Sick of Gentoo

[bakaohki]

As great as the forums are, they are a double edged sword. All it takes is a bad suggestion you follow, or learn something improperly and it could lead you down the road of many problems. Seems maybe your on that road

Thats cute. To be honest I consider myself a geek and it was only once when I broke things badly - but since I use rsyncs for periodical backups that wasn't a real problem. Neither are emerge failures on clean and freshly installed systems, but I'm not into flame wars and stuff like that. BTW I use no obscene use/make flags, I'm no speed freak and most problems are connected with the Amd64 arch.

I still like Gentoo, still want to stay with, but sometimes I'm not sure if the speed increase and "I'm in control" feeling worth it (todays top issues: expat problem (see newsletter, my fault though ), stable lirc compile problems with amd64, kde baselibs removel due to slotting, firefox gentoo-specific vulnerability and mysql latin1 use flag - but okay, this is a system upgrade day, which I hold once a month or even less).

Since I tried a couple of distros still it is not really bad, but I am not for the computer - the computer is for me, don't forget that. The next time Gentoo will give me such headaches I will just install freedos and will live happily ever after Hmm, where did I put those C64 Geos disks?

[HeXiLeD]

i explained myself in a poor way.
i meant to say that not all bugs happen to everyone . some only happen if one uses a certain program that may cause some conflict with another program or some bugs are related so some features of a program that we may not even use.
Lets say.. .that thunderbird and enigmail together cause a bug in one of them but thunderbird alone works with no problems.

those who use both will need to update, those who just use tbird, dont.

Same goes for the security updates. For example; lets say that there is a security fix for the kernel and iptables or some scsi drivers update
Well... if i dont use iptables or have scsi, why update that ? It can happen with any feature that the user does not use or needs.

I only update the kernel for security/bug fix of something that i use AND that i see failing here or new hardware support.

All new version are bug_fixes and security updates.

Not all updates are bug & security related. some can be just to add extra features and or support for something new.
If some dev decides to add a new driver to the kernel to support
this hardware for example i know that i will be updating but most of you guys will not or have the need too

same goes for software.

(reading the changelogs = saves time and trouble)

By the way EMT64 using amd64 stage 1 install and running stable.Nothing broken here for almost 1 year

[bakaohki]

i meant to say that not all bugs happen to everyone . some only happen if one uses a certain program that may cause some conflict with another program or some bugs are related so some features of a program that we may not even use.
Lets say.. .that thunderbird and enigmail together cause a bug in one of them but thunderbird alone works with no problems.

As of this writing transcode broke because of quicktime (third emerge in a helluva long queue) But yeah, you're right, this whole stuff reminds me of Joker's cosmetics in the first Batman movie: the lipstick is fine by itself, the skin care creme is fine by itself but together they are deadly poison

Now I have an obscene question all true Gentooers would call stupid: sometimes isn't it better to have all the cheap makeup (made by Acme/Novell/Whatever co.) without the poisonous effect? Yeah, your face is covered with colorful crap, you look butt ugly, but it works.

Rpms and debs are compiled with all the crap, but they work for the masses. While I still think source is the way to go, it would be nice to have binary packages (like apt-src, but the other way around) - I know, currently it is not available (binhost is another cup of tea), because of the unique nature of use flags and Portage.

[Headrush]

Now I have an obscene question all true Gentooers would call stupid: sometimes isn't it better to have all the cheap makeup (made by Acme/Novell/Whatever co.) without the poisonous effect? Yeah, your face is covered with colorful crap, you look butt ugly, but it works.

Rpms and debs are compiled with all the crap, but they work for the masses. While I still think source is the way to go, it would be nice to have binary packages (like apt-src, but the other way around) - I know, currently it is not available (binhost is another cup of tea), because of the unique nature of use flags and Portage.

No. The fact that an RPM is pre-compiled isn't what removes the error between package versions. Its still created from the same code. If a problem exists, it just means the RPM creater fixed it.

I my experience problems like this in the last 3 years I have been using Gentoo, are far less than the RPM dependency hell problem I saw in the 4/5 years where I used RPM based distros.

[dalek]

I my experience problems like this in the last 3 years I have been using Gentoo, are far less than the RPM dependency hell problem I saw in the 4/5 years where I used RPM based distros.

That is my experience too.

[HeXiLeD]

Rpms and debs are compiled with all the crap, but they work for the masses.

let me give you an example:
net-nds/openldap-2.3.24-r1 [2.2.28-r3] +berkdb +crypt -debug +gdbm +ipv6 -kerberos -minimal -odbc -overlays +perl +readline +samba -sasl (-selinux) -slp +ssl +tcpd.

