| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
Tekeli Li
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 03 Jan 2009
Posts: 95
|
 Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2009 2:49 pm Post subject: |
 |
|
I disagree that "it just works" culture is a "cancer" of any sort. As mentioned many times before, there are different levels of experience user want or expect from the appliances they use.
I use Gentoo, I love it very much, however I do expect it to "just work", at a level which is suitable for Gentoo and at a level which I am willing to partake, knowing what Gentoo is: a metadistribution of its own kind. I don't expect it to decide which software I want or need, because that's not in the "just works" level for Gentoo. But I do expect:
- portage to "just work" without me having to learn its internals and intricacies (beyond basics of how to use it and what it does) to the point of having to modify a broken ebuild. If I wanted to tinker with package management, I'd use Slackware and/or write my own manager.
- software to compile with the selected USE flags and play nicely. I understand that is not 100% possible, always, but I still expect it. If I didn't, I'd be using LFS and make my own builds from absolute scratch and test them myself. Mind you, I _am_ running my own tests and test the hell out of various package groups that I install on my servers. For obvious reasons.
I am sure there are more similar examples. However, unlike some other distros, Gentoo allows me, in fact even helps me with great docs, tools and community, to go beyond my expected level of "just works" and still do things my way.
The bottom line is there are no absolute truths, there are no single, dogmatic paths to do things. If there were, we'd all be using Windows, quite happily, oblivious to the possibility of having it any differently.
It is the nature of GNU/Linux distributions, and open source software in general, that if you don't like something, be my guest and modify it to your own liking. That's why we have tons of distros, because there are many different dimensions of expecting things to "just work", in a way they do.
$.02
Edit: my apologies, I hit reply instead of edit, and had a double post which I deleted. |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
slackline
Veteran
Joined: 01 Apr 2005
Posts: 1471
Location: /uk/sheffield
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2009 3:49 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Tekeli Li wrote: |
- portage to "just work" without me having to learn its internals and intricacies (beyond basics of how to use it and what it does) to the point of having to modify a broken ebuild. If I wanted to tinker with package management, I'd use Slackware and/or write my own manager. |
A broken ebuild is nothing to do with portage, its a mistake by the package maintainer!!!
_________________
"Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else we do." - Donald Knuth |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Tekeli Li
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 03 Jan 2009
Posts: 95
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2009 4:10 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| slack---line wrote: |
A broken ebuild is nothing to do with portage, its a mistake by the package maintainer!!! |
It has everything to do with portage, because ebuilds are part of the portage. And any failure is always someone's mistake, be it OS developers, driver developers, application developers, hardware manufacturer, etc...
Unless you're assuming "it just works" applies only to plug and play philosophy? Which would be very, very wrong, because there are many levels of plug and many levels of play, and many levels of what does it mean to plug and play something.
Gentoo "just works" if it works within the parameters of its design principles, which are different from design principles of any other distro or OS. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
slackline
Veteran
Joined: 01 Apr 2005
Posts: 1471
Location: /uk/sheffield
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2009 4:41 pm Post subject: |
|
|
As I've repeatedly stated above, all distros are different and all users expectations are different.
I'm sick of hearing people slating Gentoo and the enormous efforts put into Gentoo by developers simply because there isn't a package for X, Y or Z that some random person wants and expects should be available because it is on distribution Whatever. Or complaining because yesterdays release of OpenOffice isn't in portage immediately.
If people aren't happy with Gentoo, then they have two options...
1. Find a distribution that fits their expectations (good luck with that!).
2. Get involved and do something to help change the situation (bugs/forums/IRC/become a developer/etc.)
Sitting around and lamenting the idealistic "things should just work (albeit on different levels)" is getting yourselves and the distribution that many are saying they love nowhere.
Now, time to find some unanswered posts that I can help resolve, I've only had one success so far today.
slack
EDIT : Corrected some spelling and grammar errors
_________________
"Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else we do." - Donald Knuth |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Tekeli Li
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 03 Jan 2009
Posts: 95
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2009 5:03 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| slack---line wrote: |
I'm sick of hearing people slating Gentoo and the enormous efforts put into Gentoo by developers simply because there isn't a package for X, Y or Z that some random person wants and expects should be available because it is on distribution Whatever. Or complaining because yesterdays release of OpenOffice isn't in portage immediately. |
Agreed. And there is also the other side of the coin, thatis slanting distros and the enormous efforts put into them, because they "just work" for majority of people that want to try Linux, and do not require technical skills and knowledge of a Gentoo user. That is also as bad. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
slackline
Veteran
Joined: 01 Apr 2005
Posts: 1471
Location: /uk/sheffield
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2009 5:29 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Tekeli Li wrote: |
Agreed. And there is also the other side of the coin, thatis slanting distros and the enormous efforts put into them, because they "just work" for majority of people that want to try Linux, and do not require technical skills and knowledge of a Gentoo user. That is also as bad. |
I completely agree with you there.
