From: aragorn@chatfactory.invalid   
      
   J.O. Aho wrote:   
      
   > Aragorn wrote:   
   >   
   >> I did indeed find this inactivity worrying, particularly as I'm about to   
   >> install a machine worth USD $~20'000/€~16'000 with Gentoo, spread out as   
   >> individually customized installations in virtual machines on top of the   
   >> Xen hypervisor (including the /dom0/ virtual machine)...   
   >   
   > You should be able to switch to Sabayon with a little work, in case Gentoo   
   > would come to an end.   
      
   I know...  I've already been thinking along those lines.  There are a few   
   other Gentoo-based distributions as well, Ututo being one of that I   
   remember the name of... ;-)   
      
   >> Still, the packages for the "stable" repositories all still seem to be   
   >> maintained up to a pretty actual level, and the forum does still see its   
   >> usual load of GLSA posts.  On the other hand however, the Live CD I've   
   >> downloaded not too long ago still has an older kernel on it - 2.6.18, I   
   >> think - so apparently it's been a while again since they've updated those   
   >> images.   
   >   
   > They don't make new image on each released kernel, and it's not needed, it   
   > requires a lot to make a machine not to boot the .18 kernel.   
      
   No, I didn't mean to imply that they did, but I was under the impression   
   however that they updated the installation media on a regular basis, not   
   because of the kernel but maybe because of some other things like a bugfix   
   - the AMD64 Live CD I have for instance goes haywire on my two different   
   videocards[1] - and then this would automatically include a newer kernel,   
   or so I imagine.   
      
   [1] I've got two videocards in the new machine I spoke of earlier.  One is a   
   brandnew Asus GeForce 8800 GTS PCIe card with 640 MB of memory, which will   
   be driving my two SGI 21" monitors for X11 in an unprivileged Xen domain.   
      
   However, as the nVidia driver doesn't work well with Xen or at the very   
   least breaks on direct hardware acceleration from within an unprivileged   
   domain, the only solution I see is to hide the videocard from /dom0/ (i.e.   
   the management virtual machine) and have that one /domU/ (the unprivileged   
   domains) access the hardware directly.   
      
   The downside of this is that you don't have any video in dom0, i.e. when the   
   system boots up and shuts down.  Of course, I only need a framebuffer   
   in /dom0/ and once everything is set up correctly, I should be able to   
   access the /dom0/ and the other /domUs/ via /ssh./  So in order to   
   compensate for that loss of video, I put in a slightly older Gecube Radeon   
   9250 PCI card - with 256 MB, but that's irrelevant - from another machine.   
      
   When booting up from the Live CD, it attempts to start X and fails,   
   obviously because it doesn't know what videodriver to load.  No big deal as   
   I don't intend to install Gentoo by means of a graphical installer or even   
   a graphical user interface, but it /could/ be considered a bug. ;-)   
      
   > There is a lot people working, just visit the IRC channels if you need   
   > something like 2007.1/2008.0 and kernel 2.6.24 on your installation   
   > media,so they can have a laugh or two ;)   
      
   I don't need those on the installation media themselves, of course.  I am   
   however currently still waiting until the official release of 2.6.24, as   
   that kernel has several new features that I really want - the new   
   scheduler, for one - and I don't plan on compiling a kernel now and   
   configuring/compiling one again in one or two weeks.  In addition, I need   
   to configure each kernel twice, or probably three times even, as I intend   
   to configure it differently for /dom0/ and the X11 /domU./  And eventually   
   again differently for the other /domUs,/ but I'm not sure of that yet. ;-)   
      
   As for the topic of IRC, I happen to be running a small IRC network myself,   
   together with  a few other people. ;-)   
      
   >> Maybe they're just going the Slackware/Debian way and only release the   
   >> newer stuff after it's been out in the field for 5 years already?    
   >> (Slackware still labels the 2.6 kernel generation as   
   >> "unstable/testing"... ;-))   
   >   
   > Gentoo never been that much whats on the install media, you could even go   
   > with a Gentoo 1.4 and make an up to date install, try to take a "Debian 2"   
   > or "RedHat 6.2" install CDs and install the latest version.   
      
   True, but I was rather taking a moderate sneer at Gentoo's tendency to wait   
   a very long time before marking something as stable when it's already   
   declared stable in most other distributions, although the sneer was   
   actually intended towards Slackware and Debian far more than towards   
   Gentoo. ;-)   
      
   --   
   Aragorn   
   (registered GNU/Linux user #223157)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)