why Gentoo sucks, and why it will ultimately die

[Dralnu]

For what it's worth, I maintain a couple Gentoo boxes which are both the smallest installations I've ever made. Not only does Gentoo make the installation of a minimal box possible, they make it fairly easy. They also make it trivial to add another package, which is difficult on some distros.

Keeping a small installation is easy -- don't keep adding packages just because you might look at it someday, or because you don't know what it's for. To date my biggest world file contains 33 packages, and emerge -pet yields 184 ebuilds. The configuration and control mechanisms are simple and elegant. The amount of maintenance I have to do is lower than any other distro's maintenance if you exclude compile time. Other operating systems are vulnerable to breakage too, and that includes Microsoft and every other OS vendor I've used software from.

It seems like the original poster originally wanted to tinker with Gentoo, and then later decided that the benefits of that much control were not worth the cost of exercising that control. That's fine, but please just go find some other distro that suits you better rather than bash something that works well for a lot of people. Gentoo is at or near one extreme of preference, but for some of us it's just exactly what the doctor ordered. Yes, it would be nice if things worked better, but that's why people are still working on it.

There are very few choices for those of us who want this degree of control over the installed software we use. Watching somebody get abusive about a distro because it has flaws is unpleasant, and the thought that the maintainers might get discouraged because of that abuse makes a lot of us get defensive. It's particularly bad when the thing listed as a flaw is one of the main features of the distro. I for one don't want Gentoo to go away, and I don't want it to become more mainstream at the cost of control, either. The answer for you is to just find another distribution that fits your needs better, so why make all this fuss? At the very least, offer constructive criticism in a positive demeanor instead of dire predictions and flames.

Thanks.

Well said, and I agree.

[dattaway]

I thought I was the only one who thought gentoo was getting complex and big. I used to run gentoo on a P120 with 32MB of RAM for a few years very well. It was rather cool having a lightweight computer locked in a room with over a year of uptime serving files without problems.

Imagine my surprise when gentoo became bloated enough for my 3GHz machine with 1GB of RAM to crawl between broken packages when updating.

I had to get my desktop back and am now running Mepis. I do miss having a complete source based machine shop on my desk.

For those who say "good riddance" and STFU, you win. Now I shall cry and miss the good old days.

[Dralnu]

I thought I was the only one who thought gentoo was getting complex and big. I used to run gentoo on a P120 with 32MB of RAM for a few years very well. It was rather cool having a lightweight computer locked in a room with over a year of uptime serving files without problems.

Imagine my surprise when gentoo became bloated enough for my 3GHz machine with 1GB of RAM to crawl between broken packages when updating.

I had to get my desktop back and am now running Mepis. I do miss having a complete source based machine shop on my desk.

For those who say "good riddance" and STFU, you win. Now I shall cry and miss the good old days.

Thats odd. My box is a 2.53GHz P4 w/ 512 RAM, and its quick (cept for compiles, but that doesn't even slow me down a whole lot, actually).

Course, I keep to x86 stable, and try to keep my system lean, too...

[dattaway]

Thats odd. My box is a 2.53GHz P4 w/ 512 RAM, and its quick (cept for compiles, but that doesn't even slow me down a whole lot, actually).

Course, I keep to x86 stable, and try to keep my system lean, too...

I'm not sure why, but it spends more time going through the portage scripts than the actual compile. I guess its the way I had my systems configured.

[Headrush]

Imagine my surprise when gentoo became bloated enough for my 3GHz machine with 1GB of RAM to crawl between broken packages when updating.

No offense, but sounds like might be some PEBKAC problems.

I always love when people say bloat, what does that really mean?
The number of installed applications isn't indicative of performance of a system.

I still have a P233 box running Gentoo that hasn't been touched in over a year and a half and the custom Gentoo OS on it is slimmer than any other distro would be. (Except for the need for gcc and the compiler tools obviously.)

[Dralnu]

Thats odd. My box is a 2.53GHz P4 w/ 512 RAM, and its quick (cept for compiles, but that doesn't even slow me down a whole lot, actually).

