Gentoo 2008.0 Roadmap.

After the troubled last weeks, there is eventually a good news about Gentoo: there is a roadmap to the release of the long awaited 2008.0 version of this extremely good distribution.

Just to drop few lines about Gentoo, it helps sometimes to remember the main feature of this distribution (or, as many use to define it, meta-distribution): it’s compiled from scratch starting from a minimal binary base (that can itself be rebuilt as well). This may sound difficult and boring, but in fact it is neither: the portage structure and the emerge tool helps in the process of installing applications and automates everything, giving at the same time the possibility to customize every aspect of the building process.

Just as an example, the portage tree (as is called the database of available applications) can be updated as easily as writing (as root)

# emerge --sync

or, if the helper application eix is installed

# eix-sync

Updating the system (or world, aka non-system, or a single package) application is in now way harder:

#emerge -v -a -u -D [system | world | package-name ]

… where -a is for being actually asked for a confirmation before updating anything, -v for verbose mode, -u for update, -D (optional) for an update that digs deeper in the dependency tree to find packages to update.

For the very first steps of the installation, i is important is to follow the simple instructions easily found in the quick install docs to get the system up and running: this gives a first platform to start emerging the whole system.

For the faint hearted: Sabayon Linux, aka Gentoo made easy

For those who are still scared of compiling the whole system from the very beginning, well, there is still a chance: Sabayon Linux. This Italian distribution offers a complete, fully working and easy to administer Gentoo distribution. It is available both in CD and DVD and had all the features and benefits of Gentoo. Just without the need of compiling everything: this last option is still available, but you are not required to do it.

Try it. You’ll be pleased!