why Gentoo sucks, and why it will ultimately die

[Dralnu]

It will take alot more then one kid with an over-sheduling problem to kill Gentoo

[cousin]

Gentoo's not for everyone. And it's certainly not for me.
I'm a hardcore FreeBSD/NetBSD user and I can't see why Gentoo just didn't pickup pkgsrc. Since 2006.0, the installation is a dangerous thing for _anyone_ running a multi-boot environment. No modules for UFS filesystems and it's a pain to run on slightly older systems. Vanilla PPP should have been easier too.
I would have wanted a source-based Linux distro like Gentoo which is just a good idea that's badly implemented.

[Dralnu]

Gentoo's not for everyone. And it's certainly not for me.
I'm a hardcore FreeBSD/NetBSD user and I can't see why Gentoo just didn't pickup pkgsrc. Since 2006.0, the installation is a dangerous thing for _anyone_ running a multi-boot environment. No modules for UFS filesystems and it's a pain to run on slightly older systems. Vanilla PPP should have been easier too.
I would have wanted a source-based Linux distro like Gentoo which is just a good idea that's badly implemented.

A) I didn't have a problem with installing Gentoo, although I defragged my Windows parition and used its native (gasp) partitioner to give me a linux partition. I don't think its dangerous long as your're careful, but I see your point none the less

B) The next point I think needs clarification. The system I'm on now is a bit old (it was pretty high-tech when I got it), and I could ask for better performance. If you're talking an old pII with 64M RAM, then that isn't a problem with Gentoo (from what I've seen), its a problem with the programs and configuration. Gentoo has little word in the system requirements of the apps in Portage

The rest I know little of, so I cann't comment.

[runningwithscissors]

Gentoo's not for everyone. And it's certainly not for me.
I'm a hardcore FreeBSD/NetBSD user and I can't see why Gentoo just didn't pickup pkgsrc. Since 2006.0, the installation is a dangerous thing for _anyone_ running a multi-boot environment. No modules for UFS filesystems and it's a pain to run on slightly older systems. Vanilla PPP should have been easier too.
I would have wanted a source-based Linux distro like Gentoo which is just a good idea that's badly implemented.

Maybe this is a post and run, but I'm bored.
Yes, the install cds with the GUI installer ought to be accompanied by big flaming warnings about its ability to clobber your partitions.
As for UFS modules or kernel patches, I don't know if any are available. If they are, well, you can just install them like always.
And I don't know why Gentoo wouldn't run on older systems. In fact, I've heard it runs very well.
PPP works. Its not as easy to work with as FreeBSD, but it is fairly straightforward and the man page is explanatory enough.

I've used FreeBSD and OpenBSD although they were very nice, I still find Gentoo to be more fun to work with.

[cousin]

A) I didn't have a problem with installing Gentoo, although I defragged my Windows parition and used its native (gasp) partitioner to give me a linux partition. I don't think its dangerous long as your're careful, but I see your point none the less

When I said that it is a dangerous thing for _anyone_ running a multi-boot environment, I'm mainly referring to non-Linux Unix systems with UFS partitions (e.g, *BSD, Solaris, etc). Only two things must be enabled in the kernel: CONFIG_UFS_FS and CONFIG_BSD_DISKLABEL and the former doesn't occupy much space when enable as a module: 80K uncompressed. Anyone lacking an ext2/reiserfs/vfat/etc partition on his/her hard drive must use other means to copy the stage3 tarball.

B) The next point I think needs clarification. The system I'm on now is a bit old (it was pretty high-tech when I got it), and I could ask for better performance. If you're talking an old pII with 64M RAM, then that isn't a problem with Gentoo (from what I've seen), its a problem with the programs and configuration. Gentoo has little word in the system requirements of the apps in Portage

I don't know why Gentoo wouldn't run on older systems. In fact, I've heard it runs very well.

I used a Pentium1 with precisely 64M RAM. I forgot the processor's speed. The problem was more with Portage than Gentoo 'cause I wanted to take compile everything since it wouldn't run X, just iptables. Portage is terribly slow even for simple things such as listing dependencies.

As for UFS modules or kernel patches, I don't know if any are available. If they are, well, you can just install them like always.

Not before compiling a new kernel. There's people that may that functionality right there.