Course, I keep to x86 stable, and try to keep my system lean, too...

I'm not sure why, but it spends more time going through the portage scripts than the actual compile. I guess its the way I had my systems configured.

More then likely. Some of the scripts need some work.

[kashani]

I don't find it hard to image that as Portage has gained features and has gotten better at package dependecies, etc it has gotten slower on slower processors. Much like Linux 2.6 was a large improvement on my db servers, but did run slower on old PII's than 2.4. The other issue is that the portage tree is bigger now which further taxes those old ATA33 drives on older machines as well.

kashani

[Dralnu]

I don't find it hard to image that as Portage has gained features and has gotten better at package dependecies, etc it has gotten slower on slower processors. Much like Linux 2.6 was a large improvement on my db servers, but did run slower on old PII's than 2.4. The other issue is that the portage tree is bigger now which further taxes those old ATA33 drives on older machines as well.

kashani

True. Personally, I think Portage is starting to be in need of a re-write (every program needs one over few major releases at least to keep things smooth) of alot of the core code. I don't know python, so I cann't help with this.

I KNOW alot of the scripts need work. There are fixes in the forums, but some of them are buried, and some of them are old enough, its hard to tell if they are needed or not, plus they should be in there by default.

[antonlacon]

I'm not sure why, but it spends more time going through the portage scripts than the actual compile. I guess its the way I had my systems configured.

Filesystem fragmentation?

[Uncle_Psychosis]

The one thing that really, really, really, really pisses me off is that I can't do an

Code: Select all

emerge -uDavt world

without something breaking. That just *shouldn't* happen.

Sam

[1clue]

The one thing that really, really, really, really pisses me off is that I can't do an

Code: Select all

emerge -uDavt world

without something breaking. That just *shouldn't* happen.

Sam

It has never happened to me, on either of two boxes.

[Headrush]

The one thing that really, really, really, really pisses me off is that I can't do an

Code: Select all

emerge -uDavt world

without something breaking. That just *shouldn't* happen.

Sam

It has never happened to me, on either of two boxes.

I have 5 machines in the house with completely different hardware and archs running Gentoo and I update world weekly and have had very few issues. Its amazing and frustrating that some people can have so many problems.

Unfortunately Gentoo's flexibility can make it harder to establish a controlled environment so tracking down and determining where some of these issues really lie is harder.

[Dralnu]

The one thing that really, really, really, really pisses me off is that I can't do an

Code: Select all

emerge -uDavt world

without something breaking. That just *shouldn't* happen.

Sam

It has never happened to me, on either of two boxes.

I have 5 machines in the house with completely different hardware and archs running Gentoo and I update world weekly and have had very few issues. Its amazing and frustrating that some people can have so many problems.

Unfortunately Gentoo's flexibility can make it harder to establish a controlled environment so tracking down and determining where some of these issues really lie is harder.

Aye, it shouldn't.

I have run Gentoo for ~6 months, and have had amazingly few problems. What problems I have had were due to some USE flags (hardened is a bitch when it comes to working with some programs), and usually I don't need the program that badly anyways.

[legine]

The one thing that really, really, really, really pisses me off is that I can't do an

Code: Select all

emerge -uDavt world

without something breaking. That just *shouldn't* happen.

Sam

It has never happened to me, on either of two boxes.

I have 5 machines in the house with completely different hardware and archs running Gentoo and I update world weekly and have had very few issues. Its amazing and frustrating that some people can have so many problems.

Unfortunately Gentoo's flexibility can make it harder to establish a controlled environment so tracking down and determining where some of these issues really lie is harder.

My Problems are usually of the configuration area. And I update, hmm once every 2 month...

[Dralnu]

The one thing that really, really, really, really pisses me off is that I can't do an

Code: Select all

emerge -uDavt world

without something breaking. That just *shouldn't* happen.

Sam

It has never happened to me, on either of two boxes.

