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OS X Businesses Operating Systems Apple

Gentoo's Portage to be Ported to Mac OS X 62

Posted by pudge from the more-options-more-better dept.
billatq writes "I love Mac OS X, but I'm also a fan of running Gentoo Linux because of its powerful package management system. A Debian-style system (fink) is already on Mac OS X, but now it seems that Gentoo's Portage is going to be available for it. Gentoo's announcement can be found on their web site. I can't wait until we see what the Gentoo team has prepared."
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Gentoo's Portage to be Ported to Mac OS X More

Gentoo's Portage to be Ported to Mac OS X

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  • hmm (Score:3, Interesting)

    by rastachops ( 543268 ) * on Thursday June 05, 2003 @07:14AM (#6122461)
    I've never used Portage before, I have used fink but didn't like it much.... so whats so good about Portage and why should I download it?

    • Re:hmm (Score:5, Informative)

      by Asprin ( 545477 ) <`gsarnold' `at' `yahoo.com'> on Thursday June 05, 2003 @07:33AM (#6122578) Homepage Journal

      It's a CLI package manager. You type 'emerge gnuchess' and portage goes out to the Gentoo server, finds the gnuchess source code package, downloads it, asks you some config questions, makes it (compiling from source using optimized compiler settings you've already set up) and installs it.

      The advantage is that you get exactly what you ask for, compiled from the ORIGINAL SOURECE. Since you compiled it yourself, you can optimize the compiler to build for your specific platform only.

      • Re:hmm (Score:5, Informative)

        by klmth ( 451037 ) <mkoivi3@unix.saunalahti.fi> on Thursday June 05, 2003 @08:02AM (#6122811) Homepage Journal
        The real advantage of portage is not that it installs and compiles gnuchess.
        The greatest advantage is that is follows your guidelines for what features should be installed.
        "Ssl support, you say? No problem! Next time I update the system, I'll be sure to update every app that has support for it!"

        • Re:hmm (Score:2, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Doesn't apt do that?

          • Re:hmm (Score:1, Informative)

            by Anonymous Coward
            No. Apt installs arre the packages that the requested binaries depend on. But if they maintainer didn't compile it with SSL support, you have to recompile it yourself (and possibly its dependencies). As a result, Debian typically builds their binaries with support for as many libraries and features as they can.

            In Gentoo, you have a long list of all the kinds of support you want compiled in, and it builds the packages with those things compiled in, or out.

            For example, I don't run KDE, and don't have QT

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
            Comment removed based on user account deletion
            • Nope, Apt installs binaries.

              Yes, that's *one* of the things apt does. Configured properly (it's configured properly by default, BTW) it will also install source packages which you can configure however you desire. It provides the benefit of allowing you to build from source only the packages you deem necissary to reconfigure so you don't waste half your life compiling. Very handy. Next time you're on a debian system, try the 'apt-get source' command and it's various options.

      • Re:hmm (Score:3, Informative)

        by Goner ( 5704 )
        "...asks you some config questions..."

        No, it doesn't even do that. You specify them all through what are known as USE flags in a file called /etc/make.conf, as in gnuchess USEs opengl (or whatever, actually it doesn't depend on any USE flags). But portage can also do cool things like build straight from cvs repositories for apps like ardour that don't currently have even tarballs out. All of this is pretty darn well documented on the gentoo site, and I recommend people check it out. (Especially if you

      • Re:hmm (Score:3, Informative)

        by 2nd Post! ( 213333 )
        How is this different from fink?

        sudo fink install orbit

        It downloads the orbit source, compiles, and installs it.

        • Re:hmm (Score:2, Interesting)

          by zojas ( 530814 )
          portage differs from fink in that it is quite easy for you to specify system-wide compile-time options and optimization flags with portage. for example: don't like gnome? USE='-gnome' in your make.conf file will prevent gnome support from being compiled into every single package you install with portage.

      • Re:hmm (Score:5, Informative)

        by zojas ( 530814 ) <kevin@astrophoenix.com> on Thursday June 05, 2003 @12:26PM (#6125210) Homepage
        one clarification: portage asks you no questions. configure-time options are set via USE flags in your make.conf file. see the portage user guide [gentoo.org] and the USE flag guide [gentoo.org].

        no questions means you can type 'emerge kde' and come back later after it has installed possibly dozens of packages with no more input from you.

