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Technology (Apple) Software Technology Linux

Gentoo for Mac OS X Released 291

Posted by Hemos from the continuing-the-growth dept.
joeljkp writes "According to today's Gentoo Weekly News, Gentoo has released a new project: Gentoo MacOS (sic). This new distribution adds Portage, Gentoo's package manager, to Mac OS X, among other things."
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Gentoo for Mac OS X Released More

Gentoo for Mac OS X Released

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  • Cool (Score:2, Interesting)

    by AlexanderYoshi ( 750291 )
    How long until I can get Gentoo for my Xbox?

  • Full Text (images already /.'ed) (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 19, 2004 @11:23AM (#9738815)
    Gentoo News
    -----------

    "Apple, we have a problem" - Gentoo MacOS X Released

    Figure 1.1: Derived from Apple's 'Redmond, we have a problem' campaign:
    The Gentoo MacOS announcement
    http://www.gentoo.org/images/gwn/200 40719_macos_pr oblem.png

    Almost exactly one year after the idea of porting Portage to MacOS X came
    up - and the joint Metapkg initiative[1] between Fink, Darwinports and
    Gentoo took off - a 20-head-strong developer team around Pieter van den
    Abeele[2] (strategic lead) and Daniel Ostrow[3] (operational) is now ready
    to release an extraordinary beast into the wild: Gentoo MacOS. They
    deliver on a promise no other Linux distribution has been daring enough to
    make yet: Portage on MacOS is now fully operational, seamlessly integrated
    as a package manager in a non-Linux operating system. It initially serves
    the main purpose of an SDK for inclusion of new packages, testing and
    patching. Granted, KDE isn't ported yet, but make no mistake: Gentoo MacOS
    is ready for consumption by Macintosh users who want, say, scientific DTP
    via TeX, something they will now be able to simply emerge in OS X just
    like they'd do in Gentoo Linux."Right now it's a tool to install lots of
    commonly requested applications on OS X", explains Pieter van den Abeele.
    "But in a few months, we'll have a port system that builds Darwin from
    scratch, provides a standardised lookup and installation routine for
    Dashboard widgets[4], enhancements and tools like the Desktop Manager[5]
    and many, many more popular OS X applications." Downloading the Gentoo
    MacOS Installer provides users with a patched portage, its tree, and the
    Python modules. It sets environment variables and demands a bootstrapping
    shell script to be run before the first emerge that detects the operating
    system (Panther or Tiger), chooses the relevant profiles and injects every
    application it finds already installed in MacOS X.

    1. http://www.metapkg.org
    2. pvdabeel gentoo.org
    3. dostrow gentoo.org
    4. http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/dashboard.html
    5. http://wsmanager.sourceforge.net/

    Figure 1.2: Taming the Tiger with a double-click: The Gentoo MacOS
    Installer
    http://www.gentoo.org/images/gwn /20040719_macos_in staller.png

    Since Gentoo's own GCC ebuild for MacOS X isn't ready yet, compiling is
    currently done using the Xcode development tools[6] which include GCC 3.3
    provided by Apple. "People already on Tiger can experiment with GCC 3.5",
    adds Pieter. Tiger, the new release of MacOS X, is due in 2005 with its
    brandnew database filesystem Spotlight[7], modernised video services and
    many other features. The Gentoo MacOS developers are busy polishing the
    knobs (a Cocoa user interface is part of the plan), getting iSync[8]
    integration to work (emerge an application on one machine, automatically
    replicate onto all other Macs in a LAN), right down to making Catalyst
    produce Darwin LiveCDs... "But first the cool stuff, then Darwin",
    chuckles strategic lead Pieter. Even though his team is already larger
    than the entire Gentoo Linux PPC developer group, they still train new
    devs almost daily, and whoever wants to help with the project is very
    welcome to get in touch. The public Wiki[9] holds installation
    instructions and serves as a reporting tool for packages outside of
    Portage that already compile without bombing out. The Gentoo MacOS
    Installer can be downloaded from here[10].

    6. http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/xcode.html
    7. http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/spotlighttech.ht ml
    8. http://www.apple.com/isync/
    9. http://gentoo-wiki.com/Gentoo_MacOS
    10. http://www.metadistribution.org/macos/
    Full size (1024x768) screenshots of the Gentoo MacOS installation
    procedure:
    * Installer starts[11]
    * Detection of OS version and installed software[12]
    * Still busy injecting detected
    • I thought the w3 browser and its hack of numbering links went out of fashion some time ago.

    • Tiger, the new release of MacOS X, is due in 2005 with its brand new database filesystem Spotlight[7], modernised video services and many other features.

      It's not a database filesystem. I wrote an entry in my journal on the subject, and I'd quote it here if /. weren't so laggy right now. But Spotlight is just indexing the same metadata that is in HFS+ under Jaguar, plus data that it pulls out of the file, not out of the filesystem. There is significant improvement in the mechanism and the interface, but it i

      • Re:Full Text (images already /.'ed) (Score:5, Informative)

        by loosifer ( 314643 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @01:03PM (#9739652) Homepage

        But Spotlight is just indexing the same metadata that is in HFS+ under Jaguar, plus data that it pulls out of the file, not out of the filesystem. There is significant improvement in the mechanism and the interface, but it is not a "database filesystem."

        As far as I can tell, that is incorrect; Dominic (the authoer of BeFS) has added additional metadata capabilities to HFS+, so Spotlight is actually 1) indexing that metadata, and 2) using interpreters to pull and index data from various file formats. See those post, for instance. [daringfireball.net] While I agree that this does not create a true database filesystem, I would say that it's close to what BeOS had, which is the closest anyone has come.

        I must admit interest in MS's claim that they're going to create a true database filesystem; while it is obviously technically feasible, it's just as stupid now as it was years ago when Be decided to back off theirs. Thus, I expect MS to produce a solution that does what they said it would do while sucking so much that no one uses it. It will be interesting to watch.

        As to the claim that Apple is just doing all front-end stuff while MS is actually doing technology, I call baloney on that one. Apple has been good recently at creating and then utilyzing really good technology (although it's usually protocols, not servers). All of the technology available via .Mac is available to everyone, even if the servers themselves aren't. I can (and did) create a WebDAV server to store and share my calendars, and I can mount this WebDAV server as a local filesystem. Rendezvous/Zeroconf is another good example of a tech that Apple has developed, championed, and then been a real leader on.

        I agree that there are big differences, though: Spotlight is based on proven technology and will surely arrive in 2005, while WinFS is a huge gamble, will increase costs dramatically (both licensing and maintenance), and will also arrive no earlier than 2006, without actually being based on proven tech at all. If their history is anything to go by, it will be 2010 or so before WinFS is usable.

        • "while WinFS is a huge gamble, will increase costs dramatically (both licensing and maintenance), and will also arrive no earlier than 2006, without actually being based on proven tech at all. If their history is anything to go by, it will be 2010 or so before WinFS is usable."

          MS has already announced that WinFS is being withdrawn from Longhorn along with several other technologies, all of which have now been pushed back to the following Windows release("Blackcomb"). This was a result of basically two fa
        • I must admit interest in MS's claim that they're going to create a true database filesystem; while it is obviously technically feasible, it's just as stupid now as it was years ago when Be decided to back off theirs.

          I disagree. I believe that true database filesystems will be a big thing for desktops/business environments in the future.

          Problem: We have bunches of word processor files, spreadsheets, etc. Google could have found them in less than 1 sec if they were on the web, but we have to wait long t
          • What is wrong with having the option to have an automatically updated and searchable filesystem data on your machine or better your LAN?

            You have missed his point.

            There are several ways to implement the feature you describe. One is with a database-driven filesystem. One is with an ordinary filesystem that is adequately indexed. Apple looks to have implemented very good indexing of an ordinary filesystem.

            Spotlight will give you all the features you describe, but it will not be a database-driven filesystem
          • Rumor has it that Google will sell you client/server software to make this happen on your LAN.

            No rumour - I suspect this is a reference to the Google Search Appliance [google.com]. You just need to make your resources, as far as I know, accessible via http.

            YLFI

        • Re:Full Text (images already /.'ed) (Score:4, Informative)

          by Elwood P Dowd ( 16933 ) <judgmentalist@gmail.com> on Monday July 19, 2004 @03:17PM (#9740837) Journal
          I'd already read the article you link to. It is what I base my point on. There are additional metadata capabilities in Tiger, but they are not part of the fileystem. Your ID3 tags are not being stored in HFS+ metadata. Everyone who thinks that HFS+ will have user-extendable metadata or a database-driven filesystem will be disappointed. It is not a database filesystem. That's perfectly OK with me.
          As to the claim that Apple is just doing all front-end stuff while MS is actually doing technology, I call baloney on that one.
          You seem to misunderstand. I called it MS's "pie in the sky" technology for a reason. My analogy is a good one.
          I agree that there are big differences, though: Spotlight is based on proven technology and will surely arrive in 2005, while WinFS is a huge gamble, will increase costs dramatically (both licensing and maintenance), and will also arrive no earlier than 2006, without actually being based on proven tech at all.
          You say that as if you had made the point, rather than me.

        • Repeat once again: WinFS is NOT a filesystem ! (Score:4, Informative)

          by theefer ( 467185 ) * on Monday July 19, 2004 @04:22PM (#9741474) Homepage
          I must admit interest in MS's claim that they're going to create a true database filesystem

          I read this occasionally on /., but it is wrong. WinFS is not a (database) filesystem, and this is why the FS in WinFS does not stand for FileSystem but FutureStorage (there must have been a contest to find such a stupid name). WinFS is a database over NTFS that remains the filesystem. It just adds meta-data to files, but in a separate database.

          I went to a mini-conference by a ms evangelist, and he repeated it many times.

          I'd be more interested in what Reiser4 does with metadata, it seems much more interesting than a mere additionnal layer.
    • The Gentoo MacOS developers are busy polishing the
      knobs

      How are they ever going to finish it if they're spending all day polishing their knobs?

  • Server, we have a problem (Score:4, Funny)

    by Petronius ( 515525 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @11:29AM (#9738860)
    3 posts and it's already slashdotted. nice.

  • I see that it's a catchy headline, but ... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by burgburgburg ( 574866 ) <splisken06&email,com> on Monday July 19, 2004 @11:30AM (#9738875)
    how exactly is this a problem for Apple?

  • Yea, and? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by soybean ( 1120 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @11:30AM (#9738877)
    What does this do that fink doesn't already (for the last few years) do?

    • Re:Yea, and? (Score:5, Funny)

      by hunterx11 ( 778171 ) <hunterx11@NOSpAm.gmail.com> on Monday July 19, 2004 @11:35AM (#9738923) Homepage Journal
      This one goes to 11.

    • Re:Yea, and? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by justforaday ( 560408 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @11:54AM (#9739078)
      What does this do that fink doesn't already (for the last few years) do?

      Well, this one can compile the packages from source. Oh wait, Fink already does that...Yeah, how does this really differ from the Fink project, other than being based on Gentoo's portage system?

    • Re:Yea, and? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Massacrifice ( 249974 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @12:10PM (#9739208)
      I recently moved bask from Gentoo-PPC to Mac OS X + Fink lately after my Linux HD crashed, so I'll tell you what I am missing the most about Gentoo.

      First, there are a quite a bunch of advanced build options in Portage that are not available under Fink (see /etc/make.conf). USE variable, easy distcc, easy ccache, powerful package query... These are things that you can't go without once you've tried them.

      Fink is nice, but its package tree is smaller and less up to date than Portage is. Besides, nobody will prevent you from having both.

      Apart from Portage, Gentoo offers multiple system management facilities. I don't know if these will be ported, but things like rc-update (init script management) and java-config really help.

      Finally, I think that what will set Gentoo-MacOS apart from Fink is the number of developper and community size. That is something that cannot be duplicated.
      • Yes! Mod parent up to uh +6! I DESPISE Fink, and Darwinports left my underwhelmed. Portage on OS X has been a pipe dream for me and now it's been realized! My favorite Linux package manager on my favorite *nix OS! I think I'm going to have a nerdgasm!

  • emerge karmawhore (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Stevyn ( 691306 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @11:31AM (#9738888)
    Gentoo is one of the best distros out there. I use it on x86 and it was easy to install and set up. I had more trouble on mandrake than on gentoo. The best thing it has going for it is portage. This system of automatically downloading and compiling software is only appriciated when you've gone through RPM hell or dependency hell when compiling from scratch. I was using mandrake previously, and this is definately faster. I encourage everyone who uses a distro like mandrake, fedora, or SuSE to look into gentoo.

    I've only been using linux for a few months and gentoo for a week or so but I already see how well produced it is. I used to get annoyed at gentoo zealots, but I see what they were talking about.

    Oh, and the compiling software isn't that bad. I've spent more time searching for packages and dependecies than typing "emerge k3b". Don't believe all the hype of course, but don't believe the FUD either. Gentoo is where it's at!

    Now to make this a little more on-topic, I'm happy that gentoo is trying to make more headway into apple hardware. I think that this will only encourage apple to help and contribute to the OSS community even more. MacOS is probably the most refined modern operating system, but giving it a little more competition can't hurt.

    • Re:emerge karmawhore (Score:4, Funny)

      by Bold Marauder ( 673130 ) <(boldmarauder) (at) (gmail.com)> on Monday July 19, 2004 @11:42AM (#9738983) Homepage
      Personally, on x86 I had far more problems with setting up gentoo (I have to compile a kernel during the installation? how fucked up is that?) than I ever had with using packages under mandrake (particularly when using easy urpmi [urpmi.org].

      I mean, different stroke for different folks, certainly. But gentoo's strenth is its' ability to squeeze 0.0008 percent more processing power out of your 2.4ghz computer; not ease of use or installation. That arena is where (imho) mandrake really shines.

      • Re:emerge karmawhore (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Joseph Vigneau ( 514 ) * on Monday July 19, 2004 @11:51AM (#9739056)
        gentoo's strenth is its' ability to squeeze 0.0008 percent more processing power out of your 2.4ghz computer

        Actually, that is not Gentoo's primary strength. Its strength is from the amount of flexibility that portage provides for package dependency. With binary-oriented distributions, you are forced to use the same configuration settings that were chosen by the package maintainer. Portage has the concept of "USES", which is basically a list of flags that the build uses to figure out what options to use during compilation. For example, many packages can be integrated with GNOME. I don't use GNOME. With other distributions, if the package was built with GNOME dependencies, I'd be forced to install GNOME. If the package was built without GNOME, some GNOME user wouldn't be able to take advantage of GNOME-specific features. With Portage, you can specify via the USES variable whether or not you want to have a dependancy on GNOME or not. As a side effect, you get the CPU-optimization "for free".

        • No, you would not be forced to install GNOME, you would be forced to install a few GNOME libraries, which would occupy a few megabytes and basically not be in your way otherwise. That is not really a big problem unless you make it one.

          /* Steinar */

        • Re:emerge karmawhore (Score:3, Informative)

          by Mr.Ned ( 79679 )
          While in a binary distribution you are forced to use the ./configure settings of the maintainer, that's not always incompatible with compartmentalizing part of software. For example, on Debian, if I look at postfix packages, I see this:

          postfix - A high-performance mail transport agent
          postfix-dev - Postfix loadable modules development environment
          postfix-doc - Postfix documentation
          postfix-ldap - LDAP map support for Postfix
          postfix-mysql - MYSQL map support for Postfix
          postfix-pcre - PCRE map support for Post
        • Here is a pratical view for what you said:

          root@emulacao matheus # USE="kerberos samba -berkdb" emerge -av openldap

          These are the packages that I would merge, in order:

          Calculating dependencies ...done!
          [ebuild N ] app-crypt/mit-krb5-1.3.3-r1 -krb4 -static 6,210 kB
          [ebuild R ] net-nds/openldap-2.1.26 -berkdb +crypt -debug +gdbm -ipv6 +kerberos -odbc +perl +readline +samba -sasl -slp +ssl +tcpd 0 kB

          Total size of downloads: 6,210 kB

          Do you want me to merge these packages? [Yes/No]

          And here my glo

      • Re:emerge karmawhore (Score:5, Interesting)

        by bob670 ( 645306 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @11:59AM (#9739104)
        I'm going to agree with you on all points. I bought a Shuttle SK41G, GeForce4, Athlon XP 2000+ and 2x256 DDR a few weeks ago. From out of the box, assembly time and then OS install was about one hour 15 minutes with all hardware recognized correctly, all updates installed and a usable desktop, office suite, Internet tools, etc... A quick install of the nVidia driver updates and some extra software gooodness via urpmi and I was off and running in about 90 minutes.

        Compared to a couple days to get the same results with Gentoo, which is an outstanding distro, but not the distro to break Linux onto the mainstream desktop. Any casual PC user who has built a gaming PC or even tinkered around with his Dell could get Mandrake up and usable in less than an hour, Gentoo however is another story. Of course Gentoo wasn't aimed at that market, but the parent poster can't possibly paint Gentoo as easy to install and not expect some rebuttals.

        • I'm going to agree with you on all points. I bought a Shuttle SK41G, GeForce4, Athlon XP 2000+ and 2x256 DDR a few weeks ago.

