13 replies to this topic

[bitMonkey]

I hear a lot about SourceMage here, and I'm wondering why everyone is using it.

What does it do better than Gentoo? Is it worth switching?

[zeroxeal]

I would be willing to bet that gentoos packages are keep much more current than source mage. Biast but as a gentoo whore, gentoo owns.

[Aghaster]

Ah! Interesting. I recently bought an iBook, on which I installed Sourcemage. This was the first time I installed sourcemage. I was running Gentoo on my PC. I ran gentoo for about a year, and I have to say I liked sourcemage enough to wipe my working gentoo installation on my PC to install sourcemage. The main reason is the faster package manager, sorcery, which is entirely written in bash. Gentoo's package manager, portage, is written in python. Trust me, sorcery is faster than portage, from my experience.

Before going any further, take the time to read this:
http://wiki.sourcema.../FaqDiff_Gentoo

Which is an exhaustive comparison of Sourcemage and Gentoo.

Okay, sourcemage has less packages in its package manager, but that's fine. everything you need is still there. Also, I think sourcemage is more lightweight than Gentoo. Gentoo installs too much optional stuff by default. Ah, this makes me think, here's a major difference with the package manager:

when you install (emerge) on gentoo, you have to set flags before doing so. On sourcemage, the package manager (sorcery) asks you for what to enable/disable instead. I think that's better than checking what flags are available for your package then setting the flags and blah blah blah waste of time.

Installation: Way faster on Sourcemage. Gentoo will simply give you a terminal and a handbook. Sourcemage will give you an assisted installation, by this I mean that you will go through a list of things to do, still giving you maximum flexibility through installation (you can get a terminal at any time). I didn't even bothered to look at the documentation to install sourcemage. it was plain easy.

Well, in all, I've been using Gentoo for a while, but I switched to Sourcemage. I think you should go for sourcemage, and people who say Gentoo rocks are people who never tried sourcemage. that's all.

[bitMonkey]

Thanks for the excellent comparison; that's exactly what I was looking for. I'll give Sourcemage a try next time I'm installing a system. The use flag system is a little frustrating. I like the idea of choosing options at install.

[kitche]

man you anwsered it before I even came and check the forums, pretty much gentoo package system breaks systems but anyways I m biased since I am a SourceMage guru(developer).



but one thing about Gentoo is that their developers can't make their minds up sometimes if you ever read their mailing list you will understand.

Edited by kitche, 22 November 2006 - 10:58 PM.

[systems_glitch]

Gentoo's portage is wonderful at breaking multilib setups! I'm currently working on a replacement distro, as I can't even do makefile compiles that require something I have both 32 and 64 bit libs for!

I've never used SourceMage, tho!

[bitMonkey]

I haven't had any problems with Gentoo yet, actually -- and I just finished compiling KDE + Beryl (from subversion) on an AMD64 laptop. If that's not the acid test for a package manager, I don't know what is.

[kitche]

bitMonkey but are you using multilib setup 32bit libs with 64 bit libs? or you just running a pure x86_64 system

[bitMonkey]

bitMonkey but are you using multilib setup 32bit libs with 64 bit libs? or you just running a pure x86_64 system

It's about 95% x86_64. I have Firefox, OOo, and wine in 32 bit. Come to think of it, I'm not sure why I have OOo 32. Portage, here I come.

[Aghaster]

bitMonkey but are you using multilib setup 32bit libs with 64 bit libs? or you just running a pure x86_64 system

It's about 95% x86_64. I have Firefox, OOo, and wine in 32 bit. Come to think of it, I'm not sure why I have OOo 32. Portage, here I come.

You have OOo 32 because it has problem with x86_64 builds. At least it had like 6 months ago, I read, that's why there is a binary package for that one..

[bitMonkey]

hmm... well, it's was only in ~amd64, so I guess it's worth a shot. If it doesn't work, I guess openoffice-bin is pretty quick to "compile" again


EDIT: Amazingly, it does seem to work in x86_64. That's awesome. I can't believe how long it took to compile -- it literally just finished 1.5 minutes ago.

EDIT: And that's on an AMD Athlon 64 4000+!

Edited by bitMonkey, 25 November 2006 - 12:27 AM.

[Aghaster]

hmm... well, it's was only in ~amd64, so I guess it's worth a shot. If it doesn't work, I guess openoffice-bin is pretty quick to "compile" again


EDIT: Amazingly, it does seem to work in x86_64. That's awesome. I can't believe how long it took to compile -- it literally just finished 1.5 minutes ago.

EDIT: And that's on an AMD Athlon 64 4000+!

OOo is quite a big program... that's where the weakness of source distros come in. I have an AMD Athlon64 3400+.

[kitche]

yea Source Mage at least gives you an option to install the binary

[RapidDemon]

yea Source Mage at least gives you an option to install the binary

Portage also lets you install packages though, its a flag for emerge IIRC.