Re: [tlug] Gentoo Linux

[Ulrich Plate <plate@example.com>]

Daniel Saito wrote:

> Anyone here have a fully optimized installation of Gentoo Linux 1.4
> installed? What would be the overall feedback and on the Japanese
> support?

Gentoo is a source-based meta-distribution, consisting mainly of a
package management utility called Portage and a few routines to sanitize
the init process. Full optimization simply means that you pass the right
compile flags to the packages you install from their respective sources.
Which of course you could do with any old Linux flavour out there,
albeit maybe less comfortably so, but Portage has been/is being ported
to other distributions and even Mac OS X, making it possible to "fully
optimize" your RedHat or Debian installation pretty much the same way as
a Gentoo setup. Hence "meta-distribution".

As to "Gentoo Linux 1.4", the most appropriate analogy is Heisenberg's
Uncertainty Principle: "The more precisely the position is determined,
the less precisely the momentum is known". Gentoo 1.4 LiveCD ISOs are
there for you to download on a mirror somewhere, but once you start
installing it, Gentoo 1.4 evades its own determination. In other words,
you can have a 1.4 CD, but not a 1.4 installation, much less a fully
optimized one, because as soon as you sync your fledgling bootstrap with
the portage mirrors (this is part of the installation process), you've
already advanced beyond the state of the 1.4 LiveCD.

TLUGers were responsible for talking me into switching to Gentoo, so I'd
imagine the overall feedback to be quite positive here, provided you
refrain from sending HTML-infested mail to this list, because that is
known to stop some of the locals from responding at all... :) Japanese
support is extraordinary, by the way. TLUG itself has members who are
maintainers of Gentoo ebuilds for CJK support, and there's a very able
and active Japanese community at http://www.gentoo.gr.jp. 

Cheers
Ulrich Plate

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