[ale] Need a better Linux distro

[Steve Litt]

On Mon, 1 Jun 2020 18:18:23 -0400
Jeff Hubbs via Ale <ale at ale.org> wrote:

> On 6/1/20 4:02 PM, Steve Litt via Ale wrote:
> > On Sun, 31 May 2020 23:50:32 -0400
> > Jeff Hubbs via Ale <ale at ale.org> wrote:
> >  
> >> On 5/31/20 9:30 PM, Leam Hall via Ale wrote:  
> >>> Gentoo is interesting, but all my computers are old; second or
> >>> third hand.  
> >> As are all mine. Your point? :)  
> > Depending on how old, initial compilation takes more than a day on
> > old computers. Even daily updates take awhile on old computers.  

> If you're not doing xorg etc., there isn't any initial compilation
> other than the kernel and basic features like a system logger and a
> cron system. 

I think today even a lot of servers have X, and all desktops do. I was
assuming X with some kind window manager. But now that you mention it,
the way I'll do it next time is install the base system, config the
kernel, and boot. Once I'm there I can emerge X and, let's say,
OpenBox, and then later Firefox and Chromium and Libreoffice when I get
the time. That way, if I blow the first install, at least I've only
sacrificed a couple hours.

Of course, I use Void for more reasons than lack of compilation, so it
will still be rare that I install *too.


> As for daily updates (which you can certainly choose to
> do, or not), it depends greatly on what you have that hit Portage the
> previous day. Sometimes my file server shrugs its shoulders and goes
> "I got nuthin', boss!" but then again, all it really has past the
> base system as defined by the current profile is Samba. If you've
> got, say, KDE and a pantload of desktop apps then Portage is going to
> be moving mountains working out all your dependencies.

The person who has KDE or Gnome deserves what he gets. LXDE is a
perfectly good user interface, and if they ever truly deprecate it,
LXQt. Or just plain Openbox for that wide-open feeling.

> >
> > I wonder if there's a way to do the initial compilations on a VM,
> > where they're very fast, and then rsync the results to root on the
> > iron machine?  
> 
> You don't even need a VM. You can generate an entire Gentoo system in
> a chroot on your Big Bad, tar it up, boot your target machine to the
> Linux liveCD of choice, partition and format drives there, blow the
> tarball onto those partitions, chroot into what you just laid in,
> install the boot loader of your choice, and reboot.* 

Trouble is, that chroot is probably on spinning rust, so it will be
slower than a VM. If the chroot is on some kind of RAM drive, I drop my
assertion.

> One thing you
> have to remember is when you're in that initial chroot and you get to
> the place in the Handbook where you set your CFLAGS in make.conf, set
> -march=generic -mtune=generic lest anything you compile before you
> move it over makes a binary your target machine might not be able to
> support.
> 
> * This really isn't any different than what you do to install without 
> involving another machine.

Except for time taken.

Thanks. These are some great ideas.
 
SteveT

Steve Litt 
May 2020 featured book: Troubleshooting Techniques
     of the Successful Technologist
http://www.troubleshooters.com/techniques