There's still another thing:
The X session doesn't correctly detect old monitors... Newbies that aren't aware of the Ctrl _ Alt _ +/- may think they got the Live-CD wrong or something like that.

I've used FreeBSD and OpenBSD although they were very nice, I still find Gentoo to be more fun to work with.

Of the things I love of FreeBSD/NetBSD is the ports/pkgsrc infrastructure and the fact that I can setup a working environment that I can customize on time. Gentoo tries to do the latter but they fail by sticking to only 1 CD, a thing they started with 2006.0. 2005.1 was easier to install.

[runningwithscissors]

When I said that it is a dangerous thing for _anyone_ running a multi-boot environment, I'm mainly referring to non-Linux Unix systems with UFS partitions (e.g, *BSD, Solaris, etc). Only two things must be enabled in the kernel: CONFIG_UFS_FS and CONFIG_BSD_DISKLABEL and the former doesn't occupy much space when enable as a module: 80K uncompressed. Anyone lacking an ext2/reiserfs/vfat/etc partition on his/her hard drive must use other means to copy the stage3 tarball.

Not sure what you're getting at here. Unless you're trying to install it from inside BSD in some way, it shouldn't matter. You can boot off the liveCD and fdisk will see your partitions and geometry just fine. You may safely avoid clobbering the partitions and compile in UFS support after you've finished your gentoo installation.

I used a Pentium1 with precisely 64M RAM. I forgot the processor's speed. The problem was more with Portage than Gentoo 'cause I wanted to take compile everything since it wouldn't run X, just iptables. Portage is terribly slow even for simple things such as listing dependencies.

Yes. portage is slow, but mainly because it is rather large. You may use a minimal tree in this case. Yes, its a bit of work, but I don't see any way around it.

There's still another thing:
The X session doesn't correctly detect old monitors... Newbies that aren't aware of the Ctrl _ Alt _ +/- may think they got the Live-CD wrong or something like that.

Yes. That happens with my monitor too. Thankfully, I get a prompt, and can work from there.

[joaopft]

and if it wasn't for gentoo, I'll still be shelling out money to microsoft and _STILL_ have to deal with keeping a floppy drive around just so I can install sata drivers on boot up...

My windoze is sloooow, and nothing fixes it. I must gather enough patience to install the damned thing all over again. Now, where did I put the SATA floppy and all the serial numbers? Dammit

[joaopft]

Now, seriously: do you expect that everything in, for example, windows, is 100% fine? Since we can't compile it ourselves, we never know what's hidden under the hood. For all that matters, windows can be a complete mess of a compile. And judging from the frequency of random crashes and lock-ups, it probably is. And this is what Micro$oft does to "fix it":

1) Most of the time, they won't fix it. As one guy puts it, "the costumer only buys what he sees". And the costumer can't see the code. If a bug can't be seen by users, they won't look into it, period.

2) If the problem becomes visible, they'll have to work something out. Since the bottom line of Micro$oft matters most, they'll hack something out. It doesn't need to be pretty, because no one will see the code, anyway.

The problem is: if we don't compile it, we can never know. It is possible to install from source on other linux distros, but is it is a lot more complicated. Gentoo is the best linux at that.

[43r05p4c3]

Maybe this is a post and run, but I'm bored.

I too, am bored. Also, I only read/skimmed the first and last pages, so I may be repeating previous posts, but here goes

First and foremost, I have so far thoroughly enjoyed Gentoo, and find Portage to be a fantastic way of keeping the whole system to be well organized without random programs installed in random locations (although this post implies otherwise). I also don't believe it will die... but I have a suspiscion(sp?) that it may split into two distros within five years or so. (One being more user friendly for newbs, which is fine since we're all newbs at some point, and one being more advanced for those of us that either want full control, or want to look like we know what we're doing).