          Why would you get such nice components and then get such a lousy CPU? An Athlon XP 2800+ costs about $30 more.

      • Re:emerge karmawhore (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Zapdos ( 70654 )
        How f..cked up is mandrake in order to install sdl-dev i have to install arts-dev wich of course needs kde-libs-dev etc.. etc..
        Now does sdl really need arts? Nope it was a packaging decision made for you by Mandrake. In order to feed the need of the unwashed masses that is what they have to do.

        Gentoo's strengths are many:
        1. Better optimizations
        2. USE statements allow you to fine tune your system libraries
        3. Upgrades to the latest version is as simple as using emerge.
        4. etc...
      • Personally, on x86 I had far more problems with setting up gentoo (I have to compile a kernel during the installation? how fucked up is that?) than I ever had with using packages under mandrake (particularly when using easy urpmi.

        That's true, but once the installation is done, I've found maintaining Gentoo software and services far easier than maintenance on Mandrake. YMMV, but I've never had good luck with any of the RPM-based systems. The speed issues are what everyone associates with Gentoo, but that's

        • Re:emerge karmawhore (Score:2, Interesting)

          by Woody77 ( 118089 )
          What made me leave red-hat was actually the pain and suffering involved with installing source-code provided drivers for my printer (hp inkjet). It required a newer version of Ghostscript than I could get via an rpm.

          And the source version of Ghostscript installed to a different place than RedHat had deemed was appropriate. And uninstalling the binary version either broke everything, or didn't work, depending on how I went about doing it.

          Eventually, I hacked away at it long enough to get it to work.

          Gent
      • Personally, on x86 I had far more problems with setting up gentoo (I have to compile a kernel during the installation? how fucked up is that?)
        If you're going to post flamebait, at least get the facts right. You don't have to compile the gentoo kernel during installation. So nothing is "fucked up." You just didn't read the first page of installation docs that describe a "stage 3" install.
        • Actually, you still have to compile a kernel for a stage3. You don't have to *configure* it, because you can opt to use genkernel. You still have to compile it either way.
          • Right. Sorry. Stage 3 installs the base system for you. As noted by another poster, there are ebuilds of binary kernels.
          • Actually, you still have to compile a kernel for a stage3. You don't have to *configure* it, because you can opt to use genkernel. You still have to compile it either way.

            ...and compiling the kernel takes what on modern hardware? 5 minutes, maybe? It's something that I always did even with Slackware, SuSE, etc., so it's nothing new to me. I've had Win2K boxes take longer to boot into safe mode than that.

      • But gentoo's strenth is its' ability to squeeze 0.0008 percent more processing power out of your 2.4ghz computer;
        Who is the FUD spreading karmawhore here? Come on guys, it is getting old.
        not ease of use or installation. That arena is where (imho) mandrake really shines.
        Installation: Mandrake and SuSE are easier of cause for a single desktop setup. But if you have a few more machines (of the same type), it might even be easier to get a good setup with gentoo (compile once, emerge -k everywhere)
        Ease of
    • ..putting Gentoo on "Mac hardware" - it's putting portions of portage on MacOS. There's a difference there - it probably won't help the Linux community any.

      I do like Gentoo, and I use it. There's nothing like installing almost any software I want with a two word command line. And if you're a GUI fan, kportage works great too.

      Truthfully, I don't have the time to maintain my three home Linux boxes full time. Meaning, I can't always be re-installing them or upgrading them to the latest version of Fed

  • Gentoo MacOS? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 19, 2004 @11:35AM (#9738930)
    um, isn't that 'Gentoo MacOS' a tad misleading? It's like calling x86 Linux 'Linux Windows'

    • Re:Gentoo MacOS? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Noksagt ( 69097 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @11:40AM (#9738971) Homepage
      um, isn't that 'Gentoo MacOS' a tad misleading? It's like calling x86 Linux 'Linux Windows'
      No--this isn't an OS (gentoo has run on the Mac hardware for sometime). Rather it is a native OS X port of portage and other gentoo utilities. It would be like calling cygwin "cygwin" (in other words Cygnus + GNU on windows).
    • Well, considering that the only important difference between Gentoo, and, say, Slackware, is the fact that Gentoo has the Portage package management system, I'd say no. Although I would have preferred something more along the lines of "Portage MacOS".

    • Re:Gentoo MacOS? (Score:3, Informative)

      by keesh ( 202812 )
      Not really. Gentoo isn't limited to Linux -- the Gentoo/Linux name was dropped a long time ago. There're ports underway for *BSD, OSX and possibly IRIX.

    • Re:Gentoo MacOS? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by DaCool42 ( 525559 )
      Perhaps "Portage MacOS X" would make more sense?

  • Am I missing something? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Moofie ( 22272 ) <leeNO@SPAMringofsaturn.com> on Monday July 19, 2004 @11:36AM (#9738934) Homepage
    I read that blurb, and I still don't know what the significance of this release is.

    "Right now, you can use it to install TeX! Someday, you might be able to install some other stuff!"

    I mean, I suppose this is kool and the gang, but what is the problem that is being solved here? Maybe I'm just not clear on the concept.
    • Portage ebuilds are easier to put together than dpkg packages for fink. They're just bash scripts. So eventually there may be more packages available through this system. USE flags will also come in handy.

  • In case you don't get it. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by torpor ( 458 ) <ibisumNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Monday July 19, 2004 @11:36AM (#9738935) Homepage Journal

    This means (sorta, as in 'soon') that a Mac-user will be able to rebuild their own OSX box, using the Gentoo scripts, and still be able to maintain compatability with all OSX apps.

    In other words, a 'better build system: a public one' has been unleashed on a commercial operating system, so that - separate from the company itself - alternative builds of the OS can be done, publically.

    Why is this good? Because with Gentoo you can take personal risks that Apple can't. Gentoo allows you to build a system "Just for You", whereas Apple have to compile/link things "For Everyone".

    Expect to see highly-tuned Gentoo boxes running GentooMacOS in the future, smokin' 'Factory OS' setups. I'll be digging into this a bit further, next point release sort of thing, and if I get the same results out of applying Gentoo to my OSX machine as I have with my Linux boxes, I'm excited. I may man I can put off a hardware upgrade or two and just 'Take Things To The Next Level' on my aging Powerbook...

    Oh, and in case you think Apple should be 'worried about' this, it seems to me that they already get the point. With all the OS releases they've been doing lately, and the upgrades/improvements in the one area 'open source' is lacking: usability, and it seems to me that they're positioned well to be 'competing with the Open Source Base' ... but thats just my personal opinion.

    • In other words, a 'better build system: a public one' has been unleashed on a commercial operating system, so that - separate from the company itself - alternative builds of the OS can be done, publically.

      I think you forgot that while the source for Darwin, the system "under the hood" of OS X, is available, the UI is not. That means no Quartz, Spotlight or Core Image technologies, and no applications like the Finder or Expose.

      Now, who would want a Mac without all this? That stuff, among other, makes it


      • You can still -RUN- all that stuff, its just that Gentoo will let you fine-tune all the goodness (kernel, system /bin's, /usr/bin's, etc) even further, around it, and yet still maintain a fully working properly configured system.

        This one really does go up to 11.

        And since its Open Source, Apple can instantly turn around, and start using it themselves.

        Its not "Apple, we have a problem.", its "Apple, we have source."

        They (Apple) certainly get the point...

      • I don't think you get it (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Shinzaburo ( 416221 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @12:04PM (#9739140) Homepage
        I don't think the parent poster "forgot" that the Mac OS X UI source isn't available for custom compiles. That's not what Gentoo MacOS is about -- it's about being able to easily install and update popular *nix software on Mac OS X.

        Who would want a Mac without Quartz, Spotlight, etc? I certainly wouldn't give up these features. But some people might want to use alternate desktop managers on Apple hardware. Just because you're not interested in doing so doesn't mean there is no reason for others to want to.

        Besides, you don't necessarily have to forgo the Finder and Exposé to use Gentoo MacOS. It's a package manager, and as such can install a bunch of *nix tools that work alongside Mac OS X without replacing it.
    • I'm not sure you understand what this is... It is basically a Gentoo package manager, allowing you to downwload and compile Linux programs on OS X. Yes, it does sound like it could build the Darwin kernel. No, this will not magically make your computer faster. Apple has worked hard to ensure Darwin is already extremely fast. Not only that, their kernal extension system already disables kernal extensions you don't need. If anything the bottleneck is in Aqua, most likely in Windowserver. You cannot simply u

