I'm leaving gentoo (sick of it)

[Red Moose]

[nybbles]

I left Gentoo like 3 weeks ago, to OpenSUSE. I came back after 1 week.
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oo oo aah aah

[tanderson]

Yes, sometimes you need a bit of perspective to re-realize that Gentoo is da' Best.

I came to Gentoo from OpenSuSE and marveled at how clean everything was.

The fact that people always come back leads to the saying,

[BorgDrone2]

Left Gentoo about a month ago for Debian. Wouldn't dream of going back. I've got better things to do with my time than compile, revdep-rebuild, rinse, repeat.

[jonnevers]

[Spicerun]

[quote="turtles"]

[Vlad.Sharp]

Having tried most popular alternatives to Gentoo (OpenSUSE, Mandriva, Fedora, Debian/Ubuntu/etc., Slackware) - you realise that while the Gentoo process of installation is perhaps the most annoying and most "work-involving" in the day-to-day usage, it's still one of the better alternatives if you're looking to do some programming or increase your machine's security.

Compare how easy it is to do a LUKS install on Gentoo to that of Fedora Core (for example) (and disregarding the current development of Fedora Core 7 integration) - there's all those devel packages, and well - you wouldn't really want to build everything by hand using the (make, make install, make clean, rm )process. Portage is simply amazing - write a short ebuild - and you're done! That said, if you just want to have a good install out of the box - then Kubuntu/Xubuntu do that just fine (run a couple of those on the slower computers).

[red-wolf76]

[pandaxiongmao]

My system is rock solid now (dvd playback + burning, alsa, cups, graphics, etc,) except some minor issue of being unable to put the whole thing to hibernate mode as regular user. Sometimes one has to resist the temptation that came from portage (if it ain't broken, don't fix it) in order to avoid the possibilty of breaking the whole thing, becomes frustrated & quits in the end. Of course, it doesn't apply to all users because risk takers (those who love to experiment with their system) are necessary in order to produce a stable environment by testing the softwares.
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CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo
GPU: nVidia GeForce 9800 GT
MB: Asus P5N-E SLI

[nixnut]

[jonnevers]

[rndusr]

[Phosphor]

Just thought I would post my two cents, even though I'm somewhat of a dinosaur. I've been using Linux a long time now, since redhat 5.0 and the 0.32 kernel I believe it was. I've used RH, SuSe, slackware, Mandrake(before it was madrivia or whatever),debian, and corel(beta tester). Admittedly I have not tried any of the ten million new flavours out there, however I have tried recent versions of SuSe, Mandrivia, and RH and Debian. I recently decided to try Gentoo as a developer friend turned me on to it, knowing I had given up on any of the big Linux distributions, he seemed to think I would like a source based system. He was somewhat right, I like thats it source based, but must admit to hating package managers. Because I hate package managers somewhat my linux system fo the last three years has been total custom, not a dist at all, and I must admit that Gentoo of all the distributions I tried is by far the best.

It seems to me after reading some of the negative comments about Gentoo that many people who use a computer just don't weant to know how things work, or why, they just want to point and click. Unfortunately this is the same attitude that empowers bad programming, and allows corporate giants like MS to exist, because if no one wants to know whats going on, or don't care, then sloppyness can always be overcome with sheer power.
I've seen many comments about a computer being a tool, and with other dists you can use that tool right away to be productive. Well I can grab a hammer and maybe nail a few boards together, but unless I take the time to learn to use that tool, well neither my knowledge or ability will change. But if I take the time to learn to use that tool, then there is almost no limit to what can be done with the tool. The fact that Gentoo requires configuration like it does, is a big positive for me and not a negative. After all I don't want someone telling me how to dress, eat, when to sleep etc... why would I want someone to decide that for my computer and my operating system.

Anyway just my two cents. On the lighter side for those of you wishing your linux system was more like windows, you can always go to
http://www.linuxgenuineadvantage.org/

[gerard27]

Thanks for the link Phosphor.
I quite agree with you.
Long live Gentoo!
Gerard.

[justincataldo]

I keep coming back to Gentoo as well. I like SuSE as well. But the emerge system is just so neat and easy! Installing and upgrading software on other distros seems really tedious since I've discovered portage.

