Where does Gentoo outrun other distributions?

[jabol]

I think all GNU based layouts(the ones i know) are messy. I believe a correct solution is to install all 3rd party apps into either /usr/local or /usr/pkg (pkgsrc systems) so that there is a separation between system and 3rd party.

Well, you're almost right all of them are messy. But you are only almost right all are messy, because the right thing to say would be almost all are . Well, Gentoo's isn't. Have a look at Gentoo if you haven't for long time and you'll know by yourself.

* Great /etc/env.d idea.

Whats this for again? (havent used gentoo in long time...)

It's for managing environment variables easily.

* runlevels, although this is kind of implemented in most systems by /etc/rc.* directories. But runlevels are easier manageable.

rc system in netbsd is far better than in any linux system.

Dunno, never seen it. But Gentoo actually has all necessary things, like boot dependences etc.

* Portage, but I need not mention that, it's too obvious. Deb's are nice also, but I prefer source building....

or you can have pkgsrc or ports, both of which beat portage in usage, simplicity and quality.

Well, I actually used FreeBSD for some time a few years back and after coming back to Linux (how grateful I am I've chosen Gentoo back then, life wouldn't be the same if I didn't) I found Portage far better than Ports actually.

petr

Adam

[patrickoneal]

I came to Gentoo because I got tired of trying to find red hat package dependencies and install them correctly. Keep in mind this was in red hat 8 and it has a good package manager but when I came to Gentoo having almost no real sys admin experience in the Linux world I found it easy to type in, emerge --pretend -v <insert package here> and see exactly what I am installing and what options and what it will affect as it installs. I tried debian first but almost killed myself trying to dig around to find some kind of guide to help me install. Then I came to Gentoo clicked on docs and in 10 minutes I was installing from stage 1 with the old guide. Then I upgraded hardware and did another stage 1 and I haven't gone back to another distro since. Although I am getting solaris certified my heart still bleeds Gentoo! I remember those first couple of weeks, going to sleep thinking about what package I would emerge next and how cool it was!

[Polynomial-C]

I came to Gentoo because of two friends and because of me being too dumb to compile the mozilla-suite on my SuSE-7.2 installation back in 2003.
Those two friends heard from my problems with mozilla and both encouraged me to give Gentoo a try. First I hesitated but not for long.
So I did my first install in 2003 and as I wanted to learn gentoo thoroughly I chose an installation from stage1.

My first very deep impression came with the documentation. Everything explained there simply just worked(tm). I didn't have a single problem because of the docs.
My second impression was that nearly everything compiled flawlessly. This was a huge improvement over my countless trials to update SuSE-7.2 by hand (means, compiling the source myself and creating rpm-packages afterwards).
The fact that I was somewhat forced to configure the Gentoo-system from scratch also was something I really liked. Of course I did many mistakes at the beginning but this step gave me a fat boost in understandig how Linux systems actually work under the hood.

There was already said much about portage as package manager but let me add this to the already big list of good attributes, portage has:
For me it was the least complex package manager I tried. Before I came to gentoo I already came in touch with SuSE and Debian. As I cannot leave a single positive word about rpm, just let me say that I like the concept of debian's package manager very much. I enjoyed the work with dpkg/apt but I always got blown away by its complexity. And even though I really tried to look under the hood of dpkg/apt/etc., I always felt lost.
Portage was the first package manager, that I really felt quite comfortable after a short while of learning.

I think toady Gentoo outruns other distros because of its flexibility. There are only few other distros out there that have such a level of flexibility like Gentoo provides. On the other hand I still think that Gentoo mostly fits to real computer-freaks that like to explore a unix-like operating system in its entirety.

[elcugo]

I saw the light thanks to Debian. Debian was the second distribution I used extensively (the first was SuSE) and I really liked it. However, I wanted to try many new packages but I was afraid to upgrade to Sid, so I used a combination of Woody (testing) and Sid (unstable), needless to say I got a very broken system very quickly.

APT-GET was great, but after battling with the broken binary packages that it installed I had to install many things I wanted from sources. Then I figured out that there was something wrong on installing from source in a binary distro, I decided to try Gentoo. The installation handbook was (is) great. I made several mistakes and took me several days but after a couple of attempts I got it right.