Lets say that if you compile like this, no problems happen. but if you add full support ("compiled with all the crap") no problems happen; or all the problems will happen; in conclusion, something may break if you tweak to much.


The difference here is; which one will provide you better documentation and support to fix the issue.
At the same time... playing with things this way and in another ways will also push the distro to go further evolve faster and more than others.

The example is still the same as before and that you compared to the joker/batman movie.
The facts are simple. playing with things and changing them from its default/original setup, will eventually break them regardless of what O.S one is using.

with gentoo, because its source based we start right way customizing things. Its so easy to do it that one hardly can avoid it.
Such thing by default doesnt happen with most other distros where the work is somehow all done.
The point is simple. One will easily bend over to pick up 25 cents close to his feet than walking 1km to grab $1

Gentoo can be used with no issues at all and there are some simple things that help maintain it that way.
ie : dont use masked packages, dont use 'exotic'; hardware, dont setup wicked configurations, dont mess with the source code, dont mess with the flags without fully knowing what the dependencies of the package do and how that change will affect other dependent packages, dont use packages with massive dependencies, avoid things such as having a tone of WM's and their respective libs all messed up.

.. and of course ... the way one takes care of the OS.
Since mine was installed i always ran this everytime i want to check things:

Code: Select all

 # emerge sync && emerge --newuse world && emerge -Duav world && emerge depclean && revdep-rebuild  && dispatch-conf && glsa-check -f all

And its been always sharp unless the package behind the keyboard needs a fix


ps: when rpms start to break... its time to re-install....

[bakaohki]

The difference here is; which one will provide you better documentation and support to fix the issue.
At the same time... playing with things this way and in another ways will also push the distro to go further evolve faster and more than others.

That's not an evolve faster game: to me an OS is something I work with. So far we have those strange marks in the portage tree, like +, ~, +M - to me this implies we have a stable tree. I'm sorry to say that, but this stability compared to Debian's unstable/testing for example is just a joke.

ie : dont use masked packages, dont use 'exotic'; hardware, dont setup wicked configurations, dont mess with the source code, dont mess with the flags without fully knowing what the dependencies of the package do and how that change will affect other dependent packages, dont use packages with massive dependencies, avoid things such as having a tone of WM's and their respective libs all messed up.

Neither do I for Christ's sake (how come noone can believe this here? should I post my make.conf? my /etc/portage dir? my world file?), yet things break. Now for example portage broke like hell, not my fault, but my problem (see post here). So I still see speed (x86_64 is a much bigger pain on other distros) versus maintenance here.

.. and of course ... the way one takes care of the OS.
Since mine was installed i always ran this everytime i want to check things:
# emerge sync && emerge --newuse world && emerge -Duav world && emerge depclean && revdep-rebuild && dispatch-conf && glsa-check -f all

That's a complete reinstall IMHO, thanks but no thanks. I usually sync, pretend everything then upgrade the system (reboot, test thoroughly, revert udev as usual and fix smaller probs) and finally install selected world packages one by one, just because an unattended "emerge -uv world" never ever worked for me - and babysitting a world rebuild is something I'm not into.

[HeXiLeD]

Blue-Steel wrote:

.. and of course ... the way one takes care of the OS.
Since mine was installed i always ran this everytime i want to check things:
# emerge sync && emerge --newuse world && emerge -Duav world && emerge depclean && revdep-rebuild && dispatch-conf && glsa-check -f all

I used to ran that everyday in the begining. Now its some how pointless. The box is more than stable.

bakaohki

That's a complete reinstall IMHO, thanks but no thanks.

no it is not!
complete re-install would be emerge -e world and emerge -e system

when i do what i said i do i only get a few packages updated which if i want i choose to update only some.

Now for example portage broke like hell, not my fault, but my problem ...

IT DID ? i cron sync everyday at 5am and the LAN --syncs 1h later from my server. then i run -Duav world... if there are a few updates for packages that I REALLY NEED TO USE . i update... if not .. just let them be there the way they are.

By the way... i updated stuff in 2 boxes last night... 4 packages in one box and 9 on another. but to be honest ... i only needed the wine update in one of them. but hey... i was going to bed, so i did it all.
I woke up 15 min ago and ran ' dispatch-conf... and 97 seconds later ... i dont even remember what happend but i know that a couple confs had to do with a problem that i posted here in the forums.

so PORTAGE BREAKS ?? okay...
allow me one question as an examle.. WHY --sync the full portage when or if one only uses a few categories ??
again... why do something bloated and not fully needed... when one can do just this :
http://gentoo-wiki.com/TIP_Exclude_cate ... merge_sync

Does one have to --sync 10 times a day ? or even if it just one ? Must one get all the "candy right away like there was no tomorrow ?"

recently i have been updating portage without Exclude_categories_from_emerge_sync, i kind forgot to uncomment the line in make.conf to make it active.
Things still work here....

x86_64 problems ? sure there must be many out there... but currently NOT here.
i did a stage 1 install in my 64 bit box since its EMT64 and not AMD64. maybe that helped in fine tuning it, who knows....