My signature has my tongue planted firmly in my cheek though (i.e. its meant in jest).
_________________
"Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else we do." - Donald Knuth |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
desultory
Bodhisattva
Joined: 04 Nov 2005
Posts: 9410
|
| Posted: Fri Feb 20, 2009 7:13 am Post subject: |
|
|
| AlexanderVDM wrote: | | I agree full-heartedly with that last line, but I hope you agree that ultimately it's up to the user to define the level of operation that he finds sufficient/acceptable. |
Indeed. Ideally, interfaces should make simple things simple and complex things no more complex than necessary, which by no means requires that one interface suit all needs. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Aquiles
Apprentice
Joined: 23 Feb 2007
Posts: 230
Location: Somewhere, surrounded by my circumstances.
|
| Posted: Fri Feb 20, 2009 7:52 am Post subject: |
|
|
| AlexanderVDM wrote: |
| Aquiles wrote: |
I completely agree with you. A computer is a complex tool, and telling someone that with whatever O.S it will be very easy to use is plain lie (of course you lie if you want lazy people to buy your product).
At best there will be a few functions that will be easy to use, but once confronted with any problem that may arise in your computer (and problems do arise, sooner or later) either you know how to find your way out of the mess (and that requires learning) or you are screwed, because it is not possible to use a complex tool in a non-complex way. You can ask the O.S developers to manage to get some functions to be easily accessible, but the O.S as a whole remains complex, and dealing with the functions that didn't fall into the scope of the "functions that should be easy to use" will still be complex.
|
I normally can't stand using real-world analogies as a metaphor, but I'm going to do one anyway. Do you own a car? If so, do you know the inner workings of the engine? Assuming you own a computer, do you know boolean algebra and do you understand maxwell's equations on electromagnetism? Your answers to these questions are not relevant, because you don't have to. The way technology is packaged makes it able for a broad range of people to use and enjoy it. The same goes for using linux distributions:
|
There's a difference between a car and a computer. With a car you do just one thing: sit and drive. Then you can go here and there, bring people with you or carry some luggage. But ultimately you sit and drive. Hence, engineers can concentrate on simplifying the use of the car to make the driving painless, and of course you don't need to know how the engine works.
But this car is not a good analogy to a Linux distro. The correct counterpart to this car would be a Linux distro in a computer intended for the user to sit in front of the screen and use a software that is already running, do the job with that software and hit the road once finished. For example a terminal with a web browser running and no possibility of starting any other program. You just sit in front of the screen, go to gentoo forums, check the messages and you're done.
That would be your car. And as long as you don't need anything else from that computer it will be that easy to use, without any knowledge of what is happening behind the browser window. You wouldn't even care about the O.S running underneath.
But that is not your computer. With your computer you do much more. You write text, you code, burn DVDs, download copyrighted material, use crappy software, watch the copyrighted material you just downloaded, you have to deal with codecs and shit... It's way more than just "sit and drive". That means that there is no way of making *everything* easy. Only a few functions will be easy, but you will still be required to deal with complexity from time to time.
And that is a fact. Windows users do not have to deal with complexity because "Windows is easy"? LIE! At most they call YOU, the friend that knows about computers, and ask you to deal with the complexity they should be dealing with. And the same goes for Mac, Linux and any other you might think of. You need a certain knowledge. Of course the amount of knowledge you need to install and run Windows, Mac OS, Ubuntu and Gentoo is different. You need to know more if you want to install and use Gentoo than if you want to install and use Ubuntu. But in NO case it will be "just sit and drive", that is to say, "it just works".
EDIT: let me put it in another way.
Should it just work? Yes of course. Also, peace *should* reign on Earth. But the truth is it does not. Neither peace reigns on Earth nor things just work. That is a fact.
