iMacLinux: Review: Gentoo PPC Linux

[ Thanks to Marc
Bintener for this link. ]

“About a week ago, someone asked me about how good the PPC port
of Gentoo was. It was the first time I ever heard of a PPC port of
Gentoo, so I was pretty surprised to hear about it. In a well kept
effort, 2 PPC developers, Bryon Roche and Pieter Van den Abeele,
have ported the grounds of the Gentoo Linux distribution to the PPC
platform. Since the announcement of Gentoo Linux for PPC on TuxPPC
and PenguinPPC, there has been a real rush to the new distribution
and it looks like Gentoo is definately gaining ground with the more
experienced PPC Linux users.

“Indeed, Gentoo Linux is rather unique on the PPC platform. You
don’t get any nifty Install CDs with hundreds of prebuilt software
packages. No, Gentoo is a distribution that is mostly built from
scratch. They provide you with a boot CD and a very basic set of
precompiled packages, just enough to go start building your Gentoo
distribution using their great building system called Portage . So
why go through that pain? The answer is simple, you get a fully
working Linux system built to your needs and preferences. Unlike
other distributions, Gentoo only installs what you tell it to and
not hundreds and hundreds of programs you will never need. The
result is a small and fast, fully customizable PPC
distribution.

“On the other hand, you’ll have to understand that Gentoo by far
is not a “newbie” friendly distribution. While the instructions for
installation that are provided are mostly accurate and easy to
follow, you still have to know what you are doing or the experience
will necessarily fail. For instance during the install process, you
will have to compile your own kernel that’s fit to your hardware.
Also, there is no nifty graphical installer that will setup your
hardware, no luxury. It’s a minimalist distribution, with a very
nice build system…”

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