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On Saturday 10 May 2008, Alan McKinnon wrote: |
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> Ah, but www.gentoo.org/doc actually does contain decent INFORMATION in a |
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> manner that I can find. |
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Right, but I can think of better ways to search through it by category, by |
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keyword, by arch, by whatever, than just use Google. |
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> All I ever seem to get out of ubuntu.com (after the cute front page) is |
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> the equivalent of Ubuntu For Dummies or endless chitter-chatter on web |
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> forums almost exclusively populated by 14 year olds. Or people mentally |
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> equivalent to 14 year olds. |
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I haven't visited Ubuntu for more than a year and a half now and back then it |
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seemed to me that it was comparatively easier to find what I was after. |
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> gentoo is a lot like Ferraris, Buells and Crays - virtually nobody, but |
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> nobody, gets involved with them without being quite knowledgeable about |
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> the subject as a whole and having a very good idea of what they are all |
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> about. |
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Sure, but there will be the few select who will decide to cut their teeth into |
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Linux with Gentoo. I will always warn them and then welcome them. |
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> Let's put it another way. Person X from company Y is evaluating distros |
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> and is put off by www.gentoo.org's front page. Right. Now, what kind of |
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> user is person X do you think? Someone who will be able to use Gentoo |
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> to it's full potential right away? No, I don't think so. If you need to |
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> read the front page to find out the basics of what it is, then you |
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> shouldn't be anywhere near Gentoo as a corporate. You'd be much better |
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> off looking into the well-known binary distros. |
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I can't but agree. Gentoo is a labour of love, not a 15 minute install script |
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for a busy sysadmin who's used to binary distros. |
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> I'm not spouting steam out my nose here. My day job is looking after 20 |
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> gentoo servers out in the wild at customer's premises. My personal |
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> machines have been exclusively gentoo for over 3 years now. I'm |
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> migrating the customer's machines over to Ubuntu server LTS one by one |
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> as the hardware gets upgraded. Why? Why does someone, who is well known |
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> in my city for being the biggest Gentoo fan around, do that? |
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> |
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> Because I cannot deal with the learning curve of my juniors anymore. I |
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> don't want to have to still make every USE related decision on every |
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> machine even though a junior is sitting right there logged in. It makes |
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> complete sense for $ARB_UBUNTU_DEV to make those decisions instead. |
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The last server I installed for a customer was an OpenSuse . . . I haven't had |
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a single call in the last 8 months (other than to thank me for a nice |
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server!) |
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> So let's tidy up gentoo.org by all means and make it a bit more obvious |
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> how this awesome thing called portage works. But lets not be deceived |
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> into thinking the distro itself is a mass-market distro because it |
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> isn't. It's more like a magnificent hand-made piece of fine Italian |
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> machinery. And I like it that way. |
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Absolutely, so do I. On the other hand, I am inclined to give every help and |
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opportunity to a willing Gentoo starter. I am not for a minute suggesting |
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that Gentoo is a broad appeal Linux system. All I am saying is let's make a |
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small effort to present it in a more user friendly way - we're not gaining |
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anything by unnecessarily alienating potential Gentoo advocates. |
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-- |
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Regards, |
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Mick |