gentoo or debian???

[tom56]

I currently run Mandrake, and recently have become rather sick of it. Upgrading, and keeping the system up to date is far too much hassle. This was recently brought to my attention when I tried to upgrade Gnome 2.2 to Gnome 2.6, and ran into hundreds of dependency problems. Iwant to switch to a distro where I can keep things up to date easily, without having to format my drive or back up config files. I was thinking of installing Gentoo, but having watched the forums for a few weeks, I am beginning to think that Gentoo may be too high maintence, and too complicated for me. Plus the though of a three day install, doesn't fill my soul with feelings of wonderous joy. However I am really enthusiastic about emerge. How does Debian's apt-get compare. What do you think I should do?

Extra information that may help:

*My computer is this model (http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/genericDocument?lc=en&cc=us&docname=bph06711), plus an extra 80gig drive.
*The computer is shared with the rest of my family, so I need to be able to go away for a few weeks, and not have to fix anything when i get back. (One of the things that worries me about Gentoo, is going on holiday, then coming back and having to wait days for a emerge world to finish.)
*I want to be able to upgrade easily without ever again having to do a full system reinstall, that involves lots of tedious backing up of personal files and config files.
*I will probably be installing Gnome and KDE, and am well aware how much this might affect the install time for Gentoo.

Thanks in advance,

Tom.

[chesskidd]

Genty saves a lot of hassles :D

[bburton]

Originally posted by tom56
I currently run Mandrake, and recently have become rather sick of it. Upgrading, and keeping the system up to date is far too much hassle.

Well, if you decide to go Debian keep in mind the packages available aren't what I would consider up to date. I love debian and all... but if you are a "cutting edge" kind of guy you might be disappointed.

[Dark Ninja]

Well, you have almost the same exact system I do (at least in terms of actual specs). A third stage Gentoo install took very little time. Now, granted, I did not install anything KDE related except the libraries. However, you can always have that set itself up overnight. Plus, for the ease of use and for how simple it is to upgrade an entire system, Gentoo is the way to go.


Oh, yes...Gentoo is cutting edge.

...well...that is if you want it to be. Otherwise, it'll protect your system automatically for you.

[tom56]

with regards to gentoo...
how right am i to worry that if am away for 2 or 3 weeks, that i will have to wait ages for emerge world when i get back?
also, with my system, is it worth doing a stage one install, or should i just go stage three?

[nabetse]

I havent tried Debian; but from what i have tried and heard, both Gentoo and Debian have excellent package management systems. I currently use Gentoo and I enjoy it very much. I wouldnt say that it is high maintenance. A lot of things are handled automatically (through emerge or other scripts and programs). There are occasional bugs, however, in the portage system. But i've found that they usually only require quick fixes. Most if not all of these issues can be found on the Gentoo forums.

With your setup, I wouldnt imagine that most packages would take more than a day to compile. I use a 466 MHz Celeron and an 'emerge -u world' usually finished overnight if i start it before i go to sleep. I'm not too sure about large packages such as OpenOffice as i do not have enough harddrive space for them.

hope this helps

[tom56]

Originally posted by nabetse
With your setup, I wouldnt imagine that most packages would take more than a day to compile. I use a 466 MHz Celeron and an 'emerge -u world' usually finished overnight if i start it before i go to sleep.
I don't want to have to leave the computer on overnight.
Surely how long an emerge world takes depends on how low long it's been since you last did it?

[TheSpeedoBeast]

With regard to debian vs gentoo, I really think that it is a matter of personal preference. While gentoo has that whole emerge and optimization bit going for it, the compile times are pretty sick on low-end systems. On the otherhand, debian tends to be complied for slower computers, but it has a wealth of packages available, and it is just as up-to-date as gentoo (basically) if you are running sid. I have tried both and loved them, but for different reasons, so I would really suggest that you give both of them a whirl! Debian probably has an edge if you are running a low-end machine, though...

