[gentoo-dev] Missing: Universal-CD - Gentoo discriminates ..

I would like to state my opinion on this... debate. the installer for
me... is inadequate it does not allow for nearly enough customization.
I generally keep my boot partitions at 32 MB why? because I don't need
anymore space than that( I have never even used half that much). I
optomize my ext3 partions using tune2fs as well. I also have a
seperate partition for portage and distfiles. also not supported.
fortunately my network works. however I would prefer myself not to
have to dowload tarballs which seem to only be updated on the next
release anyway. I am hoping that one day that the GLI will support
full customization, but I won't complain as long as I can get stage3
tarballs.

as far as older than i686 I do have 1 or 2 i586s that I have gentoo
on. I would like to see a generic tarball kept around for anything
older than i686. because gentoo is one of the few distributions I've
been able to get working on older systems. It would be really sad to
see such support go.
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umm... I don't that was the point (that it can't work for everyone).
However it would be nice if I didn't have to download a tarball.

I see the point in why it's hard with distfiles but how hard would it
be to add tarballs and limited distfiles. to a "minimal cd) and make
it universal and put it up for download? maybe and make a note in the
handbook "distfiles are not supported" or some such. I really don't
understand why this is so difficult? the tarballs wouldn't be changing
from the ones that are on the mirrors. so what is the hangup? I doubt
it's storage space and bandwidth. (btw I've built livecds using
catalyst)

On 10/9/06, Ciaran McCreesh <ciaranm DeleteThis @ciaranm.org> wrote:
> On Mon, 9 Oct 2006 19:11:47 -0400 "Caleb Cushing"
> <xenoterracide DeleteThis @gmail.com> wrote:
> | I would like to state my opinion on this... debate. the installer for
> | me... is inadequate it does not allow for nearly enough customization.
>
> Then don't use the installer.
>
> --
> Ciaran McCreesh
> Mail : ciaranm at ciaranm.org
> Web : http://ciaranm.org/
> as-needed is broken : http://ciaranm.org/show_post.pl?post_id=13
>
>
>
>
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Roy Bamford wrote:
> Dropping support for x86 <i686 is a debate we need to have some time I
> suppose, its a question of when.
>
> There is clearly only a few users, besides myself using systems that
> old, since there were very few forums posts about the original 2006.1
> x86 media not workign on P1 and AMD k6 based systems.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who is using a pentium mmx as a router, so
you better think twice about it

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Simon Stelling
Gentoo/AMD64 developer
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Peter Weber <peterle.DeleteThis@hottemptation.org> posted
1160431074.6362.9.camel.DeleteThis@party.homenetwork, excerpted below, on Mon, 09
Oct 2006 23:57:54 +0200:

> It was only a suggestion, not a decision. Of course, there are only a
> little number of this early systems.
> i686 would be really nice, i386 would be nice, too

Anybody doing Gentoo on even a Pentium original is going to be compiling
for awhile unless they do GRP only, and that's inadvised as GRP isn't
security updated until the next release, six months later! A couple years
ago when I first started with Gentoo and was on the main user list, I
believe I saw a thread where a couple folks claimed to have done it on 486
mainly to be able to say they'd done so, taking weeks of course to do it,
even compiling 24/7, but a 386? IMO there are better ways to spend your
years... <g>

Personally, I'd say 686 is the lowest reasonable to support at this point.
Below that, try an appropriate binary distribution and save the days/weeks
of compiling. Of course, Gentoo is highly customizable, and folks could
try it on 386 if they wanted, but I don't believe it's worth supporting
below 686 at this point. That's personally. I'm sure there are folks
that would argue we should at least support 586, but I simply don't
believe it's worth it.

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Am Tue, 10 Oct 2006 10:13:41 +0000 (UTC)
schrieb "Duncan" <1i5t5.duncan.TakeThisOut@cox.net>:

>
> Anybody doing Gentoo on even a Pentium original is going to be
> compiling for awhile unless they do GRP only, and that's inadvised as
> GRP isn't security updated until the next release, six months later!

Don't forget that you can easily create binary packages on a different
machine and then share them across a network. At least that's what I'm
doing here with my i486 machines

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On Tuesday 10 October 2006 11:13, Duncan wrote:
> Personally, I'd say 686 is the lowest reasonable to support at this point.
> Below that, try an appropriate binary distribution and save the days/weeks
> of compiling. Of course, Gentoo is highly customizable, and folks could
> try it on 386 if they wanted, but I don't believe it's worth supporting
> below 686 at this point. That's personally. I'm sure there are folks
> that would argue we should at least support 586, but I simply don't
> believe it's worth it.

There are plently of people using VIA C3 class chips which are i586 in their
home servers because they are cheap, but more importantly very quiet as they
don't require CPU fans.

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Gentoo/Linux Developer (baselayout, networking)
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Kari Hazzard <karimarie.TakeThisOut@mail.rit.edu> posted
200610090740.54261.karimarie.TakeThisOut@mail.rit.edu, excerpted below, on Mon, 09
Oct 2006 07:40:53 -0400:

> On Thursday 05 October 2006 10:48 am, Chris Gianelloni wrote:
>> What about *our* choice to not waste time building things we don't want?
>
> So what about those of us who DO want that? Forcing us into an installer
> is more constricting and gives us less freedom--That's not the Gentoo way.

What many often forget is that the Gentoo devs are all volunteers.
Forcing a volunteer to do /anything/ is... problematic. If they don't
want to do it, they simply quit volunteering.

