Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 12:27:09PM +0700, Pandu Poluan wrote: I'm sure they are. In the interview [1], Lameter said that quote NASDAQ uses a modified version of the Gentoo Linux distribution. /quote modified version? That practically screams ricers! to me :-D I didn't know there was such a thing as unmodified Gentoo. I'm pretty sure each of my 4 installations is unique... Certainly you don't expect NASDAQ guys to openly admit they're ricers, do you? ;-) Nor would they wanna say they were using some stock Linux. After all, the financial market is the most important in the world and the best on the planet is hardly good enough for their requirements. Ah, and look at my very fitting random sig. -- Gruß | Greetings | Qapla' I forbid any use of my email addresses with Facebook services. The Computer is the logical advancement of humankind: intelligence without morality. pgpVHJlW0jlae.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 7:22 AM, Frank Steinmetzger war...@gmx.de wrote: The Computer is the logical advancement of humankind: intelligence without morality. +1
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
Frank Steinmetzger wrote: Nor would they wanna say they were using some stock Linux. After all, the financial market is the most important in the world and the best on the planet is hardly good enough for their requirements. Ah, and look at my very fitting random sig. -- Gruß | Greetings | Qapla' I forbid any use of my email addresses with Facebook services. The Computer is the logical advancement of humankind: intelligence without morality. I added you to my list of sigs I have to watch out for. Neil is the other one. It is funny how sometimes they fit the topic of the email. Dale :-) :-) -- I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how you interpreted my words! Miss the compile output? Hint: EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS=--quiet-build=n
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 08:34:22AM -0600, Dale wrote: Frank Steinmetzger wrote: Nor would they wanna say they were using some stock Linux. After all, the financial market is the most important in the world and the best on the planet is hardly good enough for their requirements. Ah, and look at my very fitting random sig. -- Gruß | Greetings | Qapla' I forbid any use of my email addresses with Facebook services. The Computer is the logical advancement of humankind: intelligence without morality. I added you to my list of sigs I have to watch out for. Neil is the other one. It is funny how sometimes they fit the topic of the email. Dale I may already have nicked one or the other of his sigs. :o) OT about that: Recently I had to switch my “storage backend” of mail sigs. Like most others, I used fortune. But it just became impossible to keep track of all phrases in one text file. So I recently wrote a python program with which I now manage all my sigs in an sqlite database. Now I can filter for language, for author (of a quote), for source (website/blog), for tags (films, science etc). Being such a highly flexible system, Linux made this very easy. Though I barely use custom scripts for daily tasks (yet) like many more advanced Linux users do, it was still very easy to set up. Imagine you wanted to do that in Windows (and then integrate your new sig in M$ Lookout). ^^ -- Gruß | Greetings | Qapla' I forbid any use of my email addresses with Facebook services. Trees have one advantagees over people: they are also nice in big numbers. pgp86DPBsFQQ4.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 9:13 PM, Frank Steinmetzger war...@gmx.de wrote: Being such a highly flexible system, Linux made this very easy. Though I barely use custom scripts for daily tasks (yet) like many more advanced Linux users do, it was still very easy to set up. Yes Linux is better. Imagine you wanted to do that in Windows (and then integrate your new sig in M$ Lookout). ^^ Simply impossible! But the only thing I praise M$ is that it supports majority of the mobile phones (for data exchange) but at times it needs troubleshooting (at least a little) if we talk of it in Linux. Am I right? Trees have one advantagees over people: they are also nice in big numbers. And trees cannot cheat also!
[gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On 2011-12-13, Pandu Poluan pa...@poluan.info wrote: I'm sure they are. In the interview [1], Lameter said that quote NASDAQ uses a modified version of the Gentoo Linux distribution. /quote modified version? That practically screams ricers! to me :-D I didn't know there was such a thing as unmodified Gentoo. I'm pretty sure each of my 4 installations is unique... -- Grant
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On Dec 13, 2011 11:56 AM, Grant Edwards grant.b.edwa...@gmail.com wrote: On 2011-12-13, Pandu Poluan pa...@poluan.info wrote: I'm sure they are. In the interview [1], Lameter said that quote NASDAQ uses a modified version of the Gentoo Linux distribution. /quote modified version? That practically screams ricers! to me :-D I didn't know there was such a thing as unmodified Gentoo. I'm pretty sure each of my 4 installations is unique... Certainly you don't expect NASDAQ guys to openly admit they're ricers, do you? ;-) Rgds,
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On Thu, Dec 8, 2011 at 12:05 PM, Paul Hartman paul.hartman+gen...@gmail.com wrote: I just want to say that I love Gentoo Linux, have used it as my primary OS for years on multiple computers and can't stand to use anything else. I like having total control over everything. I truly enjoy it, the Gentoo Way just feels like the right way in general to me. That is my subjective opinion. But I also want to say that just because you're forced to do things yourself doesn't mean that makes them inherently better-performing or secure. :) One can just as easily screw up their CFLAGS and a have terrible security setup, especially a beginner. This list's archives are full of such stories... I say install a binary distro to get your feet wet with Linux. Understand the basic concepts of how the system works, using a shell, editing config files, etc. Once that's not a 100% foreign experience to you, then go and install Gentoo using the great docs, wikis, forums, mailing lists and IRC as your guide, and we can be your hand-holding friends along the way. I would also suggest using a virtual machine for your first installations. It will make it a lot less scary. You messed up partitioning? No problem, you didn't just destroy your Windows installation or your life-long collection of digital photos (that you probably never got around to making a backup of). As a newbie to Linux, comparing distros is usually equivalent to comparing the default desktop environment, wallpaper and color scheme. They don't know enough to care about bootloader, filesystem layout, LVM, package manager, or whatever holy wars linux distros are having these days. :) A beginner can certainly follow along the Gentoo install docs, but I think it takes a certain kind of person to tolerate it... Blindly copy-pasting commands that they don't understand isn't necessarily going to teach them anything. Not any more than blindly copy-pasting example code from a programming textbook makes you a programmer... Having at least some basic understand of the commands you're typing in will greatly enhance the experience, in my opinion. Nice suggestions. Good luck to the OP, whatever he chooses. Welcome to the dark side. :) Thanks.
[gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On 2011-12-10, Pandu Poluan pa...@poluan.info wrote: And even you can't guarantee that the kernels are the same. Many distros introduce their own distro-specific patches to the vanilla kernel. RedHat is particularly bad about this. I maintain a couple Linux drivers that have to work with a wide range of kernel versions. There are lot's of #ifdef's that depend on not only the kernel and some of them also have to check whether it's a _RedHat_ kernel or not, since RedHat is fond of shipping a kernel with version X.Y.Z that isn't even close to compatible with the driver API for vanilla kernel X.Y.Z. With Gentoo, it's even more complicated, as most experienced Gentooroids will configure and compile their own kernels. I've never had to add special code to a driver to handle the Gentoo version of a kernel. -- Grant
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On Dec 11, 2011 12:02 AM, Grant Edwards grant.b.edwa...@gmail.com wrote: On 2011-12-10, Pandu Poluan pa...@poluan.info wrote: And even you can't guarantee that the kernels are the same. Many distros introduce their own distro-specific patches to the vanilla kernel. RedHat is particularly bad about this. I maintain a couple Linux drivers that have to work with a wide range of kernel versions. There are lot's of #ifdef's that depend on not only the kernel and some of them also have to check whether it's a _RedHat_ kernel or not, since RedHat is fond of shipping a kernel with version X.Y.Z that isn't even close to compatible with the driver API for vanilla kernel X.Y.Z. With Gentoo, it's even more complicated, as most experienced Gentooroids will configure and compile their own kernels. I've never had to add special code to a driver to handle the Gentoo version of a kernel. Ah, I see that I might have misconstrued myself. My bad. Regarding drivers: usually they're no big deal, since the 'infrastructure' portions of the kernel (e.g., SCSI disk support) are most likely have been enabled. For most applications, usually they don't really care what's in the kernel since they operate at a quite high-level. Problems might arise though if you're doing exotic things. For example: If I built the IPset portion as 'built-in' into the kernel, I won't be able to install xtables-addons. This is due to the package wanting to install its own set of IPset modules. Fortunately, such cases are few and far between in the Gentooverse. People doing exotic things are naturally expected to Know What They Are Doing™ :-) Rgds,
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On Sat, Dec 10, 2011 at 12:39 PM, Pandu Poluan pa...@poluan.info wrote: On Dec 11, 2011 12:02 AM, Grant Edwards grant.b.edwa...@gmail.com wrote: On 2011-12-10, Pandu Poluan pa...@poluan.info wrote: And even you can't guarantee that the kernels are the same. Many distros introduce their own distro-specific patches to the vanilla kernel. RedHat is particularly bad about this. I maintain a couple Linux drivers that have to work with a wide range of kernel versions. There are lot's of #ifdef's that depend on not only the kernel and some of them also have to check whether it's a _RedHat_ kernel or not, since RedHat is fond of shipping a kernel with version X.Y.Z that isn't even close to compatible with the driver API for vanilla kernel X.Y.Z. With Gentoo, it's even more complicated, as most experienced Gentooroids will configure and compile their own kernels. I've never had to add special code to a driver to handle the Gentoo version of a kernel. Ah, I see that I might have misconstrued myself. My bad. Regarding drivers: usually they're no big deal, since the 'infrastructure' portions of the kernel (e.g., SCSI disk support) are most likely have been enabled. For most applications, usually they don't really care what's in the kernel since they operate at a quite high-level. Problems might arise though if you're doing exotic things. For example: If I built the IPset portion as 'built-in' into the kernel, I won't be able to install xtables-addons. This is due to the package wanting to install its own set of IPset modules. Fortunately, such cases are few and far between in the Gentooverse. People doing exotic things are naturally expected to Know What They Are Doing™ :-) Speaking from experience, the real difficulty is knowing that you're doing something exotic. Once you find out, you generally have two options: Follow the route most people go (such as is happening with udev), or help fix the system so that your desired approach still works (such as the fellow who's been working with mdev). If you're constantly exploring, you'll very likely hit the exotic edge cases, but then that's going to be part of learning the thing you're exploring. Gentoo can be really great for that. Even better, in that it's often not that hard (after a while) to help smooth those edges, making it easier to go on exploring. -- :wq
