[gentoo-project] Re: Gentoo <--> Sabayon Relation

[Steve Long]

Alec Warner wrote:

> So to sum up, we don't support it because it has really bad make.conf
> settings (CFLAGS/LDFLAGS).  It would be like saying 'we support you
> using -ffast-math'.  Which is false, we will tell you to rebuild your
> system without -ffast-math.  If you come to me with a sabayon problem,
> I'll tell you to rebuild your system with sane build flags unless you
> have good evidence that those flags are not the problem.  Most Sabayon
> users are not prepared to do that.
>
I think that's just crazy on the part of sabayon. It makes no sense at all
for them to use unsupported settings. For a start, half the fun of gentoo
is setting your own make.conf.. it's the part of the install that I most
loved, and you can see it on IRC when someone gets to that stage (they go
all quiet for a while. ;) Secondly, you'd think they'd want users to be
able to get support from gentoo without any grief. USE flags, fine, but
CFLAGS/LDFLAGS?! Just compile it with march=i686 and allow the user to set
their own, iff they want. (Minimal settings make it more likely the binary
will be available from the binhost.)

I don't understand why he didn't just do a binary distro; that's what gentoo
is setup to make (as a meta-distro.) The only reason I can think of is lack
of resources, and that's one of the reasons I think of it as leeching,
since gentoo infra is used to supply portage and distfiles. The other thing
is, there probably wasn't such good support for overlays when he started
(I'm guessing.) Nowadays, there are loads of em, and many herds have their
own overlays.

Sunrise is scary as there's so many ebuilds in the tree, and you're warned
on the site about them not being official. Using eg the haskell overlay is
a different thing, since it's an overlay the devs use to test stuff
specific to one language. If you're interested in that language, you might
want the latest version (akin to running unstable for a package you
follow.) Awareness of these types of overlay is much lower than of sunrise.

What I am trying to say (in my long-winded way) is that Gentoo is constantly
changing, and arguments from 2 or 3 years ago (or even longer for drobbins)
don't really apply now. The principles might, but if people are getting
involved again, they need to get reacquainted with the new Gentoo.


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