Hello!

I have found out GoboLinux some time ago, when I was looking for some better distro than Slackware (my history: RedHat -> Mandrake -> Aurox -> Slackware). I had found Arch and GoboLinux (and also some others, but it doesn't matter now). I decided to try Arch and this is my distro now. I'm really happy with Arch, but there might be (is?) always something, that's better...

I have some *strange* habit: I don't like the idea of installing software in system's hierarchy (/usr, /usr/share). The reason: installing software in /usr *might* crash the system (if something goes wrong), installing in /usr/local requires root's privileges (unless CU is allowed to write to /usr/local, but I don't like this idea). Therefore I install some of my software in ~/opt/ProgramName/VersionNumber/. Looks similar, doesn't it?

In the nearest future (weeks, one month at most) I'm going to install my system. Although my primary system will be Arch, I think it could be a good moment to give GoboLinux a try... Provided that GoboLinux is worth it.

I have been looking for some information about GoboLinux, but there are still some issues:

1) I've read that there's no package manager (PM) for GoboLinux. One of PM's tasks is handling dependencies, another is doing updates (this one actually needs handling dependencies...). How are these tasks done in GoboLinux?

Do I need to care for dependencies for myself (sucks!), or the system is able to do it itself (cool!)?

2) Are there available binary packages for GoboLinux?

Yes, I've read about recipes. But I don't want to compile all the software I need (or want to try) from sources. I'd rather have them already compiled for i686...

If there are binary packages for GoboLinux (and I'm a dummy for being unnable to find any information about them on the GoboLinux site ;)), what architecture they are compiled for?

3) How many users GoboLinux has? More/Less that ArchLinux/Fedora?

4) SymlinkProgram (the app which should make all the needed symlinks in the GoboLinux system) seems to be something I could make use of... Where can one finds its source?

5) According to http://forum.gobolinux.org/discussion/39/gobolinux-misconceptions/#Item_11 there are 4128 existing recipes for programs. When I did "wget -q -O - http://gobolinux.org/recipe-store/MANIFEST | awk -F'--' '{print $1}' | uniq | wc -l" I got only 1888... What's wrong?

Therefore I install some of my software in ~/opt/ProgramName/VersionNumber/. Looks similar, doesn't it?

Yes. By the way, Heretix (before it died...) installed into /pkg/program_name/version_number as far as I remember.
They even linked to Gobolinux (on their old webpage), though the /pkg approach is actually more akin to FHS, if anyone asks me :>


Well you have many questions, I dont want to answer some because my answer can be incorrect, and
then Mohjive gets very very very very very angry with me ;)

but

3) How many users GoboLinux has? More/Less that ArchLinux/Fedora?

What do you expect.. this is not a rhetorical question! :)

Fedora (Red hat) is a HUGE distribution backed by a company too. It has a very big userbase.

Archlinux is a lot smaller than Fedora, but compared to Gobolinux its also a biggie :)

On IRC the number of people there has increased... right now there are 18
on the channel. Sure many idling or never writing one thing, but about 2 years
ago there were what... 3 users in total? :)
Yeah, most use the mailing list and arent on IRC etc. etc. etc. but this should
give you a rough estimate... #archlinux.de has 57, #archlinux has 306
(I cant join fedora cuz ... #fedora :You need to be identified to join that channel )

But to be fair, it has to be said that neither Fedora nor Archlinux have a
concept like Gobolinux has ...

Posted By: TPJ1) I've read that there's no package manager (PM) for GoboLinux. One of PM's tasks is handling dependencies, another is doing updates (this one actually needs handling dependencies...). How are these tasks done in GoboLinux?

You don't need to use one if you don't want to (the slogan to go with this is "the filesystem is the package manager", but it's a little misleading). You can install things yourself without going through the system tools and it will work just as well as the tools. I don't recommend you run your whole system that way, but it is handy to be able to install things yourself occasionally. You can also use the standard command-line tools like which and ls for other tasks package managers often do. Which package installed the "ab" binary? `which ab`=>/Programs/HTTPD/2.2.4/sbin/ab. What version of Firefox am I running? `ls -l /Programs/Firefox/Current`=>2.0.0.4

"Compile" is the tool for compiling recipes, which it will automatically fetch from the repository, resolve dependencies and the like. InstallPackage will fetch binary packages, resolve their dependencies and install them. They are the main package management tools in that sense. There is also Manager, a graphical whole-of-system "package manager", and Freshen¹, a command-line whole-of-system "package manager". Both of these wrap around the scripts for the heavy lifting, and just find what programs have available updates, put them in a viable order and run Compile/InstallPackage as appropriate.

¹Disclaimer: I am the author of Freshen.

Posted By: TPJ2) Are there available binary packages for GoboLinux?

Yes, I've read about recipes. But I don't want to compile all the software I need (or want to try) from sources. I'd rather have them already compiled for i686...

If there are binary packages for GoboLinux (and I'm a dummy for being unnable to find any information about them on the GoboLinux site ;)), what architecture they are compiled for?

