Gentoo Linux

September 3rd, 2006 | No Comments | Posted in Technology

My Kanotix installation died on me last week. It was a self-inflicted fatality; suicide in other words. I went for over a month without upgrading the distro, just updating software instead.

I finally went ahead and the system shock was all too much. I had the black screen of death, but it locked on me and I couldn’t even get a command prompt. I know I could have repaired things using a live CD, but I took the opportunity instead of a new experiment.

I have read plenty of times that Gentoo is a serious Linux diehard distro with nothing user friendly for newbies and novices. Although not very computer literate in the developer sense, I’ve been using Linux now for two years and thought it was time to take the plunge.

So far it’s been an interesting experiment and I’m still undecided if Gentoo is a long-term option for me. I installed from the live CD, which sets up a pretty basic system with Gnome, OpenOffice and Firefox the key user features.

I had trouble getting X to start on my Dell Inspiron 640m laptop. It took several attempts and a rescue mission with my Puppy live CD to get the configuration right. That gave me a sense of achievement to carry on.

Gentoo has a “portage” package management system. It’s similar, I suppose, to Debian’s apt-get, but it takes a long time to compile applications using the “emerge” command.

My other immediate challenge was to get rid of the scratchy fonts in Firefox. I haven’t figured out how to install new fonts yet, because I can’t access my Windows partition to copy some across, but I did fix the aesthetics problem.

As an example of how complicated Gentoo can be, this link is to the instructions for making fonts look like they should.

It works though and I now have smooth fonts. Again there is a warm inner glow from mastering the process. Who wants the ease of Kanotix, where everything works out of the box, so to speak, and you can spend hours learning new tricks?

Sounds crazy doesn’t it? Makes for an interesting experience though.

KDE has been compiling for the past couple of hours. I’m curious to see how the laptop performs under my preferred desktop environment and may report back here later with a screenshot.

These articles might be of interest:

Feathertop via Bungalow Spur

The population of Victoria is five million people, but I was the only one of them today on the summit of our second-highest peak, Mt Feathertop.
The mountain was awe inspiring, humbling, powerful and beautiful in a mesmerising package of contradictions.
Normally I have Friday spare to pursue private business, but I swapped it for today to [...]

Aral Sea disaster

I saw a disturbing report on SBS news last night about the Aral Sea disaster in Kazakhstan. The world’s fourth-largest inland sea has been decimated by commercial exploitation and mismanagement. Here are some of the facts:
Forty years ago the Aral Sea surface was 66,100 square kilometers with an average depth of 16.1 metres and a [...]

The twins hatch

Well it’s almost sunk in that I’m a Dad again. The twins were dragged reluctantly into the world at 10.26am and 10.27am on Tuesday, December 16, 2003 almost two weeks before Juliet would have been full term in her labor.
The vital details:
James Peter, weight 6lb 12oz
Margaret Johanna, weight 6lb
Mum and babies are doing well. Hopefully [...]

Breaker Morant

I wrote this article in February 2002 in response to a campaign by Senator Julian McGauran and Tim Fischer to obtain a pardon for English officer “Breaker” Morant, who ordered the killing of prisoners in the Anglo/South African War.
I was annoyed that McGauran took up this issue without any community consultation. It was the only [...]