        • Dozen, I wish! more like 98. Anyway it'll be done, in an hour or so.
        • That's very nice, the "no further questions" part. I hate having to baby-sit an installer.
        • Ahh, unless dev-java/jdk-docs stops because you have to go download the javadocs zip file from Sun directly.

          I understand the licensing issues that cause this, but come on!!!

          If you could make emerge -up pretend a little harder (like, tell me if I need to download anything before I kick off 'emerge -u kde gnome gaim mozilla galeon-cvs') that would be damned cool.
          • lucky for, you it is there. this from 'emerge --help':

            --fetchonly (-f short option) Instead of doing any package building, just perform fetches for all packages (main package as well as all dependencies.) When used in combination with --pretend all the SRC_URIs will be displayed multiple mirrors per line, one line per file.

      • Re:hmm (Score:3, Interesting)

        by m0rph3us0 ( 549631 )
        Another advantage of portage is that if you dont compile everything from source you get broken code. Especially since 90% of the code speed up from compiling yourself comes from libc and and the kernel there really isn't much point.

        • Re:hmm (Score:2)

          by Sevn ( 12012 )
          Really?

          I'm running quite a few precompiled binaries on
          Gentoo and nothing is broken.

          Quake III Arena
          Aim
          UT2003
          RTCW
          RTCW ET
          Mozilla Firebird
          realplayer

          and those are just the ones I can think of.
          Nice attempt at FUD though. I think more of the
          speedup has to do with the fact that I don't have
          gnome or kde support compiled into anything on
          my system since I use blackbox. It's the same
          logic behind making a custom kernel to take
          advantage of your hardware, applied to the entire
          OS. Some people care enough. Some don't and
    • similar to BSD ports.

      portage usually goes under /usr/portage

      you can update that dir with `emerge sync` or get a snapshot.

      inside /usr/portage is a myiad to .build files. These are python scripts that:

      - download the binary or source for a package
      - build it
      - install it

      Basically portage is a dependancy and package manager and automates ./configure - make - makeinstall and similar steps.

      It's very hands on to fiddle with /usr/portage too - can make own scripts fairly quickly.

      NB: portage does binary p

  • yay [...] (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Official Gentoo-Linux-Zealot translator-o-matic

    Gentoo Linux is an interesting new distribution with some great features. Unfortunately, it has attracted a large number of clueless wannabes and leprotards who absolutely MUST advocate Gentoo at every opportunity. Let's look at the language of these zealots, and find out what it really means...

    "Gentoo makes me so much more productive."
    "Although I can't use the box at the moment because it's compiling something, as it wil

    • This is so funny, it deserves a +11!
    • hmm saw your post somewhere else before, make shure no DRM applies ;-)

      I find nothing wrong with logging into my parents' computer from time to time (usually after major updates of KDE or the like) and updating everything over the net without them even knowing.

      That made me more productive, yes. With SuSE I always lost dependency war...

    • As a Gentoo user (not zealot), let me counter some of these.

      "Although I can't use the box at the moment because it's compiling something, as it will be for the next five days, it gives me more time to check out the latest USE flags and potentially unstable optimisation settings."

      Once my system is set up, all compiling is done in a little terminal window. It does not stop me from using the box normally during that time.

      "Apart from Hello World in Pascal at school, I've never written a single program in

  • GTK+ Native or X-Windowed? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by erebus24 ( 632942 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @07:28AM (#6122536) Homepage
    Being a gentoo fan I know the portage for Mac OS X is a good thing (tm)... But I hate having to use the X11 server on my mac, I'd prefer everything to be as native as possible. So will it include the option to use one of the gtk+ Mac native ports (and possibly other widget/graphics libraries) or will we still have to crank up X11 before we can run any of the programs we install through the portage?

  • OpenDarwin and Darwinports (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Leimy ( 6717 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @07:28AM (#6122539)
    Don't forget about Darwinports.

  • Maybe I'm going out on a limb here, (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Asprin ( 545477 ) <`gsarnold' `at' `yahoo.com'> on Thursday June 05, 2003 @07:29AM (#6122540) Homepage Journal

    I can't wait until we see what the Gentoo team has prepared."

