Guest vande198 Posted September 12, 2003 Report Share Posted September 12, 2003 I've been fooling around with linux for a year now, primarily with MDK 9.0 and 9.1 and (right now) SuSE 8.2. I'm looking for a distrobution like Arch or Gentoo that allow higher optimizations (i686 and up) and some sort of advanced package management system (like apt-get, urpmi, pacman, portage, etc.) I feel confident using the command like (I use urpmi and apt-get almost exclusively from the command line), yet I'm intimidated by the extravagent installation procedure of Arch and Gentoo. Is there a distrobution out there with the features of Gentoo/Arch but with a installation procedure more like Libranet's text-based or easier? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest vande198 Posted September 12, 2003 Report Share Posted September 12, 2003 PS I'm very impressed with Arch's setup. Could there be an easier way to install Arch like Libranet out there? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jlc Posted September 12, 2003 Report Share Posted September 12, 2003 PS I'm very impressed with Arch's setup. Could there be an easier way to install Arch like Libranet out there? You will have to make one. :wink: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jlc Posted September 12, 2003 Report Share Posted September 12, 2003 I've been fooling around with linux for a year now, primarily with MDK 9.0 and 9.1 and (right now) SuSE 8.2. I'm looking for a distrobution like Arch or Gentoo that allow higher optimizations (i686 and up) and some sort of advanced package management system (like apt-get, urpmi, pacman, portage, etc.) I feel confident using the command like (I use urpmi and apt-get almost exclusively from the command line), yet I'm intimidated by the extravagent installation procedure of Arch and Gentoo. Is there a distrobution out there with the features of Gentoo/Arch but with a installation procedure more like Libranet's text-based or easier? Those are about it. i686 optimized that I know of: arch = http://www.archlinux.org gentoo = http://www.gentoo.org beehive = http://www.beehive.nu/ dead pld = http://www.pld.org.pl/ rock = http://www.rocklinux.org/ sol = http://www.sol-linux.com/ I think it's dead Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest vande198 Posted September 13, 2003 Report Share Posted September 13, 2003 PS I'm very impressed with Arch's setup. Could there be an easier way to install Arch like Libranet out there? You will have to make one. :wink: I was afraid of that. I knew my B.A.s in Philosophy and German would come in handy. :-P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sarah31 Posted September 13, 2003 Report Share Posted September 13, 2003 well persoanlly if you take it slow you shpould have no trouble with it. arch's instal is not really that hard and if you have another computer you can be online with while you install your can just go to the irc channel and get "live" help if anyone is around. if you don't fear the commandline, know the contents of your conputer, know a little bit about grub or lilo, and know a little bit about how your insternet is setup than i really don't think you will have trouble. it's an installer not philosophy :wink: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoulSe Posted September 13, 2003 Report Share Posted September 13, 2003 I've also been looking for a distribution like this. I was going to order Gentoo CDs, but compiling everything seems uber-tedious. Arch sounds like a plan. What is pacman like? Compared to portage? Do I have to add sources like urpmi, or will it know what and where like apt-get? Does it have a lot of packages listed? Does it solve dependencies? Sorry for all the q's, but the package managment has become my main concern in looking for a new distro to 'learn' with... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sarah31 Posted September 13, 2003 Report Share Posted September 13, 2003 Arch sounds like a plan. What is pacman like? excellent Compared to portage? well they are very different tools so i don't know if they really compare. portage runs a bunch of stuuf that builds and installs the software based on your settings pacman downloads and installs precompiled binaries. while in some respects it functions like portage it is mor like apt or ports. Do I have to add sources like urpmi, or will it know what and where like apt-get? there are three repositories all which use the same servers so no you will not have to specify a server. you may need to specify which repository you want to use though. Does it have a lot of packages listed? Does it solve dependencies? compared to what...the top five distros? no we only have about eight developers that work on package maintenance so no we do not have alot of package but we do add when we can and there are lots of user donated packages available (which are not yet endorsed by arch) and it is quite easy to make your own package and repository (complete with dependency solving) yes pacman solves dependencies. Sorry for all the q's, but the package managment has become my main concern in looking for a new distro to 'learn' with... no problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoulSe Posted September 13, 2003 Report Share Posted September 13, 2003 Thanks Sarah! I'm going to give it a #bash. I just have question to add to the pile above, it's a big issue I have with urpmi - upgrading. Currently, if I have something installed and I want to install a later version (which isn't listed on Mandrake update), then I kinda have to uninstall it first and then install the latest one, etc. etc. How does pacman handle this? It seems to be a more convenient distro then Gentoo, so off I go to find out more... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted September 13, 2003 Report Share Posted September 13, 2003 I just have question to add to the pile above, it's a big issue I have with urpmi - upgrading. Currently, if I have something installed and I want to install a later version (which isn't listed on Mandrake update), then I kinda have to uninstall it first and then install the latest one, etc. etc. How does pacman handle this? what exactly do you mean here, SoulSe? are yup upgrading with source or precompiled binaries? because it's a big difference. The thing you have to realize with arch is that due to it being sorta young you won't find packages for it many places other than on the arch servers. now, if you compile it from source, like just about any packaging system, pacman won't recognize it being there. but you COULD make a package for it with makepkg and then install the package so that pacman knows what's goin' down. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmpatrick Posted September 13, 2003 Report Share Posted September 13, 2003 JAMD is i686 optimized and is based off of redhat without the blue curve stuff, strictly kde. I haven't found any dramatic improvement in i686 optimized distros that I've tried so beware of the hype: any improvements are likely to be slight to nonexistent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzylizard Posted September 13, 2003 Report Share Posted September 13, 2003 One word - slackware Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest vande198 Posted September 13, 2003 Report Share Posted September 13, 2003 oh well....maybe I'll just stick with MDK. I mean if i686 optimization is only nominally better thatn i586, I guess it would be just as easy to stick with mdk. I really don't (shouldn't) have time to do all this fooling around. *sigh* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest vande198 Posted September 17, 2003 Report Share Posted September 17, 2003 I just found out about Onebase, which claims to be a source-based distro for newbies. I'm a little sceptical about how user-friendly such a distro can be. Anyone out there fooled with Onebased? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sol2k Posted September 17, 2003 Report Share Posted September 17, 2003 You can also have a look at Yoper, a nice i686 optmized distro. www.yoper.com Tried it once and on my Inspiron 4000 (p3 800, 256 mb ram) it was quite fast. Faster than JAMD (which is great, BTW) and Mandrake, IMHO. It seemed to come customized for a desktop setup (numlock on by default) and at the time I had no patien... errr time to fiddle with it. Support (for free) seems shaky, but Linux is Linux everywhere. NOTE: JAMD really is great for newbies who don't want to fiddle with installing apps and just want an pretty, easy to use Linux. I did not see any noticeable performance jumps from the i686 optimizations. Strangely, Yoper seems to do better in that dept. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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