Gentoo Linux

Gentoo Linux ( English pronunciation [ dʒentu ː ' lɪnʊks ] ) is a source- based Linux distribution for advanced Linux users who want to set up their system completely customized. This requires a willingness to deal with the processes on a Linux system, and the detailed documentation. Gentoo is a trademark of Gentoo Foundation, Inc., a non- profit organization. In early December 2010, the Gentoo Foundation, Inc. joined the Open Invention Network, which advocates the free availability of software patents. In Europe, the German Friends of Gentoo eV is the owner of the trademark. The name of Gentoo was after a particularly fast penguin, the Gentoo Penguin (English gentoo penguin ) selected, the name refers to the official mascot Tux ( the penguin is a ) of the free Linux operating system kernel.

• 2.1 Portage
• 2.2 Installation

Project

General

Founder and longtime head of the Gentoo project was the US-based programmer Daniel Robbins. In 1999 he began developing its own Linux distribution, which he called Enoch first. The name change took place with the registration of the domain gentoo.org on 4 October 1999. This date is now officially regarded as a "birthday" Gentoo. In 2004, Robbins left the project. Since his departure from the Gentoo Trustees (Board of Trustees ) of the Gentoo Foundation is headed. Decisions on technical aspects and guidelines hits a seven -member Council. Trustees and Council are elected by the members of the Foundation or the active developers.

Differences from other distributions

Gentoo is different in several respects critical of many other Linux distributions. So Gentoo is a source- based distribution, in which are usually translated before installing any packages. The time and time and computational complexity, but also the deep as possible interference with configuration and optimization is not the case based on binary packages distributions. However, it is also possible as the latter precompiled programs use. Likewise, there is little automated processes, which allows a high control of the system, but also requires appropriate knowledge.

The fact that the operation of the Gentoo Project is not version -oriented, leading to a continuous updating of the system, as opposed to a step-like update, as is the case for most of classical distributions. In this way, to migration problems always arise only for individual packages, but not for an entire distribution version. The user may also decide so any used version of a program.

In addition, with relatively simple means their own distributions can be created and distributiert based on Gentoo, in order to satisfy, for example, for special applications such as cluster or computer pools. Gentoo can be used as a distribution kit. As an example of the flexibility of Gentoo should be mentioned that Gentoo was used to port Linux on a Macintosh computer with an Intel CPU.

Versions

With Gentoo Linux, there are no versions in the true sense, but publications (English release ) of a level of development ( engl. snapshot), so-called Rolling Releases, on the basis, among others, the stage archives and live systems are created.

When installed Gentoo system, the individual versions go for regular Updating the Portage tree without major changes into one another. The version of the base system (English basesystem ) corresponds to the package sys-apps/baselayout and can be removed / etc gentoo -release file /. It is the basis of the operating system and to be regarded as the real version of a Gentoo installation. However, the basic system is subject to different release cycles than the total distribution and publishing them as stages or as a live system.

System

Portage

Portage is the package management of Gentoo Linux and allows the automatic construction of individual packets from their source code. It is based on the so-called Portage tree, a tree, usually located in / usr / portage / and provides information about each package in the form of so-called ebuild scripts. These scripts control the entire process - download the source code, verification of the integrity of the files using checksums, application of distribution-specific patches as well as the consideration of the so-called USE flags to compile the package eventually in a sandbox and then install them. In this case, any dependencies are noted to other packages and this, if necessary, also be updated or reinstalled. The Portage tree is updated to the latest state of the distribution using rsync.

Portage selects the most current stable or, depending on the configuration, the current unstable version for each processor architecture. Depending on the package, there are other masked versions of their installation should be avoided except for development and test purposes. These include, for example, the so-called live versions of packages that directly relate to the current state of development from the version control system of each software. Using configuration files, it is possible to mask individual packages or individual versions of packages to prohibit the installation of a package or a version, or to unmask them to install a more recent version than intended.

The USE flags form an abstraction layer for configuring the functionality of the individual packages for options, which can be activated only when compiling. For example, the USE flag determines bluetooth the installation of Bluetooth support for the case that the respective package brings this support. A functionality can also be disabled completely by USE flag, in the example by bluetooth. The advantage of such a possibility is that the compiled programs are tailored to the needs of the user, making them less memory and require the installation of only really necessary libraries to be installed. The implementation of switching on and off of functions can be implemented by the " ebuild " script individually. Usually this is done with the help of configure options and patches. The USE flags can be configured both centrally for the entire system as well as specifically for individual packages using configuration files.

If you want to install packages that are not in the official Portage tree, so there is the possibility of using so-called overlay. These are not supported by Gentoo officially, but often offer a wider choice of software or newer versions. Many of overlays include packages that are tested there by the developer before they are included in the official tree.

Installation

Gentoo does not have its own installer unlike other Linux distributions. Instead, the user performs the installation itself with a series of shell commands from another running system through out. To this end, the Gentoo project offers special live images, but in principle any Linux systems can be used for, whether permanently installed or booted from live media.

To install a supplied by the Gentoo project so-called stage3 tarball is unpacked at the destination. This contains a basic system, including the tools required for the installation process, such as a toolchain. The further installation work is carried out using chroot within that directory tree. On the Gentoo site exist installation manuals that give instructions on the necessary installation steps. The user is allowed to suit all freedom in expressing the design philosophy; it may for example decide which and what mail transfer agent he wants to use syslog and cron implementation.

They used to stand next to the stage3 archive also stage1 and stage2 Archive for the installation. These are intermediate products of the process are generated with the stage3s. Your purpose was in creating a particularly strong optimized systems. Since now no official stage1 and stage2 more archives are available for download, it now uses the stage3 tarballs for this purpose.

Ports

Gentoo runs on various architectures. These include Alpha, AMD64, ARM, Itanium, m68k, MIPS, PA -RISC, PowerPC, S/390, SH, UltraSPARC and x86. Gentoo is also capable of running on the Xbox, the Wii and on the PlayStation 3.

There are also projects in which the Linux kernel and some GNU-Bibliotheken/Programme was replaced by a FreeBSD ( Gentoo / FreeBSD), NetBSD or OpenBSD kernel and their Basis-Bibliotheken/Programme. Moreover, one can Gentoo under various Unix -like operating systems install in a subdirectory. This type of installation is called Gentoo Prefix. Support includes Mac OS X, Solaris and Microsoft Windows using the Microsoft Windows Services for UNIX.

Known derivatives

• Nova - a Linux distribution from the Universidad de las Ciencias Informáticas in Cuba
• Sabayon Linux ( formerly RR4/RR64 ) - Live CD and direct installation for x86 ( RR4 ) and x64 ( RR64 )
• SystemRescueCd - small live CD with a command - line and graphical interface XFCE
• Toorox - Linux Live - DVD based on Gentoo
• Ututo - simplified version for beginners, completely based on free software
• Funtoo - based on Gentoo founder Daniel Robbins project that "seeks new and innovative ways like this contributes to the Gentoo ecosystem "
• PapugLinux - Linux Live - DVD based on Gentoo
• Google Chrome OS - Google's operating system, based on Gentoo