I have 5 machines in the house with completely different hardware and archs running Gentoo and I update world weekly and have had very few issues. Its amazing and frustrating that some people can have so many problems.

Unfortunately Gentoo's flexibility can make it harder to establish a controlled environment so tracking down and determining where some of these issues really lie is harder.

My Problems are usually of the configuration area. And I update, hmm once every 2 month...

Config is usually the problem

[Enverex]

Some programs I have failing to emerge on my machines as of right now are clanlib (fails), azureus (wont compile because swt wont compile because it says the VM isn't set even though it is), qemu-softmmu (fails), qemu-user (fails). Some are on x86, others on x86-64.

I should keep a daily log of fails so that I can actually quote things when people don't believe me.

[Headrush]

Some programs I have failing to emerge on my machines as of right now are clanlib (fails), azureus (wont compile because swt wont compile because it says the VM isn't set even though it is), qemu-softmmu (fails), qemu-user (fails). Some are on x86, others on x86-64.

We know some combinations and packages don't always compile, I think the last few posts were referring to packages that have already been successfully emerged and that a world update always causes new problems.

I should keep a daily log of fails so that I can actually quote things when people don't believe me.

We believe you. I don't think we were talking about you.

Of course these posts are all generalizations or based on percentages. You can always find cases to disprove any statement.

[legine]

Hmm well. in case they are stable there are some packages that worked when the became stable but broke with time. Now the community can request a packages to become stable but it cant make a regression test easily without getting deeply involved. At least i think thats a problem we may have. see http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-48 ... ight-.html for more on this...

Maybe requesting some well thought enhancement will get enough tools to make it easier to locate and fix stuff...

[bfloeagle]

Just something in noticed about the "bye-bye threads"...

Almost all of the people who started these threads were users who started in 2003, and most of those who bashed them were newer users. Having been a Gentoo user for just more than a year, I can't say anything, but perhaps when these people started, Gentoo was quite a different distro than it is now. I think they might actually see some bad changes that we don't see. I think their disappointment in the current state of Gentoo might actually be completely valid.

Just an observation.

There have definately been bumps in the road where I could have easily left Gentoo for another distro because of those changes... I don't consider myself knowledgeable enough to say if they were good or bad changes but I can definately tell you that Gentoo now is VERY different than what it was back in 2003. I moved to Gentoo back in 2003 because of the different stages that you could start an installation from... That was something that many other distro's didn't have at the time. Now that you can only start with stage3 made me feel like Gentoo was more debian-ish, I can't say that I'm any worse off (I didn't see a performance difference when I started over). It didn't make me want to abandon Gentoo. The devfs move to udev also could have pushed me over. My system was trashed after an upgrade. I still didn't leave. I struggled to fix things, but I didn't give up...

Change can be good or bad. But change is change. I learned almost half of the *nix stuff I know trying to recover my system from bad/failed merges. So while I could swear up down left and right about how something was crappy and Gentoo will die because of it, instead I'm now more prepared for when it happens again.

[Dralnu]

Just something in noticed about the "bye-bye threads"...

Almost all of the people who started these threads were users who started in 2003, and most of those who bashed them were newer users. Having been a Gentoo user for just more than a year, I can't say anything, but perhaps when these people started, Gentoo was quite a different distro than it is now. I think they might actually see some bad changes that we don't see. I think their disappointment in the current state of Gentoo might actually be completely valid.

Just an observation.

There have definately been bumps in the road where I could have easily left Gentoo for another distro because of those changes... I don't consider myself knowledgeable enough to say if they were good or bad changes but I can definately tell you that Gentoo now is VERY different than what it was back in 2003. I moved to Gentoo back in 2003 because of the different stages that you could start an installation from... That was something that many other distro's didn't have at the time. Now that you can only start with stage3 made me feel like Gentoo was more debian-ish, I can't say that I'm any worse off (I didn't see a performance difference when I started over). It didn't make me want to abandon Gentoo. The devfs move to udev also could have pushed me over. My system was trashed after an upgrade. I still didn't leave. I struggled to fix things, but I didn't give up...