So, the growing cancer is not that people say things *should* just work. The growing cancer is that people actually *expect* things to just work, because the ad says so. Therefore there's no need to RTFM, because things will certainly just work according to the fancy ad.
That is, in my opinion, the kind of attitude that the fancy ad is boosting and which is a growing cancer: "hey you, tired of dealing with the complexity of your computer? Buy my product and no more RTFM. Guaranteed!". It is totally equivalent to "hey you, want a 6 pack ab without getting out of bed and investing no more than five minutes a day in it? Then wait no more and buy our awesome Quantum Abdominator 3000+ and all girls in town will be at your feet in less than a blink!"
_________________
Aquiles |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
slonocode
Apprentice
Joined: 03 Jun 2002
Posts: 273
|
| Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2009 8:47 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: | That would be your car. And as long as you don't need anything else from that computer it will be that easy to use, without any knowledge of what is happening behind the browser window. You wouldn't even care about the O.S running underneath.
But that is not your computer. With your computer you do much more. You write text, you code, burn DVDs, download copyrighted material, use crappy software, watch the copyrighted material you just downloaded, you have to deal with codecs and shit... It's way more than just "sit and drive". That means that there is no way of making *everything* easy. Only a few functions will be easy, but you will still be required to deal with complexity from time to time. |
You also work the radio, the heat, the ac, the lights, the wipers, the defroster, the turn signals, the seat positions, the steering tilt, the gas cap, the trip odometer, the mirrors, the moon roof, the seat belts, etc. etc etc. which is way more than "sit and drive" and is analogous to these other things you do with your computer.
There's a difference between offering the ability to customize from a stable useful default that just works and requiring an in-depth understanding of internals to just get up and running. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
NorthVan
n00b
Joined: 25 Oct 2005
Posts: 34
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 07, 2009 10:56 am Post subject: |
|
|
I haven't read the rest of the thread, but I like Gentoo as you can ALWAYS update and merge all your existing config.
You can always 'do it right', and you NEVER have to reinstall from scratch, never have to migrate config and data.
But then I grew up on FreeBSD, so I'm culturally prone to the 'all you need is a C compiler' way of doing things.
If I need a 'throw away' OS installation then I use Ubuntu. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
d2_racing
Bodhisattva
Joined: 25 Apr 2005
Posts: 13047
Location: Ste-Foy,Canada
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 07, 2009 1:57 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| NorthVan wrote: | | You can always 'do it right', and you NEVER have to reinstall from scratch, never have to migrate config and data. |
That's why my box is still running since April 2005, never had to reinstall my box from scratch. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Kasumi_Ninja
Veteran
Joined: 18 Feb 2006
Posts: 1825
Location: The Netherlands
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2009 12:41 am Post subject: |
|
|
| d2_racing wrote: | | NorthVan wrote: | | You can always 'do it right', and you NEVER have to reinstall from scratch, never have to migrate config and data. |
That's why my box is still running since April 2005, never had to reinstall my box from scratch. |
Nice 
_________________
Please add [solved] to the initial post's subject line if you feel your problem is resolved. Help answer the unanswered |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
tgR10
Apprentice
Joined: 23 Oct 2007
Posts: 262
Location: caly ten ambaras
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2009 12:50 am Post subject: |
|
|
| slonocode wrote: | | Quote: | That would be your car. And as long as you don't need anything else from that computer it will be that easy to use, without any knowledge of what is happening behind the browser window. You wouldn't even care about the O.S running underneath.
But that is not your computer. With your computer you do much more. You write text, you code, burn DVDs, download copyrighted material, use crappy software, watch the copyrighted material you just downloaded, you have to deal with codecs and shit... It's way more than just "sit and drive". That means that there is no way of making *everything* easy. Only a few functions will be easy, but you will still be required to deal with complexity from time to time. |
You also work the radio, the heat, the ac, the lights, the wipers, the defroster, the turn signals, the seat positions, the steering tilt, the gas cap, the trip odometer, the mirrors, the moon roof, the seat belts, etc. etc etc. which is way more than "sit and drive" and is analogous to these other things you do with your computer.
