What are we going to do to keep up with Ubuntu?

Message

Sadako · Post by **Sadako** » Mon Sep 12, 2005 11:09 pm

MetalGod wrote:most of this features is in portage the only one it's not currently available is serpentine that i will merge it soon.

Way to keep those ubuntu people in their place.

MetalGod · Post by **MetalGod** » Tue Sep 13, 2005 12:19 am

Well you can see our (developer) point we are not paid like the Ubuntu devs. So we try go get all the latest stuff available for our users (many nights without any sleep) and try to do better than the others.

We have a few examples of apps available in Portage that are much better maintained than the Fedora/Ubuntu/Debian/Suse etc... ones.
Of course most of the "new" features announced in Ubuntu belongs to Gnome 2.12 release that is currently available in portage (i'm running it atm).
I'm not trying to do a distro war i'm just trying to say that we are much dfferent from the another distros and we (developers) do the best we can.

Sir No · Post by **Sir No** » Tue Sep 13, 2005 12:40 am

MetalGod wrote:Of course most of the "new" features announced in Ubuntu belongs to Gnome 2.12 release that is currently available in portage (i'm running it atm).
I'm not trying to do a distro war i'm just trying to say that we are much dfferent from the another distros and we (developers) do the best we can.

So, would you say that it's "safe" (for, example, like 75% or 90% safe) to switch completely to ~x86 or ~amd64? There are some /many?/ users who run as such without big problems, as they say.

Even in recent GWN-20050912 there is a pointer to the devs discussion where one can read about "asking that ~arch be used as the stable ready marker"...

Dlareh · Post by **Dlareh** » Tue Sep 13, 2005 12:50 am

Sir No wrote:Even in recent GWN-20050912 there is a pointer to the devs discussion where one can read about "asking that ~arch be used as the stable ready marker"...

What they mean is potentially ready to be marked stable, as in (within context) the package maintainer has OKed that arch maintainers consider marking that version stable on their archs.

I have used ~x86 for many months. I have not encountered any ~arch-related problems, but you must understand there are no guarantees. You are expected to be willing to post bug reports if you run ~arch.

mnxAlpha · Post by **mnxAlpha** » Tue Sep 13, 2005 2:57 am

plbe wrote:perhaps you should take a look at debian unstable which is afaik more up to date then breezy badger with the exception of gnome-2.12

True, but it's all over the place at the moment. I wouldn't want to do development on a system that's constantly changing underneath me. Gentoo at least doesn't change that much over time, so updates aren't that likely to break things. Debian unstable can undergo sudden changes at any moment, without any kind of advance warning (unless you happen to have been following the correct mailing list). For example, using Sarge back when it was unstable, I had various development tools suddenly stop working on several occasions.

azlan · Post by **azlan** » Wed Sep 14, 2005 2:47 am

A new tool which makes it easy to install support for multiple languages (Language Selector) [USE="nls" + locale settings?]

... and this is really where Gentoo falls behind.. No I'm not an Ubuntu user, I'm a Gentoo whiner.

Try getting Cyrillic support on your system.

There is no language selector for Gentoo, and there won't be any time soon.

curtis119 · Post by **curtis119** » Wed Sep 14, 2005 3:17 pm

azlan wrote:
A new tool which makes it easy to install support for multiple languages (Language Selector) [USE="nls" + locale settings?]
... and this is really where Gentoo falls behind.. No I'm not an Ubuntu user, I'm a Gentoo whiner.

Try getting Cyrillic support on your system.

There is no language selector for Gentoo, and there won't be any time soon.

Ahhh but you see there is a language selector in Gentoo, you just have to set it up. Gentoo is not a premade distro "ready-to-go" out of the box. Binary distros (as someone above said) have a team of devs that create the distro for you and build the language selections in. This makes the distro very very large because they have to include every language (Fedora's install CD is a set of 6 disks while Gentoo's install CD is 1 CD of about 300 megs). With Gentoo you are the one who builds the distro so you have to decide what languages you want and build them. If you want to use a language other than English (which is the official developer language of Gentoo) you must explicitly do so. Please read the Localization HOWTO for instructions.

This is the number 1 thing I think that most people don't get. Gentoo is not a Operating System, it is a set of tools that allow you to build your own Operating System. Don't ever forget that. Gentoo is NOT an Operating System, it is a set of tools for building an Operating System. Look on the "about" page at www.gentoo.org and you will see that Gentoo officially bills itself as a meta-distribution not as a Operating System. The devs do include a set of sane, known-good defaults just to make it a little easier for us but you do not have to use those defaults.

http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/about.xml wrote: ...
Thanks to a technology called Portage, Gentoo Linux can become an ideal secure server, development workstation, professional desktop, gaming system, embedded solution or something else -- whatever you need it to be. Because of its near-unlimited adaptability, we call Gentoo Linux a metadistribution.
...

Note how it says "Gentoo Linux can become" not "Gentoo Linux is". On other distros like Fedora or Ubuntu they explicity say "Fedora/Ubuntu is". That's because you have no choice in the matter, you either use what they give you or switch to a distro that has what you want (and hopefully has all the other stuff you like about the original distro). With Gentoo you decide what Gentoo will be and build it that way. You can include any feature you want too, you are never limited by anything other than your imagination. You can take any feature from any other distro and build it into Gentoo. Hell, you can even use RPM in conjunction with portage if you really really wanted too (Why anyone would want too is beyond me but it's still an option).

Here is another example. Gentoo comes with one of the best init systems in the world. However, you may choose not to use it. You can take the init system from LFS or Debian or <fill in the blank> and use that instead. It would be a major PITA to set it up initially but it is perfectly possible to do so. Try doing that with any other distro (again I say, it would be a major pain in the ass but it is possible).

In short, Gentoo is a set of tools for building an Operating System. You, the end user, must make decisions about what that Operating System will include and build it. If you want Language selection then include it.

crinos · Post by **crinos** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 12:25 am

In some respects, Ubuntu is more flexible. I can choose to install it with all the features(standard install) and have a nice friendly Linux system up and running in an hour. I can give it to my family, and they can use it to surf the net, check their emails and listen to music. Or I can do a minimal install and install whatever I like on it, compile whatever I like on it and generally be as "elite hacker" as I want. You don't have that option with Gentoo.

I think people should use things before criticising them. Ubuntu is just Debian with the option of a pre-installed Gnome/OpenOffice/Firefox/Evolution system which works great for a lot of people. But please note people: it is an OPTION.

I realise people obsessed with a source-based distro are never going to revert to a binary based one, but you should still respect it for what it is: a damn good binary distro which has a lot of potential in bringing people to Linux and open source software.

Omega21 · Post by **Omega21** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 1:15 am

I think that you are comparing two different things, that are not in the same category, kinda like the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP.
Gentoo is all about choice, where Ubuntu is the solution for the people who say "I want Linux fast, and I want it to work." Gentoo is
like spending 4 extra years in University, and when you get it all done, you have a better system than Ubuntu could ever give you.

The only thing I think we should take from Ubuntu is that hardware info database. Something like that would be great!

Archangel1 · Post by **Archangel1** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 5:41 am

I don't think it's actually offering much that's not in Gentoo. Sure, they're doing well with GNOME, but let's face it - the damn thing has only just been released, and this is a preview release of Breezy. It's hardly fair to suggest that it should be in stable Gentoo right now.

The hardware support improvements I would bet are mostly due to the kernel version, not Ubuntu itself.

Hardware Support Improvements
* Further enhancements to laptop support (hot keys, and working suspend/resume on more models)
* Bluetooth input devices (such as keyboards and mice) are supported out of the box
* Multiple audio devices are handled more gracefully (and one can easily select the default device)

Well the hot keys work on my laptop, and it suspended straight off the bat. Sure I had to do it myself (echo mem > /sys/power/state, oooh so hard), but Gentoo never represented that it'd be anything different.
Bluetooth has been working beautifully on here (using kdebluetooth) for like a year now.
No idea about multiple audio devices, but I'm willing to bet you can make that work in Gentoo too.

I think GCC4 is a bit of a white elephant too; it seems to be something to add to the feature list as far as I can see. Every test I've seen for gcc 4.0.x suggests that it takes slightly longer to produce slightly slower code (vs 3.4.x). Why should I get excited about it?
Anyway, it's happily available in Gentoo - and I'll bet it was around long before Ubuntu.

In short, I think the Gentoo devs are doing a wonderful job; so long as they keep doing their thing, I'll be a happy camper

scvalex · Post by **scvalex** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 6:57 am

Ubuntu? Fedora? Suse? Mandriva? Where's the PAIN? All of this "user-friendly" distros rip all the fun out of computing. Where are the good old days when USENET was the internet?

Dlareh · Post by **Dlareh** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 7:05 am

scvalex wrote:Ubuntu? Fedora? Suse? Mandriva? Where's the PAIN? All of this "user-friendly" distros rip all the fun out of computing. Where are the good old days when USENET was the internet?

I don't know, but I'd suspect you have to walk uphill both ways to get there and back. And then there was something about a snowstorm...

reub2000 · Post by **reub2000** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 8:45 am

I installed kubuntu (love kde) on my computer. It installed a version of amarok without gstreamer support. So I had to recompile it. But before I did that, I had to get a lot of -dev packages. In gentoo I would of put gstreamer in my use settings, and then re-emerged it. Keeping up with what?