As far as maintenance concerns go, it seems simple from what I've seen. If you update regularly, you're fine. If you're like me and have a laptop or other system that can't update multiple times EVERY F-ING WEEK, then it will take a long time to update. To be fair I'm using a low-end laptop capable of roughly 300 MHz. Then again, I chose Gentoo cause I wanted a lightweight system since my 300MHz laptop can't handle much. (I've been told that Arch is similar but doesn't compile everything since it's precompiled, and may try it. I'll lose the functionality of USE, but that hasn't helped as much as I'd hoped so far)

To compare with the original post, my system includes: xfce, openoffice, mplayer, xmms, octave, and all dependencies (yes including X) for such. That's nearly it. Installing it took maybe a day this summer using the 2005.1 CD's and the GRP options. I had to install openoffice 2.0 via a relatively complicated download, network, burn, copy from CD process, and I didn't get octave at the time. The kernel took a few tries, but overall, I'd say a full day (not counting breaks) for the very first attempt at a complete install (this is taking all the install periods and combining them) with at least 16 different kernels compiled on a 300 MHz system that didn't always require user input/monitering isn't too bad.

On the other hand, I recently managed to secure an occasional internet connection. I started updating on the 15th... It's now the 24th, and it's still not done. Granted I've had at best half that time with the computer doing something. However, it keeps coming across errors since it assumes that I update every single day. That's just plain unreasonable. Some of us don't update cause we're doing other things with our computers. Some of us don't update cause we don't have an internet connection 24/7. To design an update system that requires that is unreasonable. The last time I looked at my computer, the update failed since the program I'm installing is blocked by the presence of the lib files for that very same program. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that seems somehow illogical. Especially since it's an emerge --deep --update world. The lib files should be remerged from the --deep option if necessary.

As far as the whole ~86 vs stable argument in the first post goes... stable to me, implies stability (duh). But it also implies to me that it will install properly on any system. Perhaps newer systems might require newer software that might not be as stable, but something a touch older should have some stable support. If the people that volunteered (which is of course a key thing to notice: volunteered) to write the drivers didn't make it perfect, they should at least make it reliable and working with the other updates before announcing it as being "stable".

Unlike the original post, I actually approve of the modular approach. For a number of reasons. If some portion isn't necessary for your system, it's easier to not include if it's in a completely separate module. Also, for a distro like Gentoo that compiles EVERYTHING (is there any other distro like Gentoo for that matter), it makes a lot of sense to make the things that you compile as small as possible. What's better: recompiling a font library of size = 23 kB, or recompiling X which is numerous MB? The answer should be obvious.

In conclusion, I'd like to repeat the original post's metaphor (or simile... I think... for you english types). Once I've got MY house repaired, I intend to keep it standing AS IS, despite any new kinds of wall that come along. It means that in two years, when I try to bring my house up to code, I'll need a significantly larger time contribution in order to fix everything. but unlike the people that are rebuilding their house once a week, or once a month, I'll be living an familiar territory for a while. The real problem is probably that the new building materials and methods are coming out faster than the construction crew can figure out how to attach any two timbers together. If Linux and OSS developers are making updates every day for over 500 programs, and there are only a few really dedicated Gentoo developers, how are they expected to make it all work together and update properly?

In the end, I may not have said anything you didn't know, but like I said... I'm bored,

Steve

P.S., I've spent over a week updating Gentoo, so this seemed to be a reasonable place to vent. Thanks for putting up with me. Bottom line, infrequent updates should be a lot easier... but some one would have to work to make them easier so it probably won't happen.

P.P.S. don't criticize me for lack of previous posts, usually I can just search to find solutions so I don't have to post at all

[Sachankara]

I've been told that Arch is similar but doesn't compile everything since it's precompiled, and may try it. I'll lose the functionality of USE, but that hasn't helped as much as I'd hoped so far

Arch Linux might seem like a good thing at first, but if you're used to Gentoo, you'll likely to find Arch Linux a bit too primitive. For example, it has a lot fewer packages available, it doesn't have anything like etc-update so you'll have to update all configuration files manually, for being a binary distribution - too many packages are broken, and if you're not living in America, don't expect getting anything faster than 25 kiB/s from the mirrors. But there is one thing that is very good with Arch Linux - it is the fastest booting distribution out there. It's perfect for laptops when it boots the whole system with kernel and services in ~10 seconds.

Anyway, enough bad mouthing Arch Linux. Try it and see if it works for you.

[Evileye]

I just did an update and it broke everything. I haven't updated for about 2 months

[richard_ablitt]

I think the last time anything broke for me was upgrading to expat-2.0, which was solved by a revdep-rebuild.

