[wellylug] Not everyone pleased with new Mandrake renaming/release schedule

[Bret Comstock Waldow]

On Wed, 23 Mar 2005 16:00, Brent Wood wrote:

> Anyone have any comments on emerge? So far that is missing from the mix :-)

I have had very good success with Gentoo, portage, and emerge.

This is a comparison thread, so my background is that I ran the .9 series 
kernels in the early '90s, then skipped to SuSE 5.x - 7.3, then Red Hat 7.3, 
8, & 9, then began using Debian looking to avoid the problems of the .rpm 
format.

SuSE was very good if I only wanted to install software that came with the 
distro, but I often want scientific software outside the mainstream, and 
finding packages that would fit successfully usually turned into a nightmare.  
I had the same experience with Red Hat  This was before urpmi &such - I 
haven't used them, although I have some recent experience with apt-get & 
Synaptic on Red Hat Enterprise AS 3.

Debian was a dream by comparison.  A large number of packages provided by a 
large community of users.  I quickly began using aptitude, and occasionally 
ran into dependency problems, but generally could sort them out.  Not 
completely.  The backports to Woody were very helpful, but that did leave me 
dependent on someone backporting and packaging them for me..

Gentoo has been the best of all.  The ebuild package system is simply a file 
describing the original tar.gzip file, plus any patches, plus any pre- and 
post- install set up steps, plus the dependencies.  They can be written badly 
as can any package format, but they are in close to plain text and can be 
read and corrected in the rare event.  I have modified one proposed ebuild 
file myself to get it to work on software I wanted on our server at work when 
I could only find a proposed ebuild for it.

It is possible to treat Gentoo like Woody or SuSE - just use it, stay within 
it's boundaries and be happy.  By using a stage 3 install with packages, I 
can have a running, useable system in 2 hours (less than half an hour with a 
scheme someone posted on the Gentoo forum).  Upgrades are as easy as Woody 
(and Woody is notably better than SuSE in my experience).

If I want to do anything outside of the delivered distro, Gentoo shines.  I 
can pare down the libraries to only the ones I need for my chosen window 
manager.  I can set optimizations for the hardware I have, get performance 
tailored to my situation, and avoid the burden of sub-systems I don't have 
any need to load into RAM.

I have had trouble installing Java packages due to designating JDK1.5 as 
default while many packages still rely on 1.4 semantics.  I have had problems 
due to changed in my USE flags (my description of the options I want my 
system set to handle).  I have had fewer and more fixable problems with 
Gentoo than with any of the other distros I have tried.

And the kicker for me - almost ALL of the knowledge I use in getting Gentoo to 
do what I want is general purpose GNU/Linux knowledge - useable in many other 
situations.  I abandoned Red Hat for that reason.  Rather than relying on the 
community approach of fixing bugs in the stream of updates, Red Hat pulls 
fixes out and patches whatever old kernel they delivered with that version 
originally.  I realized the skills and understanding I was gaining to fix Red 
Hat and SuSE problems was applicable to Red Hat and SuSE alone - I might as 
well have stayed with Window$ if I wanted to become an expert in proprietary 
software.

Gentoo is excellent.  I am going to learn no matter which distro I work with.  
With Gentoo, the knowledge I pick up is generally about GNU/Linux, rather 
than about making up for the weaknesses of someone else's chosen approach.  
(I think they meant well, but it doesn't always work out.)

I recommend Debian based distros - Xandros for people that only want an 
appliance, Libranet, Knoppix, etc for more adventurous folks.  They work 
well.  I recommend Gentoo to anyone that is willing to work out problems to 
get what they want - what you learn is worth knowing.

Most of the time it just works, though.

Regards,
Bret
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