[wplug] Need Help from other Gentoo Users

[Scott F. Kiesling]

First, read the emerge man page and then have a look at the Portage
manual on the Gentoo website.

Youshould be able to do this without the net. Emerge runs ebuild
scripts, which are just bash scripts to manage the compiling and
configuring process and dependencies. What is downloaded from the net is
the source, so if you have that on the CD, you should be OK. You just
need to tell emerge not to look on the net.

Here is what I would try. It may not work, but should get you started.
The idea is to get emerge to find the source without going to the net:

If you haven't done so recently, you should sync portage. do "emerge
sync" This checks to make sure you have the latest ebuilds and downloads
those you don't have.

Do "emerge -p gnome" to see what packages are needed by gnome. It's a
lot.

Put the sources where emerge will find them, which is
/usr/portage/distfiles. You could probably also just make a link from
that directory to the CD if you don't want to copy the source, but once
the build is finished you can delete the source. You may also be able to
set this directory in a conf file somewhere.

"emerge gnome". Go away, return in a day or so. I hear gnome takes a
while to compile.

If this doesn't work, search the gentoo forums: forums.gentoo.org, or
post a query there. They are usually very helpful.

I believe there are plans to make quarterly version releases of gentoo
this year, so you can get those and use the same method to update. But
having a broadband net connection really makes Gentoo much easier to
use.

Finally, if you ever have temporary access to a broadband connection, or
a friend who does and who uses Gentoo, you can use the -f (fetchonly)
option on emerge to just download the sources without compiling. You can
then save these sources (now in /usr/portage/distfiles) to a CD to
upgrade. 

SFK

On Wed, 2003-12-24 at 09:32, Gentgeen S. wrote:
> First, I want to appolgize if this ends up being a double post.  I posted 24hr. ago, but have not seen it on the list yet. On witht the post ---
> 
> First some background info -- you can probably skip it if you are in a hurry, but figure it might help --
> 
> 1 month ago, I bought a Linux Format Magazine that included Gentoo 1.4.  I have been wanting to update my desktop machine (Redhat 7.2) and thought this would be a great choice.  I just waited till x-mas break to get started (I'm a school teacher) since I knew that Gentoo would take some time.  Anyway, the CD did not include GNOME, just KDE.  The next month, Linux Format Magazine included GNOME 2.4 and all required files.  SWEET!! -- now I can have my new Gentoo system, and be able to use fluxbox and GNOME,my two preferred desktops.
> Now for the questions, should I simply use the standard "./configure && make && make install" to install all the GNOME stuff, or should I use emerge?  If I use the standard install commands, will this mess anything up for future uses of emerge?  If I use emerge, how do I set it to use the Linux Format CD for all the GNOME stuff?  I have a dial-up connection, so using emerge to install GNOME over the internet (i.e. downloading all the GNOME files from a Gentoo mirror) is not a good idea for me.
> 
> I have tried to find the info from Google and from Gentoo.org, but all my searches simply refer to using the internet.
> 
> *****************************************************************
>  Associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem    
>  your own reputation; for 'tis better to be alone then in bad 
>  company.        - George Washington, Rules of Civility
-- 
Scott F. Kiesling <kiesling at pitt.edu>