I'm leaving gentoo (sick of it)

[jsosic]

No, no... It's not another "farewell, I want you all to cry after me" threads
And I'm not leaving...

I just wanted to comment on the latest trends of devs and users leaving Gentoo... I'm really sad to see things like this happen, but I wasn't following forums for the past few months, and really didn't even notice all this fuss going on in my background. My Gentoo 4 years old installation still works beautifully, I've upgraded on regular basis, and to tell you the truth I never experienced any problems with Gentoo...

Sure, I've come around few broken ebuilds or compiles, few bad syncs that needed repeating, but still, no major issues. I have about 900 packages on my system, I use '--depclean', revdep-rebuild, Java, masked packages, few packages from unstable (~) branch, gees, I have about 500 lines in my /etc/portage customization files, and everything still works perfectly.

Only degradation of quality that I've noticed are really bad GUI installer in some 2006.x release and slowing down of portage. So one must wonder, are all these "I'm leaving, I'm sick of it, I'm furious, I, I, I and me" posts only pissed off newbie users that can't handle Gentoo? I mean, come on... is it really that hard to keep the system up to date? I don't find it any harder or more time consuming than on Debian servers I maintain. And you should really see a pain in the ass when you have to roll back to previous version of updated package on a Debian system... So, I must admit, I don't get it. Can some of these disappointed users explain it to me what is the problem? 'cause I must be stupid or missing something

Also, any of other, stickin-to-gentoo users, has anyone noticed any QA degradation in the last 6 months? Maybe some slowdown on update of ebuilds for newer versions of programs or something?

[bunder]

i think the recent split ebuilds might have slowed down my portage... but i can't exactly prove that.

[Phenax]

I believe they are working on a new installer, and as well as cleaning up Portage AFAIK. (Don't quote me, though).

Anyways, I agree. I run full on ~amd64 with a few unhardmasked packages. Works exceptionally, I encounter an issue once a month if I'm unlucky. Otherwise my system runs perfectly and by no means is it "Time consuming." When I handle upgrades, my PORTAGE_NICENESS is on 19, so even my most resource-heavy applications can run perfectly while compiling.

[drwook]

Sure, the portage tree's bigger hence sync's take a few seconds longer. So what? If someone's going to ditch gentoo to save a few seconds on a sync, 1/ who cares, whatever; 2/ enjoy dependancy issues with binary packages...; 3/ off you go then, don't call me I'll call you.

If people have a *real* issue, they should do something about it.

Maybe, if you're running a P2-350 w/128Mb of RAM, the solution really is to go use a binary distro. Maybe, if you have the mental prowess of a donkey and can't live without a cedega subscription and zero-thought system upgrades, the solution really is to sod off and use windows. Maybe if you've been a debian/freebsd/solaris/whatever sysadmin for 300 years and just 'don't get/like gentoo', the solution is to go use what you know.

But then, for the few that really fall into the above, there are many who could improve the situation. If something won't compile, and it's not your own fault, open a bug. Give meaningful info. Heck, attach a patch if you can. If something doesn't work as expected, do the same. If you don't understand something, go find out. If nobody knows, research it yourself, and let other people know (you've found others with the same issue when looking for a solution, right?)

[egoist]

Now, how many of this kind of threads are there already. I think quite a few.

[Mousee]

Maybe, if you're running a P2-350 w/128Mb of RAM, the solution really is to go use a binary distro. Maybe, if you have the mental prowess of a donkey and can't live without a cedega subscription and zero-thought system upgrades, the solution really is to sod off and use windows. Maybe if you've been a debian/freebsd/solaris/whatever sysadmin for 300 years and just 'don't get/like gentoo', the solution is to go use what you know.

Actually, the only complaint I have about my 400mhz P2 system (320megs RAM) with Gentoo, is how god awfully SLOW the harddrive is.
But that's what I get for using a 5200rpm laptop HD in there I suppose...

No complains about portage or Gentoo in general here though. I've only had odd problems here and there, and nothing very complicated or "life threatening". I'm happy at least

[jsosic]

Now, how many of this kind of threads are there already. I think quite a few.

Much less than "screw you guys, I'm going ubuntu"-ones

[andyandrews35]

Has overall been satisfying.

I like that it is:

1) Free
2) Well supported
3) Much more secure than windows

I have had some headaches, but once I invested some more time, these pains turned to pleasure. For me starting with the live-cd kernel config and slimming down has been the answer. I think many of the devs are too proud to do this.
As for users, I haven't seen the evidence of them getting sick of it. We have a network sys-admin at work who plays with Gentoo in his spare time, and he has taught himself Unix that way. So for the motivated user I think it could broaden his/her horizons! And, it's free.