[tom56]

It's a shared computer, so "giving them both a whirl" really isn't an option, unfortunately. :(

[Wolfger]

Originally posted by tom56
with regards to gentoo...
how right am i to worry that if am away for 2 or 3 weeks, that i will have to wait ages for emerge world when i get back?
also, with my system, is it worth doing a stage one install, or should i just go stage three?
If you are away 2-3 weeks, an "emerge -u world" could take the better part of a day, or it could take mere minutes. Depends on how many large packages are updated. If both Gnome and KDE upgrade during that time, you will be in for some laggy computing.
On the other hand, you can still do minor tasks like e-mail and websurfing while upgrading your system, so how painful is it, really? Start the upgrade before bed, and your system will usually be set to go by the time you wake up, and almost definitely by the time you get home from school or work (if you follow the typical "wake up and run out the door" pattern)

IMO, the only reason to do anything other than a stage 3 install is to learn more about your computer. That being said, I have always done stage 1 installs... Pick a weekend when you are busy (away from the computer). Start before bed on Friday, check on it when you wake up, check on it before bed, check on it when you wake up, have a working system Sunday night or Monday morning.
Or do it during the week and go on a gaming binge all weekend long. :D

I, too, was a Mandrake user until I got tired of Dependancy Hell. I sincerely doubt that I will ever leave Gentoo. I love this distro!

[tom56]

Originally posted by Wolfger
If you are away 2-3 weeks, an "emerge -u world" could take the better part of a day
This was what i was worried about. I would not be very pouplar with the rest of the household if I tied up the computer for that long. Leaving it going overnight is not really an option, and even leaving it on whilst out is far from perfect.

[Wolfger]

Originally posted by tom56
This was what i was worried about. I would not be very pouplar with the rest of the household if I tied up the computer for that long. Leaving it going overnight is not really an option, and even leaving it on whilst out is far from perfect.

Well, consider that you do not *need* to do a "emerge -u world"...

"emerge -up world" will show you which packages need to be updated, and you can pick and choose. Do one at a time. Really, how often does Gnome update? And you don't *have to* update just because you *can*... :)

[knute]

So would the optimizations that gentoo provides speed things up on a medium end system?

I currently run a 1.2 Athalon system with 384MB memory.
Would I see a noticable improvement over debian?
I mean, I've used debian now for years, but haven't really touched gentoo. I've tried slack for a bit, but ended up coming back because I had problems figuring out the dependencies. :rolleyes:

[nabetse]

tom56:I don't want to have to leave the computer on overnight.
Surely how long an emerge world takes depends on how low long it's been since you last did it?
Yes, it does depend what updates have come up since you last ran 'emerge -u world'. I run mine about once a month and it still takes 8 hrs at most. Then again, i dont have some of the bigger packages installed. If you really cant spend much time with that computer then maybe Debian is the way to go. Are you concerned with maintaining a bleeding edge system? If not, you dont have to with either distro.

I'm not too sure about the effects of optimization. Others have said that they have seen differences on a tweaked out gentoo system. But then, you have to spend the time to tweak it out.

good luck :D

[Dark Ninja]

And you don't *have to* update just because you *can*...

And you call yourself a Linux user! BAH! Blasphemy! Be gone!

:D

This was what i was worried about. I would not be very pouplar with the rest of the household if I tied up the computer for that long.

And tell them it's for their own good.;)

[squeegy]

/me looks over at his title :D

I use both debian and gentoo. I use gentoo for my workstation, for the same reason many others have stated its very up to date. On the other hand my server runs debian (woody/stable). The packages are ancient, but they work great. I also like that with debian you can get specific security repositories. Gentoo is pretty good about updating things and the GLSA's are getting better.

