People always say they hate the compiling and while I admit it gets annoying at times Gentoo also makes me think a lot and have to research and I enjoy that.

Here's what I've had to do this past week. It started with my UPS and trying to get it working. The linux software from Belkin didn't work so I took the suggestion to try nut. Well after getting it all configured it seemed like it just couldn't find my serial port. So I checked my kernel .config and sure enough when I had compiled my kernel the last time the driver 8250 for serial ports had errors. So I decided to upgrade my kernel and recompile. I used my old config but there were a lot of errors during make so I decided to start with a fresh .config. I am using gentoo-sources. So then I had to think of all the things I needed to compile in. No errors in make, ran lilo and booted. Oops, alsa couldn't find my sound card. Easy to fix, but then I had another error, I don't remember what it was but it was something that needed to be compiled into the kernel so I googled and found out what it was. Now the fun of finding it in make menuconfig. Ok, got that done.

Still no serial port connection. This is where the nut developer came in and told me I needed a different driver which wasn't in any linux software yet because my UPS was so new. So working with him for a few days and I was able to get my UPS working. Now, not being satisfied I wanted to be able to access my UPS online via localhost. So I asked the developer and he told me how. I had to emerge nut with the cgi USE flag. But even though the ebuild didn't failed I got an error that it couldn't find libgd. So I emerged gd and it failed to build libgd. So I posted on the Gentoo board and they told me that I needed to build GD. Duh, I already told them that. So I searched the gentoo board and found out that I could put libgd in make.conf as a use flag. So I did that and it worked. Cool!

But during all this time I realized I hadn't done my world updates in about a week. I do the deep world updates which not only upgrades packages but there dependencies. I had 66 programs that needed compiled including several kde ones. So I just let it run over night and I had a message that I had 5 config files that needed to be updated and to run etc-update. Well, as any Gentoo user knows you don't run etc-update until you know what it wants to overwrite. An example is when you have a new xorg and it wants to overwrite you xorg.config. So I ran my little script that I have. Looked over what needed to be upgraded and thought I was safe. Then I had to reboot. No kde, just a bunch of errors. So I did startx which takes you into the Gentoo default wm which just consist of a black screen and three terminals. Right clicking on the desktop gives you nothing. So then I had to figure out why it wasn't working. I checked my config files and somewhere along the way they changed the default config files where you set you XSession to kde. So I made sure that was ok. Them I set kdm for login. But .kderc was overwritten. I don't use the modular kde so the easiest thing to do was to emerge kdm and see what packages were blocking it and then reemerge that one. As I suspected it was kde-base. I remerged it and cool. I could now log into kde. Now you ask why do I love Gentoo because off all these problems. Well it's fun! Frustrating but fun. I spent a lot of time looking for answers. And then getting it all worked out was satisfying. So now I have to break something else so I can fix it and hopefully learn more. Yes, I am crazy!

You certainly are!

But lets not forget that in another distribution you might never have got it working

Seriously, the Gentoo community is way active and I've gotten things right with bleeding edge packages in Gentoo that I haven't managed in any of the other distros I regularly use.

I love Gentoo too, for its flexibility amongst other things. And I don't mind the compile times at all. Couldn't bother me less.

Well I am glad you got your UPS working. Sounds like a painful experience to me but if that's what y'all like

more... paragraphs... can't take it... all in... (gasp)

I used to love tinkering and getting things working too... Don't have the energy for it these days...

That's true. I don't know if you read my other thread about trying to get my UPS working but because it's so new the driver isn't in any linux packages. So the developer helped me download the parts of the driver that when compiled made the driver I needed. And all I had to do was take the tar.gz, untar it, add the files to the drivers folder, put it back and compile.

might want to fix your enter key, it looks like your paragraphs were not put in



James

lol -- I agree with phunni though & as well as energy I suppose it's time. In the world we live in now-a-days it's all go, go, go. I remember the story of a wife who was in a hurry to meet some friends which meant that she had no time to cook a meal for her hubby. Anyway being the nice lady that she was she left a microwaveable meal next to the -- microwave with a letter of apologises. When she got back later that evening the meal was still next to the microwave untouched. Apparently the husband moaned that he didn't eat the meal cos the instructions stated that he had heat it for 2 MINUTES then come back turn it OVER then heat it for another 2 MINUTES... I think you get the jist.