[sageman]

I'm definitely a "stickin-to-gentoo" user, have the same install on this system for around 3 years. Haven't really noticed any QA degradation or slowdown.

Gentoo has kept me around for a number of reasons:
1) No damn GUI configuration necessary.
All the "howto's" and all cover setting stuff up the old-fashion way, with a bash prompt, vi and some /etc files. This is the way for me. Any configuration HOWTO that starts by saying "open up such and such and click on this and then click on that" just isn't for me. Course, you can do this in any distro, but this is the default/explained method in Gentoo, and I appreciate that.

2) Tons of documentation.
I find when my friends ask questions about other distros, I refer them to a Gentoo page on the topic, and it helps them. The documenation, via the actual HOWTOs, the forums and the Wiki are just spectacular.

3) Portage.
I absolutely love the portage system, and there are tons of packages. Making custom ebuilds is not that difficult, too.

4) Ease of customization.
I don't have to install a "KDE" ubuntu or an "XFCE" ubuntu, just Gentoo,and do whatever I want. You can build it more from the ground-up, which I really like. Sure, you *can* do it with ubuntu, but it's not exactly encouraged; it's clearly, download the iso for what you want.

5) Upgrades
Upgrading Gentoo is just an "emerge world" away. Upgrading other systems? It usually works, but sometimes, you might as well just download the new iso (I had this problem way back with Slackware, could be way better now). Is it a "dapper" or "edgy" install? Who cares! Just update the profile and emerge away.

[jseymour]

I am a fairly new Gentoo user, but a long time Linux user. I will definitely be a long time "stickin-to-gentoo" user. Even when using distros like Redhat or Mandrake I still preferred to compile my own software on my system. I hated the fact that certain options that I did not want or need came with the binary packages. But compiling on those systems required you to research dependencies to get a finished compile.

Recently I posted in another Linux forum my desires for a perfect distro for me, and that is when several stated that gentoo was the one for me to look into.

I started with the minimal install CD, and it took me about 4 tries and about a week and a half to get the basic install complete (and I loved every minute I spent on it). After that I built the rest of the system to suit me (and only me). Then I got a little crazy and killed it. The basic reinstall took me 2 or 3 hours, and then a couple of days to customize the system again. Been running perfect ever since.

I am no programmer, just an avid Linux user. For me Gentoo stands for the way Linux was meant to be, a custom OS built for the user using it.

[kel_p]

Can some of these disappointed users explain it to me what is the problem? 'cause I must be stupid or missing something

I just started using gentoo some weeks ago and using Linux six month or so (so really n00b), not really disappointed but certainly learning about my needs and what I expect my OS to do for me. Gentoo seems to be great for tweaking performance to the extreme, might be important when using old hardware. But my hardware is almost brandnew and the possible performancegain I get when compiling kernel and stuff is not noticable.
I feel very much in control, thats a fine feeling, but also its getting a little frustrating sometimes to have to recompile large packages for often minor goals.
For instance.. I want to install KeepassX to manage my passwords, I use this on Windows for al long time and want it on Gentoo also.. For this I need to recompile QT with qt3support, I upgraded QT some days ago without issues, now its hanging somewhere in the compileprocess.. Why? I opened a thread for this to try to find out and surely the problem will be fixed.. the thing is though.. I want to install a simple app that probably compiles within a minute, almost 24 hours later it still not available simply because QT does not compile.
I dont mind chasing issues, I think I actually like it, but sometimes I simply want things to work, even if its not the best of performance.

But hey, Im not complaining, only trying to find out if Gentoo is made for me.. and if I decide its not, then the Gentoo-experience gave me a lot of insight, no reason to complaint.

[Roman_Gruber]

I aggree with gentoo, I saw that my harddrive, a PATA drive is the slowest device in my notebook. I have 1800 MHZ Turion CPU, x700 ati card, 1GB of RAM.
Gentoo needs a lot of RAM, so my next machine needs at least 4GB of it.

Actually, the only complaint I have about my 400mhz P2 system (320megs RAM) with Gentoo, is how god awfully SLOW the harddrive is.
But that's what I get for using a 5200rpm laptop HD in there I suppose...

No complains about portage or Gentoo in general here though. I've only had odd problems here and there, and nothing very complicated or "life threatening". I'm happy at least

[/quote]

[aidanjt]

I aggree with gentoo, I saw that my harddrive, a PATA drive is the slowest device in my notebook. I have 1800 MHZ Turion CPU, x700 ati card, 1GB of RAM.
Gentoo needs a lot of RAM, so my next machine needs at least 4GB of it.

