[oclug] Gentoo Linux.

[Brad Barnett]

On Sat, 12 Jul 2003 11:00:43 -0400 (EDT)
"David F. Skoll" <dfs at roaringpenguin.com> wrote:

> On Sat, 12 Jul 2003, Milan Budimirovic wrote:
> 
> > The problem I have with Gentoo is this: who are the users that this
> > distro is intended for?
> 
> My guess: People who like BSD ports.
> 
> [...]
> 
> > It has nothing to do with "instant gratification", as DFS put it. It's
> > about maintaining order in a sea of chaos.
> 
> There's no fundamental difference between managing binary packages
> (RPM/DEB) or managing source packages (Gentoo).  All three systems
> know about dependencies and dependency resolution; Gentoo differs
> only in that its "packages" are source rather than binary.
> 
> > Put another way, it takes over two years of testing and resolving of
> > dependancies by hundreds of package maintainers before a Debian distro
> > is declared "stable". I simply do not believe that in the long run you
> > can get the same level of reliability when you have individual users
> > compiling everything themselves.
> 
> But Gentoo also knows about dependency resolution.  It's not like you
> download random tarballs and go with them.  If you stay within the
> confines of Portage, you have as much control over packaging as you
> would with a DEB or RPM-based package system.

Yes, and while Gentoo _could_ be as strict in its release process as
Debian is, it just isn't.  It also doesn't seem to backport security
patches to its stable branch.  Heck, right here:

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-release-policy.xml

shows an unstable to stable (and release) target of 14 days.  That's just
plainly absurd.  It also doesn't seem to me that the package maintainers
are checked out and have a strict approval process either.  Software
should even be considered stable until it's been running in the wild for a
year.  We're not talking about desktops here, where Debian's "testing"
distro reigns.  

Heck, I'd probably rank Gentoo against Debian's unstable branch, and this
isn't an insult to Gentoo, just a praise for Debian.  So, what am I trying
to say here?  Gentoo is probably a great distro for home use, if you are
experienced, but I'd never use it in an office and definitely never ever
on a server.  It just doesn't have the quality control.  Heck, there are
still random problems people have with ext3, _it_ isn't even stable yet.