I sometimes get fedup with having to fix blockages and broken packages, and I feel like ditching Gentoo and installing something "better", but I don't know any other distro (or OS) that gives me the control, choice and fun that Gentoo gives me, I'm adicted to Gentoo!

One thing I love is that Gentoo let's you choose your own upgrade path. If I want to try a bleeding edge package I can unmask it and install it, and then I can remove it if it doesn't work. Or if the new thing comes that I don't need, then I can mask it and not upgrade at all.

I recently read the problems other distros' users have with PulseAudio, these kind of things doesn't happen in Gentoo, the users choose if they want PA or not, instead of just eating whatever the distro developers think the users want.

[Cyker]

Bah, the Gentoo /etc land is a mess. The only distro I've used where it isn't a mess is Slackware, but that's because it's one of the oly distros that don't (didn't?) have a proper package management system (Slackware packages are just plain tarballs! )

The only reason I don't mind this in Gentoo is because of Gentoo's one true strength from which all others are derivitives: Portage.

This one thing makes Gentoo so easily hackable that I can easily forgive any other annoyances because it gives me the power to hack around them. And I *like* that.

Actually, there is one other strength - This Forum.

It gives me the knowledge which I can use in conjuction with Portage to hack around the afore-mentioned annoyances

[durian]

Bah, the Gentoo /etc land is a mess. The only distro I've used where it isn't a mess is Slackware, but that's because it's one of the oly distros that don't (didn't?) have a proper package management system (Slackware packages are just plain tarballs! :lol:)

I went from slack to Gentoo. Compiling time was no issue, and I liked portage. /etc files I still do mostly by hand

Actually, there is one other strength - This Forum.
It gives me the knowledge which I can use in conjuction with Portage to hack around the afore-mentioned annoyances :mrgreen:

The forums is the best!

-peter

[Yamakuzure]

Besides the many points already mentioned:

If you install something that provides a background service (apache, mysql, sshd, ...) it does *not* start automatically. That is a big plus, because I find it *very* annoying on our debian systems, that everything is automatically started and added to be autostarted on every bootup when installed with apt-get.

[ltboy]

I keep coming back to gentoo mostly because I find that I'm perpetually having to install packages that simply don't exist in binary form(mostly because they're like pre-pre-alpha or something) and slapping together an ebuild is a lot easier than building a deb or an RPM. Especially if you need to make it possible to enable or disable certain functionallity. Arch almost has it right with pacman but seems to fall just a bit short.
Have to also agree with the above, and probably expand on that a bit. The Gentoo forums rock. So does the Bugzilla. Between the two I've been able to solve almost every problem I've ever had with linux.
Also gotta say the seamless upgrade thing is kinda nice too. Don't have to worry about if I'm runnung v6 or v7, and does the package I'm looking for exist in the Hardy Heron repositories or the Gutsy repos.
Funny thing is, when I first tried Gentoo(back@v1.4) I couldn't get it to work to save my life. Gave up on it then came back to it like a month later and haven't really looked back since. Sure, I play with other distros. Ubuntu saved me from a million phone calls from my mom about her computer crashing and could I please come over and fix it from booting into this stupid blue screen. But the only distro I've found that allows me the flexibility I demand has been Gentoo. And by that I mean USE flags... I miss those quite desperately every time I boot into another distro.

[disi]

I love the rc-update thing.

Gentoo is not unique in this respect:

On a Debian system, and derivatives:

Code: Select all

man update-rc.d

On a RedHat/SuSE system, and derivatives:

Code: Select all

man chkconfig

Other distributions likely have a similar command.

chkconfig is really great, at least I like it. Write a start script run chkconfig --add <blubb> and it creates all the links for you to start in the runlevels you defined in the script (which can then be modified using chkconfig again). I never really was a fan of this "boot" "default" etc. They should leave it to the numbers like 1,2,3,4,5,6.

Where Gentoo just outruns other distros is the package management. You can define how your package gets installed and what should be available, where other package management systems install the whole bunch of it by default. Also mostly you can install unstable and it just works or you find help in the forum/IRC...

And again the packages, every Gentoo installation is like an own distribution because you can choose what to install and how to install.