Free gentoo software for linux

Gentoo Linux, a special flavor of Linux that can be automatically optimized and customized for just about any application or need. Extreme configurability, performance and a top-notch user and developer community are all hallmarks of the Gentoo experience.
Thanks to a technology called Portage, Gentoo Linux can become an ideal secure server, development workstation, professional desktop, gaming system, embedded solution or something else -- whatever you need it to be. Because of its near-unlimited adaptability, we call Gentoo Linux a metadistribution.
Portage is the heart of Gentoo Linux, and performs many key functions. For one, Portage is the software distribution system for Gentoo Linux. To get the latest software for Gentoo Linux, you type one command: emerge --sync.
This command tells Portage to update your local "Portage tree" over the Internet. Your local Portage tree contains a complete collection of scripts that can be used by Portage to create and install the latest Gentoo packages. Currently, we have more than 8000 packages in our Portage tree, with new ones being added all the time.
Portage is also a package building and installation system. When you want to install a package, you type emerge packagename, at which point Portage automatically builds a custom version of the package to your exact specifications, optimizing it for your hardware and ensuring that the optional features in the package that you want are enabled -- and those you dont want arent.
Portage also keeps your system up-to-date. Typing emerge -u world -- one command -- will ensure that all the packages that you want on your system are updated automatically.
Portage will keep your Gentoo Linux system as "up-to-date" as you desire. And because of this, experienced Gentoo users dont pay too much attention to "new versions" of Gentoo Linux -- after all, the latest and greatest version of Gentoo Linux is always available by typing an emerge --sync command.
Theres no need to wait several months for a "new version" of Gentoo Linux to be released because Gentoo Linux is continually updated and refined and these improvements are immediately made available to you.
Main features:
- Support for x86, AMD64, PowerPC, UltraSparc, Alpha and MIPS processors
- LiveCD-based installation for x86, AMD64, PowerPC, UltraSparc and Alpha
- Latest stable KDE and GNOME
- Various optimized Linux kernels
- Very modern GNU development environment
- Excellent filesystem support: ReiserFS, XFS, ext3, EVMS, LVM
- Excellent hardware support: NVIDIA, Creative Labs Live! and Audigy
- Modular OpenGL and compiler sub-system (supports multiple co-existing versions)
- Clean, dependency-based system initialization scripts
- New "hardened" Gentoo security initiative
- more than 8000 packages of the latest and greatest software
- Enhanced Portage capabilities
It all began with Extra Time. Time to explore, Time to discover, Time to experiment. Thats how the creator of Gentoo, Daniel Robbins stepped into the world of Linux. He started with Debian Linux, setup a couple of applications, learnt the ins & outs of Linux and as most Linux users do, tried out a couple of distributions and settled to help out with a distro called Stampede Linux.
Soon he was into Stampede development and working on their package management system. After a period of time and due to certain issues, he moved on and decided that he would create his own distribution.
Thus, Enoch was born. Daniel wanted Enoch to be a blazingly fast distro with capabilities to completely automate the package creation and upgrading process. Soon there was a #enoch on irc.freenode.net and 10 developers helping with the distro. Over a period of time, as Enoch started improving, they felt that it needed a new name.
They called it Gentoo Linux. Around about the time Gentoo was moving to its 1.0 release, Daniel bought a new, fast machine. The motherboard model had a faulty chip that caused Linux to lock up when idle and because of that, Gentoo Linux development came to a complete halt.
Since there wasnt anything going on with Gentoo, Daniel switched to FreeBSD. He liked what he saw. Especially the "Ports" system. And he returned to the Linux world. Along with the help of other developers like Achim Gottinger, Gentoo was back on track & charging ahead.
The whole package management system was redesigned & called Portage. Gentoo has been in active development ever since, with tons of features being continually added over the years. Teams of volunteers help keep Gentoo on the bleeding edge and patched to ensure maximum security & stability.
The Gentoo development model was extended with a complete project-based approach where each project develops independently but cooperatively with other Gentoo projects. Regular meetings between the project leads (called "project managers") keep the development high-paced. The Gentoo Foundation has been created to provide financial caretaking, juridical protection and oversee general Gentoo development to keep it in line with the Social Contract.
In April 2004, Daniel decided to resign from his development responsibilities within Gentoo. We are all very grateful for all the work that Daniel has put in Gentoo and wish him the best.
Gentoo still continues to grow, evolve and improve itself - new projects are added, new developers are joining, new packages are added every day. The Gentoo developer and user community is undoubtedly Gentoos strongest value.
Enhancements:
- After several delays, the Gentoo Release Engineering team is proud to announce the release of Gentoo Linux 2007.0, code named Secret Sauce. This release includes a completely rewritten version of the Gentoo Linux Installer on the AMD64 and x86 live CD and live DVD images. It also includes GNOME 2.16.2, KDE 3.5.5, Xfce 4.4, Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.3, OpenOffice.org 2.1.0, and the 2.6.19 Linux kernel. Updated hardware support is among the highlights of the x86 release. Besides the many updated office and productivity packages x86 also brings an update to glibc 2.5. On amd64 you can enjoy updated 32-bit emulation libraries improving support for many closed source applications and browser plugins.

