[Malvern] SourceMage

[Gerard P. Howells]

Hello all,

I Just installed Source Mage on an old G3 iMac and in a VMWare virtual 
machine on my main box and I must say I thoroughly enjoyed it.  It is 
kind of like a cross between binary-based distros like SUSE, 
Debian/Ubuntu and Mandriva and source-based behemoth Gentoo.  In more 
detail its a source-based distribution with a text-mode installer 
similar to Debian or Slackware and a source based package management 
tool similar to Gentoo's "Portage".  The up-sides are it doesn't take 
days and days to install (like Gentoo) and it retains the fastness of a 
source-based distro where everything is compiled to match your 
hardware's specific requirements.  It uses some neat terminology too 
with software installs being referred to as "Spell" which you "cast", 
there is an ncurses front-end to what they call "sorcery" (their package 
management tool, like apt for Debian) which is a little like aptitude 
for Debian/Ubuntu.  Just thought some of you may want to give it a shot 
as it seems like a happy medium between the simplicity of installing 
Fedora or SUSE and the sheer commitment (and about 16 hours) required to 
complete a Gentoo install.


Gerard.