[gentoo-user] Re: The future of linux, and Gentoo specifically now

[Grant Edwards]

On 2014-11-25, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@×××××.com> wrote:
> On 25/11/2014 18:35, Grant Edwards wrote:
>> On 2014-11-23, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@×××××.com> wrote:
>>
>>> There is only the one that portage will happen to install should you not
>>> specify a preference.
>>
>> If "default" doesn't mean "what will happen should you not specify a
>> preference", then what _does_ "default" mean?
>
> Please go back and read the whole thread and stop quibbling about
> semantics.

I read the whole thread, and I still didn't understand your statement
that there is no default init system.

> The OP made statements that read as if he felt entitled to support,
> bugfixes etc from the gentoo dev community by simple virtue of a
> particular package being considered a default. I pointed out he was
> expecting far in excess of what was promised.

That's fine, and I agree 100%

But that's got nothing to do with whether Openrc is the default init
system or not?  It _is_ the default init system.  Whether that means
all packages are required to support it or not is a different question
(about which the OP seemed to be mistaken).  If what you meant was
that packages are not required to support the default init system,
then, I don't understand how that is spelled "there is no default init
system".

I honestly didn't understand why you said there was no default init
system, when there clearly is. I _did_ understand that not all
packages are required to support the default init system (which is
Openrc). That didn't appear to be what you were claiming.  Were it
true that there was no default init system, then you would have _no_
init system unless you explicitly installed one yourself (which is the
case for countless other things like a system logger, bootloader,
windowing system, desktop, photo editor, etc.).  For those things
there is no default.  There is a default init system.

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