Thoughts on Gentoo

[Kenneth]

Thanks for the comments. This is more or less the impression I have of it so
far, and from reading.  The idea is cool but I don't think I would use it for
a server, unless I could get by with setting it up and ignoring updates.

I'm just on a round of trying a couple of new distros. I tend to stick with
the ones I know usually. I recently installed Ubuntu just to see what all the
fuss is about.  The install was certainly easy, but I think it tried to do
too much, when it should have asked me a few more questions.  For instance,
it assumed certain things about the network and then set it up incorrectly. 
It wasn't hard to fix of course, but I would rather be asked at install time,
rather than have it choose random and incorrect settings.

As long as we're talking about distros, any Suse users?  I thought about
trying it out too, but the 5 CDs intimidated me.  Seems like a lot just to
test something out.

--- Dan Lund <situationalawareness at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'd have to agree.  I've used Gentoo since 2000 and even pushed a
> segment of my server platform to it. (56 servers as of currently)
> I've since leaned more towards Debian and CentOS (RHEL4 when it comes
> to Oracle).
> 
> I still use Gentoo on my desktop, but I'm leaning towards changing
> that when I have time to reinstall.  I can't take the chance of my
> next update taking Glibc or Xorg down, or futzing with it for hours on
> end.  Considering I'm using the 'stable' branch (non ~x86) you'd
> figure that kind of stuff would be old news.
> 
> --Dan
> 
> On 9/8/06, Kurt Granroth <plug-discuss at granroth.org> wrote:
> > There were six of us in the office at work using Gentoo for about two
> years.
> > One by one, we each finally had enough and switched to something else
> (mostly
> > Ubuntu or SUSE).  In fact, the guy who originally pushed us towards
> Gentoo
> > and was the staunchest advocate of it sent out his "last straw" message
> just
> > a few days ago.
> >
> > Why?  HORRIBLE quality assurance on the packages.  We grew to dread every
> > update because we knew that something else was going to completely
> break...
> > since *something* always did.  If we were lucky, then it would be a
> little
> > package that could either be fixed or blocked or worked around.  If we
> > weren't lucky (and it feels like we rarely were), then we would have an
> > unusable system for a few hours or day or so.  This was hardly a viable
> > arrangement in a work environment.
> >
> > Gentoo has some great ideas and, in the beginning, showed a lot of
> promise.
> > But if you want a reliable distribution, you had better be in one of the
> > following camps:
> > 1. Never update your system
> > 2. Use it as a LAMP (or other "simple" server) system with minimal
> packages
> > 3. Have a lot of time to mess around with it
> >
> > I do recommend putting it on your spare partition, though.  It can be a
> lot of
> > fun if you like customizing things and aren't relying on it for anything
> > critical.
> >
> > Kurt
> -- 
> "Courage is like love; it must have hope to nourish it."
> -Napoleon Bonaparte
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