We are captives of our experience(s)

syg00

Having just seen another thread from a pissed off (potential) Gentoo user, I wonder why Gentoo seems to engender so much bitterness.
This ex has gone to Mandrake and is not missed by any I suspect.

Some time ago, when looking to get off RH9, I tried the early Mandrake 10.
It ate my partition table, and caused me to lose 2 systems, and some time to rebuild them.

So I was pissed off with Mandrake (a fix came out the next day), and Toshiba for their crappy recovery system that reformats the entire disk.
Then I came to Gentoo.

I won't go near Mandrake again, and I won't buy Toshiba next time, but I didn't feel the need to go on their fora and piss on all and sundry.
I wonder why Gentoo really rubs some people so bad.

charlieg

idl

S_aIN_t · Guru Joined: 11 May 2002 Posts: 488 Location: Ottawa

because people come to gentoo thinking that it is the greatest disto of all.. and then it doesn't work for them. little do they know that nothing work by magic. everythign requires work and care.. but try to explain that to them..

meh, gentoo is better off without them.
_________________
"That which is overdesigned, too highly
specific, anticipates outcome; the anicipation of
outcome guatantees, if not failure, the
absence of grace."
- William Gibson, "All Tomorrow's Parties"
----
http://petro.tanreisoftware.com

rhill · Posted: Sun Feb 06, 2005 5:25 am Post subject:

one thing gentoo requires is patience. some people just get frustrated when they can't figure something out or something doesn't work the way they expect it to.
_________________
by design, by neglect
for a fact or just for effect

Cintra · Advocate Joined: 03 Apr 2004 Posts: 2111 Location: Norway

Archangel1 · Veteran Joined: 21 Apr 2004 Posts: 1212 Location: Work

I suspect a lot of it is jealousy. The people who are bitter about it typically seem to be fairly clueless and pretty upset that the rest of us can master this system while they can't.
My favourite recently was someone complaining that upon syncing and typing "emerge -u gnome" Portage wanted to update all of gnome's dependencies for him :roll:

It's a pretty typical human reaction; if people can't or won't use something, they don't seem to like other people liking it. Misery loves company I guess ;-)

_________________
What are you, stupid?

lamaistres · Posted: Sun Feb 06, 2005 9:32 am Post subject:

I think it's a few of the new linux users who want to take the leap to a more "advanced" linux distro, but their just not ready to take that leap. They need more time to understand how things work and have the patience to learn how it all comes together.
IMO, gentoo is one of the easiest distros to install and maintain, but I've also been using linux for as long as I can remember. Imagine me installing solaris or windows xp (which I've never used before) and then thinking, why can't I do everything that solaris or windows guy can do? How come I'm getting all these errors and he's not? It take time to understand a new operating system and I don't think they get that.
So, after a couple of weeks they lose patience and focus their frustrations towards the users of the community. Well, that's my theory.

krolden · Posted: Sun Feb 06, 2005 11:53 am Post subject:

mnxAlpha · Apprentice Joined: 15 Sep 2004 Posts: 210

Well, most of the rants appear to have been something like "I'm using a source-based distribution that doesn't do anything automatically, and every time I install software it takes ages to compile, and I actually have to configure things myself! I demand that you make Gentoo more like [name of other distribution / operating system] because that is obviously superior!"

msgyrd · n00b Joined: 15 Jan 2005 Posts: 23 Location: Rolla, MO

I think it lies along the lines of bitterness/jealousy. Most linux users would probably consider themselves smarter than the average computer user. This person feels all big and bad and leet about being able to make fedora run on their computer, and talks condescending to "lesser" windows users. This person then hears about gentoo, the ultimate linux experience (next to LFS), tries it out, and then they realize, "wtf, it doesn't install in 20 minutes?" and "this is stupid, it doesn't work on my box without some configuration."

I assume this person's ego feels pretty shitty when they first come to gentoo, they have to humble themselves to ask for help for the first time. Or, because of the easy way of things in rh or mandrake, they really don't know how linux works, they just use it as a windows substitute to feel superior. I think it's the ego that causes the bitterness towards gentoo, it makes them feel less superior.

Granted, there are probably many people who get disenchanted with gentoo because of impatience, or, they actually need something that gets up and running quick. [/u]
_________________
"If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there." -Lewis Carroll

truekaiser · l33t Joined: 05 Mar 2004 Posts: 801