Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo or Linux from Scratch - Perspectives?

[Paul Hoy]

On Aug 14, 2005, at 8:58 PM, Holly Bostick wrote:

> Paul Hoy schreef:
>
>>
>> On Aug 14, 2005, at 5:24 PM, Neil Bothwick wrote:
>>
>>
>>> On Sun, 14 Aug 2005 15:42:19 -0400, Paul Hoy wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> I really like Gentoo and I like that fact that it does a pretty
>>>> good
>>>> job at supporting Gnome, however, it's still behind other releases,
>>>> such as Fedora, in terms of when it releases updates, etc.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> Gentoo has rolling updates, so it is always up to date. If you
>>> want to
>>> run the latest of everything you will need to run a ~arch system.
>>> There
>>> are no releases for Gentoo beyond the installation live CDs. Once
>>> installed, provided you keep up to date, there is no difference
>>> between a
>>> system installed three years ago and one installed yesterday.
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Neil Bothwick
>>>
>>> Windows Error #09: Game Over. Exiting Windows.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Hi Neil,
>>
>> ~arch is a little scary for me, since it's not in the stable branch.
>>
>> Paul
>>
>
> Well, that's understandable, if that's the way you are, but "you"
> (generic) can't have it both ways.

> If you want the latest upstream release of whatever, it's not
> necessarily going to be stable... all newly-released software is
> subject
> to bugs that only come out with use of the kind that only freaky ol'
> users can conceive.
>

No, I want it one way: to receive the latest stable releases. I  
didn't say anything about unstable or testing releases.

> No distribution marks anything stable until it's old enough to have
> been
> worked to death to get the bugs out. Which is fine.
>
> Nobody's making anybody use ~, and if you (generic) value stability,
> you're already used to waiting. It's true that there is a backlog of
> submitted ebuilds on b.g.o... some of them are perfectly stable (but
> just aren't in actual Portage yet), some need some help before they'll
> work properly (because the ebuild writer made some mistakes along the
> way). I've been following the taskjuggler b.g.o ebuild for a couple of
> months, and that just made it into Portage yesterday. But I've had
> taskjuggler for a couple of months (had to hack the ebuild to get
> it to
> compile). I'm looking forward to upgrading to the new ebuild to see if
> all of the kinks have been ironed out.

This is good to hear. I plan to investigate this ebuilds further.

>
> Almost all Linux software is a constantly-evolving WIP, and
> conforming a
> WIP to a distribution which itself is a WIP is a big job. The only way
> it can "succeed" in terms of being considered temporarily stable is to
> freeze things at some point.
>
> RedHat (Fedora) and other binary distros do this themselves (you won't
> get thus-and-so version of X application until they've worked out the
> kinks between the app and the distro).

This is not the case with Fedora. Fedora is generally seen (and  
experienced) as a test-bed, if you like, for Red Hat.

> Gentoo relies on you to do this
> for yourself. Mask all of unstable if that's how you want it (and wait
> for it to propagate down). Or unmask specific programs that you're
> willing to deal with some possible instability in order to 'keep up
> with
> the Joneses'. Or just live wild and run completely unstable (which
> usually works, but can go horribly, horribly wrong on occasion-- I
> still
> haven't gotten over the PAM debacle that ate my previous Gentoo
> install).
>
> It's up to you. It always is, with Gentoo... which is why I love it.
>
> But I don't so much see what there is to debate about-- your system is
> *yours*; run it the way you want.
>
Again, if you see the original email.  This wasn't about a debate. It  
was about getting perspectives from people who used both LFS and Gentoo.

Thanks, Holly.

> Holly
> --
> gentoo-user@g.o mailing list
>
>

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