More advanced distro, tired of dependency hell

[gearjunkie]

Hey all,
I was wondering if people could give me some recommendations for a more advanced distro.

Basically, I have been using mandrake for over a year now, and want to try out something that is a bit more down and dirty. Also, my other criteria is ease of installation. The Package management system for mandrake has been working out alright so far, but I get a lot of problems with installing stuff from source. For some reason, a lot of the time, I'll have a package installed as an RPM which satidfies a dependency needed to compile something from source, and the file won't be able to find the dependency.

I really like using bleeding edge software, but this has become a frustration.

I am considering gentoo, or possibly slackware, but am open to other ideas as well. I'm a bit familiar with the gentoo portage system, but am wondering how it works out with installing stuff from source. And, I'm not really sure about slackware (how is the installation of programs handled in slackware?)

Anyways, some input would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Nathan

[Hayl]

Originally posted by gearjunkie
I'm a bit familiar with the gentoo portage system, but am wondering how it works out with installing stuff from source.

Portage _does_ install from source by default so I am not sure what you mean.

If you mean compiling your own stuff, then the "correct" answer is you write your own ebuild or bump the version of an existing one (rename it to a higher version) and put it into a portage overlay.

[jme]

I'd say that you're on the right track with Slackware Linux. I have been using this for the last few months and I have really "found my brand"!!

You can install Swaret for slackware which is a small program / package managment system and works really nicely - see www.swaret.org for more informatioin.

Other than Slackware you could consider Debian - the package management system (apt-get) is the smoothest package management system that I have found around the linux's - basically just type apt-get install foo and you will have it all there for you!

Also, Debian have just released a new installation media disk which is only a 30mb download and from this you can install the testing or unstable tree of programs for a more bleading edge program - find it here: http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/

HTH

Jamie

[ph34r]

Do a LFS system....

[JamminJoeyB]

Go slackware.

Simple and fast.

Swaret makes handling updating and dependencies easy.



As some one else posted on here a while back, I just can't remember who.

We are the Slackborg you will be assimilated!

[Trogdor]

Gentoo is very good. Try Gentoo if you that wish.

[blackrax]

i switched to gentoo from mandrake ca 4 months ago; it may not be the smoothest install (compared to mandrake), but you'll have the system configured to your requirements (and it is not difficult, just takes time).

if you're interested in gentoo and portage, check out the portage manual on gentoo.org - basically, sources are compiled according to USE flags (a variable set in the global make file & may be temp overridden in command prompt; use flags enable/disable optional features in apps). unless you have a very specifc question about gentoo, all is really covered in their docs.

cheers,
//blackrax

[carbon-12]

Im also gonna say slackware + swaret.

it just works :)

[gearjunkie]

Thanks for all the replies!

Basically when I said
I'm a bit familiar with the gentoo portage system, but am wondering how it works out with installing stuff from source.
I was wondering that if I download a tarball of a package that isn't in the tree, or is a later version compared to what is in the tree, can I just install that version using the tarball and source.

Example: in the portage tree rhythmbox's highest version (according to the online package database) is 0.6.8, yet there is a development version that is up to 0.7.2. If I download the tarball for 0.7.2 and go to install it, do I just use
./configure
make
make install

or is there some way of using it with portage?

I'm just sick of having packages installed from a ton of different places (some are mandrake rpms, some are source rpms, and some are tarballs that I have tried to compile). I'm trying to find a distro that will let me install from source and from that distro's tree, and manage them all through the same interface.

I'm gonna go check out the slackware+swaret option right now while all you gentoo-ites ponder... :-)
Thanks,
Nathan

[esgsr1]

I was in the same boat as you about 8-10 months ago. I used redhat and mandrake but there were too many frustrations with dependencies. Next, I switched to gentoo. It was great, I had total control over everything, their user base is very helpful, and they have great documentation. The only drawback is you need patience and a broadband connection. I got my system configured exaclty how I wanted it and all was good. I used it for about 6-8 months. It seemed a little faster than mandrake/redhat. The problem came that I became impatient. I come across a new app that I want to install and I have to wait a 1/2 hr or more while it installs. I got tired of waiting.

Recently I have switched to debian. I haven't run into any dependency issues yet and it wasn't really any harder to install than gentoo. You say you want to have cutting edge software so you will want to run tesing or even unstable. Go to distrowatch.com and see what versions of software the 2 releases are running.

I installed unstable release to get kde 3.2.1 and since have switched the sources back to testing. all is good (for now)

Good luck,

Eric

[saturn-vk]

slackware

[Hayl]

Originally posted by gearjunkie
Thanks for all the replies!

Basically when I said

I was wondering that if I download a tarball of a package that isn't in the tree, or is a later version compared to what is in the tree, can I just install that version using the tarball and source.

Example: in the portage tree rhythmbox's highest version (according to the online package database) is 0.6.8, yet there is a development version that is up to 0.7.2. If I download the tarball for 0.7.2 and go to install it, do I just use
./configure
make
make install

or is there some way of using it with portage?



yes, but you do ./configure --prefix=/usr

but the beter way is to bump the version as i said in my earlier post, or you get an ebuild off of breakmygentoo.net, or you write your own ebuild. writing your own ebuild is not difficult. it is best if you always install from an ebuild because then your portage package database is up to date.

