[ale] Gentoo: the good, the bad, the ugly

[Michael Hirsch]

On Sun, 2002-08-25 at 17:05, Byron A Jeff wrote:

> So after hearing a lot of good things, I decided to give Gentoo a spin. I
> actually have a working system going with XFree86 4.2 and IceWM. 

I also started looking at Gentoo.  I decided that my low level
installation/administration/configuration skills were atrophying.  And
if I don't likeit I'll work on my defenestration skills.
> 
> I just wanted to give some initial thoughts after my first install:
> 
> The Good
> --------
> * Portage, Portage and Portage, plain and simple. Packaging the dependency
>   management, download, compile, and install all together. Wonderful.

yup.  Very nice and slick.
 
> The Bad
> -------
> * Well there can be too much of a good thing. I'm a firm believer of the
>   layered abstraction model where every layer of abstraction is provided and
>   you pick the one of your comfort level. Well the Gentoo install pretty much
>   poured acid on that model and melted everything back to the base layer.
>   While none of the installation process is particularly difficult, it would
>   be so much simpler if there was a simple script that guided the install
>   and issued the commands for you. Not necessarily at the highly abstracted
>   level of a RedHat install, but something akin to Slackware's install scripts
>   which helps you along without hiding what's going on underneath.

That's what I thought when I started.  But as I performed the install
two things struck me.  first, I was able to easily customize the install
because there was no script pushing me along.  For instance, most
install scripts give you the choice b/w deleting all the data, or
preserving it all.  What I did was delete all files other than /home and
then continue with the install.  True, there are ways to make this
happen with, say, a RedHat install, but it is not nearly as easy.

I also really like another side effect of not having a script.  My
laptop dies in the middle of compiling something (perl, maybe) during
"emerge system).  (It turned out that the laptop was plugged into the
extension cord but the extension cord was not plugged in!  Heh heh. 
Live and learn.)  When I rebooted the machine I just continued the
install from where it was by running "emerge system".  Not a single step
was duplicated.
 
OTOH, a REdHat install would have been finished by then, since that was
about 4 hours into the install.

> * Along those same lines I think that there needs to be an further extension
>   to the staging process where a base workstation can be dropped in. Or where
>   groups of packages could be choosen for compilation. There doesn't seem to
>   be an easy way to browse and select packages available in the Portage system.
>   Though as I pointed out in the Good section, once you pick a package, it's
>   ready to go after the emerge command. The same is needed for the rc-update
>   process: a list of what's active and a list of what's available.

I agree with you 100%.  It is still quite primitive in its level of
transparency.  Where is the list of "USE" settings?  The browsable list
of packages?  I have faith that they will be built, but it will be a
while, yet.

> The Ugly
> --------
> * No KDE man! emerge craps out on arts. Now mind you that I have -arts in my
>   USE variable in /etc/make.conf. Mind you that I did an emerge rsync to get
>   the latest tree. Mind you that I really can do completely without sound at
>   the present time (as I don't have a sound card installed). But it's 
>   preventing the compilation of the rest of the KDE package.

I'm not that far, yet.  I expect it to work with me since I won't put
int -arts.  We'll see...

--michael



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