From Gentoo to Kubuntu

[srz]

Hi everybody,

There was a time I was a big Gentoo fan. Now, having lost my nerves with emerge failures and bug reports, I have started to think about a new distribution. Kubuntu might be a good - I mean excellent - one.

I am no linux-guru, but I know the basics. I would like to have a fast KDE desktop (AMD64), a firewall, KTorrent, KOffice, and Gimp. Sadly, I also need to have Windows XP dual boot. I know Kubuntu offers all that.

The only thing I am worried about is how difficult will it be to install Kubuntu and get rid of Gentoo. What is the easiest way to do it? There are two quite large subdirectories in /home, no important personal files anywhere else, and Grub is my bootloader.

Any comments and suggestions are welcome!

Best wishes,
srz

[sky]

Re: From Gentoo to Kubuntu

Hi,

If your /home is on a separate partition, so no problem, just get the live cd, install it on the / partition of gentoo without specifying to use the /home partition.
Then, it will erase the boot loader of gentoo and start normally.
Finally, go to media:/ (in konqueror) find the partition with your /home datas, copy the important files somewhere on the new / disk, format the /home partition (or just delete the content)
Finally, copy all datas from your current /home to the old one (including hidden files), remove them from the current /home.
unmount the old /home, change the line in /etc/fstab about it to be mounted on /home
remount it and it would be done.
If you don't have a separate partition, so you will have much more troubles, I hope you have space on the xp partition or a spare partition to copy datas on it, then install kubuntu and replace your data in the new /home (make a /home partition would be a nice idea )

Hope it helps

[turtles]

Re: From Gentoo to Kubuntu

Hi this is my first time checking out kubuntu.
I too am a long time Gentoo user.
I am currious how your switch went?
I am going to be replacing my hard drive in my toshiba a45-S120 laptop.
When I format the new drive I am thinking of doing a dual boot Gentoo and a bin based OS.
My current Gentoo system is built against:

System uname: 2.6.19-gentoo-r5 i686 Intel(R) Celeron(R) CP
U 2.60GHz
Portage 2.1.2.2 (default-linux/x86/2006.1/desktop, gcc-4.1
.1, glibc-2.5-r0, 2.6.19-gentoo-r5 i686
Gentoo Base System release 1.12.9
Timestamp of tree: Wed, 11 Apr 2007 03:20:01 +0000
distcc 2.18.3 i686-pc-linux-gnu (protocols 1 and 2) (defau
lt port 3632) [enabled]
ccache version 2.4 [enabled]
dev-java/java-config: 1.3.7, 2.0.31
dev-lang/python:  2.4.3-r4
dev-python/pycrypto: 2.0.1-r5
dev-util/ccache:  2.4-r6
sys-apps/sandbox:  1.2.17
sys-devel/autoconf: 2.13, 2.61
sys-devel/automake: 1.4_p6, 1.5, 1.6.3, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r
3, 1.9.6-r2, 1.10
sys-devel/binutils: 2.16.1-r3
sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.3.14
sys-devel/libtool: 1.5.22
virtual/os-headers: 2.6.17-r2

I am currious what kubuntu packages are built against?
Will I be forced into using a bunch of old stuff?
thanks

[askrieger]

Re: From Gentoo to Kubuntu

The current (*)buntu kernel is 2.6.20-15. So you will be forced to use a bunch of new stuff.

[turtles]

Re: From Gentoo to Kubuntu

Cool as you can see I have quit updating my Gentoo system all the time as it has become more cumbersome.
It seems the primary difference between Gentoo and Kubuntu aside from the source VS compiled performance difference (if you know enough and have the time to configure Gentoo correctly) is the package manager, config file updater, kernel patches / layout.
If Kubuntu is keeping up with Gentoo in terms of compilers, glibc, and binutils stuff like using gcc 4.1 could I then do a kubuntu kernel as opposed to a dual boot?

[askrieger]

Re: From Gentoo to Kubuntu

gcc = 4.1.2, glib = 2.12.11, binutils = 2.17.20070103CVS. I can attest that all of these work (unless I'm generating subtle bugs, I haven't found).

[turtles]

Kubentoo

Is apt-get the prefered package manager for kubuntu?

I am interested in booting the kubuntu kernel and just leaving my gentoo tool chain as is.
Where can I download a kubuntu kernel?
Thanks

[askrieger]

Re: From Gentoo to Kubuntu

Is apt-get the preferred package manager for kubuntu?

Kubuntu is a Debian-based distro. So it uses the APT packaging system. Apt-get is one of the two command line package managers that one can use. The other is Aptitude. Personally, I hate Aptitude, but many people like it. The default GUI package manager in Kubuntu is Adept. Adept, however. is regarded by Debian Developers as no better than an early beta, at this time. Accordingly, some users (myself included) recommend the GTK-based, Synaptic package manager as a GUI package manager even for KDE systems.

Where can I download a kubuntu kernel?

I'd strongly recommend installing the whole shebang. One reason is that Debian (and derivatives like *buntu) are very strictly in compliance with the Linux File System Guidelines. I'm not familiar with Gentoo's file system, but I know that Red Hat and Mandr* derivatives are different. Therefore you might find yourself forced to recompile everything any way in order to make the Gentoo tools work in Kubuntu.

Also, in order to install a Kubuntu kernel, (which is actually an Ubuntu kernel), you'd have to install, at the very least, the packaging system and probably a lot of other tools at well. If you don't want either KDE, Gnome, or XFCE, I'd recommend installing the "Ubuntu Server Edition" which, I believe (I may be wrong) has no GUI but a good set of command line stuff.