I already answered that above, I guess. Yes. They're linked to under the "Latest Packages" heading on gobolinux.org. They are all compiled for i686, at present, but it is possible that other architectures will be supported in future. The architecture is encoded in the package name (Foo--1.0--i686.tar.bz2), so you know what you're getting in advance.

Posted By: TPJ3) How many users GoboLinux has? More/Less that ArchLinux/Fedora?

Less. I don't know how much less, other than "a lot". There are 91 people on the users list, 193 subscribers to gobolinux-users, and 97 subscribers to gobolinux-br, which are the only hard numbers we have. Probably in the vicinity of a few hundred, but I really don't know.

Posted By: TPJ4) SymlinkProgram (the app which should make all the needed symlinks in the GoboLinux system) seems to be something I could make use of... Where can one finds its source?

You can check it out from CVS, as MLA said; you'll also need most of the code in Scripts/Functions. It'll be a bit of work to adapt it to other usage scenarios, I think.

Posted By: TPJ5) According tohttp://forum.gobolinux.org/discussion/39/gobolinux-misconceptions/#Item_11there are 4128 existing recipes for programs. When I did "wget -q -O -http://gobolinux.org/recipe-store/MANIFEST| awk -F'--' '{print $1}' | uniq | wc -l" I got only 1888... What's wrong?

My fault. I think MLA's right, I updated the command and the text but forgot about the number. 1,888 is the correct number of distinct programs. It's true that a lot of autoconf-based recipes don't ever get submitted because they're so simple nobody bothers. I've been guilty of that myself sometimes. Installing them is just a matter of `MakeRecipe <url-to-archive> && Compile Foo`, because the Scripts magic does all the work. We have worked on making it easier to submit recipes recently, and in making sure there are more reviewers to commit into the repository, which should bring the numbers up a bit.

(continued below)

lol, i put myself on the frappr map and am a forum moderator but i still am not on the official user list :(
users list

Posted By: DarthcoderWhen i type
it responds cant find bla.... in etc /fstab or etc/mtab
mount /System/Kernel/Devices/hdc(say 1,2,3)

You need to provide a mountpoint, or it's not going to know where to put it. So, say, `mkdir /Mount/HDC1 && mount /S/K/D/hdc1 /Mount/HDC1`. See `mount --help` or `man mount` for more details.

If you're planning on running the installer, you don't need to mount the drive in advance, it will do that (and it's probably better that you don't). It sounds like you might be using the 013 CD, too, since you referred to QParted. Try the latest 014 snapshot and it might run on #1; there were a few bugs in some configurations involving SMP on the 013 CD. It will work better all-around, too.

Posted By: DarthcoderThanks Michael, in 013 Qparted lets me mount the drive, but I still cant see it

What do you mean by "see it"? Run `mount` (no arguments) and it'll tell you the mountpoint: look for the line something like "/System/Kernel/Devices/hdc1 on /mount/point type ext3 (rw)".

Posted By: DarthcoderIn 014 Gparted does not let me mount it, after doing a mkdir and the next command tit say mount not found then after that cannot get any application to run

The last part of that is odd, but as for the first, GParted isn't meant to mount partitions, it's meant to edit them. Mount them from the terminal, like I suggested in the last post. You may be able to do it in Konqueror too, but I don't have the LiveCD here right now to check how it's configured.

But do you have any reason to mount it at all? There's really no need to unless you have to get something off it during the installation. The installer deals to everything it needs when it needs it.

The installed system is less conservative about what it mounts automatically. The live CD doesn't mount anything, since it's likely you're going to want to edit the partitions, but the installed system will mount all the partitions the installer detected on boot (by default as "/Mount/HDC1", "/Mount/NTFS1", etc, but you can change them).

Posted By: DarthcoderI would like to check that it will actually read stuff of my HD

It will do that, yes, if you mount it. The ISO supports ext2/3, JFS, FAT32, and NTFS (at least) out of the box; any partition in those formats will work fine. It's not a hugely useful thing to do all the same unless you're using it as a rescue CD or something. Its primary purpose is as an install CD, rather than one to actually work in like Knoppix.

Posted By: Darthcoderfor example Knoppix required a mount as well but at least I had a clue as to what it was called b4 I type mount

I don't really understand this. It's called what you tell it to be called. `mount /dev/hdc1 /where/you/want/to/mount/it`. There's nothing to have a clue about, you choose. Traditionally you'd put it under /Mount somewhere, but it can be anywhere. For quick mounts from the live CD I usually use ~/mp if I need to get files.

Posted By: Darthcoderbut in Gobo the mount command does not list anything I understand...

mount will only list partitions that are already mounted. On the live CD, that'll be a lot of compressed SquashFS images that hold all the packages, a ram disk, and not a lot else. `fdisk -l` will list all the partitions on all the drives in the system if you need to find the device name, and give a little info about how big it is, where it is on the disk, and what filesystem it uses to help narrow that down.