| @sarnold | seemant is going to give his presentation on gentoo, a newer distribution that has been gaining in popularity :) |
|---|---|
| @sarnold | with luck, this talk will be translated in #redes (spanish) and #taee (dutch) .. questions and comments in #qc, please, unless seemant decides to unmoderate #linux and have the threatened free-for-all |
| @sarnold | (in which case, chances are good, the translating will stop...) |
| @sarnold | directly after seemant's talk, nicholas jones will present on gentoo's portage system :) |
| @sarnold | please welcome seemant :) |
| @seemant | <tap tap> is this on? :) |
| @seemant | I'm Seemant Kulleen, I'm a project co-ordinator for Gentoo Linux |
| @seemant | so I would like to spend just a few minutes introducing Gentoo Linux and providing you an overview of it |
| @seemant | I would have wanted this to be as interactive as possible, but I do understand that translations are important and so I will refrain from making this a free-for-all :) |
| @seemant | So, let's jump in, shall we? |
| @seemant | Gentoo Linux is a source based meta-distribution of linux |
| @seemant | we say meta-distribution because we, ourselves, do not provide binaries for the packages which our users install; rather we provide scripts which allow them to compile and install the packages themselves |
| @seemant | Driving this is the powerful Portage system -- largely modelled on the ports based BSDs |
| @seemant | Essentially, we provide the convenience of dependency checking and customisation |
| @seemant | While allowing you to compile packages directly from the source tarballs in an automated way |
| @seemant | Nick will provide more technical details on the portage system later on, so save those questions for him :) |
| @seemant | So, what advantages does Gentoo offer to the user? |
| @seemant | Quite simply, by not restricting users to a predefined set of optimisation levels and customisation choices, we provide the ability for a user to install on their system, _exactly_ what they want |
| @seemant | When you install your brand new gentoo system, you get to tweak (at your own risk, of course :) the optimisation settings for your particular hardware |
| @seemant | and subsequently every source based package that you install, or emerge, will be compiled with those options |
| @seemant | But the customisation does not stop there. We are unique in offering the user what we call USE settings |
| @seemant | Essentially your USE settings comprise a list of words which define the kinds of support you want or do not want your installed applications to have |
| @seemant | So, for instance, you can install Gentoo from the beginning to be targetted to be a non-GUI based server |
| @seemant | or you can install it to be a desktop system with the desktop environments and window managers you wish |
| @seemant | The key here is that your Gentoo installation is an "opt-in" rather than an "opt-out" system |
| @seemant | meaning that you install what you want from the get-go, rather than trim down to what you want after having installed a full system |
| @seemant | As was brought up a few minutes ago by Lovechild we do, in fact, offer binary packages, but I will address that in a few minutes |
| @seemant | I would like to point out that Gentoo does have a new release expected around Christmas |
| @seemant | We have many exciting things to offer in terms of the available compilers, glibc versions, java SDK's, applications, games, and features to the core Portage system |
| @seemant | again, Nick will go into the details of Portage later |
| @seemant | Some of the comments we receive from Gentoo users is that it takes a long time to compile the system from scratch |
| @seemant | While we do offer three different starting points for your install (a base install, which you bootstrap, compile your system, then the rest of your user environment); |
| @seemant | a stage 2 install, which is already bootstrapped, so needs only the system and the rest of your environment to be compiled and installed |
| @seemant | and finally a stage 3 install which contains a ready to go base system, and needs essentially an unpacking into your hard disk space, optional kernel compile, boot manager configuration and reboot |
| @seemant | For the upcoming 1.4 release, however, we are adding the added convenience of binary packages for some specific user environment packages |
| @seemant | things like KDE-3 and Gnome2 will be available as downloadable, optimised (for your hardware) binary tarballs in our tbz2 format |
| @seemant | This GRP (Gentoo Reference Platform) project is largely to ease the time taken to install a fully usable desktop system |
| @seemant | To answer another question, prelinking will be available as an option in the upcoming releases of portage (available in our release) |
| @seemant | I would also like to mention that our CD based installers are certainly unique and have come into high demand from our users |
| @seemant | we offer two variants of our live cd environment |
| @seemant | the first is largely targeted as a rescue/install cd (we are working on automating hardware detection and configuration as much as possible) |
| @seemant | the second showcases the technology available to linux users today to allow your computer to be used in much the same way as a console gaming station |
| @seemant | on this second variant, we offer a bootable CD which again detects and configures your hardware (and is especially tuned for nvidia hardware) and upon bootup into the CD environment, you are presented with the Unreal Tournament 2003 demo version to play |
| @seemant | this requires nothing to be installed on your hard disk at all |
