some reservations with Gentoo (my first post)

iplaysax · n00b Joined: 20 Jun 2003 Posts: 13

Hello, Gentoo forums! Let me introduce myself briefly: I'm a Linux user of 3 years, and I've installed and used Redhat, Slackware, and Debian Linux distributions, along with FreeBSD. I'm currently running only Debian.

I love Debian's package management system, but the stable packages are extremely out of date. I would love to try Gentoo. However, I have two large reservations, and I was wondering if anyone would respond to these.

1. stability -- I am considering simply doing a Debian "unstable" install on my other disk, rather than use Gentoo. Can anyone offer me any insight as to which one would be easier to manage? I have plenty of time to install Gentoo, but if I'm going to do serious work in it, eventually I want it to just work. That's why I like Debian... if I want software, I type "apt-get install whatever" and I get it. I don't have to fuss with tons of scripts or debug it very often; it just works 99% of the time. What are people's overall (honest) opinions about the stability of Gentoo, especially vs. Debian stable/unstable?

Also, given a choice between an up-to-date binary-based distro vs a source-based distro, I would probably take the binary one. Again, my main concern is stability and reliability. I found that a lot of times, FreeBSD ports didn't install. I had to putz around because a slight change in one port would affect another without the ports being updated accordingly. This required my direct and time-consuming intervention. A FreeBSD sysadmin even wrote an article about this for O'Reilly's website (with the moral that everyone needs to be motivated enough to read the compiler errors/source code and fix these simple problems themselves), so I know that I'm not alone here. Have people had similar experiences with Gentoo?

2. the maturity of the package management system -- First and foremost, I was shocked when I read the following in the portage manual:

"Warning: Unmerging packages can be dangerous. If you remove any core packages your system may cease to function and the removal of various libraries may cause software to fail. Portage does not warn you if you are removing core packages or dependencies for other packages."

Why doesn't Gentoo warn you if you're about to delete package dependencies?! Oftentimes I can't remember myself whether or not something is a dependency. The issue is, I like to keep distributions around for a year or more without installing a new OS. I want something that doesn't take all my time and energy to manage; that's why I like packaging systems. It means I don't have to keep a notebook of everything I installed, along with all its dependencies. The fact that unmerging packages does not check to see if that package is required by another seems like a severe limitation in Gentoo.

Also, even with Debian's ultra-mature apt packaging system, I haven't been satisfied with the tools available by default. There are a lot of features that either do not exist or aren't very prominent in howtos and manual pages.

1. I'd like to be able to make a list of packages that are at the "top level," i.e. no other package requires them. I would consider this package a safe one to delete to free up disk space.

2. A graphical or simple ncurses program to manage packages would be great. Dselect is somewhat complicated, and I've never had the patience to really learn it. Does Gentoo have this sort of a management program?

Thanks for anyone who has the patience to answer these questions! Gentoo looks like a lot of fun, and I'm really looking forward to playing with it!

deepthought

idl · Last edited by idl on Fri Jun 20, 2003 8:53 pm; edited 1 time in total

PowerFactor · Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2003 6:28 pm Post subject:

Hi there iplaysax.
Well, I think deepthought and port001 have answered your questions pretty well, just thought I'd throw in my 2 cents on a couple items. I've never actually used debian, so I cant really compare gentoo to that one. But I have used a few rpm based distros and briefly tried slackware and I think gentoo comares very favorably with those.

ebrostig · Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2003 7:18 pm Post subject:

Welcome iplaysax!

Enjoy the Forums.

I run almost everything unstable, and quite frankly, unless you have some very esoteric hardware, the unstable seems to be stable enough. I run all these unstable packages on my main production PC here at work and have close to zero problems. Ther will always be some minor snags, but overall, I'm extremly happy with stability and speed and the ease of building new applications and keeping my system up to date.

Luckily the Portage system is designed so that you can keep several versions of the same program installed parallell.

Try it and see if you like it. Start with the stable ones first and then move on to the unstable if you feel the need

Use the forums if you have any problems, we normally perform miracles within a few hours

Erik
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iplaysax · n00b Joined: 20 Jun 2003 Posts: 13

Thanks for the responses; they definitely helped. I'm glad gentoo ports tend to compile most of the time, as that was one of my largest concerns. I wasn't expecting a system as stable as Debian; I just don't have time to sit and fuss with it every time I want to try a new newsreader or something. I've actually been eyeing Gentoo for a while now. As soon as my classes die down in a couple of weeks, I'll be giving it a shot. I may even have the added time on my hands to play some of Gentoo's ported video games! Going to Quake III/UT from xpilot will be quite fun. Take care.

Josh