There's a difference between offering the ability to customize from a stable useful default that just works and requiring an in-depth understanding of internals to just get up and running. |
but the thing is you don't build that car yourself, with gentoo you do ...
| d2_racing wrote: | And emerge do a lot of stuff and by the way, if you crash your Gentoo, you can always rerun this :
| Code: |
# emerge -ae @system @world
|
This can clean up a real mess :P |
exactly ...
none of crashed car could be fixed the way gentoo could be
and the price drasticly goes down ... :-)
_________________
"bo kto ma racje ? ten kto z bliska zobaczy"
"moge nie wiedziec,wchlaniam niewiedze z malych torebek"
http://i12.tinypic.com/4pow0mu.png
http://userbar.tgr.debil.eu/userbar.jpg
Last edited by tgR10 on Sun Mar 15, 2009 12:25 pm; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
d2_racing
Bodhisattva
Joined: 25 Apr 2005
Posts: 13047
Location: Ste-Foy,Canada
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2009 2:50 am Post subject: |
|
|
And emerge do a lot of stuff and by the way, if you crash your Gentoo, you can always rerun this :
| Code: |
# emerge -ae @system @world
|
This can clean up a real mess  |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
regomodo
Guru
Joined: 25 Mar 2008
Posts: 445
|
| Posted: Sat Jul 18, 2009 10:02 am Post subject: |
|
|
| d2_racing wrote: | And emerge do a lot of stuff and by the way, if you crash your Gentoo, you can always rerun this :
| Code: |
# emerge -ae @system @world
|
This can clean up a real mess :P |
Or create a bigger one. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
XQYZ
Apprentice
Joined: 19 Jul 2009
Posts: 231
Location: Europe
|
| Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 1:18 am Post subject: |
|
|
I've used quite some distributions over the years and I seriously have to admit that I love Gentoo the most. Portage alone is reason enought for using gentoo. I can't stand apt for too long, it's just not flexible enought. I can't comfortably mix stable and unstable packages like I can with portage. I see why distributions like Ubuntu exist, but I also know that they're not for me (at least in the long run). I'd recommend them to everybody who asks (because people who ask usually aren't too experienced).
I'm not too fond on the recent trend with live cds on gentoo thought. If you can't make it through the install you're probably not suited to use gentoo. A stage3 install is really not that difficoult and back in the days when I first installed gentoo the installation tought me more about Linux and it's internal functions than the two or three years of using Red Hat/SuSE/Fedora before. For (Linux) Power Users Gentoo will always be the distribution of choice, while there are people who don't use their computers like "we" do, so there's a market for Ubuntu and other distributions that just aim at "just working" because that's what the users expect of their computers. Linux is no longer just the operating system of power users and geeks. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
d2_racing
Bodhisattva
Joined: 25 Apr 2005
Posts: 13047
Location: Ste-Foy,Canada
|
| Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 11:45 am Post subject: |
|
|
| XQYZ wrote: | | For (Linux) Power Users Gentoo will always be the distribution of choice, while there are people who don't use their computers like "we" do, so there's a market for Ubuntu and other distributions that just aim at "just working" because that's what the users expect of their computers. Linux is no longer just the operating system of power users and geeks. |
In fact, Linux is for anybody nowdays and it's pretty cool like that. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Mike Hunt
Watchman
Joined: 19 Jul 2009
Posts: 5287
|
| Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 10:07 pm Post subject: |
|
|
The wheel, the light bulb, sliced bread, Gentoo.  |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
RedSquirrel
Guru
Joined: 22 Apr 2008
Posts: 336
|
| Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2009 1:34 am Post subject: |
|
|
| XQYZ wrote: | | I'm not too fond on the recent trend with live cds on gentoo thought. If you can't make it through the install you're probably not suited to use gentoo. A stage3 install is really not that difficoult and back in the days when I first installed gentoo the installation tought me more about Linux and it's internal functions than the two or three years of using Red Hat/SuSE/Fedora before. |
Which "recent trend"?
The current recommended method to install Gentoo is to use one of the weekly Minimal CDs, a recent stage3, and the steps in the Handbook.
The Gentoo LiveCDs with the graphical installer are deprecated. The "graphical installer" project is defunct. 
Edit: spelling |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
cach0rr0
Bodhisattva
Joined: 13 Nov 2008
Posts: 4123
Location: Houston, Republic of Texas
|
| Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2009 4:01 am Post subject: |
|
|
| RedSquirrel wrote: |
The current recommended method to install Gentoo is to use one of the weekly Minimal CDs, a recent stage3, and the steps in the Handbook.