Actually, the only complaint I have about my 400mhz P2 system (320megs RAM) with Gentoo, is how god awfully SLOW the harddrive is.
But that's what I get for using a 5200rpm laptop HD in there I suppose...

No complains about portage or Gentoo in general here though. I've only had odd problems here and there, and nothing very complicated or "life threatening". I'm happy at least

Gentoo doesn't need anywhere near 4GB of memory.

Code: Select all

linitx ~ # free -m
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:           499        350        148          0        129        161
-/+ buffers/cache:         60        439
Swap:          976          0        976

[RobertDavid]

It is not gentoo who eats your memory, but this are programs you use, have a lot of ram, why not to use some mem.consuming programs,

I know that 512MB is enough for normal using of gnome or KDE,

personaly I light programs, many times console based and in normal situatins (web browsing, watching video, file edititing,browsing all together) I dont reach 100MB of used ram, whole 512MB on my system is used only rarely (huge program compiling, big picture gimp editing, some math programming...)

So it is what is awsome on gentoo, just chose what you want, how you want and for what is your computer suited.

I have sometimes had a need to try another distro, but it is impossible, those who get used to gentoo and like that way, cant change. Nothing is better suited for me.

[turtles]

.. is it really that hard to keep the system up to date? I don't find it any harder or more time consuming than on Debian servers I maintain. And you should really see a pain in the ass when you have to roll back to previous version of updated package on a Debian system... So, I must admit, I don't get it. Can some of these disappointed users explain it to me what is the problem?

Getting it configured in the first place.

I am a electrician not a computer programmer. I needed a computer and I got one with Gentoo on it from a friend. So Gentoo is what I learned Gentoo is all I know. Here is what I have experienced:

• I get alot of funny looks talking to other linux users.
• People here sometimes imply Gentoo is not designed for users like me whom don't know a lot.
• I post here all the time for help. I try to answer posts but most noob's know more than me.
• Everyone is nice here.
• I donate a little to the Gentoo foundation because I cant help in any other way. I notice Gentoo does'nt spend much.
• Gentoo's worst documentation is better than M$soft's best.
• I could not update correctly until I found app-portage/cfg-update it works well for me.
• I had problems with USE flags until I found profuse.
• I never had a problem with the GUI installer.
• I like kuroo as a GUI for portage. Although I don't use it out of cmd line habit.
• I finally found emwrap.sh script for correctly building the tool chain.
• I think it is really great that people took the time to make kuroo, cfg-update, and emwrap.sh instead of just saying they hate gentoo and leaving.
• I had to drop Gentoo during the whole upgrade mania xorg 7.0, GCC 4.1.1, udev repleace hotplug, kernel, at the same time thing. Seeing emerge go for days building the same packages over and over was insane everything was breaking as well.

I had alot of problems with following the documentation during the mass update. The first thing I noticed about Ubuntu is everything worked. Sound, java, openoffice, it was nice for a wile. 2nd I noticed I was forced into Gnome. I like KDE. 3rd I figured out how to chroot in to my old Gentoo partition for fun one day, found the emwrap thing and finished the upgrade by stripping everything off the system except system packages and rebuilt everything with gcc 4.1.1 from there. Have'nt been back to Ubuntu since.
I run Gentoo hardened on a server, Gentoo on an imac PPC, and recently Gentoo on a Toshiba laptop.
My main issues are with the Laptop related documentation not the packages.
An Example:
The Gentoo Wirelesss guide starts off like

Introduction

Currently we support wireless setup either by wireless-tools or wpa_supplicant. The important thing to remember is that you configure for wireless networks on a global basis and not an interface basis.

wpa_supplicant is the best choice, but it does not support all drivers. For a list of supported drivers, read the wpa_supplicant site. Also, wpa_supplicant can currently only connect to SSID's that you have configured for.

wireless-tools supports nearly all cards and drivers, but it cannot connect to WPA only Access Points.

It takes for granted you know allot already. How about some definitions? How about some links to find out more beginner info on wireless. how about starting with lspci? and if your hardware is not in lspci your kernel is not configured right.

