Frank Peters <frank.pet...@comcast.net> posted 20090424090615.26193234.frank.pet...@comcast.net, excerpted below, on Fri, 24 Apr 2009 09:06:15 -0400:
> I just switched to Gentoo from another distribution and my only regret > is that I did not make the switch much earlier. Gentoo is a fantastic > way of managing Linux and I am grateful to all those who have made it > possible. Hi and welcome! =:^) You seem to have about the same feelings I did when I discovered Gentoo. I had found my distribution home! =:^) > As I mentioned, this warning is merely an annoyance, but it does slow > down the emerge process for several seconds as the program pauses to > give sufficient time for the warning message to be read. If a large > number of packages is being emerged, this can add up to a lot of time. I see others addressed the primary concern of your post and it's now resolved. However, you may find this useful as well. Here's a couple make.conf settings I've found useful, well, one I've found reason to change, and a couple similar ones I've not. # Delay b4 cleaning out old packages # I'm actually not sure this one's used anymore, # but if there's an unwanted delay between merge of an update # and clean of the old one, tweak this. #Default CLEAN_DELAY="5" CLEAN_DELAY="2" # Do we want those user notification pauses and beeps? # EPAUSE_IGNORE="true" # EBEEP_IGNORE="true" And, while we're at it, here's a couple hints that eased my way into Gentoo. First and most important, Gentoo has built a reputation for good user documentation. Don't let it go to waste! In particular, it's a shame how many users read the Gentoo Handbook, Part 1, Installation, and then forget the other parts. There's some VERY useful information in those other parts, Part 2, Working with Gentoo, Part 3, Working with Portage, and Part 4, Gentoo Network Configuration. In addition to that, I'd suggest looking over and bookmarking the Gentoo Documentation list as found here: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/list.xml As you can see, there's step-by-step instructions for quite a number of setup tasks one may wish to do on Gentoo, plus a number of other useful documents. Any time you're considering a major upgrade like the recent xorg 1.5 stabilization or a printer change, or installation and setup of a new feature like RAID, LVM or Apache, it's worth checking here to see if there's some Gentoo specific documentation in addition to the generic package documentation that may be available. Second, I'll mention what has become my favorite under-appreciated portage feature, FEATURES=buildpkg. This creates binpkgs (in /usr/ portage/package by default, see the make.conf and portage manpages for details on changing this and other settings) of everything you emerge. Total additional space required, 3-4 gigs (you can do it in 2 gigs but it's tight). But after you've accumulated binpkgs of everything on your system, if you upgrade something and it doesn't work, no sweat, just emerge --pkgonly the old working version. Since it's a binpkg it installs real fast without having to recompile it, yet it's the same customized package you built when you first installed it, not some prebuilt compromise package like you'd get on a binary distribution. binpkgs are also quite useful for other things. Since it's a simple tar.bz2 with a bit of extra metadata glued on the end, you can use any standard archiver to open it and examine or extract individual files if necessary. Screw up a config file you were editing? No problem, just extract the original out of the binpkg tarball! Have a problem with a package and wonder what files changed between two different versions? No problem! You have them both tarballed up as binpkgs and can browse the tarballs comparing them! What do you do if you get a broken portage, or python since portage requires it, or gcc so you can't compile anything? Well, if portage itself is still working (so for the gcc problem), you can simply emerge a previous known working version from the binpkg. If portage is NOT working, because the binpkg is basically a tarball, you can copy make.conf somewhere it won't get overwritten, and extract the portage (or python) tarball directly over the root filesystem, replacing the broken version! Then copy back your make.conf that the extraction overwrote and you're back in business! Of course this bypasses portage so now its database is out of sync as it still thinks the other version is installed, but that's easy enough to fix. Once it's working again, just remerge the working version you emergency-untarred to the live filesystem over itself, thus updating the database so it again knows what's actually installed. The handbook does mention FEATURES=buildpkg, but it doesn't really describe how helpful it can be having those binpkgs around. But, this is simply a hint. If you don't want to do it, it's your system, don't. Those two hints should get you well on your way. In particular, reading those oft-ignored parts of the handbook will help you understand a lot more about how Gentoo works and why it's done that way than just doing the install, tremendously helping as you transition from installation to detail configuration and ongoing Gentoo system administration. I know I avoided many of the problems others had as they started with Gentoo, simply because I read the instructions. =:^) Three, don't be afraid of the lists and/or forums, but it seems you've got that one covered! =:^) -- Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman
