shanenin

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Posts posted by shanenin

  1. With VidaLinux, you basically throw all of that away. There are no major customization options (not nearly as many as gentoo; not compiling the whole operating system from scratch, no bootstrapping, etc). What you get, is a pre-compiled binary of the distribution (whether you choose to compile the kernel is up to you, but you wont get the speed of Gentoo)

    If a person chooses to install vidalinux, they can choose bianaries that are compiled directly for their processesor. In my case, my base system, kernel, and gnome are all compiled to run best for an athlon xp type processor; that seams very optimized. In all honesty, I dought those optimizations over a i386 optimized system are a whole lot faster for daya to day use. Slackware is only i368 optimized and it seems to be a very fast distro(no benchmarks to back that up).

    So basically, the only good part of VidaLinux is portage (which they did not code) which compiles everything on demand which wont give you any real speed increments. Why bother? If all you’re going to be doing is using it for compile on demand, than why not get Slackware?

    When I installed gentoo for the first time it was entirely because I wanted portage, I could care less about the optimizations. Portage is wonderful, and vidalinux did a nice job of including it. Easy pachage installation is what most new linux users want. Vidalinux also uses gentoos init tools(and most every other tool). rc-update is a very easy way to change you boot process. I have not used any other distro that makes changing your init scripts so easy.

    Why bother? If all you’re going to be doing is using it for compile on demand, than why not get Slackware?

    slackware does not gracefully download and compile all of your programs, including patching, with one easy command. It is very satisfying to watch portage build kde from nothing with one easy step.

    VidaLinux for a price?

    there is a free version of vidalinux that is as good as the paid version. I am not a big GNU person, but I think it specifically says it is ok to sell your software for profit.

  2. the info iccaros gave you is more universal and should work on any linux distro(it is good to know) . If you want your setting to be global instead for just one user. You can follow the directions that are given in /etc/rc.conf. This might be more gentoo specific. modifing you xinitrc(like iccaros said), is probably a more universal solution.

    # XSESSION is a new variable to control what window manager to start

    # default with X if run with xdm, startx or xinit.  The default behavior

    # is to look in /etc/X11/Sessions/ and run the script in matching the

    # value that XSESSION is set to.  The support scripts is smart enouth to

    # look in all bin directories if it cant find a match in /etc/X11/Sessions/,

    # so setting it to "enligtenment" can also work.  This is basically used

    # as a way for the system admin to configure a default system wide WM,

    # allthough it will work if the user export XSESSION in his .bash_profile, etc.#

    # NOTE:  1) this behaviour is overridden when a ~/.xinitrc exists, and startx

    #          is called.

    #        2) even if a ~/.xsession exist, if XSESSION can be resolved, it will

    #          be executed rather than ~/.xsession, else KDM breaks ...

    #

    # Defaults depending on what you install currently include:

    #

    # Gnome - will start gnome-session

    # kde-<version> - will start startkde (ex: kde-3.0.2)

  3. you should look at the config file /etc/rc.conf you can uncomment the line so startx will run kde

    XSESSION="kde-3.2.3"

    you need to have the exact version of kde you are running. The next time you use the command startx it should start kde.

    If you want X to start automatically you need to add xdm to you init scripts. You can use the command rc-update to do this for you

    rc-update add xdm default

    make sure you edit you /etc/rc.conf file to use kdm as you windows manager(it looks nice), it may use xdm by defualt

    DISPLAYMANAGER="kdm"

  4. When I use the command ls -s with all of my linux systems I get permissions of 777 for the link. In my bsd system(using bash) when I make a sybolic link I get permissions of 755, is this normal? I have installed bash, but do not have a .bashrc, .bash_profile, or /etc/profile file to set parameters. Does that seem like the problem?

  5. My router acts as a dhcp server(correct term?) It gives out addresses to all of my computers that are plugged into it. I have a one windows, one linux, and one bsd box, all plugged into my router. All of my operating systems are set to use dhcp. I pretty much choose "use dhcp" to set up my network. I did not have to do anything other then choose "use dhcp" to set up the network for BSD to run. Networking is my weak area, I am glad the dhcp sets everything up for me.