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On 7 December 2011 15:58, Grant Edwards grant.b.edwa...@gmail.com wrote: On 2011-12-07, Stroller strol...@stellar.eclipse.co.uk wrote: On 6 December 2011, at 23:25, Grant Edwards wrote: ... The Ubuntu documentation seems to be mainly user-forum threads full of wrong answers posted by people who didn't understand the question. I tried Ubuntu, hated this *so* much. I'm sure all the respondents were just trying to be helpful, but they made Ubuntu look like the distro of idiots. Ubuntu is intended to be usable by people ignorant of how Linux/Unix works. As such, it does tend to get used by people who are ignorant of how Linux/Unix works. Asking such a group for technical help is an express-train to frustration -- but there doesn't really seem to be anywhere you can ask questions of Ubuntu users who _do_ understand things. This actually expresses it quite well - because they dropped the barrier to entry, they end up with a much wider audience, but one which doesn't obsess over learning how their system operates as much as other distros. Additionally, Ubuntu suffers from the devs attempts to include the newest versions of packages as stable before the majority of distros think that they are ready[1], while trying to maintain wide 'it just works' compatibility. They also tend towards over-engineering around problems in linux / apt, rather than solving the root problem, or relying on their users to adapt or deal with it themselves.[2] Especially in the past, they have allowed their political views on Open Source / Free Software to interfere with the best user experience[3]. [1] Pulseaudio, KDE4 (others, I'm sure) [2] The grub2 config process in Ubuntu is torturous, and includes editing a file in /etc/defaults of all things. [3] The whole concept of 'restricted extras' is detrimental to distro usability, as is having a separate package-manager-frontend for installing them, as is a separate repository which is disabled by default.
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On Thu, Dec 8, 2011 at 9:10 AM, James Broadhead jamesbroadh...@gmail.com wrote: [snip] Especially in the past, they have allowed their political views on Open Source / Free Software to interfere with the best user experience[3]. [3] The whole concept of 'restricted extras' is detrimental to distro usability, as is having a separate package-manager-frontend for installing them, as is a separate repository which is disabled by default. I'm not a fan of Ubuntu, but that really didn't start with them. *Debian* has it in a far worse way. As an example, say you're in my position and want Squid running as a website accelerator, and you want SSL support. Squid can do this. Except the binary packages Debian builds have SSL disabled because of fears of incompatible licenses between Squid and OpenSSL. -- :wq
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On Thu, 8 Dec 2011 01:55:20 -0500 LinuxIsOne linuxis...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 2:06 PM, Claudio Roberto França Pereira spide...@gmail.com wrote: Going back to Ubuntu bashing, I think that the multiple versions, multiple repositories, multiple software choices (gnome 2, then unity, for example, hal then no hal) get in the way of the newbie user. Gentoo solves that by making the user understand what he's doing, how he's system works. But at least the user should be know what he is going to do in the only way possible - CLI! That's not a workable approach in the big wide world out there. It's simplistic taken to the point of extreme. -- Alan McKinnnon alan.mckin...@gmail.com
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On 8 December 2011 14:25, Michael Mol mike...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Dec 8, 2011 at 9:10 AM, James Broadhead jamesbroadh...@gmail.com wrote: Especially in the past, they have allowed their political views on Open Source / Free Software to interfere with the best user experience[3]. [3] The whole concept of 'restricted extras' is detrimental to distro usability, as is having a separate package-manager-frontend for installing them, as is a separate repository which is disabled by default. I'm not a fan of Ubuntu, but that really didn't start with them. *Debian* has it in a far worse way. As an example, say you're in my position and want Squid running as a website accelerator, and you want SSL support. Squid can do this. Except the binary packages Debian builds have SSL disabled because of fears of incompatible licenses between Squid and OpenSSL. Especially in the past _means_ 'back when they were closer to being Debian'. Things have improved over the years, but it's still difficult to get a codec-heavy mplayer in Ubuntu without building it manually for example.
