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Frank Peters wrote: |
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> In a lot of cases, for example perl, Xorg, and gcc, the Gentoo |
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> distribution lags far behind the latest available releases. |
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> Even allowing the "~amd64" unstable series, this remains true. |
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> Why is this so? |
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> |
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> I had first considered moving to Gentoo in the fall of 2008, |
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> but after noticing that the only version of gcc available at |
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> that time was gcc-3.x, I postponed the change. In the spring |
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> of 2009, Gentoo finally moved up to gcc-4.3.x and then I made |
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> the transition. But the update to the 4.3 series was a long time |
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> in coming. |
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> |
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> The latest perl, released some time ago, is version 5.10 but |
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> Gentoo includes only 5.8.8. |
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> |
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> The latest Xorg has restructured certain libxcb dependencies, |
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> which has caused a lot of problems for a lot of packages, |
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> and Gentoo is behind these changes as well. |
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> |
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> (Ironically, it was this libxcb issue as well as the whole Xorg |
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> modularity mess that first motivated me to seek out Gentoo.) |
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> |
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> Now I am not actually voicing a complaint. Gentoo, IMO, is still |
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> the best distribution for Linux. I am just wondering why there |
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> is such a great lag before a package version is deemed stable -- or |
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> even unstable. In my experience with maintaining my own Linux system, |
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> I never had any great issues with always installing the latest "bleeding" |
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> edge software. |
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> |
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> Frank Peters |
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|
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For inclusion to stable portage tree, I think a year or two is nothing |
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to be concerned of. If you need the most bleeding edge version, there is |
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nothing to stop you from installing the package yourself directly from |
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upstream. In most cases, unless you used a specific package extensively |
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AND is having problems with the supplied package AND you know a more |
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recent version fixes the problem, you don't really need the newest |
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version. If you met all those conditions, the mess of manual install |
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would be worthwhile. |
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|
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If you're one of the people that wants to be on the bleeding edge, just |
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because; then you should really become a tester. |
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