why Gentoo sucks, and why it will ultimately die

[slonocode]

He is clearly saying that he doesn't want to waste time and want things working for every situation by default.

No that's not what he is saying. He clearly did not say that gentoo should work for every situation by default. Maybe that's why you don't get it at all.

[Catanduva]

BTW i am posting on firefox Xforwarded from another box, I have spent hours compiling stuff and wading through dependencies and its easier to use firefox this way than installing it.

How about standards like "it works" because i have yet to try anything on the recent incarnation of gentoo that worked the first time i tried it.
Every time i try to add an applet to the panel it just kills and restarts it.
I dont mind putting a little work into a linux install, but this is ridiculous.

You know, i take that back, the one thing that did work the first time i tried it was installing gnome-mplayer so i could watch a movie while i tinkered.

I guess it depends on how much time the user has to waste, especially when things like the default kernel dont work.

But i just dont have the tolerance for trivial complexity that it takes to pursue this any further, especially not when there is a working linux distro on another partition of my hard drive.

It's not the only thing he complains, but who knows. Maybe i'm seeing things and that's why i don't get at all.
Or what i see is just plain laziness.

[djdunn]

IMO there is no increase of complexity here in gentoo since when i first started. but if there is than my own general knowledge outgrew that complexity, if thats true and gentoo is getting more complex all i have to say is that if i can do it anyone can :p

[John R. Graham]

You know, I think that people that have used Gentoo (probably lightly) in the past and then come back post dissatisfied opinions here more than anyone else. They seem to have a tacit expectation that all of their multi-year-old domain knowledge is still completely valid. Then, when something doesn't work, well, this thread grows.

But Gentoo constantly reinvents itself. One of the by-products of this reinvention is that things are occasionally (mostly ephemerally) broken along the way. Although you can argue that there should be less of this breakage, I don't think it is realistic to expect that there by none.

- John

[AaronPPC]

LOL. This thread is six years old.

So, Gentoo will ultimately die because all things ultimately die.

[slonocode]

I dont mind putting a little work into a linux install, but this is ridiculous.

It's not the only thing he complains, but who knows. Maybe i'm seeing things and that's why i don't get at all.
Or what i see is just plain laziness.

Congratulations on showing that he isn't asking for things "working for every situation by default". That is just something you made up so that you could attack it instead of what he actually said. It's called a strawman. It reinforces why you just don't get it all.

[slonocode]

You know, I think that people that have used Gentoo (probably lightly) in the past and then come back post dissatisfied opinions here more than anyone else. They seem to have a tacit expectation that all of their multi-year-old domain knowledge is still completely valid. Then, when something doesn't work, well, this thread grows.

But Gentoo constantly reinvents itself. One of the by-products of this reinvention is that things are occasionally (mostly ephemerally) broken along the way. Although you can argue that there should be less of this breakage, I don't think it is realistic to expect that there by none.

- John

I guess it's a good thing that nobody is asking that there be none.

[Hypnos]

1) Given the requirement that Gentoo is about choice (USE flags, virtuals, etc.), how would you change Gentoo to make it more usable and robust?

2) Given the constraint that Gentoo is an all-volunteer effort, how would you go about implementing these improvements?

[Catanduva]

I dont mind putting a little work into a linux install, but this is ridiculous.

It's not the only thing he complains, but who knows. Maybe i'm seeing things and that's why i don't get at all.
Or what i see is just plain laziness.

Congratulations on showing that he isn't asking for things "working for every situation by default". That is just something you made up so that you could attack it instead of what he actually said. It's called a strawman. It reinforces why you just don't get it all.

Sure, moving on.

I reinstalled Gentoo yesterday because i no longer needed dual boot with Windows to play guitar. So i made a better partition scheme for Gentoo.
I'm glad i got the system up and runing with all my applications in less than 3 hours, but i think it's easier for us who are already familiar with what we need so we skip a lot of parts of the handbook.

[V1nnyM3]

I may have agreed with this perspective around 10 years ago. Most flocked from the complexity and learning curve to the mainstream "turnkey" *buntu distros.

Now, these mainstream distros are hardly any different than Microsoft Winblows. Having pulseaudio jammed down your throat has made me return to gentoo.

Simple, if you want pulseaudio (sucks) installed, you have the option. I'm glad to be back.

[steveL]

I'm glad you're back (welcome back and all that) but please God let this thread die.

