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On Mon, 10 Sep 2012 14:46:14 -0700 |
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Chris Stankevitz <chrisstankevitz@×××××.com> wrote: |
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> Gentoo is the best distribution I have used (I haven't used too many: |
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> ubuntu, fedora, gentoo). I love the USE flags. I love watching (and |
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> questioning) what is going to be installed. I love emerge. |
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> Supposedly gentoo lacks being able to have a system "just work" |
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> without thinking about anything. But in my experience on linux, this |
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> simply isn't the case anywhere. With ubuntu, for example, I had |
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> trouble with sound and ethernet cards that I could never figure out... |
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> and the kind of answers I get on their forums drive me insane ("my |
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> uncle once said that his cousin typed this magical command and it |
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> worked fine for a little while so maybe try that"). |
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> |
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> And what's the deal with these "major release versions" of the other |
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> distros? Why do that? |
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They are binary distros so they have no choice. For the duration of |
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that version's life, all the packages shipped must all work together |
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and that is only possible if the ABI does not change. |
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The major version number is a way of recording what the hell you got: |
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look up the distro version somewhere and see what it says. |
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For the release to use new packages with their new magic features, |
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every other package using those packages must also be recompiled and |
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re-released to. You know about the current level of cluelessness on the |
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forums, imagine what would happen if there were 6 versions of every |
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package for every release. |
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I don't mean "foo-1.2.3-ubuntu-1" vs "foo-1.2.3-ubuntu-2" (which will |
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always be forward and backwards compatible), I mean "foo-1.2.3" vs |
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"foo-2.3.4" and a few bar packages that don't use foo anymore but do |
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use baz. |
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It would be a nightmare. The only sane way to deal with this is to peg |
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the packages at version levels and stick with it. Windows does this, |
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Mac OS does it, Solaris does it. And they do it because that's the only |
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thing that could work. |
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Gentoo has no need of major version numbers. It is source-based, |
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so it can do rolling releases. For any new package foo that changes |
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it's ABI, portage will find all packages bar that now need to be |
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updated, and then update them. This could never possibly work for |
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Ubuntu. Nothing else could possibly work for Gentoo. |
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Often when trying to understand why Gentoo works a certain way, it |
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helps to remember who exactly is the distro maintainer. Ubuntu has |
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maintainers that build packages for their Ubuntu versions and put the |
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binaries in a repo somewhere. |
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Gentoo also has such people: You |
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> |
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> Thank you to all the people who contribute to it... and to those who |
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> are giving great advice/solutions on this list! |
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> |
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> Chris |
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> |
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-- |
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Alan McKinnon |
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alan.mckinnon@×××××.com |