The Gentoo LiveCDs with the graphical installer are deprecated. The "graphical installer" project is defunct.
|
true enough, and realistically I think once the links to the LiveCD images are removed and hidden, a fair portion of the current hassle (spawned by user confusion) will disappear
I love my gentoo, have since '04 - it just simply isn't a distro well-suited for running a true LiveCD, e.g. you slap it in, "everything just works", and you can get a full, tolerable user experience with no installation required. To do all of the things required to have such a LiveCD, you realistically miss out on the entire point of opting for Gentoo in the first place. It's doable, but pointless, and not worth it when weighed against the time spent making users understand it isn't suitable install media.
If you need to carry a bootable, turnkey distro around with you on a thumb drive, always best suited having a 2GB disk with Ubuntu and Backtrack3 on the keychain like I do
And so as to avoid any flaming, this isn't a slight of my favourite distro. You don't carry a fridge and spice rack around you in case you need a snack on the road - you carry a granola bar or some such, that requires zero work, zero prep, and *just enough* functionality to tide you over until you get near a real meal.
Much as the marketing/PR people might want a LiveCD, for gentoo it has no point. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
cach0rr0
Bodhisattva
Joined: 13 Nov 2008
Posts: 4123
Location: Houston, Republic of Texas
|
| Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2009 4:03 am Post subject: |
|
|
ALSO: I find it all kinds of amusing/hilarious to see this thread still going this many years later.
The same people that end up despising gentoo are the same people that ring you up in the middle of the night because they didn't bother to RTFM, or couldn't be arsed to work through a problem for any extended period |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
elvisthedj
Guru
Joined: 21 Jun 2004
Posts: 483
Location: Nampa, ID
|
| Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2009 9:03 am Post subject: |
|
|
I have no idea why I'm replying to such an old thread.. probably because it's 3 am and over 80% of my brain is sleeping right now.
Anyway, I just wanted to say that I appreciate the fact that there are so many friendly, helpful people in the Gentoo community. I'm not saying you couldn't find similar people in other forums for other distros, but many of the people in this forum make me confident that I'll never really get FUBAR (with the exception of my recent posts about compiler issues, but it turns out that issue was like this oldschool geek joke:
How many programmers does it take to change a light bulb? None. It's a hardware problem.
Turns out my picky DFI mb didn't like my overpriced DDR ram)
Anyway, the point to this hazy rant is that I think the people and overall attitude of the Gentoo community (users and devs) are factors not to be overlooked when trying to predict the lifespan of this distro. Just so I don't seem like some fanboy, I'm sure there are some total pricks in the Gentoo community.. but they mostly seem to hang out on the IRC channel, not the forums
_________________
Kris Edwards
kris edwards at g mail dot c0m
PGP
WWW |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
OpticalDezires
n00b
Joined: 22 Aug 2005
Posts: 72
Location: Riga, Latvia
|
| Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2009 10:10 am Post subject: PORTAGE problems. |
|
|
Hello all,
I'd like to open one question. Seems like that Gentoo portage is falling like a sleeping princess castle in well known fairytale. The problem is, that almost any update, generates some issues, that takes a lot of time to investigate and find a solution. There also many inconsistencies in the portage tree, for instance: some packages are marked stable, but they just don't compile, although unstable packages compile well. So there is only one question, does your testing team really test these packages ??? or they just put the package into tree, just because some people said that the package compile well ?
When Daniel Robbins leaded Gentoo, everything worked, there wasn't so many problems with the portage. Just don't think that I am a hater, or just an ordinary teenager that wants to put the oil into fire on this forum. No. I really love the ideas of Gentoo, but I'm way too afraid to put Gentoo on a production server. Each inconsistency in the portage tree, can lead to a downtime, that will affect an overal prestige of a company and even money loss. Of course I can take some boxes and make a test environment, but this also will take some time that I really can spent more productive. I really think that Gentoo should change, otherwise it will never be found on a big production servers, only on a geeks PCs, that have a lot of spare time. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
desultory
Bodhisattva
Joined: 04 Nov 2005
Posts: 9410
|
| Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2009 4:41 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Merged the preceding post. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
d2_racing
Bodhisattva
Joined: 25 Apr 2005
Posts: 13047
Location: Ste-Foy,Canada
|
| Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2009 8:44 pm Post subject: Re: PORTAGE problems. |
|
|
| OpticalDezires wrote: | | When Daniel Robbins leaded Gentoo, everything worked, there wasn't so many problems with the portage. |
In fact, but at the time, we had less packages then we have today. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
Gentoo Chat
