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On Tue, 20 Jan 2009 21:36:58 +0100 |
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"b.n." <brullonulla@×××××.com> wrote: |
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|
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> Mark Knecht ha scritto: |
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> |
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> > The one thing I would respectfully suggest is that you carefully |
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> > build your own portage overlay. My experience with Gentoo over the |
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> > last few years is that there is a _anxiousness_ in the portage |
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> > maintainer area to move newer revisions of software into portage |
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> > quickly and then just as quickly to remove from portage what users |
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> > are currently using. |
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|
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@Mark |
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That's certainly true in the sense that we loathe maintaining |
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several revisions of the same software. Each Gentoo maintainer can |
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maintain anywhere from 1 to $BIG_NUM packages, so we strive to have in |
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general at most three versions in portage at any given time. We don't |
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really want bug reports about $old_stable if it's been fixed in a |
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$new_stable. We're not backport-monkeys, like Ubuntu. We do what we do |
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cause we like solving complex problems, interacting with the smart |
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people we call 'users'[1] and our fellow devs, not because "svn diff" |
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is our BFF. :-) |
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|
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> I am usually a bit annoyed by the contrary. On an almost 1-year old |
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> Kubuntu (8.04 Hardy Heron) I can find packages that are just barely |
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> x86 stable now on Gentoo. |
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> |
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> A couple of examples I am aware of: |
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> Firefox 3: stable just since one month on Gentoo x86, was included in |
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> KB8.04 Qtiplot: 0.9.x stable and working on KB8.04, all releases ~x86 |
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> (and a hell to compile on a stable system -still didn't manage to do |
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> it) in Gentoo. |
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|
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I don't know about qtiplot but Firefox-3 was blocked by the fact that |
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there were stability problems the first many months, compared to |
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firefox-2. I remember random crashes, etc. Then we had a mysterious bug |
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where it would segfault on first start if compiled with |
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USE="xulrunner", i.e. using the system libxul, but not if we used the |
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bundled one. Then we had some problems with hardened Gentoo, Sparc |
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getting bus errors, etc. If you remember firefox-2 when first it came |
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out, it also had the same kinds of problems. I think it wasn't before |
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2.0.0.11 that I migrated from 1.5. |
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|
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Gentoo has many arches and the more popular a package is, the more |
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bugreports will come, the harder it will be to mark it stable. Firefox |
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is especially hard to maintain because users use it so very much. |
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|
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> Python releases are often behind, and not mentioning KDE 4, which is |
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> even default on 8.10 Kubuntu and on Gentoo was still hardmasked last |
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> time I checked (but probably Gentoo is just right in this respect, |
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> everyone keeps telling me to wait before digging into KDE 4). |
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|
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Python is a special case. Portage (emerge and friends) use it, so we |
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always try to have as few bugs as possible in the versions that are put |
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into the tree. Kde 4.1 is broken, compared to 3.5.9/10. I tried it and I |
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don't want it. The problem we have now is that 3.5.10 is starting to |
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bitrot, so we'll probably *have* to mark 4.2 stable. |
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> I fully understand that there are good reasons for that, and that the |
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> meta-distribution status of Gentoo makes harder to check packages (and |
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> also that the Ubuntu folks wildly release unstable stuff... firefox 3 |
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> rc in 8.04, for example). I just feel that (stable) Gentoo is |
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> actually a bit *behind* the average Linux distribution in its |
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> revisions of software. |
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|
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You asked for stable, you got it. We're usually faster than Debian |
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stable though. |
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> Most importantly, I also feel that that's something new: when I first |
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> installed my system, more than 4 years ago, I felt it was *ahead*. |
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I did too, but then I was coming from Windows, so that's hardly |
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surprising :-) |
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|
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No, seriously it didn't take long for me to go ~x86. I think it was |
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ati-drivers (oh noez!) and keeping them in sync with xorg-server that |
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drove me to it. |
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|
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> I wonder if it's due just to the sheer increase of work required to |
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> test packages, or if there are decisions behind that (or if it's just |
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> me having false memories). |
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The amount of work has something to do with it, you (users) can help |
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there by filing stable requests if you see a package that you feel has |
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been ~arch for too long. We do react to nudges. Most of us, anyway. |
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/PA |
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[1] It wouldn't really be much fun being a dev for Gentoo if we didn't |
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have the bestest users evers. Srsly :-). If you look at how many bug |
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reports there are and how many are at least partially solved by users |
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before a dev gets to it, it's quite humbling. Sometimes I can spend |
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hours being a commit-monkey for users who've posted bugreports that |
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makes solving the bug a matter of fifteen minutes, tops. |
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