Gentoo/Sabayon-related question about package manager

WillingToLikeLinux · 08-24-2009, 05:18 AM

I wonder whether portage has a stable branch and a unstable branch of application packages (like Debian has sid, testing and stable).

I am not too familiar with Gentoo and Sabayon's "source-based" application management and the distros themselves, so I'm still exploring this aspect of Linux.

XavierP · 08-24-2009, 05:58 AM

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handboo...?part=3&chap=3 - yes, Gentoo does have Stable and Testing branches and you can mix them. To use a testing version, you will need to specify the pakage version number:

Code:

app-office/gnumeric ~x86 =stable for x86 architecture
=app-office/gnumeric-1.2.13 ~x86  =testing for x86 architecture

I have moved your thread to the Gentoo forum so that the LQ Gentoo team can expand on this.

weibullguy · 08-24-2009, 06:05 AM

Actually the ~x86 denotes that portage use the testing version for the given architecture. Omitting the ~x86 means use stable packages, thus this would be the default. So

Code:

app-office/gnumeric ~x86 = testing for x86 architecture for all versions of gnumeric
=app-office/gnumeric-1.2.13 ~x86  = testing for x86 architecture for the specific version of gnumeric

More detailed discussion at the end of the link XavierP posted.

XavierP · 08-24-2009, 09:25 AM

Ah, thanks for clearing that up - I didn't read the whole thing and don't use Gentoo. But now I know if I do use it!

shuuhen · 08-24-2009, 09:24 PM

There are also layman overlays. If you install layman, you can use it to get access to Ruby-related software, audio software and other programs that will be even more bleeding edge than the testing stuff or software that the devs might not be able to add to the Portage tree (lack of time, lack of testing, etc.).

WillingToLikeLinux · 08-25-2009, 02:08 AM

What would be the difference between Gentoo and Sabayon? Gentoo is the foundation but I would wonder what the core differences are.

monsm · 11-03-2009, 10:46 AM

Well, Sabayon also has binary repositories and a complicated mechanism to keep the two syncronised. I installed Sabayon on an old machine and then turned it back into Gentoo again, by removing the binary repository and the package manager they use for it. Took a bit of trouble, since there are specific sabayon configs you wouldn't normally be using in a pure gentoo system.
Gentoo only has a few binaries for large packegs in the portage repository (for big things like openoffice, firefox etc).
Increasingly Sabayon and Gentoo are competely sepearte distributions and difficult to go from one to the other without a full re-install (like e.g. debian and ubuntu, although its not got to that yet).

In terms of testing branches you could in a way say gentoo has 3 layers:
1. Stable (e.g. x86)
2. Unstable (e.g. ~x86) - Most of these are reasonably stable, but have some bugs against them
3. Layman - This is where software gets tested before they make it to the "unstable" branch in portage

Mons

hurry_hui · 11-03-2009, 12:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WillingToLikeLinux

What would be the difference between Gentoo and Sabayon? Gentoo is the foundation but I would wonder what the core differences are.

On old Sabayon distros, differences are little in that you need to read Gentoo Handbook to understand the distro. Current Sabayon (starting from v4.0) is really different. It is like a new distro to me.

As user of old Sabayon (v3.4) I need to resort to Gentoo if I have problem such as when I tried fixing broken portage. Since there is not enough info on that on Sabayon wiki or forum. I thought I had to revert my Sabayon into Gentoo. I no longer used Sabayon layman.