Ditching Gentoo

rvandam · n00b Joined: 30 Jan 2019 Posts: 1

After 15 years of using Gentoo, I am giving up! I simply don't have time to run updates every week. If you don't update it at least every 4 months it usually becomes permanently broken, especially if there is a EAPI version change. it would be so bad if:
1. all of the portage dependencies are kept isolated so that the system can always be updated. For instance in the worse case the current base patches could be downloaded and untar'd to get the portage up to date.
2. Stop auto-deleting old packages so that you can roll through them to update your system. Have the time you have go and download a portage snapshot because you need the older packages to update first before you can update to the current package. And don't edit older eBuilds with newer EAPI versions. One week its EAPI 6 and the next the same ebuild is now 7! WTF! Just create a new ebuild for it, so I can update my system!
3. Stop automatically running emerge --sync. Its not in cron or any installed scheduler, but some where buried there is a script that is updating my portage ever 3 or 4 days. I posted this as a bug, and the portage maintainers looks as if I was crazy.

It can take 3 or 20 hours to update a large system with +1000 packages installed depending on which packages get updated. It just madness to attempt to keep it constantly updated. Another annonyance is that the portage system keeps on changing every few years with major folder\config file changes. Unix is been Unix for 40 years. config files go in etc, libraries in \usr\lib, and so on. with Gentoo I have to see where the moved or change configuration settings all over the place. its like playing where's Waldo with portage config settings.

I was a slackware user before Gentoo, and I am leaning going back to slackware or CentOs. I tried Debian\Ubuntu and I cannot stand them (nanny distribution designed to protect novice users from doing anything.

Ant P. · Watchman Joined: 18 Apr 2009 Posts: 6920

pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20067

Split from [SOLVED] Alternatives to gentoo that solve these problems?
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The Doctor · Moderator Joined: 27 Jul 2010 Posts: 2678

crocket · Guru Joined: 29 Apr 2017 Posts: 558

Thoughts for innovations

* A mix of gentoo and nixos
* A linux OS that depends on something like Guix or Nix written in Haskell.

1clue · Advocate Joined: 05 Feb 2006 Posts: 2569

Bye.

Although it's curious how someone was a gentoo user for 15 years and only joins the forum on the day he sends his goodbye rant.

The Main Man · Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2019 8:56 am Post subject:

Anon-E-moose · Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2019 11:17 am Post subject:

I have one box that I haven't updated in a year and a half now. It's my (single purpose) internal webserver, no need to update.

Just because updates are offered, they're not mandatory.
Now it's true one may open themselves up to bugs, but it's still not mandatory to update
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Naib · Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2019 1:01 pm Post subject:

Jaglover · Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2019 1:15 pm Post subject:

Anon-E-moose · Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2019 2:29 pm Post subject:

Irre · Guru Joined: 09 Nov 2013 Posts: 434 Location: Stockholm

I never give up Gentoo. Never ever!

pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20067

The Doctor · Moderator Joined: 27 Jul 2010 Posts: 2678

I used to run a laptop and desktop with similar hardware so they used identical use flags. I would update the desktop and produce binary packages that I would then use ntfs to make available to the laptop. 99% of the time there was no compiling involved on the laptop, so it is very possible.

One item that actually interests me is that the OP said if you leave it 4 months it becomes "permanently broken" yet that clearly isn't the case for Gentoo. Usually people come on the forums looking for help after about 6. Maybe he was using something like Sabayon or another "practically Gentoo so it is Gentoo" distro and their updates where the ones that got dorked up. That could also explain the auto-sync issue.
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Anon-E-moose · Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2019 8:09 pm Post subject:

I'm pretty sure I could update my 1 1/2 year old install of gentoo, if I really needed too ... albeit with some pains.

Although as Naib said, it might be better to install from a new/current stage 3 tarball.
In that case I'd save /var/lib/portage and /etc and install the tarball then do an emerge sync & world
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szatox · Advocate Joined: 27 Aug 2013 Posts: 3129

erm67 · l33t Joined: 01 Nov 2005 Posts: 653 Location: EU

I have been off and on the same gentoo install for my home server for probably 10 years ..... I just clean up the os partition and save it with fsarchiver. I even recovered it after 2 years but that wasn't easy.
Sometimes I just need to try something new, now I am switching to hypriotOS but I will probaly go with docker on alpine as baremetal OS... My old gentoo partition is in a docker container and I use it to create gentoo based containers with kubler, and run them in a docker swarm on 3 arm boards, you know since docker provides swarm mode for free why not use it, it makes an excellent poor man cluster; and everything is administered over the web with portainer. I use alpine for the base os running docker since gentoo musl for arm64 is not functional.......
Does it count as leaving gentoo?

I am actually fancing about a distcc container to emerge in cloud, that would be nice :-)

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Ant P. · Watchman Joined: 18 Apr 2009 Posts: 6920

I imagine this person's problem is that Gentoo requires them to use their brain, as opposed to the babysitting distros they said they were ragequitting back to with pretty menu-based installers (that don't require one to know the difference between typing a windows "\" and a unix "/")

Actually, scratch that. They sound like an angry, clueless windows user here to troll. They don't even know what's running on their system.

pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20067

Cuong Nguyen · Apprentice Joined: 18 Jan 2018 Posts: 152

Thanks God, I am just on 2nd year *compiling* Gentoo. There is still 13 years to go for me. I thought I'd quit couples of time, but not this year, just bought new laptop with Skylake and 16G. I will keep *compiling*

crocket · Guru Joined: 29 Apr 2017 Posts: 558

Gentoo + NixOS or GuixSD = Evolution

mir3x · Guru Joined: 02 Jun 2012 Posts: 455

Bye, I rarely upgrade my gentoo, often once per 6 months, not big deal.
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The_Document · Apprentice Joined: 03 Feb 2018 Posts: 275

KatsuoRyuu · n00b Joined: 08 Nov 2016 Posts: 54

Lol bye - or do like others, i have a server that run wordpress sites, so im basically just using a small part of the idle process to compile almost constantly(using git to update repo), and have the binary packages for installation on all my other systems. Everything is almost done and im running tests on x86-64-multilib-generic system.
its public so if anyone feel like it feel free to grab bin from it lol.

https://portage.ryuu.technology/gentoo/packages/x86_64-multilib-generic/

This is largely the easiest way for me to hold all my systems up to date, work mediacenters, laptops, and desktop computers.
but yes as some says it defeats the purpose of configuration, but this is specifically for my machines, so my configuration.

Anyways, have an awesome Gentoo Day everyone

pun_guin · Apprentice Joined: 06 Feb 2018 Posts: 204