Re: Enabling Binaries by default in Stage3s

On 8/11/26 4:30 PM, Dale wrote:

> I might also add, it seems there is a lot of support for a binary
> version of Gentoo, especially for laptop/notebook/etc systems that don't
> handle compiles very well.  Maybe this is a good time for a minor fork
> of Gentoo into a binary install system and maybe call it Gentoo-bin or
> something.  It can still be Gentoo, use the same package manager and all
> but is a different system.  If there is enough support to do it this
> way, it should be easy to switch from one to the other as well.  In
> other words, install a binary system for a quick setup and then switch
> to compile from source for updates and tweaking the system settings. 
> Switching from compile to binary should be easy as well.  This is just a
> thought and of course would require enough people to actually maintain
> it as well.  Given how many use this method, there just may be enough to
> help support this path.

The binary fork of Gentoo already exists, and it is called "Gentoo".

Yes, that's right, Gentoo is already a binary install system. :)

All new stage3 installs come with a default configured copy of the file
/etc/portage/binrepos.conf/gentoo.conf which configures emerge's
knowledge of "what is the remote url for the binhost". emerge --info
will print information about it, etc.

This thread was a proposal to change make.conf to add FEATURES=getbinpkg
by default, which is all on its own the sole difference between "a
source version of Gentoo" and "a binary version of Gentoo". It is also
very very easy to switch, as you can imagine. In fact you can switch at
any time, or even on a per-package basis: instead of FEATURES, you can
use "emerge -g" as in:

- "emerge -gavuDN @world" (all packages as binary, if possible)
- "emerge -g1 app-misc/foo" (install one package, and its
  dependencies,as binaries)
- "emerge -gavuDN --getbinpkg-include=app-misc/foo @world" (all packages
  as source, except **ONE** package included as binary)
- "emerge -gavuDN --getbinpkg-exclude=app-misc/foo @world" (all packages
  as binary, except **ONE** package banned from using binaries)


It is no more "special" of an option than using -N / --newuse. You may
feel free to use it for any particular emerge session you like, or you
may feel free to not use it.

The question is whether a stage3 defaulting to a particular emerge
option in make.conf will surprise people in negative ways, versus
documenting that it is "recommended" to set the option when installing
Gentoo. That's the whole of the discussion, when you get right down to it.



-- 
Eli Schwartz

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