The pcmcia-cs to pcmciautils migration guide never made it out of bugzilla however peoples systems are getting clobbered by kernel updates that do not support pcmcia-cs. However pcmciautils does not replace all the functionality of pcmcia-cs. So there is work to do here.
Gentoo has a USB guide and a ALSA guide that are awesome. The KDE, and Postgresql guides are incredable. Almost better than going to the projects own.
The USB Guide starts off by defining usb!
However when I started a Thread in user relations sugesting Gentoo needs a PCMCIA guide. It got moved to kernel and hardware. No discussion. The (polite) answer I got was there's no difference between
using pcmciautils in Gentoo or in any other distro, and Gentoo's
documentation is written around the idea of doing something "the Gentoo
way", that is, because there's something special that needs to be done
to install/use something.
I would still like to see documentation be written so a user understand what they have and can make their system work simply by following the directions. There are no directions for PCMCIA yet you have to know to emerge something to get it to work.
A user should not need to search all over the net to find out that pcmciautils has to work before a wireless pcmcia card will or something to that effect.
So what am i doing about all this besides complaining?
I am starting to help write documentation so look out for type 'Os
The problem here is Gentoo can't get rid of me that easy.

[Potato Bob]

To me gentoo doesn't seem like another "newbie" linux distribution, so I'm sure that it's common that we get a bunch of people trying gentoo and leaving out of frustration. It is sad that gentoo is getting put down so harshly by many people, but hopefully gentoo will recover quickly

[Drysh]

I don't find it any harder or more time consuming than on Debian servers I maintain.

That's the thing I hate. Why do we have to use Debian to work? Have you seen what Distrowatch says about us?

Gentoo Linux was created by Daniel Robbins, a former Stampede Linux and FreeBSD developer. It was the author's exposure to FreeBSD and its autobuild feature called "ports", which inspired him to incorporate ports into Gentoo under the name of "portage". A detailed account of these beginnings of Gentoo can be found in this three-part series called Making the distribution. Gentoo's first stable release was announced in March 2002.

Gentoo Linux is a source-based distribution. While the installation media provide various levels of pre-compiled binary packages to get a basic Linux system up and running, the idea behind Gentoo is to compile all source packages on the user's computer. The main advantage of this is that all software is highly optimised for the computer architecture it is built on. Also, updating the installed software to newer version is a matter of typing a simple command. Many Gentoo users enjoy the fact the software packages kept in a central repository are usually kept highly up-to-date and available within days (sometimes even within hours) since their release by the upstream developers. On the other hand, installing Gentoo and turning it into a full-blown distribution with the latest graphical desktops, multimedia and development tools is tedious and long - count on several days even on a computer with a fast processor.

Pros: Painless installation of individual software packages, highly up-to-date, superb documentation, the "geek feeling" of building a distribution tailored to user's needs.
Cons: Long and tedious system installation, occasional instability and risk of breakdown.
Software package management: Portage (SRC)
Free download: Yes

Gentoo is the only distribution that they consider instable (well, I couldn't find any other searching Distrowatch). When someone who makes the decisions read that, it's hard to say Gentoo is good for them.

For those who compared Gentoo with Windows... Apples and oranges.. If you really need to compare with another OS, try BSD. -- I think Gentoo is better than FreeBSD, but that thing is rock solid (and IT managers won't look funny at you when you say you are planning to have a BSD server). If you want something that is targeted for the same people that use Windows, try Ubuntu.

With Sabayon trying to give us "all the bleeding edge technologies", maybe it's time for Gentoo to become more conservative, focus more on QA. Then maybe we could have a distribution that is solid and gives us extreme flexibility (and that uses Linux kernel, instead of BSD) -- And that our bosses/clients would let us use.

BTW: I'm not leaving Gentoo, not because I'm extremely happy, but because I can't find anything better for me.

[nix13]

I just wish there were two maintained portage trees a stable tree geared toward production servers and a cutting edge tree for users to test on, keep up with the latest software, desktops etc...

It would make admin's lives much easier who use gentoo on production servers.

Just my thoughts....

[aidanjt]

I just wish there were two maintained portage trees a stable tree geared toward production servers and a cutting edge tree for users to test on, keep up with the latest software, desktops etc...

It would make admin's lives much easier who use gentoo on production servers.

Just my thoughts....

Gentoo-portage is suppose to be the 'stable' tree and layman is suppose to be for testing stuff. But sometimes things are committed without any serious testing and breakage occurs.

[Samoth]

There was an old GLEP that was supposed to create a release-based tree that is stable.

It wasn't accepted, and frankly, Gentoo doesn't have the manpower necessary to maintain a stable tree(including backporting patches).

[Ezhdeha]

I've never really had problems keeping portage up to date even on my AMD64 system.