  • My Only Question (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tunabomber ( 259585 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @11:39AM (#9738965) Homepage
    Will it handle the X11 dependency gracefully? I spent many, many hours trying to get Fink [sourceforge.net] either to recognize that I had XFree86 installed as a binary or to compile it from source without getting errors all over the place. I'm not a newbie to package managers like apt and ports, but despite this I eventually ended up giving up trying to install X11 apps with Fink because I just didn't have the time to spend trying to get it to work properly. As a result, I am now using Quicken instead of GNUCash.
    • I don't remember how I did it, but I had little problems getting X11 fink applications to work (including GNUCash). Remember that there is no need to install a X server, either binary or source, because OS X comes with an X server. All you have to do is point X apps to the X libraries, which wasn't much of a pain in my memory.
    • Assuming you are using 10.3 "Panther", did you choose to install X11 when you installed the OS? If not, you can still install it now via drag-and-drop.

      Apple's X11 is based on Xfree 4.3 and has pretty much replaced Xdarwin and the others. It works great and is *fast*. Even the GLX acceleration is just as fast as native Quartz/Cocoa OpenGL.

      If you play around with some of the config files (or just boot to a console login and "startx"), you can even get your mac to login to an X11 desktop rather than the nati

  • Resistance is Futile (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Locarius ( 798304 )
    ...all your base are belongs to gentoo I can not say enough good things about the direction this Distro is going. Future of Linux, or the future of all OS's?

  • how's its hygiene? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 19, 2004 @12:16PM (#9739273)
    One of the most awesomeliest things about Fink is that it installs everything in root /sw, no exceptions (i.e. /sw/bin, /sw/usr/lib, etc). That means you don't have to worry about contaminating the Apple-controlled parts of the OS, and uninstalling all customizations is just a matter of trashing /sw. I would never even think of installing anything in /usr or /usr/local (because it "belongs" to Apple).

    Does Gentoo MacOS do the same thing? If not, why not????

    • Re:how's its hygiene? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 19, 2004 @01:19PM (#9739805)
      Installing in /sw is the stupidest part about fink. It should be /opt at worst, but /usr/local is perfectly safe to use. It's just a lot easier to use that way. It's a cinch to compile external apps from source because they already know how to deal with /usr/local. It was a pain in the butt trying to get all the right flags when fink was installed in /sw. Apple will not touch stuff that you put in /usr/local. They don't "own" that directory. It exists for the very purpose of the administrator installing his own packages. The "danger" of installing to /usr/local is overstated and you should just ignore fink's stupid warnings.

      If it turns out that Gentoo/MacOS does install to a stupid non-standard directory, I'm going to be very unhappy.

    • Re:how's its hygiene? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by saitoh ( 589746 )
      If I rmemeber correctly, part of what was the big hitch against fink originally was that it broke rank and did that. /usr/local is your stuff, period. Nothing should be put in /usr/bin unless apple installed it, but /usr/local/bin is just your stuff. And fink basically just kinda gave everyone the finger when they said no and put it elsewhere.

      Its kinda like, install the Dev tools, then compile something from scratch, where does it go when you do 'make install'? It puts it in /usr/local/bin. Thats just how

      • There were reasons (Score:3, Informative)

        by FredFnord ( 635797 )
        In 10.2 and possibly 10.1 (and maybe the first one or two releases of 10.3?) Apple did put stuff into /usr/local. They don't now. All these people shouting 'they do!' 'they don't!' might consider that they could both be right.

        And, since Apple did that when fink was setting up, /usr/local was NOT a good place for fink to install, because there were definitely things to be overwritten in there.

        -fred

    • Re:how's its hygiene? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Judging by the screenshot here:
      http://www.metadistribution.org/macos/8.png

      It seems that it puts stuff into /usr/bin

      I don't know what the effects of that would be on an OS X system.

    • Re:how's its hygiene? (Score:3, Informative)

      by akiro ( 645099 )
      http://gentoo-wiki.com/Gentoo_MacOS [gentoo-wiki.com]

      From the documentation: "Portage installs things in / and could possibly overwrite important packages that were installed by OS X. Use this technology at your own risk!".

      I think I'll stick to fink for now, they could at least have used /usr/local and not mess with / :-/

  • Ah...But... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The real question is, when is portage going to move over to a real opreating system? ...ya know. Like Windows.

  • Portaris, Portage on Solaris [gentoo.org]

    Just something I've toyed around with. The major stumbling block is that the developers need to add the ability for portage to recognize other oses. Mine isn't really a complete project, more of a log of stuff I've done. Others have followed and managed to get things like KDE to fully install in solaris using portage.

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