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On Sep 11, 2012 5:29 PM, "Nikos Chantziaras" <realnc@×××××.com> wrote: |
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> |
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> On 11/09/12 01:12, Alan McKinnon wrote: |
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>> |
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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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>> |
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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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>> |
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>> |
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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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> |
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> |
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> Arch Linux is a binary distro (by default, at least) and it seems to have |
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gotten this right though. |
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> |
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> |
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Strangely enough, I never managed to deploy Arch production servers. Always |
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got stuck in staging, after I tried setting up some packages, they always |
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end up not working. |
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It was most likely a fault of mine, not knowing the proper incantations and |
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druidic maneouvres required to run it properly... but I was impatient, and |
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was already *very* familiar with Gentoo, so I switched gear completely. |
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Within 24 hours -- most of the time taken by my obsession of 'remerging the |
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world using graphite, 3 times', I got me a properly running staging server |
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(and it got pushed into production after two weeks). |
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The beauty of Gentoo, IMO, is that I know exactly what is going on in my |
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servers. Entering the shell, I can figuratively feel the pulse of the beast. |
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In my current employment, I have to sadly say that I'm no longer using |
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Gentoo. The OS spec is set by the guys in the 'Application' Sub-Department, |
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and they invariably ask for either CentOS or Ubuntu... which I might add, |
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are all working well. |
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Again, I'm not bad-mouthing Arch, but for me it's an unsatisfying middle |
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ground between true rolling release distro (Gentoo) and versioned binary |
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distro (Ubuntu, CentOS). Of course, YMMV, but after my experience, I'd |
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settle at either end of the spectrum, not in the middle. |
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Rgds, |
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