  6. I am really enjoying this system. Just today I blew out my gentoo(main) install to make more room for BSD. I am goig to make BSD my main install for a while. With the other space on my drive, I am going to experiment with using portage on some different distros.

    edit /added later

    what kind of uses do you need it for? Stuff that linux can't do, or just stuff you would prefer to do with BSD?

  7. I know there is documentation about installing portage on another system. I wonder how hard it would be to install portage on slackware. Their would be no advantage to that over an all gentoo system, but it would be a fun learning experience. I am sure the gentoo docs are very noob freindly, I might just give it a try.

  8. yup FreeBSD-5.3 . I had a pretty easy time with it(hardware was compatible with the default kernel), everything went smooth like it was supposed to. It took three installs to do it correctly. Setting up my sound was surpisingly easy. I just had to load one module

    kldload snd_via8233

    FreeBSD uses ports(what gentoos portage is based on), it is makeing software installation a dream, everything has installed smoothly.

    BSD is different in a lot of ways(from linux), so it is interesting. It is similar enough that things are not to hard to figure out. Linux seems a little more polished for the desktop, but I will probably use BSD for a while.

  9. it configures the same way gentoo does. I just had to run the program alsaconfig, that allowed my to choose my audiocard(onboard via chipset). Then alsamixer, to turn up the volume. It was very easy.

    edit/added later

    what review, madpenguins? It set up my network automatically. I do not think you would have any problem.

  10. if you go the vidalinux(has portage) route, you will have a fully compiled system with X and gnome, plus some software after a few minutes. It is like a stage three gentoo sytem plus gnome. It uses anaconda, so the install is quick and easy. The only thing you would need to compile would be KDE, that is assuming you would like it.

  11. slackware is a great distro if you want to compile stuff by hand. It seems to have all of the needed libraries in standard places(unlike fedora). The biggest negative to slackware is a good package manager. I know it has slap-get, but i am not sure how reliable it is. To me a good easy reliable way to install software is important. Slackware uses bsd init scripts which to me are more complicated then system V scripts like most linux distros use, that may not be an issue.

    Fedoras biggest advantage over slackware its is package manager, YUM. YUM seems like a very reliable and easy way to install software. It seems to handle dependencies well: I have only used it a little while so don't have a lot of experience with it.

    Of those two choices I would probably go with fedora, that is mainly becasue of slackwares lack of a good package manager. Other then the previous point, slackware is a solid very well made disto. I would recommend a third choice, vidalinux. IT has a great package manager, portage. It does come with gnome, but kde would take less then 24 hours to compile on your slower machine. If vidalinux is anything like gentoo, most services are off by default, so that should help with your memery issue.

  12. I appreciate all of your patience. I am still a little unsure on this point. If a system uses an initrd.img, does it load its modules from the initrd.img(only) or does it still load them from the root partition. If it is the latter, and still loads them from the root partition, wouldn't those modules need to be updated along with the kernel update. Sorry if you already answered this question, I probably just missed it. Thanks again for your help.

  13. ya that seems to clear it up(kind of).

    the initrd.ing is stored at the same place your kernel is. it comtains al your modules.. and normaly you make everything a moduel if you use it. the advantage is you know where it is. you can load teh modules with out knowing where root is.

    if you are building a distro, won't you know where your root partition is?

    also its makes upgrade simple.. compile a kernel create a initrd.ing file and ditribute both together. if they did not they would have to write all the new modules for every kernel upgrade to the root partation.

    if you update the kernel and initrd.img, wouldn't you still need to update your module directory on your root partiton?

    NOT TRYING TO ARGUE, just trying to understand :-)

  14. I switch back and forth between KDE and Gnome, I am currently running gnome. Kde was acting kind of buggy for me, so I switched back to gnome. The one thing I miss from kde is the klipper(clipboard). It would allow you to copy multiple items , then choose which one you want to paste. I have not found anything like that in gnome, but I have not really looked.

  15. they do have a commercial version, but also a free version. They are identical, the only differnece is the free version does not have a couple of programs installed by default. The free version comes with mozilla, not firefox. Firefox is easy to install, one commandl

    emerge mozilla-firefox

    The paid version comes with the "startbar" by default, with the free version you just need to install it, again one easy command

    ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" emerge gdesklets-startbar"

    then you just need to add what programs you want on it. Below is a link to my desktop using the startbar

    http://webpages.charter.net/lindbergfamily/Screenshot.png