portage overlays ??

[Michael Cooley]

I've had a chromebook for a week. I've downloaded and used crouton but I prefer not to use it, preferring to use the shell. I've put the machine in dev mode and have issued the emerge command to download some files. However, there are files that are available from the gentoo repository that would help me. Their wiki for overlay explains how to set an overlay up over the portage files. I've created the needed directory in /usr/local and the entry in the repository.conf file. The next step is unclear to me. How do I invoke usage of the repository itself.

Without perl and my preferred editor, ChromeOS is useless to me. I might as well do a fresh linux install over the Chrome OS image. 

Thanks for any help.

[Mike Frysinger]

the build directions are meant to be used with a full CrOS source checkout, not for using on the device itself.  it's not easy to build code on the Chromebook itself.  you'd instead install a distro in a chroot like Crouton.

-mike

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[Michael Cooley]

Thanks, Mike, but I'm not interested in crouton. I'm more interested in your statement that "it's not easy to build code on the Chromebook itself," which suggests that it can be done. All I want is perl and my favorite text editor, but I'm willing to start with some low level stuff.

[Mike Frysinger]

the biggest hurdle you're going to run into is disk usage -- the CrOS SDK takes multiple gigs

i don't know what it is you dislike about Crouton, but you don't need to run it as a dedicated/sep GUI session.  you can simply chroot into it directly from your shell in CrOS.

note that perl itself does not cross-compile well.  its build system is a huge pile of legacy poop.

i'm not sure which editor is your favorite, but we provide nano/vim/qemacs prebuilts for all devices ...

-mike

[Michael Cooley]

I've used joe (Joe's Own Editor) since 1994. I hate vi but should learn emacs, but not now. Nano would work for the time-being but I've not been able to download it with emerge: emerge app-editors/nano doesn't work. The only editor listed in /usr/local/portage/packages/app-editors is qemacs.

I'd still like help in configuring a gentoo overlay.

There are simply too many layers to use crouton: Ctr-Alt-T, Shell, the command that brings up ubuntu. (Which I now see is gone thanks to my latest dev install, which is another reason to dislike it.) And it's not integrated with the chrome interface, which is good as far as it goes. All I need is the browser and a terminal that will access ssh, perl, and an editor I like. Simple enough, it would seem.

I bought this Asus chromebook for only one reason: none of my searches came up with anything else that had a 32 gig SSD (no HD!) and 4GB RAM for a decent price. When I read the Chrome is built over Linux, it seemed like a winner. But I'm having second thoughts.

If you can help me install nano, that'll be a step in the right direction.

-Michael

[Selden Deemer]

Michael : Why not install crouton to autostart? I have an old Samsung S5 Chromebook set up this way:

1. Start Chromebook
   
2. Login using Google login/password (config option; you can bypass Chrome OS login, but this option allows access to ~/Downloads from Linux)
   
3. Chromebook automatically switches to Linux without opening crosh terminal window

See: Autostart crouton chroot at ChromeOS startup

[Michael Cooley]

Yes, I considered that but then read that updating the dev install causes crouton to disappear--and maybe other problems, I think I read.

[Michael Cooley]

Okay. I've decided to to the following for now. I installed the crouton core and then installed the crouton extension. This gave me a terminal window into which IO can install anything. It's not perfect, but it largely works like any terminal window.

I like this computer too much to ditch it. It perfectly meets my hardware needs. To get something else like it but with a full blown windows system would cost a lot more.