Gentoo Forums

Probably more true that the Elitist are the ones doing the most bitching about others.

Usually the people that think they have the brains, whine and complain more about others, then the ppl that actually have some intelligence.

I have found more helpful and intelligent ppl with Gentoo than any other distro.

regeya wrote:Others say that Gentoo is praised by people who are unable to install Debian and have never been introduced to a good package format like RPM.

That right there shows they don't have a clue. Unable to install Debian? I never found Debian to be a hard install. Plus I thought I would continue using Debian until found Gentoo. The biggest clue that they are from another planet is the RPM line. Apt is much better then RPM, and Portage beats Apt. But anybody that has used apt or portage knows that dependancy hell with RPM's will drive you insane. Using rpm's when you could be using apt or portage is like driving a model T for your normal car.

These guys probably play poker and INSIST that their pair of deuces beats your full house.

Everyone else is just Jealous. Plain and simple. Jealousy breeds contempt.

My favorite gentoo trash talker is the oh so lovable user who trashes portage for being "sucky" or "gay", and then mentions how he uses rpm's, or mentions rpm's superiority to portage.


I can't even recall one install where the rpm actually just worked, without hours of reading. Add to that, that to get help with redhat/mandrake you don't have one forum acting as a repository for all rpm related information, it's spread all over the web in obcenely hard places to reach like mailing lists and newsgroups.


Gentoo for life++

Decibels wrote: I have found more helpful and intelligent ppl with Gentoo than any other distro.

I have to agree, from what I've read in the forums and the quality of the Gentoo docs. I started with Debian nearly 7 years ago, and the documentation is pretty much the same. If you get lost, well... Good luck. I think that the thoughtfulness of Gentoo shines right from when a person goes to install, with the exceptional clarity in the docs. It really is awesome and should be an example that is followed.

regeya wrote:Others say that Gentoo is praised by people who are unable to install Debian and have never been introduced to a good package format like RPM.

Darn! I always thought that .tar.gz was the choice of uber-elite people everywhere. I am, however, just a mere mortal and must live with portage and/or apt. May those with uber skillz be praised!

being a gentoo/arch user i think the reason there is trash talk mostly is beause some of the users got alot of shit from the gentoo forums and more recently *or is this just me* theres been alot of nasty comments made to quite a few noobs. but thats not just contained on the forums, its happened on the livejournal gentoo group as well

EDIT again i say why for the arch/gentoo comparson all the time. For 1 gentoo is source, arch is binary, if anything arch is more like debian and gentoo is more like freebsd, im probally wrong thou?

in a way thou if it carries on it will hurt arch in the long run it wont hurt gentoo, to much of a huge user base

EDIT b*llocks to it, im reinstalling gentoo my tv box, arch is taking to long to setup on it despite it being binary

Decibels wrote: That right there shows they don't have a clue. Unable to install Debian? I never found Debian to be a hard install. Plus I thought I would continue using Debian until found Gentoo. The biggest clue that they are from another planet is the RPM line. Apt is much better then RPM, and Portage beats Apt. But anybody that has used apt or portage knows that dependancy hell with RPM's will drive you insane. Using rpm's when you could be using apt or portage is like driving a model T for your normal car.

RPM is actually pretty sophisticated. It's just never had a good frontend, really, until recently.

I think the most bizarre claim I read on the Arch Linux forums is that Gentoo wasn't flexible enough. And they're moving on to another distribution? Why aren't they building their own system from source???!?

regeya wrote:

Decibels wrote: That right there shows they don't have a clue. Unable to install Debian? I never found Debian to be a hard install. Plus I thought I would continue using Debian until found Gentoo. The biggest clue that they are from another planet is the RPM line. Apt is much better then RPM, and Portage beats Apt. But anybody that has used apt or portage knows that dependancy hell with RPM's will drive you insane. Using rpm's when you could be using apt or portage is like driving a model T for your normal car.

RPM is actually pretty sophisticated. It's just never had a good frontend, really, until recently.

I think the most bizarre claim I read on the Arch Linux forums is that Gentoo wasn't flexible enough. And they're moving on to another distribution? Why aren't they building their own system from source???!?

i disagree with that actually, gentoo is alot more flexable just look at the choice of system loggers and crons, you dont a chance to choose your own with arch. i like arch and gentoo for different reasons thou, for a lowish spec machine thou arch is great *ie my laptop/works pc* installs and updates quickly but for my faster machines, gentoo is the choice, eats source for breakfast

I dunno...it seems the silent majority rule might apply here...people seem to get pissed at Gentoo from only encountering the loud minority of people who like to appear 1337

((maybe it's just me who thinks that people who have to call themselves 1337 really aren't...*shrugs* ))

Who cares? Anyone who thinks that "pissant" is two words isn't even worth arguing with.

