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

[Matthew Brown]

This begs a question for me...  Can you guys rate the distros for your
own personal uses?  I am a good sysadmin, but I'm no guru at it, so I'd
prefer a good, clean stable install that I don't have to build from
source.

Maybe we could have an impromptu poll...  Without any flames (no one is
interested REALLY in why RedHat sucks or why SuSe should dominate
everything and everyone else should die.  We just want to know what you
like and the POSITIVES about it.)...  Something like the following
(Please don't actually look for these!)...

I prefer the following distros in order.  My experience level is rocket
scientist.  I deal mostly with servers and apps, never with end users.

1.	Pegleg Linux	-	 I like it's default admin tools
2.	Snafu Linux		-	It installed quick and clean
3.	Polyps Linux	-	For every download someone performs they
actually torch an unopened WinXP package on TV
4.	Orange Tie Linux	-	They're like those other guys,
only snappier!

I have never used Bobo Linux, Flaming Pink Cadillcal Linux, etc.

Best regards,
Matthew Brown, President
CorData, Inc.
O: (770) 795-0089
F: (404) 806-4855
E: matthew.brown at cordata.net


-----Original Message-----
From: Charles Marcus [mailto:CharlesM at Media-Brokers.com] 
To: ale at ale.org
Sent: Monday, August 26, 2002 10:19 AM
To: Ale (E-mail)
Subject: RE: [ale] Gentoo: the good, the bad, the ugly


> From: Bill Sirinek [mailto:bill at sirinek.com]
> Sent: Sunday, August 25, 2002 6:13 PM
>
> I'm going back to Debian as soon as they get KDE3 rolled
> into sid. Gentoo is a pain (I dont care about building
> from source)

I take it, by pain, you mean the time it takes to d/l, configure and
compile every package?  This is too true, and if you don't want/care
about installing from source, completely understandable...

> and while its portage system is nice, I like apt a lot better.

Just curious... can you be more specific about what apt does better than
Portage?

> Debian does a lot better job with configuration and making sure their 
> packages all work too.

This is definitely a problem with Gentoo, but one that comes with the
territory of being on the bleeding edge.  It's really not a problem as
long as you don't install the latest/greatest the day it comes out.  I
always give new packages a week or two, to see if anyone is having
problems with it.

One thing, though - the changes and upgrades to Portage itself can
especially be a real problem - one inherent to how new Gentoo really is.

Hopefully, within the next 6 mos to a year, Portage will mature, and
become very stable, after the major changes (full reverse dependancy
checking is one they are currently working on) are all completed and it
stops being such a fast moving target.  But as I said, as long as you
are careful not to upgrade Portage itself until you are sure the new
version is working properly, and don't upgrade packages on a daily
basis, you should be fine.

> On Sunday 25 August 2002 17:05, Byron A Jeff wrote:

<snip>

>> 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.

There has been a bit of discussion in this regard, and I am sure that
sooner or later someone will write some automation scripts.  There was
even talk of a basic GUI installer, but the Gentoo developers were
adament that the command line install would always be there for those
who want absolute control over every aspect of their installation - in
other words, the goal is to have the best of both worlds.

>> * 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.

There is a KDE app call kportagemaster that has been reported (I haven't
used it yet) to be very useful, and provides this functionality - you
might wanna check it out.

>> The same is needed for the rc-update process: a list of what's active

>> and a list of what's available.

I couldn't agree more.  This is a major shortcoming that I hope is being
addressed - in fact, I will post this question to the list (I've meant
to in the past, but forgot).

>> 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.

Just saw something on the list that *might* apply (he wasn't specific on
the error he was getting):

"The only snag I ran into during recompile was with KDE packages. The
packages seem to include their own compiler optimization settings,
including -O2. In my particular case, including any -Ox setting at all
in /etc/make.conf caused KDE3.0.3 builds to fail. Removing this allowed
the packages to compile just fine. I put it back when they were finished
and rebuilt the rest of the packages."

Regardless, this is not normally a problem - I've installed KDe at least
15 times, and never had a problem like this.

Charles


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