| @seemant | Now, I see that a lot of questions are getting answered as they get asked in the questions/comments channel, but I would like to address a few of them in here |
| @seemant | First, being a source based distribution backed by the power of the Portage system, we are in a unique position to be able to be ported to new and different hardware |
| @seemant | For those of you who might have been following Gentoo's progress over the last few months, you might recall that the Alpha architecture is the newest in our available lineup |
| @seemant | That porting effort (for the base system and install) was essentially achieved over a weekend by one of our users (who has since become the team lead on the alpha port for us) |
| @seemant | Also, because of the flexibility and customisation options that I mentioned earlier, we know of several efforts to port Gentoo to embedded devices and the ARM architecture |
| @seemant | If you are interested in installing and learning more about Gentoo Linux, I would encourage you to browse our website <shameless plug> http://www.gentoo.org </shameless plug> -- you will find that we offer a wide selection of documentation |
| @seemant | our documentation team works hard at creating easy to read, (print) and follow instructions in many languages for a variety of different things, ranging from installations on each available architecture through configuring your desktop environment through to tightening up security and covering the basics of development |
| @seemant | Many of our users design their own ebuild scripts for packages (many many of which make into the official portage tree) |
| @seemant | I believe the developer documentation has played a huge role in users gaining access to the information that they need in order to do this |
| @seemant | We do, in fact, cherish and rely on close contact with our end users |
| @seemant | We rather think of our users as co-developers on this project :) |
| @seemant | And as such, we encourage and invite feedback constantly |
| @seemant | We currently have mailing lists set up to cover a wide variety of needs (security, x86 issues, ppc issues, sparc issues, alpha issues, developer issues for each architecture, documentation issues, etc) |
| @seemant | Additionally, many of our developers maintain a constant presence on our irc channels and are available to provide individual support and field questions |
| @seemant | We have, in fact, made many improvements due to users in our irc channels |
| @seemant | And of course, we have an openly browsable bug tracking system at http://bugs.gentoo.org |
| @seemant | where issues can be both viewed and reported |
| @seemant | we LOVE our bug tracking system |
| @seemant | it is what puts us in touch with the individual users |
| @seemant | and how we can tap into the creativity not only of developer users but end users as well |
| @seemant | Aha |
| @seemant | Someone just asked about CPAN and the portage system |
| @seemant | I take particular notice of this question as it is one of the subprojects that I have a personal interest in. |
| @seemant | We are at a very alpha stage, where installing perl modules is achieved via interfacing (transparently to the user) portage with CPAN |
| @seemant | so a simple command like emerge 'Net:SSLeay" would search CPAN for the latest versions, read out its dependencies, install those, and then install the Net:SSLeay module as well |
| @seemant | The advantage that this offers, is that the portage tree will not have to grow to accommodate all the thousands of perl modules on CPAN |
| @seemant | yet, they are all available via the portage system |
| @seemant | and portage provides the package management back end for them |
| @seemant | (among other things, this allows you to use portage to uninstall a perl module -- a feature which, to my knowledge, cpan does not offer) |
| @seemant | apart from that, you as a user now have just one package management system on your machine |
| @seemant | rather than several :) |
| @seemant | I hope that I have addressed most of your concerns, and if the general consensus is to open up the floor for questions and/or comments, this is the time to do that :) |
| @seemant | I've literally opened up the floor in here as well :) |
| @seemant | <mcp> seemant: yes. do you know gentoo runs daemons like apache, bind etc. in a chrooted env.? |
| @seemant | We currently have a sub-project in gentoo to provide an increased security level for your systems |
| @seemant | parts of that effort is the SELInux integration, and parts of it involve chrooting daemons like the above mentioned |
| @seemant | it is very much a project in process, and you will, in the near and forseeable future be seeing more about it |
| @seemant | Now, I do have a quarter of an hour remaining in my allotted time, so I would like to either field more questions or comments; or I can sing for you |
| @seemant | <mcp> seemant: does gentoo handle the emerge stuff somewhat like debian? via /etc/apt/sources.list? |
| @seemant | Our primary configuration file for portage is in /etc/make.conf |
| @seemant | In this file, you can customise many many aspects of portage, including your preferred mirrors |
| @seemant | The idea here is that portage is a "live" tree |
| @seemant | And so updates to the packages in the tree are available as soon as the gentoo maintainer commits the changes to the tree |
| samurai | I know that Daniel writes alot for IBM journal, but I was wondering if there has been any interest in GEntoo from the larger computer companies? |