We've become programmed now to expect things to just appear - we want to watch something we switch on the telly - hey presto! - drive throughs - drop in clinics - & the list goes on..

Having said that good on you mystified - someone's got to do it!

I've currently got two anti-spam servers running Gentoo, and recently upgraded from 2006.1 to 2007.0. I've also got my desktop system that has Gentoo 2007.0 on it as well. And real easy to upgrade from one release to another, without even a reboot!

Well it probably could have compiled against Arch or Slackware, but I like punting Gentoo and fielding the consequences

Love compiling too, I just do it in Ubuntu
It's giving a thrill to compile and a satifaction....okay seriously I need to get out more LOL

who wants to guess what OS I run on this server here ? yes the one that runs mandrivausers.org ...


ssshhhhh don't tell

toms root boot disk?

Nah mate, everyone knows that Paul runs Jesus' own Linux.

You know, this isn't in any way specific to Gentoo. Gentoo does nothing that makes this more necessary than any other "advanced user" distribution.

I tried to read the rest of your post mysti, but, it just looked like garbled text. Something about it not being a Gentoo thing, but more just an advanced distribution thing, and the smell of distro-evangelism...I don't know. I figure it best I not finish or else I might have to go on about what's wrong with Gentoo, but I won't

Well I put paragraphs in there just for you.

I was wondering why everytime I logged in via ssh I got an MOTD with a bible quote in it!

Let me ramble on for a bit . . .

I would wholeheartedly agree that the best feature of Linux is the ability to compile -- how many times I had wished I could re-compile a program in WindowsWorld to fix a simple problem. I switched over along time ago - with Mandrake 8.0 and have not looked back since.

Mandrake 8.0 was an utterly awesome experience for a newbie fresh from CandyLand. What a fun version to learn the ropes ! I had to configure manually some mighty tough stuff for a utter newbie - the modem, the scanner, and the cdwriter!

Linux without compiling would be sheer boredom, since everything works (most of the time) out of the box. Rpms are great, and I have been warned many times, that doing source 'will break the box' -- hmmm . . . six years and counting . . .

Just recently, I tried several other distros: Fedora Core 6, Gentoo 2006.1, FreeBSD 6.2, Debian 3.1 r0a, Ubuntu 6.10, Slackware 11.0, and the free Solaris 10 DVD set (thank you, Sun!). Of this mighty list only Ubuntu, Slackware, Solaris, and of course Mandriva 2006.0 and 2007.1 installed and worked out of the box. (Fedora did too, but the extra DVD's I had purchased in the 'complete' set could not be used without some nasty, convoluted workarounds. - but that's another story.)

Gentoo: oh, how I wish it would install: it looks so interesting. It has a such snazzy LiveCD desktop. The LiveCD loaded promptly and properly. Double-clicking the install icon started the ball rolling. On my production boxes (the Mandriva twins) I use ReiserFS because we are prone to multiple power outages where I live way in the boonies – ext2/3 do not like to be interrupted, so I opted for this robust, safe file system.

Ahem. After much digging, I found out you can load Reiser, but finally opted not to – just to get Gentoo loaded. I figured I could re-install Gentoo later with the file system of my choice – so I let it have its way, for the time being. Well, after checking off all my favorite programs, I clicked install, and waited for an eternity for it to complete. Near the final steps of the installation, it burped, and declared, in an ubiquitous error message, that it could not load a file, and then exited! Exited?? What??

I figured I did something wrong, and started a brand new installation. Again it burped, and died. Drawing upon my accumulated years of linux expertise, I tried an absolutely minimal install: different burp, same exit. Now, by this time, I was thinking 'bad memory' or something in the hardware department simply because of the random nature of the error burps. But I remembered, by this time, I had installed successfully Ubuntu, Slackware, and Mandriva 2007. It could not be hardware. The problem had to be the disk or the distro itself.