Gentoo Category Select is a graphical tool for selecting Gentoo Package Categories to exclude from your local package repository.

It does so by weaning information from multiple directories and files for convenience, as well as providing warning about categories that should not be excluded due to currently installed packages.

This is achieved without the addition of a configuration file. Currently only the Qt front-end is finished. It is modularly designed for ease in creating front-ends based on other toolkits.

The advantages are saved disk space (small/MMV), quicker rsync time (small/MMV), and a lessening of bandwidth requirements by gentoo.org and its mirrors.

With Sonys recent introduction of the PS3, you can now run Linux on it as well as use it as a gaming console. The PlayStation3 is based on a Cell processor and therefore can run most of the ppc64 64ul or 32ul binaries without change. As of now, the kernel does differ.

This project page is commited to Linux running on the PS3. Here you will find all kinds of information related to Gentoo for the PS3, Cell processors, toolchains, and the Gentoo LiveCD for PS3 and PowerMacs.

The latest Livecd is very close to working. Join us on IRC for the latest. To wet your appetite, check out nickthecooks screenshot of the livecd working. Notice the full gnome desktop. You can also see a hi-res screen shot of the gnome-desktop here.
With the right equipment and a little hack (soon), the PS3 should boot into high resolution and include among other things:

- Full gnome desktop 2.16.x
- Sound support with audacious and rythmbox
- Firefox 2 and thunderbird, evolution, epihany, seamonkey

gentoo splash theme chooser is a gentoo application to choose a gensplash theme.

You can choose a theme and it it will make a symlink from this theme to default in /etc/splash.

After that it mounts /boot and does the following command:

splash_geninitramfs -v -g /boot/fbsplash -r resolution default

It does not touch grub.conf

There is a Readme included with an example grub.conf and further information. For me it is a handy tool and I hope it will help other gentoo user too.

