gentoo portage

ref: http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/portage

Gentoo is Portage. Portage is Gentoo.

Getting portage settings right is vitally important. It's not the end of the world, if you don't. But you sure will expend a lot of your time staring at the matrix flowing past, as you compile everything yet again one more time..

gentoo emerge in tmpfs

One of my gentoo pain points has been the extremely (long and) resource intensive emerge for large packages. However, it is expected and many have come up with their own tricks to make this more efficient.

For me, this has been a gradual step-by-step approach, as I encountered these issues and discovered more about Gentoo.

I stated out with my portage configured as default -- compiling everything on the same disk/filesystem mount on my rotating (not ssd) disk. Any emerge affected everything else, which was too invasive to ignore.

I want emerge to run gently in the background, not affecting any foreground tasks.

git Gentoo Portage repos on GitHub

git me! The gentoo repos are on github², and I've just discovered them.. mysteriously hidden in the World Wide Web ;)

There is a post on the gentoo forums from 2015, re git/github saying:

Although some developers wrongly still recommend plain rsync-update method, you should never do that, since it is fundamentally insecure (emerge-webrsync is signed by a machine key, but still better). 

You should instead start to sync via git (best do that from github, unless you want to break our infra server).

gentoo install x86 btrfs

this as a quick start guide to the much longer and more comprehensive gentoo handbook. but please understand what i have done, and not blindly copy. you should definitely read the gentoo install handbook a few times before even attempting an install.

busybox .config in gentoo

busybox can be configured, just like the kernel :)

gentoo second install x86 btrfs debian

Now that my Gentoo Phase 2 has been put on hold for the near future, I have to satisfy this itch to install gentoo on my main laptop. Having it on my primary rig, would allow me to use it more often than pulling out my backup system.

My blind first attempt, at a gentoo install, gave me a lot of confidence in the gentoo community. This second attempt substantially lessens the time/aggro I spent previously installing gentoo.

Gentoo Portage emerge TMPDIR extending zram btrfs volumes

You can probably see I was heading this way. This post follows a series, and you should read those posts again if you haven't done so recently. This blog post follows my journey through btrfs to gentoo to portage to tmpfs to zram back to btrfs again to finish a circle.

Installing Gentoo: too much diskspace used

how can i reduce the clutter? my main aim in moving to gentoo was to have and maintain a stable, lean & clean system.

suckless st - simple terminal

continuing down the path of simplifying & downsizing.. i have migrated to st^[1] and removed bloatware terminals. i had been using urxvt till now, wasting so much time to configure it. i have no further need for bloatware terminals, particularly when i almost never open up more than one terminal window. for such a small package, st^[1] does everything i need out of the box and more.. suckless rocks!

gentoo intel-ucode microcode

gentoo provides a package for intel microcode updates to safely update cpu firmwares. this is how i adapted the gentoo way.

gentoo first attempt

i finally decided to jump in, and created another btrfs partition for gentoo with two subvolumes. with btrfs i don't have anything on the root subvolume.

i really didn't expect an install to drag on for so long. i don't like to give up part-way, unless i feel it is a lost investment.. and i was losing it! i would have, but for some kindly folks on the gentoo forum. the gentoo forum is one of the most responsive and helpful forums i have been in.

Installing Gentoo: dependency hell?

I have always been a minimalist.. Bigger is not always better. Efficiency is the key.

This particular post helped get a better understanding of Portage, the heart of Gentoo.