a13x

Can you provide a link ?

If you like it, make sure you make a tarball of your install to be able to experiment freely without having to recompile everything in case of massive system failure. B)

Cool. I'm going to download it and test it. I never had one of those Sun related products (except Java). I wonder how it compares to Linux.

I like SMB4K but it's a KDE app and since I'm a GNOME user I want one that is GTK-based. For example, Beep Media Player is a XMMS clone that uses GTK libraries. Something like that is what I need. LinNeighbourhood is excluded. I know that Nautilus can browse network shares but it doesn't do a good job.

Not really ... I'm gonna triple boot MDK 10.2, Gentoo & WinXP (I dunno really why I'm keeping this one :lol: ). As for Gentoo ... I will reinstall it because I want to use Reiser4 and nptl this time.

Smart people ... Polish should be proud :D

Excellent. I've been waiting for this one. I'll add this to my download list .... :lol:

I know now. I renounced MNF in favour of Slackintosh for my server. And I use webmin and ssh for administration.

The retards strike back.

Nice .... but I think you need to work some more on the folders and maybe put some more colour. Keep up the good work, bvc ! :D

LOL !!!! My Linux experience for 2003 That year I had my first Linux experience. I installed Mandrake 9.2 but because of the ACPI bug and poor community support (on IRC; no, not MUSB related) I was forced to uninstall it after a few days of testing. My Linux experience for 2004. I installed FC2 and tested it in June or Jully but because I was a n00b back then and Fedora had annoying bugs I uninstalled it. After that, in August or so I installed Mandrake 10. From August to December I learned the basics of Linux. My Linux experience for 2005 On the 2nd of January I installed Gentoo just to test it. I used it for 2 weeks in order to be able to write something about it, before posting this review.. I liked it and decided to keep it and make it my main OS. What is it so hard to understand ? Thx. :D

Go om, install Mandrake. urpmi is not so bad. Just don't touch Cooker and you'll be fine ;). Well, Cooker is not that bad but it will give you head-aches.

Where did you get all that "you hate/hammer RH and Fedora" thing ? RH is the most succesful Linux company AFAIK and I admire that. I won't say anything about FC3 since I haven't tested it. The only Fedora I've tested is FC2 which had some annoying bugs at that time. I was a total n00b back then so that's why I stopped using it. Actually that is compiled just for i686. :P I don't thing anybody argued about that. OK man, chill. Since you put it that way I'll stop all the distro fights. :lol:

No problem. I think that if this was a Lunar or other less popular distro's review it would have attracted less reacties. But since Gentoo is a controversial distro it generated interest. :D Gowator The only objective benchmark I've done is Firefox, thx to daniewicz' link and it turned out to be a lot faster in Gentoo. Other than that, only subjective things. I would do other benchmarks but I need software for this. There are a lot of bm programs out there but I need a good one with lots of tests, a complete suite or something similar. cybr Fedora and it's ancestor, RH Linux, have been around for quite a long time and because they were among the first distros together with Debian and Slackware (if I remember well) they gained popularity so it's only normal for them to be used in projects like SELinux, etc. Gentoo hasn't had so much time to gain as much popularity as them but still it's growing fast. It's no. 8 at distrowatch. Gaining top 10 in such a short time, 2-3 years, is something. Oh, one more thing, can we stop acting like kidz, throwing flames at one another ? I think it runs faster. As Soulse and I have said, you can update it while you are sleeping or doing something else.

I'm using the 1.9 devel version right now and I'm not very impressed. Yes, it has full support for GTK2 but it's slower than 1.1 and feels unstable. I hope they will fix this in 2.0. Anyway if you want to give it a shot you can download it in rpm format from openoffice.org.

If you are interested in testing the genetic algorithm get yourself the latest kernel sources, 2.6.11-r1, plus the 2.6.11-r1-nitro0e patch and compile it. IMHO the nitro patchset is the best around. Not only it will make your kernel run faster and better but includes bleeding edge stuff too, a la Gentoo. ;) Here's the link: Nitro I'm testing it right now. Here are my results: Alex ~ # cat /proc/genetic/as-ioscheduler generation_number: 46 num_children: 8 child_number: 6 num_mutations: 8 avg_fitness: 40743 last_gen_avg_fitness: 5142 Fitness history generation(30): 8666 generation(31): 3365 generation(32): 7805 generation(33): 6028 generation(34): 11129 generation(35): 7120 generation(36): 7028 generation(37): 8385 generation(38): 7102 generation(39): 12384 generation(40): 8068 generation(41): 29428 generation(42): 40714 generation(43): 9028 generation(44): 6857 generation(45): 5142 Alex ~ #

Not all people have that ambition to learn. They need more stimulus. Our own nature tells us to pick the easy way to resolve a problem that is by using GUI tools. That's one of the reasons why winblows dominates the OS market. Would you learn C++ right now ? You know it would do you good because you could write programs but you need more stimulus than just will. The Gentoo handbook also makes you understand what those commands do so it contributes to your linux knowledge. A CPU with good cooling should resist to heavy usage. Good idea. I'm going to do something productive myself.