If you look at my topics they are mostly about hardware since my hardware is somewhat exotic. and the only software issues that you will find are mostly tiny and picky litlle things or me pushing other things to the limit to test wicked configurations.
Such this and this and this and another one here and also here and there are a few more.... if you look for my topics

note: My main box is a desktop and server to the lan and wan. gentoo and linux in general are one of my hobbies

PS: i just full --synced to check that portage problem. i dont see where or how it broke.

[bakaohki]

If things work, it's good for you - to me maintenance is much of a burden (unlike for you, this is *no* hobby for me, I work with computers all day long), but nothing I couldn't deal with right now - but maybe when amd64 distros mature enough (maybe after releasing Vista, in two or three years) I will give them another try. Till then I use Gentoo, but I am going to use a stricter upgrade policy.

As for portage breaking: the profile directory got messed up a bit by the devs (have you checked the link I posted? I doubt), but nothing *really* serious - it is just annoying. And basically I DO NOT emerge --sync very often (now I had to sync, because of a portage tree corruption - otherwise I sync maybe once in a month or less - and I totally, utterly do not care about giving traffic for the local mirrors). That's all, I consider this debate futile further on.

[HeXiLeD]

That's all, I consider this debate futile further on

i have no doubts and i agree

[devsk]

In the latest Maximum PC edition, they compared OS X and Windows XP head to head on the same hardware. Guess who won?....surprise surprise surprise!! XP, my friends, beat out OS X. Given that, just imagine how much faster Gentoo is compared to OS X. My Gentoo install beats the **it out of XP in all my dual boot benchmarks. All that eye candy is nice for some, but OS X performance sucks. I have hated Mac OS always, more so than XP, its so freaking non-intuitive and obsecure, it pisses me off. Then, there is this coolness and 'in-thing' factors tagged to it.

[Joo]

I'm a 3 week noob... I love Gentoo... BUT I feel your pain.. Somethings should just work. When I put the LiveCD in everything just worked. But after pulling the CD out I had to get the mouse, ethernet card, xorg, apps and menus configured. Which I've done more than once since I mess things up and I kinda get sick of messing with things if it doesn't work the first couple time but I'm having more fun fixxing my problems than I would on a OS that just works and the biggest thing to do is change my theme. I've been on windows for 13 years now and I'm FED UP with everything just working and having to find apps on the net so I didn't have to pay crazy prices for them. Anyways I know how ya feel and wish you good luck on getting the OS (whatever one it is) you want.

Joo.

[nordpolcamper]

Hi.

I'm using Gentoo Linux for years now and I don't have any problem with it, though I run a lot of masked software. At a time I switched to gentoo because it is, IMHO, easier to configure than other operating systems. It has a very extensive documentation, it is more transparent and I have always the choice only to do what I want to do.

Most people don't understand what the philosophy of gentoo is about. It's not for users, who aren't interested in how things work and the reason why they are accomplished in that certain way.

And by the way, if you install only stable marked software, you will not get any weird errors.

If you guys are unhappy with gentoo, then work on and try to improve the things and make them work the way you want. That's how opensource works. Otherwise try another distribution or another OS. It's up to you to make a choice that suits you.

rgds

Bernhard

[dwightman]

im friggin new @ diz fing so n e 1 help me wid diz syt

[Mirrorball]

Could you please write in English?

[dalek]

im friggin new @ diz fing so n e 1 help me wid diz syt

This is how I read, after I read it a few times like a 3 year old.

'I'm freaking new at this thing so anyone help me with this shit.'

I think it is close. Anyone else want to try?

[yabbadabbadont]

I think it is "site". I also think that someone is having some fun at other people's expense... ignore them.

[lxg]

Code: Select all

echo "im friggin new @ diz fing so n e 1 help me wid diz syt" | festival --tts

[Avuton Olrich]

I recently switched over 3 of my computers from Gentoo to OpenSuse 10.1, I've got nothing against Gentoo, I actually love it, but I don't have time for alot of it. If I had my way after installing gentoo it would look and act like OpenSuse 10.1 with gentoo's package management system. I hate rpms, there is less package support than for Gentoo. Gentoo definitely has a great advantage in the package management arena, but OpenSuse 'just works'. Hardware 'just works'. Init system 'much improved' from gentoos' (try restarting the apache init script sometime). Network hotplug 'just works'. bootsplash 'just works'. Everything's extremely stable. The bad things? I can't 'just install' MPD. I can't 'just install' my MPD overlay. No more 'staying current'. I can't 'just install' live svn or git ebuilds. Trust me here, if there was a medium I'd be there, and sure I maybe able to shoehorn emerge into OpenSuse, but then I'm screwing with a system that 'just works'. I still have Gentoo on 2 of my boxen.