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 3:35 PM, Indi thebeelzebubtrig...@gmail.com wrote: Whaddayatawkinbout, gentoo is more than great, it's awesome! Gentoo isn't intended for beginners, and makes no claims about user friendliness of which I'm aware. Generally speaking, making things user friendly entails adding more layers of abstraction. It's nice for those who don't want to study to learn how to use their computer, but it's not going to give the best performance. Security is also frequently impacted to some degree. I just want to say that I love Gentoo Linux, have used it as my primary OS for years on multiple computers and can't stand to use anything else. I like having total control over everything. I truly enjoy it, the Gentoo Way just feels like the right way in general to me. That is my subjective opinion. But I also want to say that just because you're forced to do things yourself doesn't mean that makes them inherently better-performing or secure. :) One can just as easily screw up their CFLAGS and a have terrible security setup, especially a beginner. This list's archives are full of such stories... I say install a binary distro to get your feet wet with Linux. Understand the basic concepts of how the system works, using a shell, editing config files, etc. Once that's not a 100% foreign experience to you, then go and install Gentoo using the great docs, wikis, forums, mailing lists and IRC as your guide, and we can be your hand-holding friends along the way. I would also suggest using a virtual machine for your first installations. It will make it a lot less scary. You messed up partitioning? No problem, you didn't just destroy your Windows installation or your life-long collection of digital photos (that you probably never got around to making a backup of). As a newbie to Linux, comparing distros is usually equivalent to comparing the default desktop environment, wallpaper and color scheme. They don't know enough to care about bootloader, filesystem layout, LVM, package manager, or whatever holy wars linux distros are having these days. :) A beginner can certainly follow along the Gentoo install docs, but I think it takes a certain kind of person to tolerate it... Blindly copy-pasting commands that they don't understand isn't necessarily going to teach them anything. Not any more than blindly copy-pasting example code from a programming textbook makes you a programmer... Having at least some basic understand of the commands you're typing in will greatly enhance the experience, in my opinion. Good luck to the OP, whatever he chooses. Welcome to the dark side. :)
[gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On 2011-12-08, LinuxIsOne linuxis...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Dec 8, 2011 at 5:58 AM, James Broadhead jamesbroadh...@gmail.com wrote: The next time you have a problem with anything related to linux, follow a link to an Ubuntu user forum. Unfortunately, the quality of advice on them tends to be pretty low. :-( Really? Yes, really. When searching for answers to Ubuntu questions, I've learned to ignore the user forum. -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! I own seven-eighths of at all the artists in downtown gmail.comBurbank!
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
Grant Edwards wrote: On 2011-12-08, LinuxIsOnelinuxis...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Dec 8, 2011 at 5:58 AM, James Broadhead jamesbroadh...@gmail.com wrote: The next time you have a problem with anything related to linux, follow a link to an Ubuntu user forum. Unfortunately, the quality of advice on them tends to be pretty low. :-( Really? Yes, really. When searching for answers to Ubuntu questions, I've learned to ignore the user forum. I learned to ask here. lol Dale :-) :-) -- I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how you interpreted my words! Miss the compile output? Hint: EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS=--quiet-build=n
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
Den 07. des. 2011 01:15, skrev Indi: On Wed, Dec 07, 2011 at 12:40:01AM +0100, Grant Edwards wrote: On 2011-12-06, ny6...@gmail.comny6...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Dec 06, 2011 at 11:15:31AM +, Neil Bothwick wrote: On Tue, 6 Dec 2011 05:54:22 -0500, LinuxIsOne wrote: But I don't know why the creators of Gentoo made it so difficult for beginners! Because Gentoo is not for beginners, there are already plenty of distros, like Mandriva and Ubuntu, catering for first time users. Gentoo is a power users distro. And yet the documentation is clear enough for anyone to follow along. Which leads me to my next point: the Gentoo documentation is far and away the best of any distro I have tried. Definitely. The Ubuntu documentation seems to be mainly user-forum threads full of wrong answers posted by people who didn't understand the question. Whoever writes these docs deserves a heap of accolades for his efforts. The Gentoo docs are indeed brilliant. They really are. When you have great documentaion, a shell, and a keyboard that *is* user-friendly! ;)! It tells you something that quite often when I google for some-problem-description and debian/ubuntu/suse/windows/whatever, quite often the only hits to come up are gentoo-related. On debian the gentoo answer is usually useful, on ubuntu ... well, 'nuff sed.
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On Wed, 07 Dec 2011 10:09:27 +0100 Håkon Alstadheim ha...@alstadheim.priv.no wrote: They really are. When you have great documentaion, a shell, and a keyboard that *is* user-friendly! ;)! It tells you something that quite often when I google for some-problem-description and debian/ubuntu/suse/windows/whatever, quite often the only hits to come up are gentoo-related. On debian the gentoo answer is usually useful, on ubuntu ... well, 'nuff sed. It's not just the Gentoo docs, it's this very list here too. The fellow who sits two desks away from me reckons he's lost count of the number of times Google finds the exact answer he's looking for in a post to gentoo-user :-) He has many machines, only one of them runs Gentoo. But we still are the ones who come up with answers. -- Alan McKinnnon alan.mckin...@gmail.com
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On Wed, 7 Dec 2011 12:32:22 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote: The fellow who sits two desks away from me reckons he's lost count of the number of times Google finds the exact answer he's looking for in a post to gentoo-user :-) Wouldn't it be quicker to just ask you? ;-) -- Neil Bothwick If you consult enough experts, you can confirm any opinion. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
[gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On 2011-12-07, Stroller strol...@stellar.eclipse.co.uk wrote: On 6 December 2011, at 23:25, Grant Edwards wrote: ... The Ubuntu documentation seems to be mainly user-forum threads full of wrong answers posted by people who didn't understand the question. I tried Ubuntu, hated this *so* much. I'm sure all the respondents were just trying to be helpful, but they made Ubuntu look like the distro of idiots. Ubuntu is intended to be usable by people ignorant of how Linux/Unix works. As such, it does tend to get used by people who are ignorant of how Linux/Unix works. Asking such a group for technical help is an express-train to frustration -- but there doesn't really seem to be anywhere you can ask questions of Ubuntu users who _do_ understand things. -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! All this time I've at been VIEWING a RUSSIAN gmail.comMIDGET SODOMIZE a HOUSECAT!