Anyway, to get back to the original post: I sure wish I can have some of these problems. Mandriva is just so stable - it's becoming . . . boring. Almost makes me long for CandyLand again (but I can't afford the downtime nor the purchase price.

I'll stick with Mandriva simply because it works so well. I can compile to my heart's content and still have a stable operating system if I mess up.

Btw, I love debugging!
Kunk

Hey~

Crackin' chat.

I'm not that great with Linux. I'm currently trying Debian etch atm, as an alternative to Mandriva. Its errr... new (muffled cry for help:). I think it was either Tyme or Arctic that, did a great piece on it, inspired me to try it.

It's my first break from the Mandy dist, ever, after 4 years. Gentoo and Ubuntu are next on my list too because of great threads just like this. The technical stuff is good, but sometimes the human aspect is more interesting to me.

Well done to you; Kunk, Mystified and eveyone who searches and achieves. Makes me feel more confident trying to give it a go too!

With all due respect to all those in this thread, if you want to prove your geek abilities, use this LFS

I'm not advocating the use of LFS, but it is the most demanding on the mind.

Personally, I can compile 'anything' on my Debian or Mandriva systems.

It was definitely arctic. I'm far too lazy to review any distributions!

Yes, it was me. Currently I am writing this from my RHEL/StartCom AS5 distro and this distro is just the opposite to mystis Gentoo. Absolutely nothing, really absolutely nothing (!) ever breaks here. And I wait for security fixes and bugfixes but none are there. It is somehow intimidating, amazing and boring to have such a stable box. But it is great in case your other distros break, so you have always one fall-back option available.

I did a lfs install one time. Never again. Gentoo is fun. lfs sucks.

I've got an LFS boxen in my house (runs on my tivo)

God bless a biker geek!

paul isn't just a geek. He's a guru.

and ian1974 too .. altho he has zero WAF (wife approval factor)

Hey you forgot the w! (emphasis mine)

I'm working on the WAF, so far I gotten myself a Nikon D40. I just need to WAF for the motorbike I need more time

I don't think anyone is trying to prove their geek abilities. Gentoo isn't that difficult to install and use. What Mysti has achieved was above average and high on the geek scale, but that's because Mysti rocks, not just because Gentoo is awesome.

LFS is the geekiest Linux to install, hands down. I just don't have the time /+ inclination.

LFS is... yeah. Fun.

It's not so much a practical distro to use, but more of a learning exercise, and one you don't forget in a hurry. I did one early on in my linux days and I learned a heap.

James

I remember that. I think I was going to do one too, but, as usual, laziness won out

I thought about it also, but figured it would take up waaaaaay too much time. Gentoo is enough for me

I don't know. I just thought it was really tedious. Copy and pasting from the LFS manual and then having to sit and wait for things to comple and then move onto the next one. The manual is pretty thorough as to what you need.

As far as Gentoo goes I don't think I'm an above average user (thank you SoulSe ) I just like researching and problem solving. And I get to do that with gentoo and probably other advanced linux distros as tyme says. I just happen to use Gentoo. Gentoo really isn't that hard to install or use, it's just that when you run into a problem it's really complex and you have to dig for answers. But Gentoo is so well documented that you can find a lot of answers with Google and then the Gentoo Forums hold a tremendous wealth of information and I can find answers through searching a lot of times and then posting if I can't. That's how I happened to luck out and find a NUT developer who happens to be a Gentoo user. Without him, I'd never have gotten anything done.

CentOS 5 x86_64 on my laptop and on a hd on another box. Rock solid!

That being said, I have gentoo on another hd too and it is fun to use sometimes too.

Ohh boy. I should really appreciate your patience on problem solving. I have so many problems to solve in life and at work, that I dont want to have new problems adding up from my laptop.

For me I count every minute of time I enjoy watching movies, playing games and chatting with buddies, so I love any Operating Systems which need minimal time to get going , like Mandriva and even Windows. Every minute spend on solving some laptop related problems at home, is just loss of time in ur short span of life (lol this is too philosophical)