Change can be good or bad. But change is change. I learned almost half of the *nix stuff I know trying to recover my system from bad/failed merges. So while I could swear up down left and right about how something was crappy and Gentoo will die because of it, instead I'm now more prepared for when it happens again.

For the record, you can still use a stage1 or stage2, but stage3 is the only still supported one (though IMHO, stage1 should still be, but thats another mater). Besides, one emerge -e world, and you're to your basic, stage1 install effect with a personalized system

[bfloeagle]

For the record, you can still use a stage1 or stage2, but stage3 is the only still supported one (though IMHO, stage1 should still be, but thats another mater). Besides, one emerge -e world, and you're to your basic, stage1 install effect with a personalized system

That's exactly why I brought that point up... Not that it's a problem, but I think it should still be supported as well because it was supported originally...

[Dralnu]

For the record, you can still use a stage1 or stage2, but stage3 is the only still supported one (though IMHO, stage1 should still be, but thats another mater). Besides, one emerge -e world, and you're to your basic, stage1 install effect with a personalized system

That's exactly why I brought that point up... Not that it's a problem, but I think it should still be supported as well because it was supported originally...

I don't think so for the same reason. From my understanding, Gentoo is supposed to give you control over your system, and stage1 is about as controlled as you can get...

[thechris]

ok, just do a stage one anyways. if you actually had a _use_ for stage1 installs you would have known how to do the stage 1 by hand. on the other hand, if you just wanted to be cool and run 1 script and 1 emerge system (using a few hours), well, you really don' have much to complain about.

there is no reason you cannot update gcc with the full boostrap (which was removed from the stage 1 script) then on to glibc zlib ect...

if you just run the 2 scripts, well, its not like you put any effort into "controlling" your install, or really gained any control. just issued two commands and waited a while.


And there are many features portage needs, not the least of which is some way to prevent breaking from "better then nothing" aka forced updates.

[twstd3bc]

I agree with the original poster. Many people claimed that it's easy to keep a stable system, and that 15 minutes is not a lot of time. I used to think that, until recently when I had to do several projects at once, I didn't have 15 minutes spare to work on fixing a Gentoo problem since I wasn't sure if it would take 15 minutes or 2 hours. It's hard to keep a stable system unless you're smart enough to never do an 'emerge --sync'. Using package.mask etc... helps, but eventually the maintainers of packages screw it up, and you end up with subtle bugs that others don't have because you're one of few users who uses a 5 year old printer.

Doing an 'emerge world -u' is asking for pain if your haven't done it in months. And sometimes it forces you to upgrade packages you don't want to update, for silly reasons, and if you give in, stuff doesn't work anymore, and is HARD to fix, especially if you don't have time. I've been using Gentoo since 2001-2002, but right now I have to use Ubuntu on the desktop until I have time to sort things out. I'm not leaving Gentoo, for I run two servers with it, but it looks like portage is way too complicated for me to dive in and make improvements.

[legine]

twstd3bc
From my Experience you always have time when you want to.

Doing an 'emerge world -u' is asking for pain if your haven't done it in months

Nope I do not feel pain when my emerge world contains 300 packages.
I pick one package after another (yesterday I did emerge -uav gxine, today I will start with another App). And do the compilation in a slow process.
I heading always for a latest (stable) releases. And I have no big ultimate problems that leave my box unusable. Which is the most important to me. I ahve tons of small ones but I dont care if they are there. I solve them when I find the time .

And sometimes it forces you to upgrade packages you don't want to update, for silly reasons

IMO you should think updates are a generall things you want to do.

portage is way too complicated for me to dive in and make improvements.

We got a lot of stuff to help you already. Have you tried cfg-update instead of etc-update?
It is a great tool, breaks time of updateing configs in no time. It even remebers by itself if you have changed configs somewher. By putting graphicall diffs into use, you can faster check for the files and merge them when necessary. Workflow of course is not the same as with etc-update. And I miss some of the things I am used to, but overall the cfg-update is a hell easier way to handle config updates.