[blursmurf]

why should this thread die? i kinda enjoy reading it... lol~

[steveL]

Maybe someone should sticky it then, as a classic post we've seen several times. That normally seems to kill a thread dead ;)

[dmpogo]

I'm glad you're back (welcome back and all that) but please God let this thread die.

Well at least if this thread is alive, so is Gentoo

[likewhoa]

thread created by someone named the zork the almighty who only contributed 9 post to the whole forum can be laughed at and enjoyed for many years. go gentoo!

[steveL]

Well at least if this thread is alive, so is Gentoo :)

One way of looking at it, I guess. And yeah it is of course great that Gentoo is alive. But its users all know that, and anyone else can just look at when the last thread was posted, ffs, they don't need this one specifically ;)

Personally I'm glad that the whole "chasing after distrowatch and external publicity" mentality has died a death. It was never very interesting, and the kind of people who put effort into it are typically superficial in the rest of development. They're usually the ones responsible for layers upon layers of useless "integration" that just get in the way of actual computing.

Gentoo's settled into a more mature distro; it's as essential as debian or redhat to the Linux ecosystem, and even more relevant to the wider Unix ecosystem of source-distributed packages. And it still attracts the younger crowd, it always will, as it's the ultimate in control combined with convenience. You can't tweak any other end-user distro like you can Gentoo.

Yet it's paradoxically the least maintenance, at least for an end-user, since you never have to worry too much about library updates: yes we see the big ones, that get swept under the rug of a biannual reinstall for a bindist user, but once something's got past Gentoo QA and actually compiled on your machine, it's pretty rock-solid (at least in stable, and if it's unstable, it should be because you know the package). The occasional revdep-rebuild or preserved-libs rebuild is as much as you need to worry about in that regard, and that [topic=546828]can all be automated[/topic].

Yeah we get config updates, but so does every other distro. In Gentoo you get the means to test and build as a matter of course, before rolling out to production machines, and excellent interfaces whatever your setup.

So it's not for beginners (except for the young, who can learn anything;) but once you get here, you are never going to be satisfied with any other distro. About the only thing that can come close is a BSD with their ports (and associated tools), which ebuilds were derived from of course. But that's even less "mainstream", because of less hardware support, though it is where most of the dominant modern Unix paradigms, like sockets, originated and is heavily used in the back-end.

[cryptosteve]

but once you get here, you are never going to be satisfied with any other distro.

Sad but true

[666threesixes666]

but once you get here, you are never going to be satisfied with any other distro.

Sad but true

ive had more satisfaction with linux from scratch. though, because of having to maintain every single package installed i switched to gentoo so i dont have to compile 500+ packages by hand. for the time being ill fix all the fragmented wiki pages i can fix. my gentoo box does not run as well as my linux from scratch box, but emerge xorg-server is absurd easy compared to building that up by hand, and then the nightmare of compiling gnome after that. i miss my custom bashrc file....

[steveL]

ive had more satisfaction with linux from scratch. though, because of having to maintain every single package installed i switched to gentoo so i dont have to compile 500+ packages by hand. for the time being ill fix all the fragmented wiki pages i can fix. my gentoo box does not run as well as my linux from scratch box, but emerge xorg-server is absurd easy compared to building that up by hand, and then the nightmare of compiling gnome after that. i miss my custom bashrc file....

That's what I meant by control combined with convenience. And why I talked about 'end-user' distro, ie something that can reasonably be used for a desktop at home.

Sure, with Gentoo you need to be prepared to mess about with configuration. Personally I think that every computer-user is prepared to do that at the beginning: it's only once they get stuck in a certain mindset based on the first system that they've learned, that they become prejudiced. At least the old-school Unix users have a point: simple text-based configuration is the best basis to build upon.

In any event, the Gentoo install process is the thing that really weeds people out: nothing else in Gentoo maintenance is ever as much work. (I'm aware it's easier than LFS;) It's also a lot easier than it used to be; but it still teaches you an awful lot and gives you a good sense of what your machine is about.

[52midnight]

After successfully emerging and running Xorg on a new kernel 3.5.7 installation, I redid the installation in another partition, but this time followed the documentation more closely. After emerging Xorg, it failed to run with the messages "No devices detected." and "No screens found".

I then read "The X server configuration HOWTO" Section 3: Configuring Xorg:

The X server is designed to work out-of-the-box, with no need to manually edit Xorg's configuration files. It should detect and configure devices such as displays, keyboards, and mice. You should first try starting X without editing any configuration files. If Xorg won't start, or there's some other problem, then you'll need to manually configure Xorg as shown in the next section.

