The desktop as provided by Gentoo Linux Live CD, release 2008.0
|
|
The desktop as provided by Gentoo Linux Live CD, release 2008.0 |
|
| Company / developer | Gentoo Foundation |
|---|---|
| OS family | Unix-like |
| Working state | Current |
| Source model | Free software / Open source |
| Latest stable release | 2008.0 / 06 July 2008 |
| Update method | Emerge |
| Package manager | Portage |
| Supported platforms | x86, x86-64, IA-64, PA-RISC; PowerPC 32/64, SPARC, DEC Alpha, ARM, MIPS, S390[1], sh |
| Kernel type | Monolithic |
| Default user interface | Xfce from LiveCD, various (including Xfce) |
| License | Various |
| Website | www.gentoo.org |
The Gentoo Linux operating system (pronounced /ˈdʒɛntuː/) is a Linux metadistribution based on the Portage package management system. The development project and its products are named after the Gentoo penguin. Gentoo package management is designed to be modular, portable, easy to maintain, flexible, and optimized for the user's machine. There are normally no precompiled binaries for software, continuing the tradition of the ports collection[citation needed], although for convenience, some large software packages are also available as precompiled binaries for various architectures.
Contents |
Gentoo Linux was initially created by Daniel Robbins as the Enoch Linux distribution. The goal was to create a distribution without precompiled binaries that was tuned to the hardware and only included required programs.[2] At least one version of Enoch was distributed: version 0.75, in December 1999.[3]
Compilation issues revealed problems with the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC), used to build from source code. Daniel Robbins and the other contributors experimented with a fork of GCC known as EGCS developed by Cygnus Solutions that produced binaries with at least a 10% real world[clarification needed] speedup over GCC. At this point, Enoch gained a reputation for its speed[citation needed], prompting the name change to Gentoo Linux (the Gentoo species is the fastest swimming penguin). The modifications eventually became part of the official GCC (version 2.95), and other Linux distributions experienced similar speed increases.[4]
After problems with a bug on his own system, Robbins halted Gentoo Linux development and switched to FreeBSD for several months, later saying "I decided to add several FreeBSD features to make our autobuild system (now called Portage) a true next-generation ports system."[5]
Gentoo Linux 1.0 was released 2002-03-31.[6]
Robbins had wanted Gentoo Linux to become a commercially successful project, but found an appropriate business model difficult to achieve.[citation needed] In 2004 he set up the non-profit Gentoo Foundation, transferred all copyrights and trademarks to it, and stepped down as Chief Architect of the project.[7]
The current Board of Trustees[8] is composed of five members who were announced (following an election) on March 2, 2008.[9] There is also a subsidiary seven-member Gentoo Council whose members decide on technical issues and policies.[10] The current Council members were elected over the period of August 17, 2007 to September 17, 2007 by 117 active Gentoo developers.[11]
Until recently, the Gentoo Foundation was a 501(c)(6) non-profit foundation, registered in the State of New Mexico.[12] In late 2007, the Foundation's charter was revoked.[13] As of May 19, 2008 the State of New Mexico declared that the Gentoo Foundation Inc has returned to good standing and is free to do business.[14]
Although originally designed for the x86 architecture, it has been ported to many others and currently runs on the x86, x86-64, IA-64, PA-RISC; PowerPC, PowerPC 970, SPARC64, MIPS, DEC Alpha, System Z/s390, PS3 Cell Processor[15], ARM and SuperH architectures.[16] Official support for 32-bit SPARC hardware has been dropped.[17] Gentoo was the first distribution to offer a fully functional 64-bit Linux computing environment (user space and kernel).[citation needed]
Portability toward other operating systems, such as BSD-derived ones, is under active development by the Gentoo/Alt project. The Gentoo/FreeBSD project already has a working release[citation needed], while Gentoo/NetBSD, Gentoo/OpenBSD and Gentoo/DragonFly are being developed.[18] There is also a project to get Portage working on the GNU Hurd (although development is slow) and OpenSolaris.
Portage is Gentoo's package management system. It is similar in idea to the BSD ports collections: the original design was based on FreeBSD ports. In contrast, the Portage tree does not contain directories of Makefiles, but of so-called ebuilds, bash scripts that describe separate functions to download, configure, make, install and remove a package and additional functions that can be used to set up the operating environment for a package.