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
Grant Edwards wrote: On 2011-12-07, Strollerstrol...@stellar.eclipse.co.uk wrote: On 6 December 2011, at 23:25, Grant Edwards wrote: ... The Ubuntu documentation seems to be mainly user-forum threads full of wrong answers posted by people who didn't understand the question. I tried Ubuntu, hated this *so* much. I'm sure all the respondents were just trying to be helpful, but they made Ubuntu look like the distro of idiots. Ubuntu is intended to be usable by people ignorant of how Linux/Unix works. As such, it does tend to get used by people who are ignorant of how Linux/Unix works. Asking such a group for technical help is an express-train to frustration -- but there doesn't really seem to be anywhere you can ask questions of Ubuntu users who _do_ understand things. I installed Kubuntu for my brother a while back. I asked questions about it on here. One thing I have learned about this list, even if you ask a question about M$, you get a answer and sometimes more than one. I think about all the people here are geeks, nerds or some such thing. Dale :-) :-) -- I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how you interpreted my words! Miss the compile output? Hint: EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS=--quiet-build=n
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On Dec 7, 2011 11:02 PM, Grant Edwards grant.b.edwa...@gmail.com wrote: On 2011-12-07, Stroller strol...@stellar.eclipse.co.uk wrote: On 6 December 2011, at 23:25, Grant Edwards wrote: ... The Ubuntu documentation seems to be mainly user-forum threads full of wrong answers posted by people who didn't understand the question. I tried Ubuntu, hated this *so* much. I'm sure all the respondents were just trying to be helpful, but they made Ubuntu look like the distro of idiots. Ubuntu is intended to be usable by people ignorant of how Linux/Unix works. As such, it does tend to get used by people who are ignorant of how Linux/Unix works. Asking such a group for technical help is an express-train to frustration -- but there doesn't really seem to be anywhere you can ask questions of Ubuntu users who _do_ understand things. askubuntu.com (a part of the StackExchange network) is a good place to ask Ubuntu-related questions. Heck, the whole StackExchange sites are wonderful. I myself frequent StackOverflow (where I answer bash questions), ServerFault (mostly answering iptables questions), and SuperUser (where I ask questions). My handle in StackExchange is pepoluan. Rgds,
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On Dec 7, 2011 11:12 PM, Dale rdalek1...@gmail.com wrote: Grant Edwards wrote: On 2011-12-07, Strollerstrol...@stellar.eclipse.co.uk wrote: On 6 December 2011, at 23:25, Grant Edwards wrote: ... The Ubuntu documentation seems to be mainly user-forum threads full of wrong answers posted by people who didn't understand the question. I tried Ubuntu, hated this *so* much. I'm sure all the respondents were just trying to be helpful, but they made Ubuntu look like the distro of idiots. Ubuntu is intended to be usable by people ignorant of how Linux/Unix works. As such, it does tend to get used by people who are ignorant of how Linux/Unix works. Asking such a group for technical help is an express-train to frustration -- but there doesn't really seem to be anywhere you can ask questions of Ubuntu users who _do_ understand things. I installed Kubuntu for my brother a while back. I asked questions about it on here. One thing I have learned about this list, even if you ask a question about M$, you get a answer and sometimes more than one. I think about all the people here are geeks, nerds or some such thing. I think that's because we're technophiles first, Gentooroid second. :-) Rgds,
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
Yeah, I agree. Going back to Ubuntu bashing, I think that the multiple versions, multiple repositories, multiple software choices (gnome 2, then unity, for example, hal then no hal) get in the way of the newbie user. Gentoo solves that by making the user understand what he's doing, how he's system works.
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 2:06 PM, Claudio Roberto França Pereira spide...@gmail.com wrote: Going back to Ubuntu bashing, I think that the multiple versions, multiple repositories, multiple software choices (gnome 2, then unity, for example, hal then no hal) get in the way of the newbie user. Gentoo solves that by making the user understand what he's doing, how he's system works. But at least the user should be know what he is going to do in the only way possible - CLI!
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 11:09 AM, Dale rdalek1...@gmail.com wrote: One thing I have learned about this list, even if you ask a question about M$, you get a answer and sometimes more than one. I think about all the people here are geeks, nerds or some such thing. And what response you got when did you ask in Ubuntu lists?
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 5:32 AM, Alan McKinnon alan.mckin...@gmail.com wrote: But we still are the ones who come up with answers. Nice to know! Cool!