[Dralnu]

With Gentoo, updating daily/weekly is fairly needed IMHO.

Splitting Gentoo into a user-friendly distro and a power-user disto I could see, and the olny big diff between the two could be portage.

Running on such an old system without a 24/7 net, I would probably say, if you can, keep track of what you need to update and do it via sneaker net and use bins made by another system (compiled to your USE flags and whatnot). A low-end machine with a dsl net (or leech someones wifi, if you are in to that kind of thing) could do the this, if you can get it. If not, sorry.

I'd look into some good, binary-based distros. Arch may be worth a look, but I'd avoid SuSe, RH, ect. since they are slow.

If you want, start a new thread and I'm sure others could come up with some ways to help with your problem.

[iKiddo]

Now, seriously: do you expect that everything in, for example, windows, is 100% fine? Since we can't compile it ourselves, we never know what's hidden under the hood. For all that matters, windows can be a complete mess of a compile. And judging from the frequency of random crashes and lock-ups, it probably is. And this is what Micro$oft does to "fix it":

1) Most of the time, they won't fix it. As one guy puts it, "the costumer only buys what he sees". And the costumer can't see the code. If a bug can't be seen by users, they won't look into it, period.

2) If the problem becomes visible, they'll have to work something out. Since the bottom line of Micro$oft matters most, they'll hack something out. It doesn't need to be pretty, because no one will see the code, anyway.

The problem is: if we don't compile it, we can never know. It is possible to install from source on other linux distros, but is it is a lot more complicated. Gentoo is the best linux at that.

Well, ehm. Okay, this might sound strange, but I find this behaviour of Microsoft 100% acceptable. The differences between Microsoft's behaviour and the general tendencies in the linux (FOSS/OSS/FLOSS/whatever) are tremendous.
The linux parties aim at satisfying their (non-paying) customers by claiming a good product through technical perfection. Microsoft (and Apple and millions of others) are satisfying their customers by claiming a good product through image. To the technical crowd Microsoft's approach seems flawed, to the rest the linux approach seems flawed.

These two approaches, however, are being merged. The general OS market, through the rise of linux, has been made aware of the technical flaws in Microsoft's approach. This has resulted in Microsoft making technically better products (not neglecting the user-satisfaction (interface design, eye-candy etc.) side of things). I, and some of the oldies (figure-of-speech) with me, have become tired of the fact that at least Gentoo Linux, isn't doing the same thing the other way around. Ie. Gentoo isn't becoming more user-friendly over time, au contraire, Gentoo is actually becoming more of a pain when held against the light of distributions like Ubuntu and Novell's SuSE which are technically still excellent (not as good as Gentoo, I admit), but have seen a tremendous increase in scores on the other aspects.

I hope it won't be needed to branch off to be able to let Gentoo suit my needs. It's a shame if Gentoo couldn't see the same progress the others are making.

[Dralnu]

Gentoo is a power-user distro. SuSe is a slow little fsck, and Ubuntu I havn't messed with yet.

You trade off ease of use for power, simplicity for walking the line of dangerous updates, ast least right now.

[dilbot]

Everything dies at some point. Linux itself will go away eventually.

"Zork the Almighty" is asking the wrong question. He should be asking himself why he's wasting everyone's time starting this thread when he could be out looking for a "better" distro that fits his brain waves better. I'd sure appreciate it if people would stop bitching - either pitch in and help code, shut up and use what's available, or go somewhere else. What's the big issue?

Anyways, Gentoo fits my brain patterns just fine. It seems logical to me, I've built my entire business around it (3 offices, 5 people) and I'm always pleasantly surprised about gentoo's improvements with each iteration. I'm sure a lot of other users feel the same way, and that's why Gentoo won't die until it's good and ready to.

[Dralnu]

OT: Nice avatar

OnT: These kinds of thread do sometimes offer good suggestions. Better handling of packages or whatever it seems the person is complaining about. They are annoying at times, but sometimes they do offer up some real suggestions.

[ArturHawkwing]

I also don't believe it will die... but I have a suspiscion(sp?) that it may split into two distros within five years or so. (One being more user friendly for newbs, which is fine since we're all newbs at some point, and one being more advanced for those of us that either want full control, or want to look like we know what we're doing).