    Maybe I'm going out on a limb here, but shouldn't it be just like portage on Gentoo? Macs *DO* have CLI's now, right?

  • name of the thing (Score:3, Informative)

    by akellens ( 513392 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @07:53AM (#6122747)
    The thing is called iPortage.
    A link to sourceforge:
    iPortage [sourceforge.net]

  • The big advantage behind portage is that you custom compile everything from source according to preferences set locally, so you get all the advantages of being able to control compile-time options without actually having to manually compile things. But since fink allows you to compile packages from source too, i wonder how hard it would be to hack something together to allow you to impose the compile-time options that you want using fink?

  • NetBSD pkgsrc (Score:5, Informative)

    by LizardKing ( 5245 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @08:08AM (#6122862)
    NetBSD's pkgsrc collection can be used on MacOS X from what I understand. It's a "compile from source" system much like Gentoos, and has about 3700 packages available.

    Chris

  • OS X will bring more geeks to the world (Score:5, Interesting)

    by chia_monkey ( 593501 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @08:15AM (#6122919) Journal
    Does anyone else see all this as such a beautiful way to bring more *NIX geeks to the world? The Mac used to be considered a "toy". REAL programmers code on their PCs or Sparc stations. But now you have this Mac toy with such powerful UNIX underpinnings that is really getting the programming and hacking community excited.

    I can see kids toying around on their parent's Mac. They tinker. They tinker more. Soon they're playing with Fink or with Gentoo. All of a sudden there are soooo many *NIX hackers out there that didn't even mean to be in the arena.

    I know I'm guilty of it. And thousands more will be in no time at all.
    • I've been a geek since '78 and a unix nerd since '82. My first Unix box was a MIPS Magnum pizzabox.

      I remember the day Linus told the minix list about his little linux project. I've used Linux, in some way, pretty much every day since then.

      I've watched Be come and go. I still have a BeBox. I still have a stack of SGI Indy's too, which I always refer to as the "Old New Magnums".

      I make geek toys.

      You would have to tear my tiBook500 Rev *A* from my cold dead hard fingers. As a "Switcher", Apple can do n
    • Yep, that exactly what's happening...
      I mean, had someone shown me an Xterm on linux three years ago, I would probably have phreaked out; but OS X is really, well, "reassuring": you go step by step, from the Finder (same as OS 9, plain and simple) to C++ programming. Currently I'm at the "make your own CLI aliases and tinker with SSH / SCP / Screencapture" level, it's kind of cool :) (my studies have nothing to do with computers, so I progress rather slowly).

      Cool, nonetheless... But you have to install XFre

  • This is going to rock (Score:5, Informative)

    by Znonymous Coward ( 615009 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @08:35AM (#6123077) Journal
    Mac OS X is lacking in it's UNIX core. Fink is ok and all, but it's not great (IMHO). This will help spur competition and drive both products to mature and grow on the Mac platform.

    I've always been a Mac zelot, now I can be a Genoo zelot as well. Yea!

    • The only diff between portage and fink is one is from GenToo and one is from Debian. They are just distribution packaging systems. Nothing more, nothing less.

      The only thing this adds is variety, and competition. It's not filling a particular hole.
      • Well, thats one difference, yes. But I've used both, and can honestly say gentoo is EXTREMELY well made. say I don't know a package name... gentoo -s suddently every package that has it in the name and description come up. Wanna see what will be made if you emerge it w/o actually doing it? emerge -p (the p is for pretend). Yes. It takes a while, but the speed increase is worth it. Debian you have to go through all sorts of menus and stuff, when everything can be done from the command line with gentoo (I'm

        • Re:This is going to rock (Score:4, Informative)

          by IpalindromeI ( 515070 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @12:24PM (#6125193) Journal
          Here's what you're missing.

          Search for a keyword, in the name or description:
          apt-cache search keyword

          Search just in the name:
          apt-cache search --names-only keyword

          Simulate what would happen without doing it:
          apt-get -s install package
          apt-get --no-act install package

          The nice thing about apt is that it doesn't take a year to do a simple search and the package descriptions are actually useful, instead of one cryptic line.