Free60 Gentoo LiveCD Xenon is a liveCD for Linux on the Xbox 360. It is based on the experimental gentoo liveCD that can be found here:
http://gentoo.mirrors.pair.com/experimental/ppc64/livecd/
It has a few changes to boot on the Xbox 360 (codename xenon).
How does it work ?
Burn gentoo-livecd-xenon-beta-v2.iso. Upload the cdreader binary via serial, or use the new king kong patcher with built-in readcd code, this will open the dvd tray. Put the gentoo-livecd-xenon-beta CD in the drive. cdreader will automatically start the xell bootloader located at lba 0x20 on this cd and boot the Linux Kernel.
Thanks to stonersmurf for the compilation of the liveCD.
Where to find more info on Linux for Xbox 360 :
http://www.free60.org/
Free60 is a project towards porting GNU/Linux, BSD, Darwin and related open-source operating systems to the Microsoft Xbox 360 video game console.
Microsoft, Xbox, Xbox360 (and probably some more) are registered trademarks by Microsoft Corp. No affiliation between the Free60 Project and Microsoft Corp. exists or is implied. All other trademarks and copyrights are property of their respective owners.
The new Live CD supports all Xbox 360 consoles with firmware versions 4532 and 4548 and can be run without affecting the consoles normal functionality. It contains the latest free60 patches against the Linux kernel 2.6.21 and ships with a full Gnome desktop environment, including applications like Firefox and Evolution. It also offers an entire 64-bit PowerPC compiler toolchain for developers.
Free60 is a project towards porting GNU/Linux, BSD, Darwin and related open-source operating systems to the Microsoft Xbox 360 video game console.
Enhancements:
- New 2.6.21 based kernel
- Improved networking support
- Improved framebuffer kernel level support
- Supports Toshiba-Samsung drives, now

Pentoo is a Linux LiveCD, it means that you can boot a linux environment on any x86 based PC.
It is like KNOPPIX except that Pentoo is based on the Gentoo distribution and is oriented penetration testing. You can view the list of all available tools here .
Well, I know there is already many liveCD that provide penetration testing and so on, but they dont suit my needs. In fact, during a pen-test lab, I found the other LiveCD so slow...
I like Gnome and Gentoo so I decided to make my own distro and there it is.
Main features:
- Nessus, Metasploit and Fingerprints db upgradable ! You can put them in RAM or on a usb stick.
- You can save the root directory to a usbstick and backup all your preferences, etc.
- It is faster : based on the Gentoo distribution, all the code as been optimized. I choosed to optimize the code for pentium3 cpu as I think that intel based cpu are more used than AMDs ones. Of course, this will not break the compatibility with AMD proc, it will just run faster on pentium-3 or 4 CPUs.
- Analyser : Dsniff, Ethereal, Ettercap, Ntop, ...
- Bluetooth : BlueSniff, Redfang, ...
- Cracker / Bruteforce : Hydra, Ldapenum, John the ripper, chntpw, ...
- Fingerprinter : Amap, xprobe, smtpmap, p0f2, ...
- Forging / Spoofing : Arpspoof, Hunt, Packit, ...
- Pen-Test / MITM : Metasploit, Raccess, Cisco-Torch, WebMitm, ...
- Proxy : HttPush, Paros Proxy, ...
- Scanner : Nessus, Nmap, Nikto, Cheops, ...
- Wireless : Kismet, Airsnort, Wellenreiter, ...
Checksums:
SHA-160 EF4AB7F94294860BAAEDBEB96F002F916F31506F
MD5 21E9280DC3BBB2C7AFAD3D7F0917B091

etc-proposals is a gentoo configuration file updater, that, unlike etc-update and dispatch-conf, provides a shell with tabcompletion, a Gtk2 and a Qt4 frontend and allows updating of selected fileparts while providing a lot of automatization.
Main features:
- lean dependancies - only Python and readline for the basic version
- the ability to accept certain changes to a file, while dismissing others
- the ability to accept/dismiss all changes to a file/dir
- the ability to review decisions before they are merged
- dynamical recalculation of changes (i.e. if on update proposes to change a line and is accepted, the user wont be asked again, if a second update proposes the same)
- the ability to undo decisions, if they are not yet merged into the filesystem
- the ability to review decisions, before they are merged into the filesystem
- merging of changes to the configuration files is not done on a file-by-file basis, but can be triggered at any time.
- remembering of unmodified configuration files for automatic merging
- speedup by cacheing (new in version 1.0)
- almost packetmanager-agnostic (portage, pkgcore currently)
- keeps decisions on proposed changes, even if the tool is stopped
Enhancements:
- Various stability fixes.
- Support for scanning modification of all config files.
- The filesystem is represented as a tree in the GUI.