Gentoo 2006.1 Released!!

[JGuru]

The Gentoo team has released Gentoo 2006.1, the second release of the year.
Building on the strengths of the previous releases and featuring all the
Gentoo's flexibility, performance & portability. The most popular architectues
now use GCC 4.1 , glibc 2.4 and baselayout 1.12.1 as well as including a
new profile layout with separate desktop and server profiles.

Read the press release here

Let's have a look at some of the applications included in this release:

* Evince - Document viewer
* Eye Of GNOME - Image viewer
* BitTorrent - Torrent downloader
* Epiphany - GNOME web browser
* Mozilla FireFox - Web browser
* Mozilla Thunderbird - Mozilla email client
* NmapFE - nmap frontend
* Pan - GNOME news reader
* Wireshark (old Ethereal) - Network analyser
* Xchat -IRC Client
* Evolution - Email client
* OpenOffice.org - Office suite
* Audacious - a very new light MediaPlayer
* MPlayer - Ultimate Movie player
* Rhythmbox - GNOME music player
* Sound juicer - CD extractor

For Gentoo Documentation click here

Download it from here

Screenshots:

Desktop



Bittorent & GAIM



Wireshark

[mehulved]

Yeah just read about it on their site yesterday. I am so eagerly waiting to try gentoo, but cleaning up my hard disk isn't happening. I hope I see a working gentoo distro on my PC soon.

[JGuru]

I just tested Gentoo as a Live CD. Nothing special about it. But I read in DestopLinux.com,
that Gentoo Linux is called 'Linux for the Experts'. You can learn more about Linux
using Gentoo. It looks like a good distro. But I don't have time to study it at a deeper level.

[QwertyManiac]

What could be the difference between Gentoo and building one's own kernel ?

[praka123]

i already 4 few month's used gentoo 2006.0 it's got better and easier compared to earlier versions in the sense it got a installer script.

[mehulved]

Originally Posted by JGuru

I just tested Gentoo as a Live CD. Nothing special about it. But I read in DestopLinux.com,
that Gentoo Linux is called 'Linux for the Experts'. You can learn more about Linux
using Gentoo. It looks like a good distro. But I don't have time to study it at a deeper level.

When using it as a live cd, Gentoo has nothing special to show. But, the USP of Gentoo lies in the fact that it compiles software from the source, so it can be customised to your liking. So, yes, it requires more understanding of linux as well as gentoo to really realise it's full potential. But, if you just want to try it out, read the documents and go on, it's a no-brainer.
Another noteworthy feature of Gentoo are the tools it's provides. I have heard that nothing can match equery and emerge and though I have seen very little of it, I can't help but agree to it.
@harsh gentoo doesn't just restrict to building your own kernel, it's more wider in scope. You compile softwares from source, you can optimise all the softwares to your PC(but be careful, too much optimisation can break the system), it has some great tools for system management. You can also customise the packages that are too be installed which is not so much in the case of most other distros.
Since, all softwares have been compiled from source for your system, it gives better performance, but this comes with deeper understanding of your system and computers in general, that is why it is said Gentoo is for advanced users.

[JGuru]

You are right @Mehul. @Satish knows Gentoo very well. I can learn something from him.
But where is he right now?? I have not seen him here , since a long time!!

[mehulved]

Satissh and eddie know gentoo really well but both seem to be busy. Whenever they return they can throw a light on many things even I don't know about.