Gentoo Archives: gentoo-dev

From: Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@×××.net>
To: gentoo-dev@l.g.o
Subject: [gentoo-dev] Re: minimalistic emerge
Date: Sat, 09 Aug 2014 03:08:07
Message-Id: pan$c88af$9fc1fc5b$dfc093d0$2759ed68@cox.net
In Reply to: [gentoo-dev] minimalistic emerge by Igor
1 Igor posted on Fri, 08 Aug 2014 17:12:27 +0400 as excerpted:
2
3 > About 60% of all the packages are installed and work with nodep flag
4 > without any problems for years. Most of the maintainers just depend on
5 > new packages not knowing if it's necessary or not resulting in a really
6 > HUGE update that in the absolute majority of cases destabilize GENTOO
7 > making it not operational and WORSE than it was before. You then
8 > STABILIZE it again spending hours and then the story repeats itself.
9 >
10 > Experience show that out of 20 new dependencies pulled by emerge only 1
11 > is critical and really needed to assemble the target.
12 >
13 > Is there any option in emerge to pull MINIMUM packages to get the result
14 > -
15 > install the application you need, leaving everything else AS IS
16 > untouched and stable?
17 >
18 > I would rather prefer and many would agree to use this kind of install
19 > instead of a full system update by default.
20 >
21 > Is there any USE flag that can switch system to this kind of update
22 > instead of conventional? If no such USE flag, what about stabilize
23 > gentoo with STABILIZED flag implementation in make.conf?
24 >
25 > Whoever needs everything new - can continue fighting with nature,
26 > the rest of us who has a limited life span - well, they might go for
27 > STABILIZED flag and live happily ever after.
28 >
29 > What do you think?
30
31 The above reads to me like gentoo is an inappropriate distribution for
32 your use. Gentoo doesn't claim to be all things to all people, and
33 there's no shame for either gentoo or a user in a user switching to
34 something else if gentoo simply doesn't match their needs.
35
36 In general, gentoo strongly emphasizes a number of things, including:
37
38 1) Rolling updates. Install once, run for years doing frequent
39 incremental updates.
40
41 2) Staying /relatively/ current. For many packages, Gentoo removes older
42 versions from the tree relatively quickly, certainly compared to the
43 distros listed below, and once it's no longer in-tree, there's zero gentoo
44 support for it -- you're on your own.
45
46 3) Build from source. Gentoo does have rather limited binary-package
47 support, but it remains fairly rudimentary, and the general assumption is
48 that binary packages are locally built and distributed, not as part of
49 the distribution. (Tho at least in the past there have been binary-
50 package ISOs distributed, but without regular update and with Gentoo's
51 relatively rapid update cycle they're outdated rather quickly. I really
52 don't know if there's current binpkg ISOs available or not.)
53
54 3a) There are, however, some independent gentoo-based distros that are
55 binary-based, at least one of which allow more or less seamless switching
56 between gentoo's source-based ebuilds and their binary-based packages.
57 Tho I don't know of any long-term-support distros doing this.
58
59 Get outside of those norms and while gentoo may work, there's likely some
60 other distribution that will work better.
61
62 If you only want to update the minimum necessary, and in particular, if
63 you're keeping versions that have been removed from the tree, then
64 something with a *MUCH* slower update cadence, where people sticking to
65 versions that work for years at a time regardless of possible updates, is
66 far more likely to match your needs. Among the possibilities are:
67
68 Red Hat (RHEL) and clones: CentOS, Scientific Linux, Oracle's Linux
69 (forgot the name ATM).
70
71 Red Hat is the gold standard, very long term commercial support, IIRC 10
72 years, and very good community relations as they employ many of the
73 developers on a number of core Linux upstream projects. Oracle's Linux
74 is commercial too, and is said to undercut RH in price, but has rather
75 horrible community relations. CentOS and Scientific Linux more community
76 oriented and supported, free to install and update. CentOS is now
77 directly supported by Red Hat as a community version much like Fedora,
78 only unlike Fedora, CentOS is a direct RHEL clone and long-term
79 supported. Scientific Linux is an independent RHEL clone, I believe
80 primarily developed as the platform CERN standardizes on.
81
82 Debian: Stable and old-stable.
83
84 100% community distribution with an emphasis on free as in freedom.
85 Larger than most, certainly larger than gentoo. With a rather long
86 release cycle and stable and old-stable, the support term is extended,
87 but I don't believe it reaches that of Red Hat.
88
89 Since I strongly believe in both software freedom and in the free and
90 open source software community, this would probably be my choice if I
91 needed longer term version stability and support. (FWIW, Arch Linux
92 would probably be my choice for rapid-update, rolling-update, binary-
93 core, source-based extra packages, distro, but that's not the focus of
94 this thread and thus not on this list or mentioned elsewhere in this
95 post.)
96
97 Ubuntu LTS editions.
98
99 Quite popular, longer term commercial support available, but Ubuntu/
100 Canonical do sometimes have somewhat contentious community relations and
101 go their own way on some projects, with little non-Ubuntu/Canonical
102 uptake. I'm not sure of the support term but I think it's three years
103 full support on the LTS editions, 7-year extended.
104
105 SuSE: SLED/SLES.
106
107 I don't know so much about these. The OpenSuSE community edition seems
108 to be well received, but of course doesn't have the longer term support
109 of the commercial editions. Corporate ownership changed a few years ago
110 and I know little of the new owners, but they do appear to be continuing
111 active community involvement and project support (KDE, etc). Seems to be
112 more popular in Europe and especially Eastern Europe than in the US, tho
113 some US retailers have standardized on it for what amounts to locked-down
114 kiosk and register type systems with outsourced maintenance and
115 effectively zero local store user control.
116
117 Those are all binary distros. If you want from-source and are willing to
118 do more of your own support, there's
119
120 Linux From Scratch (LFS)
121
122 AFAIK this is 100% community and primarily consists of a maintained set
123 of instructions for doing your own builds from sources in the common LFS
124 context. It's thus less automated than gentoo, comparing to gentoo much
125 like gentoo compares to the binary distros. But since you're doing all
126 the building yourself, simply following the LFS instructions, you get to
127 choose what and when to update on your OWN schedule. To my knowledge,
128 there isn't a whole lot of support, but it doesn't really need it, since
129 it's primarily a set of build instructions. You'd be on your own in
130 terms of updates and security tracking, presumably being able to follow
131 the same instructions for newer versions of individual packages for
132 awhile, but at some point, you'd either migrate beyond the LFS context as
133 the instructions you originally followed would no longer apply, or you'd
134 need to grab a new set of release instructions and install again, using
135 them.
136
137 --
138 Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs.
139 "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
140 and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman

Replies

Subject Author
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: minimalistic emerge Peter Stuge <peter@×××××.se>