... The configuration files of Xorg are stored in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/

There is no /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ in any of my installations, nor is there an xorg.conf file; and the old xconfig and other utilities I remember from years ago don't seem to be available any more.

The difference between the working and nonworking installations appears to be:

1. The working installation does NOT have INPUT_DEVICES or VIDEO_CARDS entries in /etc/make.conf.
2. The non-working installation DOES have INPUT_DEVICES or VIDEO_CARDS entries in /etc/make.conf, as per the instructions in the HOWTO.

In other words, following the instructions causes my installation to fail, whereas ignoring them yields success. The video chip is an Intel Mobile 945GM/GMS so I specified VIDEO_CARDS="intel". On checking the /var/db/pkg/x11-drivers/ directories, the working install has a range of drivers installed, so its possible that a generic VESA driver is being used, but since there's no xorg.conf file I'm not sure how to check this.

I'm beginning to think that the Gentoo docn is overdue for a thorough revision. Does anyone else have input here?

[Knute]

I had a post, but lost it on a google search... :rolleyes:

I hate when that happens!

Anyway, look in /var/log/Xorg.0.log (that's a zero not a capital letter oh)
It will show you the current config that you are running.

As for drivers, well, the fitst hit on my search on your card was for intel mobile, and it gave a link to linux drivers.
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/SearchR ... set+Family

As for built in/onboard drivers... I don't have a clue. I don't know anything more than what that page says about the drivers.

And yes, documentation does go out of date on occasion. It happens, so you need to keep in mind that documentation is simply a guide. If the guide says that there's a road where there is empty space, you have 2 options; follow the guide and jump, or don't.

HTH

[cwr]

Well, I have a new installation on an Intel 965GM, and I don't have /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d
(or xorg.conf) but I do have:

Code: Select all

VIDEO_CARDS="dummy fbdev intel vesa"
INPUT_DEVICES="evdev keyboard mouse"

in /etc/portage/make.conf. I'm pretty sure some of those entries are superfluous,
but since they are there, I leave them alone.

ISTR that I had to specifically emerge xf86-input-* and xf86-video-* drivers,
so that might be the problem.

Will

[USTruck]

Hello,

About video_cards , look at /usr/portage/profile/desc/video_cards.desc

You will see : i965 - VIDEO_CARDS setting to build driver for Intel i965 video cards

It's only one necessary

By default, a folder /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d are not created.

If necessary, create and put a specific file configuration for Xorg based of your needs
Use Xconfig to see if all devices are correctly detected by X without launching it and thus you know what file and setup needed under xorg.conf.d

1. The working installation does NOT have INPUT_DEVICES or VIDEO_CARDS entries in /etc/make.conf.
And portage install ALL drivers ....

What devices have you ?
lspci : look at VGA line ; do you need's X run with framebuffer driver ? framebuffer only for console .....
Keyboard : usb, ps2, ... model, layout
Mouse : usb, ps2, .... model
Touchpad : model ?
Trackpad : model ?
Based on that information you know what to assign under make.conf and configuration of kernel
Look at /usr/portage/profile/desc ; lot of file with right information to put on some variable in make.conf

[52midnight]

Thanks for the feedback. I'll follow up on the tips given and should be able to clarify things.

My post was more directed at the general issue of how a newcomer gets to a working installation quickly and reliably. I have a number of nontechnical friends who rely on my advice for survival in the Lx world. At present we're using an old version of PCLinuxOS with KDE3.5, since IMO that's the zenith of desktop development - KDE4 is a glitzy, bloated dog - but we're needing something more up-to-date. Given that the mainstream distros have all degenerated into religious cults, I was hoping to suggest that they move to Gentoo; "It's a bit tricky, but the documentation is comprehensive and reliable, so you'll get through." Seems I can no longer do that.

A while back I was hoping that Sabayon (or another Gentoo-based distro) might do the trick, but ... well ... yeech! So I thought I'd offer to shepherd them through the critical first stages; they're the most difficult if things go wrong, but if the documentation sends them down blind alleys then it's pointless.

There's probably an opening for a pre-Gentoo distro if an interested group could be formed; something that provided a simple, robust installation intended as a staging post for moving into Gentoo proper. I'm probably looking for something that's not achievable here, but thought I'd test the waters. May have to take wing again.

[cwr]

I think in your place I'd recommend Cinnamon Mint; sadly, it's the distribution I
think I'll have to move to when Gnome 2.x finally dies. For someone starting out
in Linux Gentoo is a bit of a rough ride, though there is a lot of good documentation
and these (very helpful) forums.

Will