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 6:32 PM, Mick michaelkintz...@gmail.com wrote: I no longer run Gentoo on my Pentium IBM laptop - let's face it with 72M RAM even fluxbox was a bit sluggish! Ha! ;)- I do however run it on my 1998 vintage Pentium 3 laptop and before that on a Pentium 3 Coppermine. KDE is sluggish and rebuilding KDE takes a day or so. That's why I don't run a full KDE ... ;p Only some KDE apps on e17. I guess, if Gentoo is required to be learned first and that's why it is not so popular like Ubuntu and lag far behind than it. When I asked a stranger do you know about Computers? He says, no but I know what it is. Then I asked him of Linux, he says, yes I heard of Ubuntu but I don't know! At least he heard of Ubuntu and Gentoo (when asked about) he says: Is it a country? /o\
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 6:32 PM, Mick michaelkintz...@gmail.com wrote: I do however run it on my 1998 vintage Pentium 3 laptop and before that on a Pentium 3 Coppermine. KDE is sluggish and rebuilding KDE takes a day or so. That's why I don't run a full KDE ... ;p Only some KDE apps on e17. However, Getoo could be great (I really don't know) but installing Ubuntu is working like a charm (I still don't know anything in Linux!) But I don't know why the creators of Gentoo made it so difficult for beginners! It is typical then
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On Tue, 6 Dec 2011 05:54:22 -0500, LinuxIsOne wrote: But I don't know why the creators of Gentoo made it so difficult for beginners! Because Gentoo is not for beginners, there are already plenty of distros, like Mandriva and Ubuntu, catering for first time users. Gentoo is a power users distro. -- Neil Bothwick A printer consists of three main parts: the case, the jammed paper tray and the blinking red light. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
111206 LinuxIsOne wrote: Then I asked him of ... Gentoo he says: Is it a country? No, it's a miniature penguin (smile). -- ,, SUPPORT ___//___, Philip Webb ELECTRIC /] [] [] [] [] []| Cities Centre, University of Toronto TRANSIT`-O--O---' purslowatchassdotutorontodotca
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On Tue, Dec 06, 2011 at 12:00:03PM +0100, LinuxIsOne wrote: However, Getoo could be great (I really don't know) but installing Ubuntu is working like a charm (I still don't know anything in Linux!) But I don't know why the creators of Gentoo made it so difficult for beginners! It is typical then I don't know why the creators of Gentoo made it so difficult for beginners! It is typical then Whaddayatawkinbout, gentoo is more than great, it's awesome! Gentoo isn't intended for beginners, and makes no claims about user friendliness of which I'm aware. Generally speaking, making things user friendly entails adding more layers of abstraction. It's nice for those who don't want to study to learn how to use their computer, but it's not going to give the best performance. Security is also frequently impacted to some degree. Were it otherwise, there might be fewer geeky distros and more easy ones. :) There's nothig wrong with using Ubuntu though - I tend to recommend Linux Mint over Ubuntu for eginner or non-technical users. Opensuse is just a mess everytime I try it (admittedly, more than a year has passed so maybe it's killer now). Good luck and enjoy your adventures in OSes. :) -- caveat utilitor ♫ ❤ ♫ ❤ ♫ ❤ ♫ ❤
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On Tue, Dec 06, 2011 at 12:00:02PM +0100, LinuxIsOne wrote: I guess, if Gentoo is required to be learned first and that's why it is not so popular like Ubuntu and lag far behind than it. When I asked a stranger do you know about Computers? He says, no but I know what it is. Then I asked him of Linux, he says, yes I heard of Ubuntu but I don't know! At least he heard of Ubuntu and Gentoo (when asked about) he says: Is it a country? /o\ That's ok -- we don't care much about Joe Sixpack's ignorance, and not every software project is seeking world domination. -- caveat utilitor ♫ ❤ ♫ ❤ ♫ ❤ ♫ ❤
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On Tue, Dec 06, 2011 at 11:15:31AM +, Neil Bothwick wrote: On Tue, 6 Dec 2011 05:54:22 -0500, LinuxIsOne wrote: But I don't know why the creators of Gentoo made it so difficult for beginners! Because Gentoo is not for beginners, there are already plenty of distros, like Mandriva and Ubuntu, catering for first time users. Gentoo is a power users distro. -- Neil Bothwick A printer consists of three main parts: the case, the jammed paper tray and the blinking red light. And yet the documentation is clear enough for anyone to follow along. Which leads me to my next point: the Gentoo documentation is far and away the best of any distro I have tried. Whoever writes these docs deserves a heap of accolades for his efforts. Terry
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 5:04 PM, ny6...@gmail.com wrote: And yet the documentation is clear enough for anyone to follow along. Which leads me to my next point: the Gentoo documentation is far and away the best of any distro I have tried. Whoever writes these docs deserves a heap of accolades for his efforts. Terry This doesn't get pointed out enough. I started out on Mandrake myself and as soon as I ran into a problem, there was such a drastic learning curve, dealing with RPMs was horrendous at the time, it just wasn't worth it to me to dig to find what was below the pretty layer when the pretty layer didn't cut it. Then I used Slackware, which was great for me, did exactly what I wanted when I asked and absolutely nothing I didn't ask for... but it wasn't until I jumped into LFS that I really learned a great deal about *how* Linux actually works. Gentoo is the only place I've found comparable documentation to LFS, and even when dealing with other distros I find myself relying on Gentoo and LFS documentation more *each* than all others combined. -- Poison [BLX] Joshua M. Murphy
[gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On 2011-12-06, Indi thebeelzebubtrig...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Dec 06, 2011 at 12:00:03PM +0100, LinuxIsOne wrote: However, Getoo could be great (I really don't know) but installing Ubuntu is working like a charm (I still don't know anything in Linux!) But I don't know why the creators of Gentoo made it so difficult for beginners! Because that's the price of making it good for experienced users. A lot of people will try to tell you it doesn't have to be that way, but experience always seems to prove it is that way. It is typical then I don't know why the creators of Gentoo made it so difficult for beginners! It is typical then Whaddayatawkinbout, gentoo is more than great, it's awesome! Gentoo isn't intended for beginners, and makes no claims about user friendliness of which I'm aware. Generally speaking, making things user friendly entails adding more layers of abstraction. And removing choice. Ubuntu is _great_ if you want to accomplish the same things in the same ways as the Ubuntu developers intended. If you want to do anything they didn't think of ahead of time (or if you just want to do it in a different manner), it's like trying to swim up a cliff. -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! I'm using my X-RAY at VISION to obtain a rare gmail.comglimpse of the INNER WORKINGS of this POTATO!!
[gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On 2011-12-06, ny6...@gmail.com ny6...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Dec 06, 2011 at 11:15:31AM +, Neil Bothwick wrote: On Tue, 6 Dec 2011 05:54:22 -0500, LinuxIsOne wrote: But I don't know why the creators of Gentoo made it so difficult for beginners! Because Gentoo is not for beginners, there are already plenty of distros, like Mandriva and Ubuntu, catering for first time users. Gentoo is a power users distro. And yet the documentation is clear enough for anyone to follow along. Which leads me to my next point: the Gentoo documentation is far and away the best of any distro I have tried. Definitely. The Ubuntu documentation seems to be mainly user-forum threads full of wrong answers posted by people who didn't understand the question. Whoever writes these docs deserves a heap of accolades for his efforts. The Gentoo docs are indeed brilliant. -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! Here I am in the at POSTERIOR OLFACTORY LOBULE gmail.combut I don't see CARL SAGAN anywhere!!
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On Wed, Dec 07, 2011 at 12:40:01AM +0100, Grant Edwards wrote: On 2011-12-06, ny6...@gmail.com ny6...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Dec 06, 2011 at 11:15:31AM +, Neil Bothwick wrote: On Tue, 6 Dec 2011 05:54:22 -0500, LinuxIsOne wrote: But I don't know why the creators of Gentoo made it so difficult for beginners! Because Gentoo is not for beginners, there are already plenty of distros, like Mandriva and Ubuntu, catering for first time users. Gentoo is a power users distro. And yet the documentation is clear enough for anyone to follow along. Which leads me to my next point: the Gentoo documentation is far and away the best of any distro I have tried. Definitely. The Ubuntu documentation seems to be mainly user-forum threads full of wrong answers posted by people who didn't understand the question. Whoever writes these docs deserves a heap of accolades for his efforts. The Gentoo docs are indeed brilliant. They really are. When you have great documentaion, a shell, and a keyboard that *is* user-friendly! ;)! -- caveat utilitor ♫ ❤ ♫ ❤ ♫ ❤ ♫ ❤
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On Tue, Dec 06, 2011 at 11:23:22PM +, Grant Edwards wrote: I don't know why the creators of Gentoo made it so difficult for beginners! It is typical then Whaddayatawkinbout, gentoo is more than great, it's awesome! Gentoo isn't intended for beginners, and makes no claims about user friendliness of which I'm aware. Generally speaking, making things user friendly entails adding more layers of abstraction. And removing choice. Ubuntu is _great_ if you want to accomplish the same things in the same ways as the Ubuntu developers intended. If you want to do anything they didn't think of ahead of time (or if you just want to do it in a different manner), it's like trying to swim up a cliff. That’s why you have a different Ubuntu distribution for every single medium and major desktops. *SCNR* -- Gruß | Greetings | Qapla' I forbid any use of my email addresses with Facebook services. In order for more and more people having to do even less, less and less people have to do even more. pgpnP11EUicE8.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On Sun, Dec 04, 2011 at 03:40:01PM +0100, Michael Mol wrote: On Sun, Dec 4, 2011 at 8:44 AM, Harry Putnam rea...@newsguy.com wrote: For the OP, a few posters have mentioned that under gentoo, every thing is compiled from scratch, but it was not made clear that it happens again and again at most updates. No one has made clear that there is a very HUGE amount of time sunk into compiling absolutely everything. I'd say bull, but that depends *greatly* on your hardware. When I talk about Gentoo with my friends, they admit to having tried it, but then say it took them a long, long time to build a system on their 486. You don't want to run Gentoo compiles on a 486. You probably ought not to run Gentoo compiles on any x86 processor older than an Athlon64 or Intel Core chip. I have gentoo on a few machines here, including a Pentium-M powered Thinkpad (single core, 1.7GHz) and a G4 eMac (single core PPC, 1.25GHz). They handle it just fine, though it does take awhile to update of course. Never the two or three days people love to cry about, but then I don't use gnome or kde, so maybe it would if I did... As long as I keep them updated weekly, it rarely takes more than four hours and often takes as little as 60-90 minutes. I'm using fvwm these days, in case anyone's curious. Lot of work to set up, but it does everything extremely well once configured. The difference in the performance with gentoo on a lower spec machine does make it pretty worthwhile to suffer the updates, IMO. In fact, I like gentoo and FreeBSD best for low-spoec hardware. YMMV of course... :) -- caveat utilitor ♫ ❤ ♫ ❤ ♫ ❤ ♫ ❤
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 11:28 AM, Indi thebeelzebubtrig...@gmail.com wrote: In fact, I like gentoo and FreeBSD best for low-spoec hardware. What does low-spec hardware mean?