What I don't get is, why people bash gentoo if they themselves have never tried it?

wdreinhart wrote:Who cares? Anyone who thinks that "pissant" is two words isn't even worth arguing with.

Shouldn't that be "Any one" and "arg uing" ??

I hang around a generally slackware oriented crowd, and quite frankly, I don't see how we can be close minded compared to some. All the people I _try_ to discuss distros hate gentoo because it's not slack...period. I _try_ to provide logical arguments, reasoning behind my opinions, and they can't back it up. Half of them are afriad to try/support linux cause then they will be "giving in". Talk about closeminded eletism. Not to mention, the blind, bias arguments they discuss, for example, gentoo takes 4 days to install, versus slack's 20 mins(b.s.). Yet they fail to listen to talk of stage3 and GRP disks. They refuse to compare them in the same elements. They say on one hand, it's too difficult to use, then it's too easy, you learn nothing. I'm sick of blind bashing, with no reasoning or justification, and I'm even more sick of unknowledgeable(spelling is off, I know.) arguments from bias standpoints. Just to clear the air, I'm not targeting a distro, or it's userbase in this, just what I've witnessed from gentoo bashers. Call me eletist, I'm damn happy with gentoo.

EDIT: Should I mention I have gained the nick name "Gentoo Nazi" or Gentoo Zealot" in my IRC channel? =P

Surye wrote:I hang around a generally slackware oriented crowd, and quite frankly, I don't see how we can be close minded compared to some. All the people I _try_ to discuss distros hate gentoo because it's not slack...period. I _try_ to provide logical arguments, reasoning behind my opinions, and they can't back it up. Half of them are afriad to try/support linux cause then they will be "giving in". Talk about closeminded eletism. Not to mention, the blind, bias arguments they discuss, for example, gentoo takes 4 days to install, versus slack's 20 mins(b.s.). Yet they fail to listen to talk of stage3 and GRP disks. They refuse to compare them in the same elements. They say on one hand, it's too difficult to use, then it's too easy, you learn nothing. I'm sick of blind bashing, with no reasoning or justification, and I'm even more sick of unknowledgeable(spelling is off, I know.) arguments from bias standpoints. Just to clear the air, I'm not targeting a distro, or it's userbase in this, just what I've witnessed from gentoo bashers. Call me eletist, I'm damn happy with gentoo.

*sniff*sniff* ahhh...the smell of fear

(the above statement was all in fun.)

I was an eliteist ever since I was running ProDOS on my Apple IIe.

After trying gentoo a while back I got annoyed by the "compile everything" mentality.

I then tried fedora-core1 and ended up with something I didn't really like, much the same as previous RH installs.

Now I'm not so much an elitest and more an evangelist.

After spending many an evening (and night... early morning... most of the next day) trying to download/configure/make/install a package it's nice to say "install ABC" and it's done... no worry about whether I need XYZ version 0.2.obscure - it's just done.

What more can I say ?

BTW I'm not knocking RH or Fedora - good distro's - just not for me So don't flame!

I haven't tried arch but many other distros.

I have found that gentoo has taught me more about linux without the confusion I seem to find in other basic distros (LFSfor eg). There is just enough precompiled or ebuild stuff ot make the system work the way I want without the gadgets and gizmos.

I do have my server operating with IPCOP because it is small 30 mg and very tight (and operates on a 486 dx- rmember them ?:).

Gentoo for me - I might try arch soon though to do a comparision.

Frodg wrote:
I do have my server operating with IPCOP because it is small 30 mg and very tight (and operates on a 486 dx- rmember them ?:).

'course I do...I still have one around here somewhere (serious) hehe...good times.

metalised wrote:Now I'm not so much an elitest and more an evangelist.

That's hit a mark with me. Funny. My employer uses a lot of equipment that runs win3.1, NT and 95. Just about anything that is running NT or especially 95 crashes a lot or has weird errors and have to reboot. People in my shop used to try and tease me and say stuff like, "Would probably work better if it was running linux right." ,...... At the time I was the only one using linux there. Never really sung the praises of using Gentoo, just Linux itself. Then a friend of mine transfered to the shop and first time he heard that, he said, "Funny thing is he's right. It WOULD work better."

Now it wasn't just me saying it and they don't say stuff like that anymore and even a few have started experimenting with Knoppix. Probably won't go much further than that, but it's a start. You build a wall one brick at a time.

Decibels wrote:

metalised wrote:Now I'm not so much an elitest and more an evangelist.