Portage is also the name of Gentoo's default package management utility. This package provides, among other useful scripts, the emerge utility, which is written in Python and can be used by privileged users to easily inspect and alter the set of installed packages on a Gentoo operating system. Whereas emerge used to operate in a similar way to other ports collections, by entering a directory in the tree and using emerge (instead of make) to perform package management operations, it now reads variables from the file /etc/make.conf (again similar to ports) to determine where the Portage tree is kept.
Recently, alternative package management utilities like Paludis and pkgcore have seen heavy development. Both are intended to be used alongside or instead of the official Portage utilities in both development and practical use. As both competing projects intend to replace the official utilities, an effort has been raised to standardise the application programming interface (API) of ebuilds for all package managers, in a project called the Package Manager Specification or PMS.[19]
Gentoo's init system is another important feature. It is similar to the System V init system that most Linux distributions use, but uses dependency-based scripts and named run levels rather than numbered ones. It also includes a command called rc-update which manages runlevels.
Gentoo startup scripts use the runscript shell interpreter, rather than a more traditional shell.
Originally Gentoo's rc system was built into baselayout 1[clarification needed] and written entirely in bash. This led to several limitations. For example, certain system calls need to be accessed during boot and this required C-based callouts to be added. These callouts were each statically linked, causing the rc system to bloat over time.
Additionally, as Gentoo expanded to other platforms like Gentoo/FreeBSD and Gentoo Embedded, it became impossible to require a bash-based rc system. This led to a development of baselayout 2, which is written in C and only requires a POSIX-compliant shell. During the development of baselayout 2, it was determined that it was a better fit if baselayout merely provided the base files and filesystem layout for Gentoo and the rc system was broken off into its own package - OpenRC[20].
OpenRC is primarily developed by Roy Marples and supports all current Gentoo variations Gentoo Linux, Gentoo/FreeBSD, Gentoo Embedded, and Gentoo Vserver and other platforms such as FreeBSD and NetBSD.[citation needed]
Gentoo may be installed in several ways. The most common way is to use the Gentoo minimal CD with a stage 3 tarball[clarification needed]. As with many Linux distributions, it can also be installed by most Linux flavors already operating.
As of version 2006.0, the Gentoo Foundation has released a GTK+ based installer to greatly simplify the process of installing the distribution from scratch.[3] More advanced users will note that the new installer also brings back the stage 1 installation (see below) as a common installation method.
Starting with 2004.0, Gentoo introduced a tool called Catalyst, which is used to build all Gentoo releases and can be used to build one's own customized install media.
Traditionally installation could be started from one of three base stages:
As of November 2005, only stage3 installations are officially supported.[21] Although tarballs for stage1 and stage2 are still distributed, the instructions for installing from these stages have been removed from the handbook[22] and put into the Gentoo FAQ.
A Live USB of Gentoo Linux can be created manually or with UNetbootin [23].
Even though the versioning system changed to years in 2004, the numbering version system still continues. For example, /etc/gentoo-release might contain "Gentoo Base System version 1.6.13" (Modified Aug. 26, 2005). These numbers are actually the version numbers of the sys-apps/baselayout package in Portage.
Once Gentoo is installed, it becomes "versionless"; that is, once an emerge update is done, the system is at the latest version, with the most up to date packages available (subject to any restrictions specified by the user in Portage configuration files). For example, if a system was installed from a 2005.0 CD, then when version 2005.1 is released an emerge update of the system effectively upgrades the installed Gentoo system to what would result from a fresh installation based on version 2005.1.
On 22 September 2008, it was announced that 2008.1 had been canceled and that a new release model is being considered. This new method will result in weekly automated builds (Stage 3 and minimal cd), Live CD and DVD will likely stay on an annual release cycle.
 |
This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (November 2008) |
|
|
This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2007) |
 |
This article contains instructions, advice, or how-to content. The purpose of Wikipedia is to present facts, not to teach subject matter. Please help improve this article either by rewriting the how-to content or by moving it to Wikiversity. |
|
|
This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2008) |
A Gentoo is a species of penguin (and the penguin is the generic Linux mascot). The official Gentoo logo is the stylized G resembling a silver magatama[42]. Unofficial mascots include Larry the cow and Knurt the flying saucer[citation needed]. In fact as Larry appeared originally on the official website, it can be considered semi-official[citation needed].
 |
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Gentoo |
|
|||||
