DSM-G600, DNS-3xx and NSA-220 Hack Forum

Stampeed · 2007-09-12 21:04:35

For those out there who've taken the dive into installing Gentoo or Debian on your DSM-G600, which do you prefer and why?

I know there are fundamental differences in package mgmt between the two, but other than that:

Is it mostly just your background experience with one or the other?
Is there some feature that one distro provides that you find very useful?

sala · 2007-09-13 09:35:05

Debian is good choice if you want it quickly done. Its not designed for embedded device and thats why it takes much more memory space. There's also emdebian project but there's only very few packages available and you may need to make some of on your own.

Gentoo installation that we are using is designed for embedded devices and thats why its runs faster and eats less memory.

You could read this page: http://www.tomvergote.be/writings/Linux … nment.html
There are some basic things about these two distros.

cwilson · 2007-09-14 23:04:43

I tried both, and ended up using gentoo -- and if I had any previous bias it was marginally in favor of debian: My linux desktop is Mandriva, and I've used a debian derived distro on a previous embedded project. (And frankly, in general I'm opposed to source-based distros like gentoo. I want to USE my computer, not sit around for a week watching it finish doing a 'make world')

The main reason I chose gentoo is described here:
http://dns323.kood.org/forum/p4890-2007 … html#p4890

Mainly, I found that debian/sid doesn't work with the 2.4.21-pre4 kernels we're using. I could have tried debian/etch (or maybe even sarge) but I didn't want to spend that much time messing around. Also, since I need to compile some specific, custom software to run on the box -- not just well-known open source packages -- I knew that at the VERY least, a gentoo installation would have a working native compiler...so I'd always have a fallback to compile my software, without needing to worry about possible mis-configurations in a cross-compile setup.

OTOH, compiling samba using the native compiler on a 200MHz ppc processor ran all night...

dpavlin · 2007-09-30 00:58:45

cwilson wrote:
Mainly, I found that debian/sid doesn't work with the 2.4.21-pre4 kernels we're using. I could have tried debian/etch (or maybe even sarge) but I didn't want to spend that much time messing around. Also, since I need to compile some specific, custom software to run on the box -- not just well-known open source packages -- I knew that at the VERY least, a gentoo installation would have a working native compiler...so I'd always have a fallback to compile my software, without needing to worry about possible mis-configurations in a cross-compile setup.

While I do agree with your argument, I have to point out that Debian etch works just fine:

Code:

Debian GNU/Linux comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent
permitted by applicable law.
dlink-ADE117:~# uname -r
2.4.21-pre4
dlink-ADE117:~# cat /etc/debian_version 
4.0

This is sala's firmware and Debian etch in chroot jail, and output is from ssh session which ends up on busybox. YMMV, but ask for help if needed.

DSM-G600, DNS-3xx and NSA-220 Hack Forum

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#1 2007-09-12 21:04:35

debian or gentoo, what's your preference and why?

#2 2007-09-13 09:35:05

Re: debian or gentoo, what's your preference and why?

#3 2007-09-14 23:04:43

Re: debian or gentoo, what's your preference and why?

#4 2007-09-30 00:58:45

Re: debian or gentoo, what's your preference and why?

cwilson wrote:

Code:

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