Installing apps.

[KaffiMann]

Hi!

I was just wondering how i can install things with portage, i understand that i have to get ebuild of the app i want, and as far as i can see that ebuild has to have the right name (?), and i have to put it in a specific folder (!), before i can use the terminal to work some magic with a command called emerge.
Would be really neat to be able to do installs with portage, because then i can use the gentoo ebuilds (?) to install stuff. But somehow i keep failing in my attempts to do so.

First thing i wanted to install was Opera 10 beta, which was kind of hard, i failed to succeed. After a longer argument with unknown commands and functionality, i decided to capitulate, and settled around the thought of using the spritz package manager to install Opera 9.62 instead. Which seems to work, in a way. My wife says it's slow, and i can't really argue with her about that. And there's also a message in spritz saying there was some error during the installation, but it does'nt specify what.

I am a complete noob at sabayon and/or gentoo, I have barely skimmed the surface of other linux distros before, namely ubuntu, fedora and mint. Did'nt like any of them, so after long and in-depth investigation i decided on sabayon, because it really seems like the perfect thing for me (if i can get my head wrapped around it right).

I was thinking of using a source tar.gz to install Opera, but it seems to me like it failed when i ran the usual "make" then "make install" in the directory i unpacked it to.

There is one thing i actually figured out properly, how to log in as root.

Is there a "Sabayon for dummies" book out there? I am obviously doing something wrong, but i do not know what, or where.

[wolfden]

Moved to correct forum

in any distro you need to learn the package manager(s) and our wiki is a great spot to spend some time learning. Opera beta is already in portage so the package manager works for that, no need to source anything, besides, Opera is binary package to start with.

Portage = compile - long and slow
Entropy = binary - fast and well binary

Our wiki covers both of these
http://wiki.sabayonlinux.org/

New people to this distro will find using entropy much easier, but seriously spend time on the wiki as it covers a lot of stuff for new people to get them going.

[KaffiMann]

Thanks for the reply.

Figured why opera was so incredibly slow as well. Solution:
viewtopic.php?f=59&t=14901&

I noticed you wrote a reply at the end there Wolfden, with a link to some other thread with similar solutions. But i liked LordBernhards solution better, slightly more accurate (imo) (and i got to see the process of thought as well).

I was also wondering, is it possible to add other repositories? Other than sabayon? To entropy ofcourse, with no change in functionality. Was thinking of the gentoo repository.

Edit:
I realize this is mentioned a bit in the wiki, but there is no mentioning of anything other than the official sabayon, and Zenana seems to have some issues (i cant get to the site), and the other community repository was not what i wanted.

[Stupot]

There aren't many entropy repositories out there yet. I think you know of all that exist. Gentoo repositories are not the same as Entropy repositories.

[wolfden]

What is in the wiki is all there is if using entropy

On my systems that are entropy only, I like to setup my local overlay and use that for applications that are not in entropy or if I am testing some software out. Mixing with portage isn't recommended till you fully understand what each package manager is fully doing and how it is installing things. Entropy takes a lot of portage frustration away from the user, plus you have entropy maintainers that are carefully watching so something doesn't go out that is going to bust your system. It's not flawless tho, but in a years time it has become a streamline package manager. It's evolving everyday to be better.

If you get good at it, you have the ability to do your own community repo

[KaffiMann]

Yeah, i was actually considering just that when i looked at what was there.

But that's a up and ahead kind of thing i guess.

I installed the most important apps through cmake, but it really would be nice to have some repository that i could just add stuff to. And i also see that some of the things in the sabayon repo are out of date, i guess it takes some work to maintain it as well.

edit:
Would it be possible to add a function to entropy, that makes you able to install apps, that do not exist in repo, from tar.gz files?
I mean, is'nt that basicly what entropy does anyway, just from a repo with mirrors?
What would be fantastic would be to merge such a functionality, with some automated function that adds the app to the repo, but that sounds like aeons of work. Or does it?