Dion Moult Seriously who ever reads this description.

franky says: (21 August 2009)

Can I have your mummy?

:))

Dion Moult says: (21 August 2009)

No. She’s mine. MINE.

Well since Windows is out of the picture I honestly don’t see the difference between putting her on Gentoo compared to, say, Ubuntu. Using Gentoo doesn’t mean you have to become a computer genius – just that you like the way Gentoo handles things. I admit I spend more time using my computer than tweaking it – so I only know as much as I bother to tweak.

Matija "hook" Šuklje says: (21 August 2009)

First something that I need to get out of my system:
Acer Aspire?!? Aaaaaaaaaaaaaarghhh, run, run for your lives!!!!

OK, done. Sorry for the outbreak.
*group hug of people having an Acer Aspire*

If you’re relying heavily on cronjobs, I’d suggest you take a good look at FCron — it can handle jobs by
* fixed time (as Vixie-, D-, and other *Crons),
* uptime (as e.g. Anacron)
* intervals — this is the most useful on laptops; if the system is up at some point in time in the defined interval it triggers the cronjob (e.g. run ‘updatedb’ every monday and wednesday, sometime between 10:00 and 16:00)

The thing is that *Cron as we are used to (Vixie-, D-, etc.) does not work well if the box is not up 24/7. FCron handles such cases perfectly :]

Take a look at its man page or e-mail me, if you want more info about it ;)

Dion Moult says: (21 August 2009)

What’s wrong with Acer Aspires? What would you suggest?

Matija "hook" Šuklje says: (21 August 2009)

I’ve had my Acer Aspire 5022 WMLi for almost 4 years now and everytime I bring it to the service, they wonder how come it’s still alive …frankly, I do too O_o

Maybe their quality has changed in the past years, but the one I has had several faults:
* foo battery
* foo hinges that broke the lid twice already (and I can see the cracks for the third time already)
* dead pixels on display (the second time now, as well)
* left mouspad button works only 3% of times
* heats up quite fast (quite annoying on Gentoo)
* Linux-compatibility was poor back then, but that’s improved a lot …now I can say that 90% of its HW is supported
* frankly, the keyboard is not the best out there and neither is the housing itself.

I’m not saying it’s all bad, I’m happy that I have it for my first laptop, but I’ve learnt from its mistakes and will look out better with my next choice. When it finally dies, I’ll probably go get a ThinkPad. While my Acer was in a coma (RAM died, looked like laptop was dead), I was using my dad’s old ThinkPad and it’s great! Even after I tested dozens of laptops out in the shops, I still think the ThinkPad’s the one for me :]

Well, that’ll be my choice and just wanted to share my view on it. But you (or in this case you mum) know what you want and need ;)

Mike Lothian says: (21 August 2009)

If you’re insisting on using Gentoo have you though about Sabayon?

It would be very similar but your mum’s PC wouldn’t risk being foo bar’d by an automatic update

Or at the very least consider not using an auto sync emerge and do it your self when you have free time either via ssh or when you bring your laundry home ;-)

Mike

Dion Moult says: (21 August 2009)

Mike, not so much insisting just that I couldn’t find any other LiveCD with the module required for my NIC. (Well, Sidux did).

I think SSH is the best option to go with here. You never know what mess a cron-set system update task could get you into. I’ll have a look into bash (or if not bash I’ll script something up quickly) and see if I can get it to perhaps send me periodic status updates somehow.

Jeremy Olexa says: (21 August 2009)

I would avoid cron based updates. I also would say that if you are not physically present to administer the host, then what is the point of using Gentoo exactly? ;) Surely other distros can achieve the goal. I don’t know what your goal is though, just use the right tool for the job.

Finally, have you filed a Gentoo bug for your missing module? I’m assuming you were using one of the weekly minimal install cds?

Mike Lothian says: (22 August 2009)

When I get home I’ll post the shell script I use to update everyday

p. says: (22 August 2009)

simple.just take Gentoo out from your mom’s computer.

Dion Moult says: (22 August 2009)

Mike, surely you’re home now? :P
Jeremy, no, I haven’t yet. I will do so after I work out some of the other quirks I’m currently experiencing.
p., where would the fun be in that?

Mike Lothian says: (24 August 2009)

#!/bin/bash
cd /usr/portage/
git reset –hard
layman -S
emerge –sync
mv /usr/portage/profiles/package.mask/gentoo /usr/local/portage/bugfixes
mv /usr/portage/profiles/package.mask/funtoo /usr/local/portage/bugfixes
mv /usr/portage/profiles/package.mask/sunrise /usr/local/portage/bugfixes
mv /usr/portage/profiles/package.mask/funtoo-cautionary /usr/local/portage/bugfixes
touch /usr/portage/profiles/package.mask/gentoo
touch /usr/portage/profiles/package.mask/funtoo
touch /usr/portage/profiles/package.mask/sunrise
touch /usr/portage/profiles/package.mask/funtoo-cautionary
emerge -avDu world –newuse –with-bdeps y
9999ebuilds.sh
revdep-rebuild
prelink -afm

I use funtoo so you probably don’t need the git commands or the messing about with the package masks

The 9999ebuilds.sh is a shell script with all my live ebuilds in (the whole of xorg, ffmpeg multithread version and google chromium)

Mike

hessiess says: (28 August 2009)

Gentoo/Arch etc are good for people who like to have everything configured in a very specific way, but they are not good for general users who do not know there way around Linux and know the CLI. Distros like Ubuntu require far less manual config and are better for less technically minded people.

Dion Moult says: (28 August 2009)

I will probably change it to an “easier” distribution later when there is a release that supports my hardware. But at the moment none of them do, and it’s a pain otherwise.