In regards of package management, I love emerge and apt-get. I just like emerge a little bit better. I like the ability to compile everything from source. Granted it does take time, but it really doesn't bother me. For a long time I was under the impression that Gentoo had poor support for cleaning old dependencies out, but I recently discovered during a mission to remove gnome 2.6 and all of it's dependencies. ecatmur's (http://home.jesus.ox.ac.uk/~ecatmur/my-bin/) pruneworld (http://home.jesus.ox.ac.uk/~ecatmur/my-bin/pruneworld) script for gentoo. It does a better job than emerge depclean. Sometimes it grabs some things that it shouldn't, but just run revdep-rebuild and it will go through and compile anything that might have gotten toasted.

Another nice feature if long compiles scare you is distcc (http://distcc.samba.org/). It allows you to distribute compiles across a network. Even if your only other boxes on your network are windows I believe you can use cygwin, or you could even boot a knoppixdistcc cd.

[edit] thought i'd also mention when i use pruneworld, i use the -d option.

[AndrewLubinus89]

Well, I hate to say but gentoo isn't the most cutting edge either. I just set up a stage one install two days ago and some of the packages are old (Mainly blender and xfree). It is still an awesome distro and portage is incredibly handy. I have never used debian so I don't know what it is like but gentoo comes highly recommended.

[squeegy]

Have you checked the packages that are masked ~x86 or even the hard masked packages that are masked in package.mask. AFAIK many gentoo users are converting over to xorg also... And just because two packages out of the thousands in portage are old, that makes you say that it is not cutting edge? You make me laugh.

[bradfordgd]

Why not make your own Gentebian distro???

[bradfordgd]

Why not make your own Gentebian distro???

[tom56]

well, i don't want to be too bleeding edge, but i find that a lot of the time it saves a lot of bother in the long run to keep major programs at the latest stable version. one of the things that is putting me off debian is that if i were too keep my system stable, gnome would be 1.4, even older than it is now, whereas with gentoo 2.6 has just gone stable.

[knute]

Ok, now, I've used debian for years now, and like it.
I do, however, have one major issue with it.

Apt occasionally will pop up with a conflict and start removing programs thinking that the program that you haven't yet really gotten to know yet is the one that you want, so it removes ton's of other programs!

There is currently some conflict between two types of cupsys things, which means that I can either have gdesklets or the kdelibs installed! :eek:

It is for this reason that gentoo has started looking appealing. I actually have ordered Gentoo CD's from gentoo.org, simply because I neither have the bandwidth nor the burner to make my own. :rolleyes:

That, and if I fubar it once or twice, it's easy to get familiar with it. :D

[tom56]

Originally posted by knute
Apt occasionally will pop up with a conflict and start removing programs thinking that the program that you haven't yet really gotten to know yet is the one that you want, so it removes ton's of other programs!
oh? does debian have dependency problems too? one of the reasons i'm leaving mandrake is it's impossible to upgrade gnome becasue the rpms do funny things like rely on themselves.

[chesskidd]

Originally posted by squeegy
AFAIK many gentoo users are converting over to xorg

Why? is it better than xfree? I'm using xfree and fluxbox windows manager.
Does xorg support my fluxbox and other windows managers?

[serz]

Originally posted by chesskidd
Why? is it better than xfree? I'm using xfree and fluxbox windows manager.
Does xorg support my fluxbox and other windows managers?
Yes, because it's basically the same thing.

From a gentoo's HOWTO:

The application that provides Linux users with the ability to run graphical user interfaces and that uses the X11 standard is Xorg-X11, a fork of the XFree86 project. XFree86 has decided to use a license that might not be compatible with the GPL license; the use of Xorg is therefore recommended. Note though that the differences between Xorg and XFree86 are currently very slim; if you know one, you know the other. XFree86 versions prior to 4.4 are available through Portage as well.

[AndrewLubinus89]

Originally posted by squeegy
And just because two packages out of the thousands in portage are old, that makes you say that it is not cutting edge? You make me laugh.

I wasn't insulting gentoo or saying that portage is outdating I was just stating a few problems I have actually run into using portage. It isn't masked it just isn't there. Xfree I understand but blender was somewhat surprising.....