Dlareh · Post by **Dlareh** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 8:53 am

reub2000 wrote:I installed kubuntu (love kde) on my computer. It installed a version of amarok without gstreamer support. So I had to recompile it. But before I did that, I had to get a lot of -dev packages. In gentoo I would of put gstreamer in my use settings, and then re-emerged it. Keeping up with what?

Not kubuntu, of course. Use SuSE if you want KDE. And gstreamer is somewhat more of a gnome thing anyway (even more marginally KDE apps like amarok are largely still lost in artsland)

Gentoo comes with the equivalent of all those -dev packages because it _needs_ them. Ubuntu, by default, does not.

plbe · Post by **plbe** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 3:42 pm

reub2000 wrote:I installed kubuntu (love kde) on my computer. It installed a version of amarok without gstreamer support. So I had to recompile it. But before I did that, I had to get a lot of -dev packages. In gentoo I would of put gstreamer in my use settings, and then re-emerged it. Keeping up with what?

there should be a gstreamer amarok pkg at least that is the case in debian, not sure about kubuntu

codergeek42 · Post by **codergeek42** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 3:59 pm

curtis119 wrote: (Fedora's install CD is a set of 6 disks while Gentoo's install CD is 1 CD of about 300 megs)

A very minor correction: Fedora's installation is comprised of 4 discs (plus another 4 if you want to install the source RPMs offline). Depending on what you choose for the installation, though, you may only need the first two.

Other than that: well said, Curtis.

Hercynium · Post by **Hercynium** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 6:07 pm

Omega21 wrote:I think that you are comparing two different things, that are not in the same category, kinda like the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP.
Gentoo is all about choice, where Ubuntu is the solution for the people who say "I want Linux fast, and I want it to work." Gentoo is
like spending 4 extra years in University, and when you get it all done, you have a better system than Ubuntu could ever give you.

The only thing I think we should take from Ubuntu is that hardware info database. Something like that would be great!

Bingo. Let me just add my $.02...

I wonder if the answer is not to waste time trying to convert users... but try to educate them in both systems. Ubuntu is not only drop-dead easy to install and use (provided it likes your hardware), but under the hood it's got all the guts of a Debian system.

That's right, teach users that the command line is their friend, and that dpkg can help keep them from shooting themselves in the foot. Soon, they may develop a taste for customizing things. That's when you work on getting them to try apt-build. That should whet their appetites long enough for them to fill out their skills.

Of course, many a avid user will soon outgrow apt-build and want to play with something more powerful. If they haven't yet discovered Gentoo, now's the time.

My ultimate vision for this type of scenario really benefits both distros. I want to see a more robust flow of debian packages into portage... and of portage ebuilds into debian. As both distros benefit, more users will be drawn to each.

In time, the effects of the sub-quantum consciousness transducer will reprogram the population and I will rule the world! Muahahahahahah! Um... oops! ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H...

reub2000 · Post by **reub2000** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 11:54 am

Dlareh wrote:
reub2000 wrote:I installed kubuntu (love kde) on my computer. It installed a version of amarok without gstreamer support. So I had to recompile it. But before I did that, I had to get a lot of -dev packages. In gentoo I would of put gstreamer in my use settings, and then re-emerged it. Keeping up with what?
Not kubuntu, of course. Use SuSE if you want KDE. And gstreamer is somewhat more of a gnome thing anyway (even more marginally KDE apps like amarok are largely still lost in artsland)

Gentoo comes with the equivalent of all those -dev packages because it _needs_ them. Ubuntu, by default, does not.

Well, having everything you need to compile something because your distro needs them makes compiling something yourself easier.

Whatever desktop gstreamer is attached to, I love it. Plugins for virtually every music format. Arts on the other hand I hate so much that I put it /etc/portage/package.mask. Gentoo gives me the option of compiling programs with gstreamer, and without arts. Something a binary distro can't. I'm happy with gentoo, and don't see much of a reason to change.

Naib · Post by **Naib** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 12:11 pm

scvalex wrote:Ubuntu? Fedora? Suse? Mandriva? Where's the PAIN? All of this "user-friendly" distros rip all the fun out of computing. Where are the good old days when USENET was the internet?

So?

I have recommened all of them (bar SuSe, I hate it

) to different ppl.
When they ask "what do you use" I say Gentoo but I tell them not to use it. Why? because these are the ppl that constanly ask me "what does this window mean when I remove my USB-drive"

They are not computer-savvy and do not want to be.
Those other distros are perfect for them, Gentoo isn't

dorris · Post by **dorris** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 12:11 pm

yeah, Both distros have their purpose, I just moved on from ubuntu recently, had enuff of package based, and enjoy the freedom of going back to source!

gcc4.0 is actually not such a bonus, and until breezy, ie ubuntu 5.10 is released, it provides a package dependncy nightmare for any debian/ubuntu users who point their repositorys to the unstable branch.

The other bonus of gentoo over ubuntu, is that gentoo is consistently maintained, whereas ubuntu/debian users must wait for development cycles to get new stuff.