[andyandrews35]

My experience with Gentoo was kind of like an electric fan started on its slowest speed, tough at first. Now that I'm spun up, I feel like a flywheel going at top speed.

[batistuta]

guys, this threads are only useful if they provide some constructiveness, something that devs can use to improve Gentoo. But forcing Gentoo to become like distro XXX is not going anywhere.
As someone pointed out above, everyone should realize what he needs, and then find the distro that meets that requirement. Saying that distro X is better or Gnome is better tha KDE or Fluxbox rocks is always a matter of needs.

I would like to contribute with some thinking here:
- Windows, and easy distros like Ubuntu are easy to setup, but when problems come up, they are harder to fix due to the inherit automatism. Gentoo is harder to setup, but it remains quite solid. I think in the end you invest about the same amount of time. On Gentoo, you invest it in the begining. On easy distros or Windows during the maintainance phases.

For those complaining about compilation time, I strongly encourage you to try ArchLinux. In my opinion it combines the conveniency of binaries, with the granularity of Gentoo. Unless you are an active dev who needs to tweak the sources with patches, or very specific packages, then ArchLinux truly rocks. I wish Gentoo and Arch merged somehow, in a way that Gentoo could use Arch's binaries

Another warning for people switching to Ubuntu: Gentoo forums have spoiled you like a rich kid. Gentoo community is full of talented people willing to help. They answer your problem to the point. You get things solved. On the other hand, with Ubuntu, people are not always that skilled and when searching for an anwer, you need to go through lots of posts that simply don't add any valuable information. Gentoo's community is one of the best assets of this distro.

And there's nothing wrong with leaving Gentoo. It probably means that your goals and priorities in life have changed, which is not necesarily a bad thing. If Gentoo doesn't bring you anything anymore, good luck with your new distro.

[red-wolf76]

[rambam]

[saboya]

I like Gentoo a lot. Before Gentoo I only tried out Debian, which is fine too but it doesn't suit me because it's too conservative, and I end up having to compile a lot of stuff. Since it's not a source-based distro, it's annoying to set up a compiling environment.

Gentoo to me seems to be the perfect balance between bleeding-edge and stability. I only installed Gentoo once, and since it's my first install, I've done a lot of shitt here (eg switching between x86/~x86) and I've had very few problems, and I solved them pretty quickly by just searching the documentation or the forum.

The only thing that bothers me is broken ebuilds... Mono-basic doesn't compile here, and I've recently had a problem compiling amanith also:

[red-wolf76]

If that's your first mono install, I don't know what's causing it. But if you are upgrading, try uninstalling the old version first. It worked for me.
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0mFg, G3nt00 r0X0r$ T3h B1g!1111

Use sane CFLAGS! If for no other reason, do it for the lulz!

[erm67]

[metacircular-evaluator]

I have a question to all the "I am happy to get every day a new version of a package" people here:

Why do you need the newest and the most actual versions of your programs, please?

I am really curious, this is not a trolling question.

Because i know the "other side" where people use 15 year old programs AND (this is the logical operator here)
are productive and "happy" with it - as long as some person can be happy with a piece of software -.

In my opinion this "every day a new version" in Gentoo is the biggest flaw in this great distro.
Because there has to be a place where things - in our case here packages - have to be static to get more
stabilising on them. In all the software world this is the way things are developed, may it be the proprietary world,
may it be the free SW world. There is a dev branch of things - for experimenting - and then there is a stable
branch.

I read yesterday planet gentoo and from some days ago there was a post in which a dev wrote that he just "bumped a
version" of a package.

If I would go Monday to the people I work with and just tell them I had bumped the Version of z/OS up they would
literally kill me.

For me the "technology" of portage that someone can tweak the system literally down to the drivers is a very
interesting thing. In the business out there every SW - such as Baan, Tivoli and SAP - has to be very customizable:
But there is because of the proprietary nature a barrier where the customization has to stop. But Gentoo people
drove this barrier to the "eternety" : You can make all things custom what is in the system.
Great, really great.
But Baan, SAP, WebSphere and z/OS have a point where they are stable: They stay at this point of development and only
bug fixing occur. THIS is unfortunately not existing in Gentoo.

Just yesterday I untarred the stage3(the 2007.0 version) and portage for a "chroot installation" of Gentoo: Let's look what updates to really
important system packages he wants to make

[PaulBredbury]

[red-wolf76]