Re: [SLUG] Amusement for Gentoo nonenthusiasts

From: Bryan J. Smith (b.j.smith@ieee.org)
Date: Tue Dec 07 2004 - 11:27:20 EST


First off, I'd be interested in hearing more of your dependency issues on FC2.
In the rare case the official repositories didn't have something, DAG's always did.

Secondly, the uninstall issue is an issue on about any "ports" distro.
The only way to avoid it is to have a meta-packages list.
And if you're going to have that, you might as well have a file list association.
And by then your already turning it into a "ports" distro. :->

I'm still a _huge_ fan of ports distros.
Linux as a whole is better off with such an offering like Gentoo.
Now it could only shed its "punks." ;->

-- 
Bryan J. Smith (currently mobile)
b.j.smith@ieee.org

-----Original Message----- From: R. Samuel Jose, Jr. Date: 04-12-7 10:48 To: slug@nks.net Subj: Re: [SLUG] Amusement for Gentoo nonenthusiasts

On Mon, 2004-12-06 at 23:39, Chad Perrin wrote: > Levi Bard wrote: > > http://funroll-loops.org/ > > > > For entertainment purposes only. No Gentoo users were harmed in the > > linking of this site. > > Pardon me. I only just now noticed this sitting in my inbox. I know > I'm about a month and change late with this. > > That is HILARIOUS. I know just the Gentoo lover to send the link to: > someone I've known since ninth grade, lo these many (many many) moods ago. > > s/moods/moons/ > > I'm sure he'll have a cow. > > -- > Chad > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > This list is provided as an unmoderated internet service by Networked > Knowledge Systems (NKS). Views and opinions expressed in messages > posted are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the > official policy or position of NKS or any of its employees.

Yeah, yeah, yeah...

I am one of the Gentoo converts, but not for the leet hax0r compile-for-speed reasons. Mainly it was for the ease of updating existing packages and installing new packages.

I cut my teeth on RH 7, and stayed in RH-land through FC2. But rpm-hell resembled DLL-hell too closely, and it was annoying to try to install a new app. I ended up just downloading the source for the apps and their dependencies, and compiling it myself.

So when I looked at Gentoo the first time, I very much liked the emerge world. Plus after the install, I get a real tabula rasa to work with. Further, I learned and continue to learn a lot about things that are under-the-hood.

Yes, there are drawbacks. One being that Gentoo likes to put the config files for various apps in /etc/conf.d. This is a problem, for example, with Tomcat server, which likes it's config file in <tomcat dir>/conf. Although you can tweak things to make it work, but then you have issues with other apps like eclipse and the tomcat plugin.

Also, on my slower boxes, emerging things like gnome or open-office is an all-night-and-part-of-the-day process. But on speedy boxes like amd64, I can have a complete install with desktop manager and apps I want in an afternoon, which isn't too bad.

Also, unmerging doesn't remove dependencies, which is not horrible, but sort of undermines the whole notion of having only the packages you need and nothing else.

So yeah, it's a little more involved to do things the Gentoo way, but I like it, since I often learn something as I go. However, it can be maddening for a new Linux user, since much of the admin is done by hand. My sister wants me to install linux on one of her old boxes, and I will be installing SuSe there since it's pretty newbie-friendly, and it comes with lots o' docs.

Anyway, I'm not trying to slam any other distros. Each distro has its place; I'm just happy with Gentoo these days. :)

Cheers - Rob

----------------------------------------------------------------------- This list is provided as an unmoderated internet service by Networked Knowledge Systems (NKS). Views and opinions expressed in messages posted are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of NKS or any of its employees.

----------------------------------------------------------------------- This list is provided as an unmoderated internet service by Networked Knowledge Systems (NKS). Views and opinions expressed in messages posted are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of NKS or any of its employees.



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