(is there any other distro like Gentoo for that matter)

When you say "distro like Gentoo" I'm assuming that you mean one that compiles everything from source. The answer is yes there are. I'm using one right now. There's at least 10 of them. There are some distros based on Gentoo. There are also others not based on Gentoo. Go to http://distrowatch.com/search.php and Click on the boxes that you want to do the search on. Or you could try google.

[blueaura]

How can you moan about having too much bloat in gentoo when you are given modular X, KDE to name a few which allow you to select the parts of it you actually use and leave out the rest? Jesus you can even set -Os in your CFlags and select use flags to cut out any dependencies you do not want.

If you take so much time updating your gentoo install when you get back then why no set a cron job to do the update. If you don't want to do that you can always not run emrge --sync, problem solved. New and updated packages are added all the time to fix bugs and add functionality. They are added for those who want to install them, not as a must have. You could even only update packages that you feel are important to update, X, KDE, openoffice, openssh, apache etc. get a good secuirty bulletin newsletter and scan through it each week to identify any packages that need updating because of security holes.

Arch stable has never caused problems for me, ~arch has rarely caused problems for me. As previously stated some people are just unlucky with syncs.

If you are happy to not be on the cutting edge, to go with an very uncustomised linux system then perhaps gentoo simply isn't for you. Maybe it's time to move to SuSe and stop bitching. Personally I find gentoo very suitable to my needs, easy to customise, install with portage and when you do run into a problem there are copious resources avaliable to you irc, forums, documents, wikis etc. Can you say this about any other distro?

Maybe this is more up your street http://www.busybox.net/download.html

[Dralnu]

I think alot of the borked systems are just user error. I mean, if it was THAT BAD, everyone would be bitching about the same issue.

[ikaro]

Hi,
I haven't read all of the posts, but I could see where it was heading after a couple of replies...
So i did a fast forward to here just to say that I agree.

[steveL]

People who write portage files don't have the same vision, which causes problems. For example, if I have a package A (version 1.3) which depends on packages B version 2.45) and C (version 1.87), and I write an ebuild for a new version of package A version 1.4, I don't necessarily need to require updated versions of packages B and C. Some people do, some people don't. With the complexity of portage, this problem compounded with others (I'm not mentioning), causes unnecessary headaches. This is hard for some people to believe, and it is a waste of time to diagnose a whimsical design philosophy. Now with the size of portage, the problem is out of hand. That is why the original poster thinks Gentoo will die-- because the problem keeps growing, and nobody even realizes it.

I agree with this; it's not about not having updated software, but not requiring unecessary updates. For instance, if someone doesn't have the needed package, then portage will automatically pull the latest stable version. If they already do, why make them upgrade? This really is common sense, and it makes me wonder just how "l33t" some of the ebuild devs are.

I, too, am one of the older bunch. I'm from back in the days stage1 was the only supported installation, and RPM-hell was not fixed yet. (Yes, it is now!) And I too have the feeling Gentoo has become unstable and bloated.
Over time the standards for Linux distributions have raisen steeply. Previously the emerge package management system was the top packagemanager available, but has been overtaken (as a Dutchman once proverbially said: being ahead will slow you down, "de wet van de remmende voorsprong" - Jan Romein). And as has been noted in this thread, it needs an overhaul to be competetive again. Some problem areas:
- When I started using Gentoo it was a relative pain to mix ~x86 and x86, now that it has become easier (with a.o. the introduction of the /etc/portage/ config files) it has also become required to mix ~x86, although I have the feeling my needs haven't changed. This has to be cleaned up. (The above quote is a more technical explanation of my point.)
- The same goes for USE flags.
- The forums have to be read to keep stuff from breaking. We need a mechanism to inform the user at the CLI of upgrade guides in wikis or at gentoo.org.
- This wave of people that started using Gentoo a while ago, can be due to the effect of humans generally being more capable of remembering the good aspects, than the bad. (The "good ol' days"-effect.) But my computer (hardware) hasn't been updated since I bought it (as it is a laptop), and I'm definetely sure that portage has become a lot slower!