Just a careful knowledge of masking would help out here I think

[njcwotx]

I for one will not be leaving Gentoo any time soon. I have no troubles that can't be overcome. I have had a few difficult ones now and then, but that just added to my skills and joy of computing. I have built many Gentoo boxes over the last several years and all my *serious* boxes are Gentoo. I tried a few distros early on and found that my many years administering Windows made understanding of Linux very difficult. One day a fews years ago we had some programmers from the local college working on a project over the summer who convinced me that Gentoo was the best distribution for me to use. After reading the excellent documentation, becoming a member of this forum (which is quite excellent too I might add), and installing Gentoo about 3-4 times with the manual I found that my understanding of all things Linux finally started to click.

Seriously, Gentoo brings back the fun that computers gave me when I was just a young lad pecking on an Apple II and a DOS 3.3 box. The only difference now is that I actually know what I am doing this time! I have tried other distributions and they didn't quite give me the same joy that Gentoo has. I am not sure what it is, but I just love having complete control of everything at my fingertips. Much like how a boy will take apart a new toy to see how it works, I like being able to open the source, manually screw up the configs, or try out some new software (all for free I might add). I have to work in a predominantly Windows environment to pay the bills, but I have a couple of Gentoo boxes stashed around the network for troubleshooting and reconaisance.

Unfortunately, I have a boss that is not a Linux man and he recenly took my Nagios/SNMP/RRD/NTOP network monitoring box I built and made it somebody's Windows workstation. It was quite the sad day for me, that box allowed me to keep a handle on my entire company's network from anywhere quickly. I could even pop in on my blackberry and check the status of things or ssh in and actually fix network problems via my Gentoo box. His comment to me? "Dude, you need to start coming up with solutions that involve windows apps" and I replied, "OK, do you have the $25,000 to pay for HP Open View?"

Anyway, I fullly love Gentoo, but I do admit that I keep a few other easier to install distros for quick installs when I need a quick kick around box or I want to torture my non-technical wife or kids. I downloaded Sabayon the other day but haven't tried it, I might actually use that on a laptop I use to surf the web from the living room.
But I will always be a Gentoo'er!

[amp_man]

What I don't understand is why people seem to think that they have to post in a forum that they're going to stop using the software. Yeah, I ran Red Hat 8, 9, and then FC1,2, and 3 (all at the time were current). Did I whine, bitch, moan, and complain about fedora's piss-poor package management system, or lack of an update system that worked properly on a slow internet connection in their webforums? Did I announce the fact that a long-time user who had never donated a dime to the cause, nor a line of code, nor even clicked on an ad, would never do any of those things again? No, I just downloaded ubuntu and said good riddance.

I've been using Gentoo for about a year now, and my server's went down due to an update once, during the transition from 2006.0 to 2006.1 and the new Xorg. Other than that, it's been smooth sailing, updates about once a week or so, portage set up not to sync anything I don't use, and I just don't think about it. And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to see if I can get gentoo embedded working on my carpc

[shazam75]

Has overall been satisfying.

I like that it is:

1) Free
2) Well supported
3) Much more secure than windows

I have had some headaches, but once I invested some more time, these pains turned to pleasure. For me starting with the live-cd kernel config and slimming down has been the answer. I think many of the devs are too proud to do this.
As for users, I haven't seen the evidence of them getting sick of it. We have a network sys-admin at work who plays with Gentoo in his spare time, and he has taught himself Unix that way. So for the motivated user I think it could broaden his/her horizons! And, it's free.

I totally agree!

[erm67]

I installed gentoo 1.4 years ago and more or less regularly updated it since. Sometimes I think about switching to another distro and read everything I can about them browse the list of available packages and open bugs etc. etc. and then inevitably decide to stay with gentoo.
It seems from some posts here that gentoo is already down the road to extinction, well I am too lazy to switch now so I think I will wait until the last sync server is gone. Please someone post a notice here when it no longer exists.

Seriously I really like the fact that packages are compiled locally, previously I used redhat based distros and spent much time compiling packages I needed, finding deps, packaging into rpm and so on, community created rpm were often buggy or worst insecure. So the only alternative I really considered were crux linux and linux from scratch, both appealing to me since I like to write scripts, ebuilds or simply watch the familiar output of gcc in a terminal, but to install and maintain all the software that gentoo actually offers on those distro would require a much greater work than trying to fix the few ebuilds occasionally non-working or write a few new for the really-cute-niche-app-I-like-so-much.

I find gentoo sunrise a good idea even i I do not use it, maybe moving the last ebuild of a pkg before removal to an overlay like that could encourage someone to adopt it. It would also have a better psychological impact, the package has not been removed but simply moved into an overlay.