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On 26/01/2014 20:41, hasufell wrote: |
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> My pessimism comes from the fact that I wasn't able to communicate to |
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> any1 in real life that gentoo and especially portage have a positive |
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> usability score. Especially to those who have tried it once. As |
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> someone who knows the internals and doesn't read portage messages |
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> about conflicts anymore, but digs into the ebuilds directly... I don't |
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> have a lot of severe problems to maintain any gentoo system. But it is |
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> sad that you need those skills. |
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> |
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> Usually I tell people to use a desktop profile, never to use |
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> autounmask, not to mix stable and unstable branch and not to play too |
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> much with per-package useflags unless you are really missing something. |
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> |
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> Portage does alienate new users a lot. These performance issues add to |
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> that. |
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I agree with some points and not so much on others. |
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Gentoo has always targeted itself at a select bunch of users - those |
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with large amounts of clue who have tried and failed to get binary |
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distros to do what they want but can't see a good reason to do the LFS |
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thing. This is a VERY specific market and people who truly need Gentoo |
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already know what it will take to drive it. Thank $DEITY the ricer crowd |
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that were infesting the place 2004-ish have long since moved on and |
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taken their confirmation bias with them. |
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Those who want a shiny Linux that works out the box and can be admined |
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even on hangover days have Ubuntu and RHEL. So when people you talk to |
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about Gentoo then reject it, don't take it personal, they are not |
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usually rejecting the distro. What they are *really* saying more often |
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than not is that Gentoo solves a problem they do not have, and they |
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don't feel like investigating a complex solution they have no use for. |
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That's been my experience in this area. |
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People who need Gentoo and understand what it takes to build from source |
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usually find the idea of portage very attractive indeed. They might have |
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issue with the implementation of portage, but folks will put up with a |
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lot of quirks to get what Gentoo is actually selling. |
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-- |
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Alan McKinnon |
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alan.mckinnon@×××××.com |
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