[Loki3]

Basicly if your paitent you'll like Gentoo. If your not paitent you'll like Debian. They both have very similar functionality and get you to the same place in the end, albeit using different roads, you get to destionation badarse linux box. Cause that's what really matters.

[squeegy]

Originally posted by AndrewLubinus89
I wasn't insulting gentoo or saying that portage is outdating I was just stating a few problems I have actually run into using portage. It isn't masked it just isn't there. Xfree I understand but blender was somewhat surprising.....

What version of blender are you looking for exactly? According to the webpage 2.33a is the Latest Version, when searching through packages in ~x86 I notice the latest version is 2.32. That doesn't seem like that outdated of a version to me. :rolleyes:

Also here (http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=UNCONFIRMED&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&field0-0-0=product&type0-0-0=substring&value0-0-0=blender&field0-0-1=component&type0-0-1=substring&value0-0-1=blender&field0-0-2=short_desc&type0-0-2=substring&value0-0-2=blender&field0-0-3=status_whiteboard&type0-0-3=substring&value0-0-3=blender) is a list of ebuilds from bugs.gentoo.org for various related blender things. I am not sure what blender-bf is but there is an ebuild there for the CVS version. There also is an entry for blender 2.33 if CVS doesn't interest you. Sorry to go so off topic here, but I feel the need to defend my favorite distro. :D

[Elijah]

I've tried them, they're both great :D

[owlish]

The computer is shared with the rest of my family, so I need to be able to go away for a few weeks, and not have to fix anything when i get back. (One of the things that worries me about Gentoo, is going on holiday, then coming back and having to wait days for a emerge world to finish.)
That wont be a lot of problem in either distro.. most you have to wait is a few hours for emerge world (depending upon how often you update it)

I want to be able to upgrade easily without ever again having to do a full system reinstall, that involves lots of tedious backing up of personal files and config files.
Again not really an issue with either distro.

I will probably be installing Gnome and KDE, and am well aware how much this might affect the install time for Gentoo.
Even if you do a stage 3 install, you will need to spare atleast 2 days for Gnome, KDE and system update (depending on your system. for me, its 3 days on 1.7GHZ P4)


Debian cons: no latest and cutting edge packages even on unstable branch. Sometimes you'll need to track down debs and install them manually. Building kernel isnt as easy as genkernel in gentoo ;)

Gentoo cons: Frustrating compile times especially in the beginning when you dont have all the necessary packages. Has a steeper learning curve as compaired to debian since it doesnt has any installer.


I used to use debian but switched to gentoo few months back. I personally like portage a lot and would switch back to debian if its apt gets as extensive and cutting edge as portage (with binaries).
Note: Before switching to either distro please read the installation manual atleast a couple of times since both of them are rather advanced then mandrake.
Note2: You can install gentoo and all its packages from within your mandrake OS, so you dont necessarily waste any time just staring at the scrolling compile output.

Debian installation walkthrough (http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=2016)
Gentoo installation guide (http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml)



Edit: I wont vote because its your choice and both these distros have their good and bad points.. but you have certainly made a good decision to switch ;)

[reiign]

you guys are really screwing with this poor guys head. KNOCK IT OFF!!!

tom, get debian sarge.

it'll install in less than an hour and is as up to date as possible.

BELIEVE ME. debian sarge is the way to go.

find the BETA 4 intstaller link that matches yoru machine here: http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/

boot with it, take it from there.

ill make it easy for you.

click here: http://cdimage.debian.org/pub/cdimage-testing/sarge_d-i/i386/beta4/sarge-i386-netinst.iso <-- this is the 110 meg i386 boot image.

its so nice to do apt-get install <appname>

its also nice to do emerge <appname> BUT get ready to wait 2 or so hours
for it to compile depending on system speed and internet connection.
in my opinion, for you, go debian.

The optimization in gentoo are such BS that its turning into a battle whether its worth it or not.

The fact of the matter is theres lots of great people that hang around these forums. most of them are so damn into their distro they will do anything to support it.

