[TriLUG] gentoo linux

[Jonathan Rippy]

> > It's about as close to Linux from Scratch
> > as I wanna get right now.  :)
> 
> What makes you stay at Gentoo and not go LfS?
> 
> It sounds like Gentoo would be useful to create a minimal installation.

Since the LFS homepage uses analogies, I'll use one too.  :)
I feel like with the various commerical distros I was cruising
at around 10,000 feet.  With Gentoo I feel like I'm crusing
at maybe 100 feet.  This level of abstraction is fine with me.
I can always go look at the ebuild file (which is used to
install a port) if I'm curious as to what is going on for a
given package's installation.  LFS seems like I'd be right
on the ground having to figure things out.  I enjoy Gentoo's
level of abstraction, just enough for my taste.  :)

BTW, Gentoo can easily create a minimal installation.  I'm
not sure if you could get one as minimal as LFS but you could
get a quite minimal installation.  It installs very little by
default.. you have to install the pieces you want.  It will
tell you what dependencies exist and it will fetch and compile
them for you (recursively).

emerge --pretend category/package

will tell you what it wants to do without actually installing
anything... then you can:

emerge category/package

to have it compilied and installed (along with dependencies)

if you want to update your system:

emerge rsync

will use rsync to pull down the latest portage information

emerge --pretend update --world

will show you everything it thinks should be updated then

emerge udpate --world

will update your whole system


-- 
jonathan rippy