| @seemant | In order for the user to have updated versions of the ebuild scripts, they have to synchronise their trees with those on our servers |
| drobbins | can I answer that one? |
| @seemant | please do |
| drobbins | ok |
| drobbins | well we are working on starting up the business/consulting division of Gentoo Linux |
| drobbins | and are creating it in such a way so that it exists peacefully with the free software project |
| drobbins | so to answer your question... yes, there is interest from larger companies. |
| tarzeau | namely? |
| ShawnWerk | drobbins :-) |
| drobbins | one thing I can say is that it's not IBM |
| drobbins | but we are develop relationships with 2 big guys |
| samurai | Microsoft ;-) ? |
| drobbins | even though I wrote articles for IBM, I was always a contractor, and not even a direct contractor of IBM |
| drobbins | samurai: no :) |
| drobbins | so I have like no contacts at IBM, unfortunately. |
| @seemant | well, the names are not important at this stage and in this forum |
| drobbins | (people always think there may be a Gentoo/IBM connection, which doesn't exist) |
| drobbins | just to clear *that* part up :) |
| @seemant | however, for anyone in the NYC area in late January, come visit us at LWE :) |
| drobbins | yes, cough cough! :) |
| @seemant | We will have a few surprises in store for you there |
| MrGrim | what is LWE? |
| drobbins | LinuxWorld Expo |
| Crast | Linux World Expo |
| drobbins | It is I think Jan 21-24 |
| sToneheAd | one question, can you describe what's basicaly the job of a gentoo devel? |
| drobbins | I'll give the floor back to seemant |
| @seemant | sToneheAd: sure |
| @seemant | sToneheAd: there are a few different types of gentoo developers |
| @seemant | I'll give you a quick rundown of them |
| @seemant | the first is a developer who is actually a team member of an upstream pacakge that we offer in portage, and they just wish to make sure that their package is well taken care of |
| @seemant | the second is a developer who has a certain focus in what they wish to do: |
| @seemant | in this respect, for example our KDE developers are focused on all issues concerning KDE/Qt |
| @seemant | and in their capacity as gentoo developers they are in constant communication with the end users of Gentoo as well as the upstream developers to try and make things work for everybody |
| @seemant | the third type of developer is one who just wishes to watch everything that is happening and make sure that packages don't get too outdated, and they handle those bugs that others won't touch |
| psypete | seemant: i have a rather urgent question. |
| psypete | in these conjugal visits... |
| @seemant | additionally, we have developers on our team who are dedicated to making the gentoo user community and gentoo developer community interact more easily |
| @seemant | sToneheAd: and finally, we have the more administrative developers, like myself |
| mcp | ah, -m :) |
| @seemant | my primary goal is to try and look forward and foresee needs before they happen, and take steps to address them now |
| drobbins | seemant is our people person |
| arj | Well the show started early so I don't know if this has been answered but have you thought about providing precompiled binaries of major programs, like mozilla? This is something that FreeBSD has. |
| drobbins | keeping tabs on who's doing what.... |
| drobbins | he's sort of like our version of Santa |
| @seemant | now, these needs are from all arenas -- our end users, upstream package developers, and of course, our own world class team of developers |
| woodchip | pleira: you like my irc client? |
| breno | is there another feature in portage that is not available in the BSD systems ports? (like for example gentoo's cvs e-builds which are a really great idea) |
| @seemant | arj: in fact, the Gentoo Reference Platform which I referred to earlier is aimed at providing exactly that |
| woodchip | pleira: why you /version me for |
| drobbins | breno: yep, many |
| @seemant | arj: with respect to mozilla in particular, yes the idea of offering it as a binary has been tossed around, and it is merely a matter of time |
| Lovechild | I heard from mjc that Gentoo might be switching to using WOLK has their default kernel, now I would love this, but won't it cause problems with say the way we handle ALSA right now? |
| breno | drobbins: cool ill check the docs for that, and is there something in BSD you are lacking? |
| drobbins | breno: sandboxing, keywords (for "masking" non-stable packages in the same tree) to name two |
| lws | What? Why? Mozilla only takes an hour or so to compile.... |
| drobbins | breno: we are looking at moving from rsync to cvsup |
| sToneheAd | seemant, thanks, one more thing, when the upstream releases a new version, what is the job of the developer (let's say the second type) he builds from sources and checks that it works fine then uploads to gentoo's servers? |
| ShawnWerk | hey woodchip |
| drobbins | breno: we started with rsync but are sort of out-growing it |
| @seemant | sToneheAd: yes, more or less |
| woodchip | ShawnXFS: hey long time buddy |
| @seemant | sToneheAd: part of the customisation we offer allows you to be able to install "bleeding edge" or unstable/testing versions of packages |
| @seemant | newer upstream releases, unless they fix security or critical issues go into the testing profile |
| @seemant | after appropriate feedback, we move them to stable profiles |
| @seemant | well |
| @seemant | thank you for your time and your attention |
| @seemant | I appreciate the opportunity to have spoken here :) |
| @garoeda | thanks a lot seemant for your presentation |
| @sarnold | seemant: thank you for the introduction to gentoo :) |