I feel a distro war coming on ...... :lol: What is there to fix ? I just followed the install instructions and it works. No hacking, no head aches. Agreed. It is harder. Everyone (well, almost) can install Mandrake but many have this "fear of the CLI" that prevents them from doing Gentoo install. It's true you can learn Linux from every distro but Gentoo forces you to learn while Mandrake offers a comfortable Windows-like environment. The majority of Windows users don't know much about computers and stuff because of this 'ease of use'. They don't realize what 'happens behind the scenes'. In Gentoo you don't have all those nice GUI configuration tools that do the dirty work. So these are 2 big reasons why Gentoo is considered hard. Not my case ... and I don't believe this. You are saying that Gentoo users are ignorants and snobs. Having a working Gentoo on your PC makes you proud for a short time because you know you have achieved something more difficult than the others, that's all. I'm talking about the stable versions of the distros not the devel ones. AFAIK Debian stable uses old packages while Gentoo stable (and others) have more recent ones.

Nope. AFAIK prelinking makes files larger and more memory hungry but also faster. When I'll get myself more RAM and a larger hd I'll prelink.

That's what I do. :D My Gentoo improves itself while I sleep. I must say, I'm impressed with the system's performance. I was compiling a kernel and smb4k at the same time, surfing the web and the system was very responsive and stable. You can never get that in winblows and some other distros. Your friend was comfortable with computers, technology etc but most people aren't like that. He's a natural probably ;). I believe it is better to take it easy (for most people). First install an easy to use distro like Mandrake. Learn the basics, then go for something harder like Gentoo. Talk about Ubuntu, I'll never use a distro that is optimized for i386 - a waste of CPU power in my case at least. I installed and played a little with Slackware 9.2 a few days ago ... /me doesn't like Slackware. I prefer the Gentoo CLI install rather than that stupid ncurses interface. It's stable no doubt, but Gentoo is faster and it's package management system superior. AFAIK Debian uses old packages and is very stable but as you can see (in my sig) I want to use bleeding edge stuff that is quite stable ....... never had a crash or lock down in Gentoo. So out of the 3 "l33t" distros the only one that suits me is Gentoo.

I need a monitor for the Samba shares. I'd like to know who accesses every resource (not just the folder, the logs tell you that, but the specific file), at what time etc. Does such a software exist for Linux ?

Patience is a virtue :D. In my case, packages are smaller because I have no KDE installed so they are Gnome-only. I'm very busy too but I have enough time for the upgrades: I just leave the PC on in the night. First, it downloads everything needed, than it starts compiling. The next day I check for errors and resolve them. This is how I do all my massive downloading, upgrading etc.

I was having some problems with Mandrakelinux 10.2 Cooker (my fault I admit it .... never play too much with Cooker :P) and I wanted to try something different (no, not Winblows Longhorn :)) I didn't know if I could install the distro or configure it but I decided to give it a shot. I downloaded both the Universal Live CD and the packages CD (which I never used). Installation I booted the LiveCD and decided to go for a stage2 install (not too easy, not too hard ;)) The base system install took me some hours (figuring out stuff, understanding and setting use flags, configuring and compiling the kernel etc). The handbook was very helpful, I understood everything. In the end I had a bare bones system without GUI, only the very basic stuff running linux-2.6.10-nitro2 (finally I managed to build a fast and stable kernel by myself). I compiled everything (Gnome, Firefox, Xorg, XMMS, MPlayer, OpenOffice and a lot of other stuff) using Gentoo's package manager, Portage, from source with aggressive flags . It took my Athlon XP 1800+ CPU about 2 nights. All configuration was done manually (lilo, network, fstab, make.conf etc). Package Management There are 2 ways to install things: either get the compiled stuff from the packages cd or download and compile everything from one of the Gentoo mirrors using emerge. I believe that getting the sources is way better than binary packages. Here are some advantages/disadvantages for the Gentoo package management system: + your compiled binaries will be perfectly optimized for your system (much faster and smaller than normal binaries) + you always have the sources and can make whatever modifications you want + deltup helps people with dial-up or limited bandwidth (like me) upgrade. Emerge just downloads and patches the existing sources with a small dtu file and then compiles it. This way I didn't have to download linux-2.6.10 (~36MB). Emerge just patched my existing linux-2.6.9 with a small dtu file (~3MB). + you get the l33t feeling, lol - & + it may take a lot of time to compile on slower CPUs, but there us a way to get around that. You compile the entire system once, then you tell emerge to build binary packages as well, for all your software. This way, the next time you install Gentoo you will have fully-optimized binary packages that install as fast/or faster as/then rpms. NOTE: Your CPU type must be the same. Example: Athlon XP optimized packages aren't optimized for an Intel or Athlon MP CPU. - you have to keep an eye on the installation process since it might stop because of compile errors - not for the faint hearted Almost forgot, Portage has a GUI application called Porthole which makes installing software easy. Features Gentoo is fast, lightweight and flexible. You have total control over the system and you can tweak just about everything. A big community of fanatics is always there to help you if you get in trouble :lol: . One disadvantage I see is that it is aimed at the tech savvy. Conclusions Gentoo replaced my Mandrakelinux installation and is my main OS, now. If speed and performance is important to you, if you like to tweak your system than Gentoo is for you. What can I say, it's the best distro I've used so far ! Gentoo rulz.

Well, that is your opinion and I understand you because you don't play games AFAIK. I'm not a hardcore gamer but there are some witch I want to enjoy. I totally agree with you on the Winblows thing. It's so boring !!!

Why do you think dual booting sucks ? It helped me and a lot of other people switch more and more to Linux. I think that dual-booting makes it possible for you to get the best out of the 2 worlds: winblows for games and Linux for everything else :D Of course it has a negative side cuz it takes time but I don't see that as a major counter-argument.