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Angrychile
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 04, 2013 4:02 am    Post subject: From Gentoo to Ubuntu...then back to Gentoo Reply with quote

I was going to start this in OTW, but after forgetting to reply to my old post and realizing that this fits better here, I'll post it here.

About in 2010 or 2011, I was really happy with gentoo and but I wanted something different. Portage tends to move slower than some other repos out there (for good reason) and I wanted in on newer builds of some apps. Moreover, I was tired of the long compiling times...well, no I wasn't tired, but for the long times, the speed boost and the control through use flags, for me, didn't compensate for the time cost (at least in my calculus then). I just wanted things to work just well enough, and perhaps, try new stuff without having to make it work. I decided that if I really wanted control in some package (rarely cared about this for libraries), I could easily make a prefix and compile it myself.

So, I left gentoo and used, here it comes, ubuntu. I've been using ubuntu for the last...two years, I guess?

It actually wasn't that bad. I actually don't mind unity too much (unlike some, I guess), but apt, God, that shit is terrible. Okay, I know it's all my opinion, but apt and dpkg are terrible tools. I could never really get used to using them, so I basically relied on the GUI (Ubuntu Software Center) to install most of the things I needed.

Lately, I've been playing with stuff, ppas, and now my laptop is in a terrible state. I could try to fix it, but I don't have the time. The thing is with ubuntu, it feels like a black box, when things break, it's hard to figure out what to do. With gentoo, for some reason, it felt like I knew almost everything. I knew what broke this and what broke that and how to fix it. revdep-rebuild does wonders! For my Ubuntu system, I've reverted it (removed ppas using the tools that are supposed to clean up) and reinstalled (I think?) the old versions but it's still broken! :evil: From this hiatus, I've realized how great portage and tools like eix and portage-utils are.

So, here I come back. I'm still brushing around some stuff (certain wireless issue), but the second I chroot'ed from my ubuntu partition and saw that red hostname prompt, it was like being greeted by an old friend. A first love is hard to forget (I installed this guy back in 2004 when I was 14) and just seeing that was a neat moment that brought back nostalgia. It feels good to be back.

Gentoo, may we never separate again.
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fpemud
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 04, 2013 5:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Gentoo is complex.
But it's not the complexity of gentoo, it's the intrinsic complexity of the unix system.
There's no way to substantially lower it.

All the other distros are trying to do this mission impossible.
So there must be redundant layers and corner cases, the result is a system which is even more complex.
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Yamakuzure
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 04, 2013 11:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

You made the one and only mistake with ubuntu: You tried something ... individual. ;) Welcome back to Gentoo, where the individual rules! ;)
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shazeal
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 04, 2013 5:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The black hole is the same way I feel about binary distros as a whole. They tend to do better if you just set them up and leave them the hell alone. I think it comes more from the fact that Gentoo actually tempts you to learn how its innards work, where as binary distros just require you to learn apt-get install or whatever.

One thing I have learned with any binary distro is if you want to run newer software, do not install from some ppa or whatever. Create a gentoo chroot, install all your new fangled stuff in there and then realise you may as well have just installed Gentoo in the first place ;)
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Yamakuzure
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 05, 2013 9:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

shazeal wrote:
One thing I have learned with any binary distro is if you want to run newer software, do not install from some ppa or whatever. Create a gentoo chroot, install all your new fangled stuff in there and then realise you may as well have just installed Gentoo in the first place ;)
You know, that might be just the idea I needed to plant into my co-workers heads. Maybe I can convert them this way. ("Oh, no problem, you can try it out rather simply. Here is the handbook, just make yourself a gentoo chroot and experiment there. (*gnahaha*)") ;)
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