I, myself am blessed with two things: the ability to not stick with a distro cause of my psychotic ADD and instability which means 1 great thing for me: I LOVE to experiment and see whats on the other side of Distro A vs Distro B.

And that is my advise. i am out.

[andil]

Originally posted by tom56
oh? does debian have dependency problems too? one of the reasons i'm leaving mandrake is it's impossible to upgrade gnome becasue the rpms do funny things like rely on themselves.

Yeah debian may sometimes have a couple of dependency issues but I don't think they should pose any major problems.

The key is running apt-get successfully. Provided you get the right packages from your source servers you'll be fine. In case dependency becomes an issue, you'll be able to find the required packages without much hassle.

I like debian coz it's pretty easy to figure out. And apt-get is just invaluable. You'll be upgrading and updating in no time.

Haven't used gentoo as yet. So can't tell.

I'd recommend debian.

[tom56]

Originally posted by reiign

its also nice to do emerge <appname> BUT get ready to wait 2 or so hours
for it to compile depending on system speed and internet connection.
surely it doesn't take that long? i already install alot of programs from source, and they usually take between 15mins to an hour, but never 2 hours.

[JusKickNit]

Originally posted by tom56
surely it doesn't take that long? i already install alot of programs from source, and they usually take between 15mins to an hour, but never 2 hours.


OpenOffice takes like 24hrs:( I used Gentoo for about a year. But eventually got sick of waiting for compile times. Go with Debian. If you use sarge you should never have a dependency problems unless it's just a freak thing where they forgot to upload a package. If you go with Gentoo You could always go with GRP install.

[tom56]

in sarge, what version is gnome?

[reiign]

Originally posted by tom56
in sarge, what version is gnome?

i dont remember ..

it'd be somewhere in here.
The whole debian directory structure is so chaotic its confusing

ftp://ftp.ucsb.edu/pub/mirrors/linux/debian/dists/sarge/

[XiaoKJ]

:D -- I just came back after 2 long days installing GENTOO!!!

And I am all geared up to work on these forums... And I have no more patience ~~~ esp when I have just installed GENTOO!!!:D

I admit I'm a bit cranky now, elated and full of hope watching my new machine come together...:D

Try it and you will know it -- install both to get the feeling -- you can partition and get the trill of both!:D

[XiaoKJ]

Originally posted by chesskidd
Why? is it better than xfree? I'm using xfree and fluxbox windows manager.
Does xorg support my fluxbox and other windows managers?

Of course they ARE the same thing -- But I just tried installing Xorg alone and it failed due to failing deps and the like -- Xorg from gentoo's portage just happened to break, but Xfree is still alright. Maybe I'm the only unlucky one from all over the world to fail this but I failed...:D

But GENTOO'S STILL GREAT!!! There exist the chemistry is induces in people to make people love it so deeply...Debian has its own too...

[XiaoKJ]

Originally posted by JusKickNit
OpenOffice takes like 24hrs:(
There is the binary version of openoffice in Gentoo

Its known by gentoo makers that openoffice is taking sooo long, thus the bin version -- its longer than kde or k3b!

Nevertheless, ximian openoffice in binary is even better!:D

(read up....Look into /usr/portage...)

[duncanbojangles]

I can't believe noone's suggested FreeBSD. I understand that he wanted for us to decide between Debian and Gentoo. But I've used Slackware pretty much exclusively and played with FreeBSD on the side. They're both pretty easy to keep up to date. Slack now has swaret, and FreeBSD has ports. The only thing I can see him having a problem is with FreeBSD. Some of his Linux programs may not run on it. But otherwise, they're both really stable, easy to keep up to date, and perform well on older computers. Not to mention that dependency hell is usually not a problem.

[Dark Ninja]

Nevertheless, ximian openoffice in binary is even better!

What is the difference between OpenOffice and Ximian OpenOffice? Didn't look like any from what I saw after searching the web.

