has the right to their own
I don’t think the big deal is the installer or the live cd. To me, the big deal is that Gentoo is extremely difficult to install right now. Any installer would be really welcome. I really like the new Debian installer (which is text based), but I don’t really think it matters too much if it is text or graphical or those things. It doesn’t matter how lightweight the installer is since I’m really only going to use it once. It DOES matter that I am able to complete the installation.
“So how does it work? Do I put the CD into my computer, and 3 days later I’m greeted with a KDE login prompt?” Too funny man , seriously the gentoo thing is good the only turnoff for me being the handbook and steps you have to follow. I mean if gentoo comes up with a GUI with questions and answer on the Architecture and put in some concept of auto-detection to set some flags in the /etc/make.conf, I dont mind the KD login screen after 5 days. I remember Talking my Laptop to work just to issue commands after my stage 1 installation was done.
Well, VidaLinux http://desktop.vidalinux.com/ is Gentoo with an Anaconda installer. It does a full install with no package selection but it does get you started with a GUI Gentoo in under 2 hours.
gentoo does not need an installer and should stay focussed on it’s core principles. it will be a distraction for the developers and will make the community (forums, mailing lists, etc) less useful.
A mass-usable interface does have to be the end-game of every operating system.
The gentoo devs don’t make the installer a priority b/c they don’t want the help forums to be flooded with the attention deficit disorder disabled MTV generation who won’t stick around long enough to read the answers to their own questions.
(laugh, its a joke)
right on.. i hope the gentoo community keeps their momentum and is not “distracted” with graphic usability.
a gentoo is a type of penguin, thought to be the fastest swimming bird.
Gentoo DOES need an installer, just not the kind described in the article. What it needs is 1) a simple ncurses based installer so that everything can be set and left to do its own thing without having to babysit it like you have to do currently and 2) needs an automated way to do installs to many machines at once for enterprise use.
An X based installer would be a waste of time IMHO.
I’m, proud user of an PowerBook G4, with MacOS X 10.3.6, have an Athlon XP 2600+ PC, with Gentoo 2004.2, emerged to kernel 2.6.9 + KDE 3.3.1, installed using three full days. Then the number is true.
I have:
Kernel 2.6.9
KDE 3.3.1
OpenOffice.org 1.1.3 + KDE integration
Mozilla FireFox
The Gimp 2
NO DISTCC
NO CCACHE
NO anything
ADSL 256Kbs (with Gentoo it does mean)
I’ve learnt more Linux with a year with Gentoo than six Red Hat years.
Unless this is going to be like Gentoo super-Lite there’s not much point. Why do people even use Gentoo stage 2 or 3 installs is beyond me? The whole point of Gentoo is the 3 days of waiting for your system to compile (or only a day if you have a nice AMD64
), as you’re optimising it for your CPU, Chipset, and other peripherals creating a lean mean Linux running Machine. To pre-compile stuff goes against the spirit of Gentoo and as mentioned Portage is one of the best package managers around, but how will this work? Is everything precompiled on the CD and run from it when a fake install with emerge is carried out?
This type of CD isn’t for trying out Gentoo as Gentoo has nothing to do with compiled code! It’s all about tweakheads trying to get every last CPU cycle used efficiently through custom compiles for their system and Gentoo is really only at its best when you have a good understanding of what hardware you’re running in you box. Another good thing about Gentoo is you only install what you want to install so you can have a Linux box running just a single task. I have a Gentoo box that is just a pure fileserver, all it has running on it is Samba and LVM2, as doesn’t need anything else wasting CPU cycles not even a CRON.
“I’ve learnt more Linux with a year with Gentoo than six Red Hat years.”
I agree this. Since Redhat turned 8.0 I don’t really like it. Gentoo is one of my favorites. Try to install LTSP (Linux Terminal Server Project) on a distro, and you will feel the same….
Now those hours of compiling will be wiped out when I reset my PC?
a real installation routine. That alone should increase their usage substantially.
erm, what possible use is a package management system on a live CD?