By the same token, if it's volunteers that are doing it, they are
obviously interested in what they are doing. Gentoo's reasonably open
(some would say /too/ open) to developers starting their own projects,
contributing to Gentoo whatever it is they are interested in, and also
quite open to folks becoming developers if they put their mind and effort
into it. If enough users want something the volunteer devs aren't doing,
one way or another, /someone/ will pick it up and run with it. That's
what the FLOSS community is all about, really, the ability/empowerment to
take code and form it into what /you/ want, if you don't like the way the
existing project is managing things. If enough users want it, it /will/
happen, because either some of them will become devs and volunteer the
time to /make/ it happen, or they'll become devs and fork Gentoo if
necessary to make it happen, or in the event none of them are skilled
enough to do it personally, they'll invest as necessary to ensure someone
else does it. A single user might not be able to do it without the
skills if he likewise lacks funds, but a group of users working together
certainly could. After all, if this wasn't possible, none of what
presently exists in the community /would/ presently exist. It'd all
still be a dream in a few guys' heads.

Additionally, as already mentioned by others, Gentoo even empowers you to
do it yourself by providing the same tools that Gentoo itself uses,
catalyst and the like, so you don't even have to start from scratch to do
it. Use the minimal and catalyst and roll your own. While Gentoo can't
be all things to all people -- that can't be what choice in this context
means, as it's impossible -- it /can/ and /does/ provide the tools, as a
metadistribution, that allow you to roll your own variation on the theme,
if you find that more convenient than using the choices Gentoo /does/
provide.

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Roy Marples <uberlord.RemoveThis@gentoo.org> posted
200610101119.46556.uberlord.RemoveThis@gentoo.org, excerpted below, on Tue, 10 Oct
2006 11:19:46 +0100:

> There are plently of people using VIA C3 class chips which are i586 in
> their home servers because they are cheap, but more importantly very quiet
> as they don't require CPU fans.

Good points both you and Jens.

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Wernfried Haas wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 10, 2006 at 10:13:41AM +0000, Duncan wrote:
>> Personally, I'd say 686 is the lowest reasonable to support at this point.
>> Below that, try an appropriate binary distribution and save the days/weeks
>> of compiling.
>
> Bollocks. I run a print/samba/backup box at work which is a pentium II
> 400. Compiling glibc takes 3 hours here and while it may not be the

Uhh, P2 is i686, which falls squarely into the realm of "supported" and
"reasonable"

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Gentoo Linux Developer Installer Project
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Simon Stelling wrote:
> Roy Bamford wrote:
>> Dropping support for x86 <i686 is a debate we need to have some time I
>> suppose, its a question of when.
>>
>> There is clearly only a few users, besides myself using systems that
>> old, since there were very few forums posts about the original 2006.1
>> x86 media not workign on P1 and AMD k6 based systems.
>
> I'm sure I'm not the only one who is using a pentium mmx as a router, so
> you better think twice about it

But when was the last time you reinstalled it?

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On Monday 09 October 2006 6:30 pm, Alec Warner wrote:
> I concur with Donnie here; Gentoo exists not because of Users, but
> because of (a subset of active) Developers. It isn't a statement that
> is meant to trash users (because you are quite helpful in many
> instances). But the naive thought that Gentoo revolves around users
> is....well, naive. Gentoo was here before there were thousands of
> users, in the unlikely event that you all switch distros, Gentoo will
> probably still be here.

It will not, however, have anywhere near as many developers, nor will it have
more than a fraction of the resources now available to it. Users are the
reason people sponsor Gentoo, users are the reason people know Gentoo exists,
whether you realise it or not.

> To make another argument; if I go buy a RHEL3 box set and then complain
> because the liveCD doesn't have some key programs (lets say
> cryptsetup-luks statically compiled so I can boot off of a USB key and
> encrypt my / partition), is the onus on them to release a new CD just
> for me? Hell I'm a paying customer! But they don't care.

Well, that's simply bad customer service.

Don't constrict your support organ because someone else's support organ
operates poorly. That doesn't help anyone, not users, not devs.



In any event, when was the decision made to kill the Universal LiveCD for x86
and replace it with the installer? I'd like to read the discussion.


Kari Hazzard
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The point is that if you build Gentoo to be developer-friendly rather than
user-friendly, Gentoo will be replaced by something else.

User-centric design is why Gentoo is/was different from everything else. Take
away choices that people want and you take the Gentoo philosophy out of
Gentoo itself.

Kari Hazzard

On Monday 09 October 2006 5:45 pm, Donnie Berkholz wrote:
> That's only true if you assume Gentoo developers are in this for the
> users and not for themselves and their own personal satisfaction.
>
> Thanks,
> Donnie
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On Mon, 2006-10-09 at 23:30 -0400, Kari Hazzard wrote:
> User-centric design is why Gentoo is/was different from everything else. Take
> away choices that people want and you take the Gentoo philosophy out of
> Gentoo itself.

If the design was in any way user-centric, then that was a side-effect
of the design being developer-centric. The choices are all about
enabling development and developers. The Gentoo philosophy is about
empowerment -- we provide a platform for you to do what you want with
it. That's our only promise, all the rest is just gravy. Rel. Eng. and
others do what they do because, at its root, that's what they *want* to
do -- that's how they exercise their own empowerment. Feel free to join
in the fray and exercise your own

Thanks,

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Developer, Gentoo Linux

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