[hard candy]

There exist the chemistry is induces in people to make people love it so deeply...Debian has its own too...

XiaoKJ, have you talked to a mental health specialist about this? You haven't taken Gentoo on a real date yet, have you? Gentoo may run off and emerge with someone else and break your heart. :D

[deathadder]

I'd go with debian, personally i go with a sid, unstable, install. I think that Gnome is 2.4 at the moment though, have a look at http://packages.debian.org/testing/ though to double check

My main problem with Gentoo was the time it took to install anything

[Dark Ninja]

My main problem with Gentoo was the time it took to install anything

Not to go against what deathadder is saying, but, for me, the installation time of packages in Gentoo was never a problem. I'm never working on something and realize, "Oh crap! I need that installed right now!" So, all I ever do is, if I need something installed, I just emerge it overnight (if it's big), or let it run in the background and go work on something else.

That's just me. Some people can't stand it (especially people on older machines). Then again, you could always get the binaries if they exist (which they do for larger programs).

[tom56]

slackware, eh? what are the advantages of slackware? and how easy is it to upgrade apps without breaking your system?

i have added slackware as an option to the poll, so that we can have a fair comparison between them all.

EDIT - looks like i can't change the poll. please could a mod do this for me please?

[deathadder]

While I used Slack I found that swaret was the easiest way to go around updating your system, I didn't have any problems with it, but then again I didn't use Slack very long, went back to Debian after a few weeks. The slackers around here will be able to tell you about the advantages of using it, its suppost to be the most Unix like out of the distro's though, I believe.

[dalek]

I love my Gentoo. Don't touch my Gentoo. If you do, I'll exercise my second amendment rights. :mad:

Later

:D :D :D

[XiaoKJ]

Originally posted by Dark Ninja
What is the difference between OpenOffice and Ximian OpenOffice? Didn't look like any from what I saw after searching the web.

Ximian is better when it comes to binary size and splash screen eye candy. Otherwise, OO is much better:D

[XiaoKJ]

Originally posted by hard candy
XiaoKJ, have you talked to a mental health specialist about this? You haven't taken Gentoo on a real date yet, have you? Gentoo may run off and emerge with someone else and break your heart. :D

At least that makes my run fast and in sync with Gentoo, and I get to improve and get a better babe...:D

Unlike slack-whereby I get to sit down and slack -- and rot too!:D

[Dark Ninja]

Originally posted by dalek
I love my Gentoo. Don't touch my Gentoo. If you do, I'll exercise my second amendment rights. :mad:

:confused: You'll...uh...own a gun? :confused:

:p :D

[XiaoKJ]

who added SuSE and slackware on the poll?

I only know that I had just broken slackware with swaret.

Now I must install it from scratch again...sigh...

But Yast is way out of it .. being RPM-based is the main problem. BTW, if you want an RPM-based distro RH does it(deserves credit for inventing it after all)

[tom56]

i don't know who added suse. i expect they didn't read my post. i really don't want anymore rpm hell.

deathadder - why did you go back to debian?

[hard candy]

I added Suse to be fair.

[tony_t73]

I just wanted to add this...

Debian- i know nothing about.
Gentoo- I know that it takes a LONG time to do just about anything from source (though there is a prog to install it in just an hour or something, right?), that it is a great learning experience, and that if you have an internet connection that is not natively supported in Linux, you can pretty much forget about it.

I have a Zyxel 630-11 DSL modem (runs on PPPOE), and it is HELL to get running in gentoo.

" Oh- I need libusb, well I' just emerge.... No, dammit, there's no 'pre-complied package' for that!!"

Gentoo is absolutely RETARDED if your internet connection won't just come up or you have to install other things. Think REBOOT other OS, download, REBOOT Gentoo, find out it doesn't work, REBOOT other OS, read, download, REBOOT Gentoo, still not working, REBOOT other OS, read some more, REBOOT Gentoo, "Screw it", REBOOT other OS, blah blah BLAH...