That's hit a mark with me. Funny. My employer uses a lot of equipment that runs win3.1, NT and 95. Just about anything that is running NT or especially 95 crashes a lot or has weird errors and have to reboot. People in my shop used to try and tease me and say stuff like, "Would probably work better if it was running linux right." ,...... At the time I was the only one using linux there. Never really sung the praises of using Gentoo, just Linux itself. Then a friend of mine transfered to the shop and first time he heard that, he said, "Funny thing is he's right. It WOULD work better."

Now it wasn't just me saying it and they don't say stuff like that anymore and even a few have started experimenting with Knoppix. Probably won't go much further than that, but it's a start. You build a wall one brick at a time.

I got laughed at by boss and co worker today when i was saying how i started a stage1 bootstrap install last nite, again *had arch on but thats gone* "just click setup thats what you need"

Who do these rat bastards think they are? Elitists? Us? No s**t. I haven't had this much fun with Linux since I installed Slackware for the 3rd time. That's when I think I came over the big learning curve bump. I went over another one since I put Gentoo on my box.

Plus, how can you bear to wipe a system you put so much time into anyway? Anybody who tried it for any short period of time and wiped it never really got it working right.

Freak Power! Gonzo!

l33t elitists?
Portage too easy?
RPM's being t3h b0mb?
Gentoo Forums being evil snobs?




1) I'm neither l33t nor an elitist..
2) It was designed to make stuff WAY easier. Do you prefer this hell? As follows:
3) You download an RPM of something you want. You attempt installing. You find out that it needs another few packs. You fetch them, and learn you need some MORE packages. And more and more.. ad infinitum. Apt-RPM maybe makes crap easier.. heard of something like that. Going thru this hell with Mandrake, I decided I badly need a different distribution.
4) Evil snobs? Both the forums and #gentoo have the friendliest folks have I ever met. All help themself -- especially on #gentoo. If not for you, I'd not be a Gentoo user anymore.

Also Apt-get and it's unclear, forced division of trees is a single big heellllllllllll. If you use sid, you're forced to sid debs, and say you can't install from Woody repositories. (There's one for kde 3.2 and I wanted that but it never saw the debs. )

Hmmm, let's see...
Two forum pages over the crude, grammatically handicapped 1337-talk of a teenager using arch linux... now _this_ sounds so elitist!
I thought linux-elitists and "biggots" loved things to be HARD, not easy, out of a curious desire to appear themselves able to do stuff others cannot. Portage is, as even admitted by its "enemies", extremely easy.
The forums and the community in general is by far the friendliest, most unselfish one I've ever seen in quite a few years of being a linux user. This is perhaps the most important feature of gentoo: its people and not its code!
Sure, even gentoo has its drawbacks but there is no such thing as a perfect distro (or anything computer-related or not). The point is to weight the pros and cons and decide for yourself, for what best fits YOU.
Gentoo has come into a lot of pressure lately because of its increasing popularity and thus receiving flak from all points of view:
- the younger "ports"-inspired or source-based distros that look up to it, not without envy.
- the long-established beasts like RH for being a completely different philosophy of linux gaining momentum within their reign.
- the debian guys, for breaking their "monopoly" of a balanced and convenient package management tool: apt is no more unique in its features.
- the actual elitists, for providing a non-time consuming, no-headscratching way to build uber-optimized and uber-personalized systems. Remember, these people want to be admired for doing stuff others can't or won't.

I think anyone that's ever had anything to do with other distro's know and love portage even more. It's not the fact that a gentoo user thinks he's "l33t", but the idea of simplicity. If you don't have to spend hours working on config files, fighting with something to compile--then why do it? Portage is something we all know and love, and (IMHO) it beats any package management system out there. As opposed to those who go in and manually compile everything themselves when an updated version comes out (the true "l33t" ones?)--we simply `emerge -u'. I haven't been using Gentoo for long, but I have toyed with several different flavors of linux (RedHat, Mandrake, Debian, Slack). I have never found a better group of people in all my years of linux--and Windows, well, we won't even go there.

So thanks to everyone for making Gentoo and its forum as great as it is!


--Doug

off the topic here but i think when you recieve comments like this
http://www.livejournal.com/community/ge ... ead=436328
for trying to help someone gives the gentoo community a bad look, and it does reflect on all of us.

malloc wrote:Please excuse my ignorance but i tried to ask around the linux/*bsd community i know and nobody seemed to be able to answer me this.
What is arch linux??

http://www.archlinux.org/

there's good bananas and bad bananas in every bunch, IMHO. debian, windows, macos too. but when it comes down to it, they're all quite fine operating systems in their own ways.