In regrds to menu editors in gnome, thats not a ubuntu specific feature, YES it was developed by a member of the ubuntu community (which also shows that ubuntu users do develop too), I believe it is being implemented by gnome2.12, I found it as source at http://www.realistanew.com/projects/smeg, and it also exists in emerge, but is currently masked.

About this whole issue of keeping up, the linux community is extremey varied, and should have builds for all user types, ubuntu fullfills one role, and gentoo another!

Having started my gentoo install 1 week ago today, its been a long week, I've been running happily for 4 days of that week on my laptop, its been a fun week, and although gentoo is slightly behind on hardware customizations, I have a much more stable setup than I could have acheived on Ubuntu, with a laptop that gives fortunes of trouble for Linux (ACPI, X700 pciexpress).
I've only touched on the surface of Gentoos power, but I am loving it, and can't see myself going back to any binary based distro for a long time.
Without Gentoo having to do anything to "keep up with" Ubuntu, ts won hands down, but then again, I'm a geek, so definitely prefer it!

wuzzerd · Post by **wuzzerd** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 6:46 pm

curtis119 wrote: This is the number 1 thing I think that most people don't get. Gentoo is not a Operating System, it is a set of tools that allow you to build your own Operating System. Don't ever forget that. Gentoo is NOT an Operating System, it is a set of tools for building an Operating System.

Bingo.

Actually I took a break from gentoo during the udev wars (not to mention that not once but twice I tried to go from ~amd64 back to amd64

). I use 32 bit Ubuntu to run my printer and 64 bit to see what it does. A month is spent just playing with the computer, learning what I really use. Eventually I got a usb drive to backup everything and built a more intelligent fstab on my hard drive. At which point an Ubuntu update borked something in my LOCALE. Hah.

In short I did a slow install of gentoo 2005.1 amd64. Straight CLI for awhile. If I see "command not found" I emerge it. As it turned out mc snuck in Xorg and I typed startx and found I was in twm. So I copied the xorg.conf from Ubuntu, and emerged fluxbox.

If gentoo has taught me anything it's how to chroot. That's more than the man page can do

. So I open an Eterm, chroot /ubuntu64. su - me and startx, and play some stupid kde game without having to emerge kde or gnome. Another thing I've learned, nine times out of ten I can copy a program from ubuntu that is masked in portage, or copy a program missing in ubuntu from gentoo and they will work, even 32-bit stuff.

Curtis' comment is the bottom line. In gentoo we get what we want, nothing more. All Linux distros are Linux. I'd rather play with gentoo

Mr_J_ · Post by **Mr_J_** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 4:02 pm

Honestly I think you should do next to nothing to keep up with ubuntu!
I just came from using it, and I switched to Gentoo because of the simple fact that you need to know what you are doing before you do it.
Ubuntu is too simple and Linux is a lot about personal taste. Ubuntu has the absolute beginners and you have the good few who want to try!
I believe if the developers wanted they could put together a cd that looks and feels like the Ubuntu ones, but...Who cares about that?
If I wanted a self-installing-no-work OS I would have stayed with windows!
They present a nice solution, but honestly... It's too simple and too much control on their side for me. I like to make things work my way or the highway.

Isn't that why we are here?
Isn't that why we use Gentoo?

Who cares if LongHorn is souding like a trillion bucks?
Or if Ubuntu uses newer stuff?

I'm here because I want control over my computer!
Not because I'd like those shiny little things the other kids have.
And if I want to have those shiny toys the other kids have, then I learn how to put them there!

tageiru · Post by **tageiru** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 5:33 pm

Omega21 wrote:Gentoo is
like spending 4 extra years in University, and when you get it all done, you have a better system than Ubuntu could ever give you.

Thats a great quote for http://funroll-loops.org/, perhaps under the "Watching shit scroll by for hours makes me a Linux expert overnight!" section.

curtis119 · Post by **curtis119** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 6:20 pm

tageiru wrote:
Omega21 wrote:Gentoo is
like spending 4 extra years in University, and when you get it all done, you have a better system than Ubuntu could ever give you.
Thats a great quote for http://funroll-loops.org/, perhaps under the "Watching shit scroll by for hours makes me a Linux expert overnight!" section.

But but but ... it DOES!!!!!onetwothree (doesn't it?)

Q-collective · Post by **Q-collective** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 7:12 pm

curtis119 wrote:
tageiru wrote:
Omega21 wrote:Gentoo is
like spending 4 extra years in University, and when you get it all done, you have a better system than Ubuntu could ever give you.
Thats a great quote for http://funroll-loops.org/, perhaps under the "Watching shit scroll by for hours makes me a Linux expert overnight!" section.
But but but ... it DOES!!!!!onetwothree (doesn't it?)

omfgwtfbbq yes!!111111111122222222