[karacus]

Another one that rock
Arch Linux (http://www.archlinux.org/)

[MorphiusFaydal]

Gentoo and Portage are real nice....

if the latest version of rythembox is in portage, it may be tagged as unstable.. so you would need to put 'ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86"' in front of the 'emerge rythembox'

Chris

[Icarus]

Yes, using this method is how you need to get the true 'bleeding edge' from Gentoo. The standard tree could be considered 'stable'

ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" emerge rythembox

I had to do simular for the latest ATI drivers

ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" emerge ati-drivers

Gentoo is a great distro, just be sure you sign up for their forums to get the most (or search them often, 99% of my Gentoo questions have been asked before ;))

[squeegy]

I'm not positive but I think I read somewhere on the gentoo forums that, the method of using ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" to use ~x86 packages is not the proper way to do things anymore... There supposedly is some better way.

Looked it up in 'man portage'

package.keywords
Per package KEYWORDS. Useful for mixing unstable pack-
ages in with a normally stable machine or vice versa.
This will allow you to override ACCEPT_KEYWORDS.

Format:
- comments begin with #
- one DEPEND atom per line followed by the KEYWORDS

Example:
# always use unstable libgd
media-libs/libgd ~x86
# only use stable mplayer
media-video/mplayer x86

[VolcomPimp]

I don't think it being 'improper' is the case.
I think that's for ppl who always want to have
an unstable package of somethin like gaim.
This way they don't need to keep typing
it ACCEPT_KEYWORDS... each time you emerge
the package, and not worry about accidently
downgrading to the stable by just typing emerge.

to add a little to the discussion, I've been using gentoo
for quite some time and I love it... then again
I've used slackware on my PC and laptop for quite some time
b4 I used gentoo. I just reinstaled slack on my laptop
because I wanted to do a real minimal install and play
around w/ the system, and also give me somethin
to compare gentoo to.
The main reason I switched to gentoo was package management.
I love slackwares pkgtool but I had a real hard time creating
my own packages, but I just found out about checkinstall.
I'd prboly still be using slack to this day if I'd
found it earlier. I also havn't ever used swaret until about
15 mins ago and I'm a little impressed.
Seems to just work like ppl say.
One of my problems w/ portage is the etc-update
command. Like many others, I used it once
and lost a bunch of my config files, but luckily I was
able to fix the important ones myself.
I never had to create my own ebuilds though I was looking
forward to it. Slackware occassionally didn't have
the newest gaim right away, which left me on my own
to create a custom slackpack.
I hear ebuilds are easy to make but I'd have to speculate
and say that checkinstall is probly easier to use.
A plus though on gentoo's side is that the reason I never had
to create custom ebuilds was because unstable packages
were always current. I hear sometimes they even have ebuilds for
stuff b4 they've been released (I guess they have connections).
gentoo's dependency checking is great. It kinda makes
you just forget about them all together, unless you dont
want something in a package, which you can just take
out by editing the USE variable for the package.
As for viewing packs and what you've got installed, I dont
think portage has a way to really look through all your packages
you have installed (at least not in a menu like pkgtool where you
can browse through) but it does let you search by using emerge -s
which is a great feature.
Both distro's are great... if you're concerned w/ stability you
might wanna go w/ slack. For bleeding edge performance at the
expense of stability and a little extra headache then I'd try gentoo.
They both have some good features the other lacks.
Personally I'd like to see a distro that's a mix of both
like a pkgtool where all the packages are sources packages
sorta like ebuilds but w/ the distfiles compressed in the tgz
which compiles when you installpkg and has the same menu
structure as pkgtool and a search function for your installed
files and possibly a repository like gentoo's massive portage
to compare current versions w/....
seems a little out there but gentoo would be a good candidate to
mold into it.

[the.spike]

I started with Suse and then wanted something a little less "hands off". Something where I knew what everything that was running was. I did some research and went with Linux From Scratch http://www.linuxfromscratch.org

It's basically a set of instructions for compiling your own linux system from scratch.

You download all the software you want and compile it yourself (from where ever the home page of that software is). Once I had the system running I updated a number of the packages with no problems.

It's taught me alot about how a linux system works.

However it's not for everyone. I've only built a mail server/router/firewall sort of machine. I've got no X running so no KDE or Gnome so it may not fit your needs..

Just my thoughts...

spike...

[JohnT]

Hopefully it would never come to this , but consider reinstall time for Slackware versus Gentoo. I have never had one unsolvable dependency problem in Slackware using the available tools.

[techwise]

I think you have received some good advice in the Gentoo and Slackware reccomendations.

I am a Slack user and use it every day as my main os for work and play. I have a good friend using gentoo and is very happy as well.

As far a bleeding edge, I suspect that you have a better chance at that with Gentoo between Slack and it.

But, I have to tell you, from my experience with Mandrake (which was very good in general), I think you are looking at things backwards. You said you wand a distro to get down and dirty with... Well if you ask me, I consider those "do all" distros like Mandrake, Fedora, SuSE etc. . . to be the "dirty" ones. To me they feel like quicksand. Once you feel your way through Slack or Gentoo you will see just how clean and cut and dry things can be with Linux. I have never felt like I really know what is going on inside my pc like I do when using Slack. The is nothing taking place that you have not at some point instructed the system to do. It is a great feeling.

Anyhow, good luck.

Mike

P.S. And if you go with Slack, make sure to give Dropline Gnome a try.