Lunar linux and sourced based distros in general

Fruity · 2010-11-23 12:17:43

Whilst looking for versions of linux that I haven't tried as of yet, I stumbled across Lunar.

Distrowatch:

Lunar is a source based Linux distribution with a unique package management system which builds each software package, or module, for the machine it is being installed on. Though it can take a while to do a complete Lunar installation it's worth it as it tends to be quite fast, once installed! In the beginning Lunar was a fork of Sorcerer GNU Linux (SGL). The fork occurred in late January to early February of 2002 and was originally made up of a small group of people who wanted to collaboratively develop and extend the Sorcerer technology. The original name for the project was Lunar-Penguin but the group decided to re-christen it Lunar Linux while the Lunar-Penguin name has become a sort of umbrella which the team could use if they decide to collaboratively develop something besides Lunar Linux.

Has anyone tried this flavour yet? Might give it a whirl on a VM (compile times on a VM might be a deal breaker though!). Something which strikes me as odd is the fact the forums are closed.. link. I cant find any information as to why this is the case.

Does the community think that sourced based distributions are better than pre-compiled versions? There dont seem to be that many sourced based about, but of those that are they seem to tout speed as a big plus.

Gentoo "Extreme performance, configurability and a top-notch user and developer community are all hallmarks of the Gentoo experience".

Lunar "locally compiling an optimized system tailored toward the users specific needs. This should result in a lean and optimized operating system for example both tout speed as being one of their major plus points".

Is the linux world lazy, and just like the ease of .deb .rpm pacman etc? Because if sourced based is better, then surely there would be more sourced based distros about? So this leads me to think that either potential sourced based bonuses dont outweigh the time it takes to compile, or the linux world is just plain lazy (hardware issues aside as a reason not to used sourced based).

litemotiv · 2010-11-23 12:37:21

Generally, source based is not better, you might be able to squeeze out a 1% performance gain at the cost of weeks of compiling. If you want, you can compile every Arch package manually too, but there is usually no point in doing so. You really have to know what you are doing to get more out of a source-based system than a prepackaged one.

Dieter@be · 2010-11-23 13:53:32

Lunar has always seem like a small project to me, and in mind I associate that with poorly maintained.
If you try it, let us know how it works out, a buddy of mine is (or was?) dev there and kept telling me it's such a great distro

karol · 2010-11-23 13:55:03

For me it's more about customizing my apps - even on my 40 GB HDD there's plenty of space so I'm not too angry about how many dependencies mplayer needs ;P

Arch is only for i686 and 64-bit. If you want to run Arch on i 586 or ARM you are on your own.

lifeafter2am · 2010-11-23 15:46:21

I hated Lunar when I tried it. I thought the way they implemented the package compiling was tedious. Personally, if I was going to go back to a source based distribution again, I would go back to Gentoo, which I used for a little over 6 years.

Bregol · 2010-11-23 17:33:25

I started learning linux using Gentoo, sometime around when kernel patchset wars were going on... love-sources, no-sources, beyond sources. I tried to tweak the compiling process and the kernel to squeeze out what i could (and even now i use the zen kernel). I eventually got sick of compiling everything, especially when it came time for OpenOffice or Firefox or a new KDE release. Overnight update jobs (which also = wasting more power). I do not notice there being any perceivable difference between the speed of gentoo and that of arch. Especially since Arch is a bit more optimized and KISS than many binary distros (i686 as the earliest x86, rather than supporting back to i386 or so...) So with no perceivable difference and no compile time, I think that a binary distro that is done properly has the advantage over a source distro. Especially the case with Arch, where if there were some things you wanted to compile, there is ABS as an option.

ryuslash · 2010-11-24 13:10:33

I've tried it a couple of times, but I've never gotten it to work, always with installing something some dependency couldn't be met because it couldn't be found on the server. Too bad too because I really thought it could be interesting...

Oh well, now I've found arch

SonicSamurai · 2010-11-24 16:58:15

I've also tried it out in vitrualbox but I didn't like it at all. There's almost no documantation, and they even don't have a forum so if you want a source based distro I would stick with gentoo.

Misfit138 · 2010-11-24 18:29:57

ryuslash wrote:

I've tried it a couple of times, but I've never gotten it to work, always with installing something some dependency couldn't be met because it couldn't be found on the server. Too bad too because I really thought it could be interesting...
Oh well, now I've found arch

Same experience here.

I won't call Lunar a bad distro. It has some appeal for a small niche-within-a-niche. However, because of the small size of the project and community, the quality suffers.
I've tried it in the past on the most generic hardware I had at the time and there were always installation issues which turned out to be showstoppers for me.

There are so many distros, yet in my view, there are so few high-quality distros.
Debian (big), Slackware (small), Arch (small), Fedora (big), and Centos (small) are all good, solid distros.
I find once I venture outside of these solid systems, lack of quality and annoying bugs manifest themselves. And even though a project may look intriguing for its innovation or fresh approach, unexpected behavior is to be expected.
YMMV

brebs · 2010-11-25 01:56:36

ryuslash wrote:

some dependency couldn't be met because it couldn't be found on the server.

"The server" is the upstream server, except for small patches.

Less of a problem with e.g. this line in /etc/lunar/local/config:

LRESORT_URL="http://mirrors.kernel.org/gentoo/distfiles"

(Which means "last resort".)

Source-based distros fill the niche for highly-anal maladjusted control freaks, such as I.

Berticus · 2010-11-25 16:54:28

I tried to try Lunar many years ago with no success. In concept it looked like an interesting project though.

If I were to go back to a source based distro, I'd go back to Gentoo. However, IMO the only that's really worth compiling on your own is the kernel and its modules. Some programs you can really tweak to your needs, but most, taking the pre-built stuff is all you need.

lifeafter2am · 2010-11-25 18:34:14

Berticus wrote:

I tried to try Lunar many years ago with no success. In concept it looked like an interesting project though.
If I were to go back to a source based distro, I'd go back to Gentoo. However, IMO the only that's really worth compiling on your own is the kernel and its modules. Some programs you can really tweak to your needs, but most, taking the pre-built stuff is all you need.

For me it wasn't about tweaking my CF_FLAGS to oblivion, it was about the USE flags. A great example is on my system now. I went to run an update the other day, and it showed me 2 packages that I know I don't need, but were dependancies for something else. There is just something about having stuff on my system that I don't need, it just bothers me on some anal control-freak level. lol. I put up with it, because I otherwise like Arch, and am willing to deal with things like that for the quickness of an Arch install.

Of course, I remember doing Stage 1 + NPTL installs, but I also used to have much more free time ...

Arch Linux

#1 2010-11-23 12:17:43

Lunar linux and sourced based distros in general

#2 2010-11-23 12:37:21

Re: Lunar linux and sourced based distros in general

#3 2010-11-23 13:53:32

Re: Lunar linux and sourced based distros in general

#4 2010-11-23 13:55:03

Re: Lunar linux and sourced based distros in general

#5 2010-11-23 15:46:21

Re: Lunar linux and sourced based distros in general

#6 2010-11-23 17:33:25

Re: Lunar linux and sourced based distros in general

#7 2010-11-24 13:10:33

Re: Lunar linux and sourced based distros in general

#8 2010-11-24 16:58:15

Re: Lunar linux and sourced based distros in general

#9 2010-11-24 18:29:57

Re: Lunar linux and sourced based distros in general

#10 2010-11-25 01:56:36

Re: Lunar linux and sourced based distros in general

#11 2010-11-25 16:54:28

Re: Lunar linux and sourced based distros in general

#12 2010-11-25 18:34:14

Re: Lunar linux and sourced based distros in general

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