Thread: Linux Distro

  1. #16
    Novice Programmer Pyroteh's Avatar
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    get a book called The Linux Bible.... it has two disks that have a few distros on there.... try em out... I haven't tried mine yet... I made the mistake of mailing it back when I should have packed it in my bag..... thought I was ganna be on my vacation longer.... turns out I got here before it did... I heard Knoppix is a great choice if you want to try it out first... since it can boot from a disk.....

  2. #17
    ... kermit's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Perspective
    emerge -uDav.... what the hell is that cryptic paramater supposed to mean. I find yum update to be much more intuitive

    kermit@minty ~ $ man yum
    No manual entry for yum


    .....


    kermit@minty ~ $ man emerge
    EMERGE(1) Portage EMERGE(1)



    NAME
    emerge - Command-line interface to the Portage system

    SYNOPSIS
    emerge [options] [action] [ebuild | tbz2file | class | dependency] ...

    emerge --sync | --info | --search

    .....


  3. #18
    Crazy Fool Perspective's Avatar
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    >>kermit@minty ~ $ man yum
    >>No manual entry for yum

    that would be because you don't have yum installed.
    $man yum
    NAME
    yum - Yellowdog Updater Modified

    SYNOPSIS
    yum [options] [command] [package ...]

    DESCRIPTION
    yum is an interactive, automated update program which can be used for maintaining systems
    using rpm

    command is one of:
    * install package1 [package2] [...]
    * update [package1] [package2] [...]
    * check-update
    * upgrade [package1] [package2] [...]
    * remove | erase package1 [package2] [...]
    * list [...]
    * info [...]
    * provides | whatprovides feature1 [feature2] [...]
    * clean [ packages | headers | metadata | cache | dbcache | all ]
    * makecache
    * groupinstall group1 [group2] [...]
    * groupupdate group1 [group2] [...]
    * grouplist
    * groupremove group1 [group2] [...]
    * groupinfo group1 [...]
    * search string1 [string2] [...]
    * generate-rss [updates]

    Unless the --help or -h option is given, one of the above commands must be present.
    <snip>

  4. #19
    Registered User major_small's Avatar
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    emerge has an update as well... but it's for all the software you've installed through portage.

    emerge --update world
    and/or
    emerge --update system

    and don't forget

    emerge --sync

    once a day so you have the latest packages :P

    man emerge

    and wtf is --uDav?
    MCP jshao # emerge --uDav
    !!! Error: --uDav is an invalid option.
    portage look a little way down and you'll find this:
    Code:
    emerge --update --deep --newuse world
    emerge --depclean
    revdep-rebuild
    if you read the setion it's in (updating your system) you'll find out what each one does....

    I'd also suggest gentoo, but not as a first OS... even though I got into it pretty easily after just playing around with knoppix for a while... but then again I had to recompile the kernel 3 times because of unclear directions/bad choices on my part...
    Last edited by major_small; 07-03-2005 at 05:14 PM.
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  5. #20
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    Not to jump in a religious distro war but debian's updater is the best imho. Simple to use and very reliable. Now and then you have to add a 3rd party source for somthing like LAME but most of the time it just works. It also has the advantage of not needing to compile every last program. (You might consider compiling every program an advantage but trust me if you need to upgrade your whole system it meens recompiling everything and takes blody ages!)

  6. #21
    Cat without Hat CornedBee's Avatar
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    I do not have a concept of "upgrading the whole system". I'm a Gentoo user.
    All the buzzt!
    CornedBee

    "There is not now, nor has there ever been, nor will there ever be, any programming language in which it is the least bit difficult to write bad code."
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  7. #22
    junior member mix0matt's Avatar
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    gentoo is fun, but annoying for some after the novelty wears off. Neither me or my cpu has time to build everything from source. I realize that there are was around this, but it's more work for me.. That's never a good thing.

    debian is nice, but too large and release cycles suck.

    ubuntu (based on debian) is a perfect balance between easy upgrades and package management, and regular stable release cycles.

    Anything rpm based shouldn't be considered inmho...yum is slower, less powerful, and awkward compared to apt
    THIS IS NOT JUST A CHRONICLING OF THINGS WE HAVE DONE IN THE PAST BUT OUR RISE TO POWER.

  8. #23
    Crazy Fool Perspective's Avatar
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    >>yum is slower, less powerful

    you havn't tried yum 2.3 yet. The first versions of yum were slow and sucked. yum 2.3 is rumored to be faster than apt and is just plain awsome IMNSHO.

    It also has a cool new shell mode where multiple commands can be executed with only one analysis of repo data.

