[ale] Need a better Linux distro

[Jeff Hubbs]

On 6/1/20 4:02 PM, Steve Litt via Ale wrote:
> On Sun, 31 May 2020 23:50:32 -0400
> Jeff Hubbs via Ale <ale at ale.org> wrote:
>
>> On 5/31/20 9:30 PM, Leam Hall via Ale wrote:
>>> Gentoo is interesting, but all my computers are old; second or
>>> third hand.
>> As are all mine. Your point? :)
> Depending on how old, initial compilation takes more than a day on old
> computers. Even daily updates take awhile on old computers.
If you're not doing xorg etc., there isn't any initial compilation other 
than the kernel and basic features like a system logger and a cron 
system. As for daily updates (which you can certainly choose to do, or 
not), it depends greatly on what you have that hit Portage the previous 
day. Sometimes my file server shrugs its shoulders and goes "I got 
nuthin', boss!" but then again, all it really has past the base system 
as defined by the current profile is Samba. If you've got, say, KDE and 
a pantload of desktop apps then Portage is going to be moving mountains 
working out all your dependencies.
>
> I wonder if there's a way to do the initial compilations on a VM, where
> they're very fast, and then rsync the results to root on the iron
> machine?

You don't even need a VM. You can generate an entire Gentoo system in a 
chroot on your Big Bad, tar it up, boot your target machine to the Linux 
liveCD of choice, partition and format drives there, blow the tarball 
onto those partitions, chroot into what you just laid in, install the 
boot loader of your choice, and reboot.* One thing you have to remember 
is when you're in that initial chroot and you get to the place in the 
Handbook where you set your CFLAGS in make.conf, set -march=generic 
-mtune=generic lest anything you compile before you move it over makes a 
binary your target machine might not be able to support.

* This really isn't any different than what you do to install without 
involving another machine.

>
> SteveT
>
> Steve Litt
> May 2020 featured book: Troubleshooting Techniques
>       of the Successful Technologist
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