Nirbheek Chauhan wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 1, 2011 at 11:03 AM, Dale<rdalek1967@...>  wrote:
>    
>> William Hubbs wrote:
>> As a user, if a person hasn't upgraded in about 6 months, they may as well
>> reinstall anyway.  That is usually the advice given on -user.  After a year
>> without updating, it is certainly easier and most likely faster to
>> reinstall.
>>      
> Except for the fact that while you upgrade, you still have a usable
> system. Reinstallation means a massive time-sink during which your
> machine is completely unusable. This is not an option for a lot of
> people.
>
> If -user is regularly giving that kind of advice, I think you guys are
> making a huge mistake.
>
> I'm not going to support this kind of max-6-month-upgrade life cycle
> for Gentoo. We're effectively driving our users away to distros like
> Ubuntu that allow you to upgrade every LTS release instead of
> constantly or every 6 months.
>
>    

Well, it has been done.  A while ago, if I recall this correctly, 
someone hadn't updated in about a year.  He tried to upgrade but ran 
into issue after issue.  After a couple days, he ended up reinstalling.  
It just depends on what updates have come along that causes issues.

I think things are better than they used to be but sometimes, it is 
faster to just reinstall and be done with it.  It's either spend a day 
or more dealing with problems or spending a day getting a fresh start.

As for not having a system, I have one when I do my install.  I just 
boot Knoppix and use it.  I can use a web browser to follow the docs and 
check email.  It's one of many ways to install Gentoo.

It's not about what Gentoo supports, it's about what is faster, easier 
or at times, both.

Dale

:-)  :-)