I agree with this- portage definitely needs an overhaul (apparently it's been discussed for 2 years now.) It might be worth just (at some point) giving up on it and using pkgcore when it's ready.
As for a CLI warning I think that's a great idea- the more help you can give a user, the better. (Even experienced programmers mess up, especially when we're tired.)

The rewrite/overhaul of Portage has been covered before. I think one of the major issues with that is that currently, Portage doesn't use a database by default (I think you can covert it to use one, but I'm unsure of that), and another is the fact you're dealing with a relativly large scripted program. While granted they are just as fast as compiled, converting Portage to C/C++ might oculd be of help, if alot of the second-hand programs (eix, equery, ect.) where added in by default instead of the generally slow/crappy tools that are in Portage by default, and waste space.

Also, doing that you could also remove the python reliance from Portage, and reduce system size some (if you don't script/don't script in python).

Any of this make sense to anyone else?

Yes it makes sense, although from what ferringb has said, it's not python thats slows portage, but the crap algorithms (read shit code, although I gotta wonder why that hasn't been sorted already.) I agree it'd be better to have stuff in a db, as it should really improve speed even for pkgcore. If not, then the plain text files are kinda nice, as someone else mentioned. Using better tools which have already been developed makes a lot of sense.

"Removal of deps" isn't going to cut the cake. We need a solid method to keep track of dependancies, so as to be able to automatically get rid of unneeded dependancies in good fashion.
..
Gentoo is loosing it's advancedness, because of all the options available nowadays. Apart from not pulling in unneeded deps, it is at the moment also not getting rid of unneeded deps properly. I do not consider bloat as the size of the system in bytes, or lines of code. Bloat is about not being efficient. We're not talking KDE, here.

Hear, hear- efficiency is what it's about. So, portage/ pkgXX needs to improve dependency handling.

It was exciting to configure and compile your own kernel. It was exciting to tune and break your system testing new technologies. It was exciting to compile your own software. I spent a lot of time doing this and I enjoyed it. I've learnt many things about linux und technology.
Nowdays, I think, I've seen nearly everything. There's no thrill anymore. I merely want to USE my system. So, what exhilarated me in the past, is now annoying.
That's not Gentoo's fault. I've only emerged to a new level of experience.
On this notebook, I will run gentoo until the hardware breaks (never change a running system...). But on my next piece of hardware, I probably will intall an other OS.

And that is exactly what should be worrying anyone who says they "love gentoo" (as I have said myself )
I dunno where people get off saying "Oh yeah it broke and that put you off, you should just deal with it, that's what makes us different." And all this `stop bitching and move to SuSE/Ubuntu etc' is just counter-productive.

If you take so much time updating your gentoo install when you get back then why no set a cron job to do the update.

Blimey, you'd better not go around recommending that as an option- I got insulted for suggesting such a thing (as wanting a system capable of automatically downloading updates in a cron script.)

[blueaura]

If you take so much time updating your gentoo install when you get back then why no set a cron job to do the update.

Blimey, you'd better not go around recommending that as an option- I got insulted for suggesting such a thing (as wanting a system capable of automatically downloading updates in a cron script.)

It will no doubt leave problems to be fixed after the update... BUT he cannot be bothered to sit through the emerge. As stated he could always not update or update selectively.

[Dralnu]

If you take so much time updating your gentoo install when you get back then why no set a cron job to do the update.

Blimey, you'd better not go around recommending that as an option- I got insulted for suggesting such a thing (as wanting a system capable of automatically downloading updates in a cron script.)

It will no doubt leave problems to be fixed after the update... BUT he cannot be bothered to sit through the emerge. As stated he could always not update or update selectively.

Or he could try using nothing but defaults, and run emerge -uD world && yes -5 | etc-update (I think thats the command).

[steveL]

It will no doubt leave problems to be fixed after the update... BUT he cannot be bothered to sit through the emerge. As stated he could always not update or update selectively
..
Or he could try using nothing but defaults, and run emerge -uD world && yes -5 | etc-update (I think thats the command).

Thanks for the yes command, never heard of that before.

I don't think it's a question of being bothered; it's more that it's nice to have the ability just to update a production machine, as you suggested from a cron script. Or even not to update a desktop for a few weeks. I don't want to argue about whether gentoo breaks or not- it hasn't done to me [this time] but it appears to have for others.