I haven't found anything significant that was available, or more current, in Gentoo than in *buntu and in Mandriva. Better yet, the binary packages work when installed, and I don't get stuck in a dependency upgrade lock because some required file won't build or isn't the right version.
Sigh. We must run such criticism through the JH filter, and see if anything survives. (ie. it could be an email from someone who Just Hates everything he doesn't understand). Thus, if he doesn't like Gentoo, it's possibly because he couldn't get it running, not because it has any flaws. For example:
Nobody should kid themselves that using emerge is anything like building LFS, compiling and installing from a tarball, or the best practice, building your own binary .deb or .rpm files. Those tasks will teach you useful things about your system. Gentoo will just teach you to hate it because it's always broken.
Let's look carefully at the logic here. Logically, this is comparing binary .deb and .rpm scripts with "using emerge".
Not a fair comparison. This is two different classes. Why not compare "creating ebuild scripts" and "building .deb or .rpm"? Emerge is only "always broken" to people who don't know how to fix it, same as anywhere else.
So the true underlying question, having filtered the noise out: If you want to learn useful things about your system, do you want to study source or pre-compiled binaries?
Leaerning "useful things about your system" does not come from installing binary pre-compiled packages, HALF as much as it comes from installing from source. Yes, it's more difficult to master. So?
Gentoo. Smooth, and like a rock. And very very fast, managed by people who know what they're doing.
Look, I know VERY LITTLE, and I'm comfortable with Gentoo. It's not that I know a lot, it's simply that I do not despise what I do not know. Debian is still my favorite, even though it's "always broken." And Suse is what's on my dual-boot box, only because I haven't figured out how to get rid of it without clobbering the Windows partition. And none of these I despise. :)
Oh, and here is what EDOS says about packages. You'll see that "always broken" is not specific to any single flavor of Linux.
http://www.edos-project.org/xwiki/bin/view/Main/PackageOverview
-Jared
On Friday 05 January 2007 12:44, Jonathan Hutchins wrote:
On Friday 05 January 2007 12:09, Jared wrote:
Sigh. We must run such criticism through the JH filter, and see if anything survives.
When facts fail you, fall back to character attacks.
Well, you *were* complaining about Freeciv the other day because you couldn't figure out how to attack people without first declaring war...
On 1/5/07, Jared jared@hatwhite.com wrote:
I haven't found anything significant that was available, or more
current, in
Gentoo than in *buntu and in Mandriva. Better yet, the binary packages
work
when installed, and I don't get stuck in a dependency upgrade lock
because
some required file won't build or isn't the right version.
Sigh. We must run such criticism through the JH filter, and see if anything survives. (ie. it could be an email from someone who Just Hates everything he doesn't understand). Thus, if he doesn't like Gentoo, it's possibly because he couldn't get it running, not because it has any flaws. For example:
Nobody should kid themselves that using emerge is anything like building
LFS,
compiling and installing from a tarball, or the best practice, building
your
own binary .deb or .rpm files. Those tasks will teach you useful things about your system. Gentoo will just teach you to hate it because it's
always
broken.
Let's look carefully at the logic here. Logically, this is comparing binary .deb and .rpm scripts with "using emerge".
Not a fair comparison. This is two different classes. Why not compare "creating ebuild scripts" and "building .deb or .rpm"? Emerge is only "always broken" to people who don't know how to fix it, same as anywhere else.
So the true underlying question, having filtered the noise out: If you want to learn useful things about your system, do you want to study source or pre-compiled binaries?
Leaerning "useful things about your system" does not come from installing binary pre-compiled packages, HALF as much as it comes from installing from source. Yes, it's more difficult to master. So?
Gentoo. Smooth, and like a rock. And very very fast, managed by people who know what they're doing.
Look, I know VERY LITTLE, and I'm comfortable with Gentoo. It's not that I know a lot, it's simply that I do not despise what I do not know. Debian is still my favorite, even though it's "always broken." And Suse is what's on my dual-boot box, only because I haven't figured out how to get rid of it without clobbering the Windows partition. And none of these I despise. :)
Oh, and here is what EDOS says about packages. You'll see that "always broken" is not specific to any single flavor of Linux.
http://www.edos-project.org/xwiki/bin/view/Main/PackageOverview
-Jared
Kclug mailing list Kclug@kclug.org http://kclug.org/mailman/listinfo/kclug
This thread raises a bigger question by where it's gone and NOT examined. The "WHY" a given distro or project gets left so far behind that we have to migrate. Not one of the usual fates of maintainer/s give up- though at the end of my look at this I offer a reason and cure- but an overall query. Absent something so much better coming along that really obsoletes the "FOO" one is migrating from to the "BAR" that is so much better- Why do otherwise workable schemes go west?
One of my best discussion points is asking someone to compare PINE to Thunderbird.
That's going to be a seperate rant.
I have been trying to follow what's being used for logic by the folks in this thread. Some VERY good points on different aspects are being made. Then again- I am able to see both the ubergeek thrill of low level DIY and the comfort that "appliance operation" can bring. Not to deprecate either extreme. just to mention that there's a risk in these threads of polarity. Those who have found a comfortable niche tend to stick in it. And others seek more. I guess a certain bipolar streak defines where my comfort is. There ARE times when riding the bleeding edge of alpha releases can be a kick. Then there's a time for "it just works"
Let's all do our part to make that "just plain works" user experience the default one. I mean- how many of us are feeding back bug info ? A sincere attaboy to those of us who are. And an even more sincere plea- if you are not- start doing so! Because if we do the chances of a distro or concept getting orphaned decreases and these migrations become less frequent.
Oren asks how many of us are filing good bugreports. Just to brag a bit, I filed about twenty bugreports on Mandriva 2007 from my last server build; and I found and filed fixes for every one of them. (Mandriva's a great desktop, but I'm not sure you should use any release that's only been out a couple of months for a server.)
On 1/5/07, Jonathan Hutchins hutchins@tarcanfel.org wrote:
Oren asks how many of us are filing good bugreports. Just to brag a bit, I filed about twenty bugreports on Mandriva 2007 from my last server build; and I found and filed fixes for every one of them. (Mandriva's a great desktop, but I'm not sure you should use any release that's only been out a couple of months for a server.) _______________________________________________ Kclug mailing list Kclug@kclug.org http://kclug.org/mailman/listinfo/kclug
Good work!
Were more of us to do even the reporting part-let alone fixes, think of how fast Linux will improve.
-
Jared -
Jonathan Hutchins -
Luke -Jr -
Oren Beck