[Tenobok]

I was also sick of Gentoo last week.
Last week I spent 4 hours with compiling xorg 7.1 and going back to 7.0 after I found out that 7.1 wouldn't work with my nvidia drivers. After downgrading mplayer refused to work, but that was easily fixed.
After that I was seriously pissed, downloaded Ubuntu and wiped out my whole root partition. I used Ubuntu for about a week and then gladly reverted back to Gentoo.
I hate it that Gentoo does sometimes steal so much of my time. Gentoo is not perfect, but I haven'T found a better distribution yet.

[Dralnu]

Long compiles, odd programs, quirky behavior. You people know that, if you missed all that for 6 months plus, that you would miss it. I'm new to Gentoo myself, so I havn't seen the problems you speak of yet, but in the end, while I have no clue whats going on half the time, I know twice as much as I did when I wiped SuSe 9.3 from my HDD and started the Gentoo install. CLI was a pain, kernel compilation is a long, arguous task for someone unfamiliar with it, and then the manual configuration of file after file. It is annoying.

My answer to long compiles: Night. I start the download/compile, and then I go to bed. I wake up, its done, and then I can wake up to cartoons before working on it.

I like updated software (reason I didn't go Debian Stable), but the configurations are a very annoying task. the xorgconf menu is a great program for configuration, and I liked it when I knew the needed info. vast use of CLI is great for ones typing skills. Getting rid of nano was a god-send (I love vim, and shall never part with it), and after about a week or two just got KDE to boot up (although its inoperable, I got a desktop, and I got movement ), and I'm proud of myself.

In the end, look on the bright side: You could be doing VBA 6 scripting in Excel...

[clintpatty]

I was also sick of Gentoo last week.
Last week I spent 4 hours with compiling xorg 7.1 and going back to 7.0 after I found out that 7.1 wouldn't work with my nvidia drivers. After downgrading mplayer refused to work, but that was easily fixed.

I avoid upgrading for these types of reasons. Gentoo allows users to be on about the most stable cutting edge that they can. Slackware or LFS users could be more bleeding edge. Many of the main distros are difficult to upgrade aside from new versions. I think you share a good bit with the OP, but at least you don't claim to want it to just work.

I'm pretty much a want it to just work user. There are a wide variety of things that I need to work for school, though. I usually upgrade when I'll gain needed functionality or for bugfixes/security updates. Someone has to discover those unexpected errors for them to be fixed, and I don't want that person to be me unless I have a use for the upgrade. I'm still running Xorg 6, and it is fine. I use a basic ugly Fluxbox with no background image or customization or anything, and it is fine. I'm running the 2.6.11 kernel that came on the installation CD, and it is fine. Etc. Gentoo allows me to have a relatively stable system that is generally as customizable as I need and without the hassle or requisite knowledge of LFS. I have Windows on a separate 4GB drive for my TI-89 because of the libticables/libusb issues, though.

[Headrush]

I was also sick of Gentoo last week.
Last week I spent 4 hours with compiling xorg 7.1 and going back to 7.0 after I found out that 7.1 wouldn't work with my nvidia drivers. After downgrading mplayer refused to work, but that was easily fixed.

Most of which would have been avoided if you ran stable.

Anyone who complains about the compiling time with Gentoo, should be ignored. Frankly they just don't understand this distro.

[Gergan Penkov]

Hm I'm seeing so much about this compilation time and so on, as one of the arguments here against gentoo, and I fail to see what's the problem.
I'm running just in the moment emerge -uD world, jboss and eclipse with the J2EE shit I'm writing, listening to music and so on and don't see anything really slowing down, so what's the problem (I would like someone to show me the same with M$ XP for example)?
and before someone tries to say sth about my configuration - it is Athlon XP 2000+ 1GB RAM with GForce 4 MX440 ...

[dalek]

I tend to ignore the ones complaining about compile times too. I install OOo from source, no binary here, and I like to watch all that stuff go by. My rig was smokin when I built it but it is not fast like some that are out there now. I'm not complaining one bit.

For those who complain about compile time, switch to Mandrake. We'll welcome you back when you get tired of dependancy hell. Maybe help you through the install again.

Since I installed Gentoo on a 200MHz CPU, I think mine does pretty darn good.