  9. #24
    Registered User major_small's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by mix0matt
    gentoo is fun, but annoying for some after the novelty wears off. Neither me or my cpu has time to build everything from source.
    what else do the both of you have to do while you sleep?
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  10. #25
    junior member mix0matt's Avatar
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    a server never sleeps, right? Cpu cycles should be used for serving client requests not rebuilding 16 large packages after a library updates.

    actually building from source is the double edged gentoo sword. USE flags and emerge provide a tremendous amount of flexibility, which is exciting at first. BS like etc-update and broken ebuilds that cripple a system kill the excitement pretty quickly.

    After a while you long for simplicity, software the updates only in critical cases, and stability. Gentoo lacks all of these things. Ubuntu is close enough to what i want without having to pay for it.
    THIS IS NOT JUST A CHRONICLING OF THINGS WE HAVE DONE IN THE PAST BUT OUR RISE TO POWER.

  11. #26
    Cat without Hat CornedBee's Avatar
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    Gentoo most definitely does not lack in simplicity when it comes to updates. And when you update software is still up to you - if you want to update only criticals, you're welcome.
    All the buzzt!
    CornedBee

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  12. #27
    Registered User major_small's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by mix0matt
    a server never sleeps, right? Cpu cycles should be used for serving client requests not rebuilding 16 large packages after a library updates.
    that's true... I mean why take the time to backup and update and do general maintenance on your server, right?
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  13. #28
    junior member mix0matt's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by CornedBee
    Gentoo most definitely does not lack in simplicity when it comes to updates. And when you update software is still up to you - if you want to update only criticals, you're welcome.
    I totally disagree. Don't update your gentoo system for a week. Then tell me you don't mind filtering through the 50 or so updates and determining which packages need to be updated due to critical bugs and security holes. Right now there is no easy way to determine what are the critical updates. glsa-check and the "emerge security" idea are steps in the right direction, but they're not mature yet.

    Right now it's just easier to update everything, and waste those CPU cycles.

    Compare that to debian stable or ubuntu....with these distros you now an update only happens if the maintainers or security team think is critical.

    I'm not bashing gentoo, i still run it on my workstation though I'll never run it on a server again.

    Quote Originally Posted by major_small
    that's true... I mean why take the time to backup and update and do general maintenance on your server, right?
    I don't think I said I was opposed to "backup and update and general maintence". That regular maintenance should not take a large chunk of my day to complete. There are other things, real problems that need to be addressed (sometimes those problems can be caused by a gentoo update), and when you primary job responsibility is programming, you want to spend as little time as possible "updating" servers.

    When you grow up and get a job, you'll understand, right?
    THIS IS NOT JUST A CHRONICLING OF THINGS WE HAVE DONE IN THE PAST BUT OUR RISE TO POWER.

  14. #29
    Cat without Hat CornedBee's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by mix0matt
    I totally disagree. Don't update your gentoo system for a week. Then tell me you don't mind filtering through the 50 or so updates and determining which packages need to be updated due to critical bugs and security holes. Right now there is no easy way to determine what are the critical updates. glsa-check and the "emerge security" idea are steps in the right direction, but they're not mature yet.
    I filter and I don't mind at all.

    Besides, that's what the GLSA newsfeed is for. I see exactly what packages need updating, and they're really not many.

    How do you come up with 50 packages anyway? How much stuff do you have installed? Usually, that's how much I need to update on my workstation (where there's far more installed packages) after a month or so.
    All the buzzt!
    CornedBee

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  15. #30
    Registered User major_small's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by mix0matt
    When you grow up and get a job, you'll understand, right?
    erm, I program and run a server (not public) as well, but I expect a good amount of downtime every month (because I only have one box). I spend a good amount of time updating everything I need, then several hours checking for spyware/adware, then run a virus check, then spend several more hours (>6) defragging, then bring the system down for under an hour to clone the disk and restart.

    all once a month, except for the updates, which I do nightly if possible. and that's on my windows box, where I actually have to go out and look for updates to most of the programs.

    all it takes is a few minutes every night, and about a day a month. and my server's not even public. not does it really fit the definition of a server.

    like I said, if you can't take the time to administer a server, don't make it public. I would be ........ed as hell if my host lost all my stuff because they would rather be programming (even though it's all mirrored on my box anyway).

    basically, my point is that if you're running a public server, you shouldn't have too many packages to update anyway. you should really only have the packages you need, which you should be updating either way, which would lead to a lot less than 50/month... that's what I get on my desktop, and I have all kinds of stuff installed...

    even with all those packages, if you do it once a week, it comes down to about 15, and once a day like you should, it comes down even further...
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