[colug-432] February COLUG Meeting Announcement

[Bill Baker]

Your experience with Gentoo reminds me of this quote from bash.org:

<@insomnia> it only takes three commands to install Gentoo
<@insomnia> cfdisk /dev/hda && mkfs.xfs /dev/hda1 && mount /dev/hda1
/mnt/gentoo/ && chroot /mnt/gentoo/ && env-update && . /etc/profile &&
emerge sync && cd /usr/portage && scripts/bootsrap.sh && emerge system
&& emerge vim && vi /etc/fstab && emerge gentoo-dev-sources && cd
/usr/src/linux && make menuconfig && make install modules_install &&
emerge gnome mozilla-firefox openoffice && emerge grub && cp
/boot/grub/grub.conf.sample /boot/grub/grub.conf && vi
/boot/grub/grub.conf && grub && init 6
<@insomnia> that's the first one

On 02/21/2012 07:55 AM, William Yang wrote:
> On 02/20/2012 10:35 AM, Rick Troth wrote:
>> Having encountered widely varying opinions about source build, what do
>> YOU say about it?  Why do we use FOSS?  If we *use* FOSS, does that
>> mean (to you) that we should actually *build* from source?  Why and
>> when should we and should we not [re]build from sources?
>>
>> I'm priming the pump for this pres.  Will be showing my own how-to,
>> which to me seems like do-it-in-your-sleep easy.  But part of the talk
>> will include the rationale for going this route.  Lemme know what
>> questions or points come to mind.
> 
> Alas, I will not be at the meeting.  But I'd like to tell a short story
> about compiled code.
> 
> I used to use Gentoo.  When I selected Gentoo (over RedHat), it was because
> the platform was built from source, leading to an optimized, efficient
> platform.  Or so I thought.
> 
> After 4 years, I transitioned pretty much all of my systems from Gentoo to
> Ubuntu.  My move away was not caused by the breakdown at Gentoo:  I'd
> discovered that the act of patching a system had become onerous, expensive,
> time-consuming and inefficient.  Long compile times were the #1 reason why
> I felt I needed to move to something else: I was tied down by the
> requirement to compile.
> 
> I still use source to build custom appliance operating system images.  But
> for day-to-day use, including reasonably standard servers and workstations,
> I think it's a poor choice to base operations on source-compilation.  That
> approach, which took hold in the 80's and before in *IX environments, isn't
> an approach to modern computing.  It makes your environment optimized and
> efficient on your existing platform, at the expensive of losing nimbleness
> and the ability to move and change, as legacy code holds you down.
> 
> Source is best used for customized applications, areas where superfine
> tuning is required or behavior needs to be different from in the box.
> However, there's been a substantial move toward "off the shelf" software
> for more than a decade in many environments... and the reason why is
> because it's cheaper, faster, and more efficient.
> 
> (Free) Open source is good.  It gives you the opportunity to understand
> what your system does.  It gives you the ability to control the behavior of
> your system when you need to.  But it's not mandatory to build from source.
>  There's going to be a balance based on interest, time, willingness to futz
> with internals, cost, and other factors.  I do think people who work with
> systems regularly need to understand how to compile software, and it's part
> of my program when I train others in systems operations and administration.
>  But as a business matter, compilation is typically a cost center.
> 
> 	-Bill