          • Re:This is going to rock (Score:4, Informative)

            by Thomas A. Anderson ( 114614 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @12:41PM (#6125324) Homepage

            Search for a keyword, in the name or description:
            apt-cache search keyword

            Yeah, that would be kinda cool


            Search just in the name:
            apt-cache search --names-only keyword

            qpkg keyword

            qpkg is a program in the gentool package - flags include:

            -v print available versions
            -i print package information
            -d print packages that have multiple versions ins
            talled
            -f find package that owns file
            -l print package contents
            and many more options



            Simulate what would happen without doing it:
            apt-get -s install package
            apt-get --no-act install package

            emerge -p package


            The nice thing about apt is that it doesn't take a year to do a simple search and the package descriptions are actually useful, instead of one cryptic line.

            Which distro are you talking about? I find that neither of those describe gentoo.

            Listen, you are more than welcome to like debian/fink over gentoo/gentoo-ppc (or any other distro or even os). No skin off my nose.

            But don't spread untruths about another distro - it serves no usefull purpose.

        • So you agree, but can't identify any other differences than being package management systems?

  • huh? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by claude_juan ( 582361 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @08:35AM (#6123080)
    ok, maybe i'm being silly but the "beauty" of portage is that you compile it from source. it seems to me that with the limited number of varying mac processors out there that it would be a much better deal if the mac portage would just install a binary that was precompiled for your particular processor. for you apple folk who dont know this, it can take hours upon hours to compile certain packages from source. now this is usually only larger things like kde and gnome, but there are a number of larger ones as well that suck to compile. but to date, thats what portage sells to people. "compile it from source!" "its better that way!" anyway, gentoo is cool and all, but its very much becoming the overwhelming cult distro of the linux world. i hope mac users know what they are getting into with this one.

    • Re:huh? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by clarkcox3 ( 194009 ) <slashdot@clarkcox.com> on Thursday June 05, 2003 @10:53AM (#6124422) Homepage
      it seems to me that with the limited number of varying mac processors out there that it would be a much better deal if the mac portage would just install a binary that was precompiled for your particular processor

      There is still something to be said for compiling from source, even on a platform as homogenous as the mac. There are significant differences between the G3 and G4, and even among various G3s and G4s. The variety of optimal optimization settings will only increase if/when Apple introduces PPC970-based Macs (crossing fingers).

      i hope mac users know what they are getting into with this one.

      I would say that any mac user downloading a CLI-based package management tool, probably knows what they are getting in to.

  • Wow. I can see using Cocoa to write an excellent GUI front-end to Portage. If Portage on OS X works just like it does on Linux, that could mean an easy port to GNUstep. Extrapolate (fantasize) a bit, and you can see a possible way out of the KDE and GNOME wars, and into Objective-C nirvana.

  • Oh, boy (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05, 2003 @12:33PM (#6125262)
    I love Mac OS X, but I'm also a fan of running Gentoo Linux because of its powerful package management system.

    Ladies and gentlemen, in case you're wondering, THIS is what "missing the point" looks like in its purest form.

    Anybody who chooses their operating system based not on the software that's available for that operating system but the method for installing that software is missing the point. Grandly.

    • Re:Oh, boy (Score:2, Insightful)

      by agrippa_cash ( 590103 )
      While I am among those easily swayed by the 'wow' factor, the poster is not guilty of this offence. He is also a fan of running *Gentoo* Linux becuase of the package system. I would assume that the poster likes Linux in general, and Gentoo because of Portage, as Portage is the main thing that differentiates Gentoo from the other distros.
    • While funny and true to some extent, the ability to install software is of course important. If turning on and off the monitor involved soldering and de-soldering the power line each time, it would detract from the overall quality of the experience, even if all of its other qualities were exceptional. In the same way, if it's a burden to install and remove software it detracts from the overall experience. Whether installation should be a function of the operating system or the software itself is another
  • at last ! I will be able to run endless compiles on my PowerBook 1Ghz AS WELL as my little x86 gentoo-mythtv box !!! top notch !!! I can now safely say that instead of just using/working my Tibook, I'll be just watching the never-ending output of the XFree86 compilation =)

    seriously... gentoo's great. I learned tons of stuff while installing it a few times... but OSX works so great already ! I'm not quite sure if it's really a plus...
  • There will be no escaping the race of super-zealots this will create!

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