There IS support for this, but most of the packages are *mdk.rpm.

I DID get it to work a few months ago, but it beats the hell out of me now trying figure out what I did... I just tried it this weekend. Yeah, portage is great if you're connected with ethernet. USB DSL just doesn't work well...

And I hate to say it, but it was really easy in MDK.

Anyway, it's just a thing to consider before you dive right in...

T

[dalek]

Originally posted by Dark Ninja
:confused: You'll...uh...own a gun? :confused:

:p :D

Yep. I got to own one to use it. I seem to recall that is the 14th amendment but most folks don't know you have a constitutional right to self defense. They do know about the 2nd one though.

Still, most everyone gets the idea. Mess with my Gentoo, and you die. :mad: :mad:

Later

:D :D :D :D

[tom56]

Well, I'm almost certain now that I'm going to go with Gentoo. I will do the install in the week beginning 5th July, because that's when I'll have the time. This of course means that you have until then to change my mind.

[Darkbolt]

Originally posted by XiaoKJ
Ximian is better when it comes to binary size and splash screen eye candy. Otherwise, OO is much better:D
Unless I'm mistaken, Ximian OpenOffice is just OpenOffice ported to GTK2, so functionality wise they're the same -- Please get your facts straight.

As for you breaking your slackware install by using swaret, keep in mind
1)Swaret is an unsupported front end to pkgtool
2)Swaret is only a front end to pkgtool
3)When it comes to slackware, you are the one responsible for breaking your system, not a tool, or application, nor slackware itself. Its the distribution that puts you in control. Appearently you weren't experianced enough for this.

[deathadder]

tom56 I went back to Debian because I prefered apt-get over swaret, and I just prefered the way things ran and ofcourse the Debian way of doing things :)

[tom56]

i've decided to go with gentoo, and am going to start installing today. unfortunately, i seem to have fallen at the first hurdle, and can't get my internet connection to work. i have tried net-setup eth0 but it doesn't work. i am using a blueyonder broadband connection. any suggestions?

[madcompnerd]

I was just gonnna say, if you want easy and hassle free Gentoo is not the way. I don't think spending all that time compiling is really hassle free, but to each his own.
Slackware update tools aren't hassle free either. I've broken a system with swaret too, but I just dropped it back to 9.1 and reinstaled the broken packages (GTK 2.4 was broken for some reason).
Debian is pretty easy to keep updated. Arch is also pretty easy, but I don't update either regularly. I update kernels, openssh, and then packages I want updated.

[tom56]

i fixed the internet, it way easy, i shouldn't have panicked. i have basically finished the main bulk of the install now, and am in mozilla in gnome. a few BIG problems however. this is the first time i've handwritten an fstab from scratch, and i can't get my cdrom, cdwriter, or floppy drives to work. also the sound is not working, but i haven't attempted to install any soundcard drivers yet, as i'm not sure what soundcard i have.

[tom56]

Update on the soundcard front: I have added snd-ac97-codec to /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6 but I don't think it has worked. When I try and unmute in Gnome I get "Couldn't open mixer device /dev/sound/mixer". Any ideas?

EDIT: Fogot to mention that the wheel on my mouse isn't working either, though the rest of the mouse is fine.

[dalek]

Originally posted by tom56

EDIT: Fogot to mention that the wheel on my mouse isn't working either, though the rest of the mouse is fine.

XF86Config(-4) file. Add this to the rat, mouse, section:

Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"

That may help.

:D :D :D :D

[tom56]

doesn't work :-(
the mouse is not too important for now, though, so it doesn't matter.
could someone please help me with my /etc/fstab?

[tom56]

i have the cdrom and the cdrecorder working! well, when i say the cdrecorder is working, i mean that i can read from it, i haven't tried writing yet. could someone pleeeaase help with the floppy! when i try to mount it it says "filesystem not specified", or something along those lines. i set it to auto in the fstab, why isn't this working? any help with the soundcard would also be much appreciated.