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 12:10 PM, LinuxIsOne linuxis...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 11:28 AM, Indi thebeelzebubtrig...@gmail.com wrote: In fact, I like gentoo and FreeBSD best for low-spoec hardware. What does low-spec hardware mean? Whatever the default setup of the latest release of Ubuntu runs sluggish on. (Or what a previous version of Ubuntu ran on, but current versions won't) While somewhat flippant, that seems a pretty reasonable way to think about it. -- :wq
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 9:29 AM, Michael Mol mike...@gmail.com wrote: snip What does low-spec hardware mean? Whatever the default setup of the latest release of Ubuntu runs sluggish on. (Or what a previous version of Ubuntu ran on, but current versions won't) While somewhat flippant, that seems a pretty reasonable way to think about it. snip This sounds about right, I have a Gateway netbook running a 1.6GHz processor and integrated graphics that runs Gentoo perfectly fine (XFCE mostly). The same netbook was rather sluggish running Ubuntu, and even KDE under Gentoo wasn't terribly impressive. With some reasonable CFLAGS and time to spare you can keep your compile times to within a few hours. -FF-
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On Mon, 5 Dec 2011 12:10:52 -0500 LinuxIsOne linuxis...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 11:28 AM, Indi thebeelzebubtrig...@gmail.com wrote: In fact, I like gentoo and FreeBSD best for low-spoec hardware. What does low-spec hardware mean? Anything that isn't for sale in shops anymore. -- Alan McKinnnon alan.mckin...@gmail.com
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On Mon, Dec 05, 2011 at 06:40:03PM +0100, Michael Mol wrote: On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 12:10 PM, LinuxIsOne linuxis...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 11:28 AM, Indi thebeelzebubtrig...@gmail.com wrote: In fact, I like gentoo and FreeBSD best for low-spoec hardware. What does low-spec hardware mean? Whatever the default setup of the latest release of Ubuntu runs sluggish on. (Or what a previous version of Ubuntu ran on, but current versions won't) While somewhat flippant, that seems a pretty reasonable way to think about it. Seems to me Ubuntu is sluggish no matter what hardware you have. Peopple pay such a high price to avoid learning anything... But I was thinking more about anything x86 or ppc and single core, or stuff like intel atom. Anything ARM. Anything pre core2duo from intel, for sure, as well as any ppc Mac. -- caveat utilitor ♫ ❤ ♫ ❤ ♫ ❤ ♫ ❤
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 3:14 PM, Indi thebeelzebubtrig...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Dec 05, 2011 at 06:40:03PM +0100, Michael Mol wrote: On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 12:10 PM, LinuxIsOne linuxis...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 11:28 AM, Indi thebeelzebubtrig...@gmail.com wrote: In fact, I like gentoo and FreeBSD best for low-spoec hardware. What does low-spec hardware mean? Whatever the default setup of the latest release of Ubuntu runs sluggish on. (Or what a previous version of Ubuntu ran on, but current versions won't) While somewhat flippant, that seems a pretty reasonable way to think about it. Seems to me Ubuntu is sluggish no matter what hardware you have. That's why I gave the description I did. What seems sluggish to you may not seem sluggish to me. It certainly won't seem sluggish to my grandmother... It tunes itself very nicely to the perceptions and needs of the individual in question. -- :wq
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On Monday 05 Dec 2011 20:20:38 Michael Mol wrote: On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 3:14 PM, Indi thebeelzebubtrig...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Dec 05, 2011 at 06:40:03PM +0100, Michael Mol wrote: On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 12:10 PM, LinuxIsOne linuxis...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 11:28 AM, Indi thebeelzebubtrig...@gmail.com wrote: In fact, I like gentoo and FreeBSD best for low-spoec hardware. What does low-spec hardware mean? Whatever the default setup of the latest release of Ubuntu runs sluggish on. (Or what a previous version of Ubuntu ran on, but current versions won't) While somewhat flippant, that seems a pretty reasonable way to think about it. Seems to me Ubuntu is sluggish no matter what hardware you have. That's why I gave the description I did. What seems sluggish to you may not seem sluggish to me. It certainly won't seem sluggish to my grandmother... It tunes itself very nicely to the perceptions and needs of the individual in question. I no longer run Gentoo on my Pentium IBM laptop - let's face it with 72M RAM even fluxbox was a bit sluggish! Ha! I do however run it on my 1998 vintage Pentium 3 laptop and before that on a Pentium 3 Coppermine. KDE is sluggish and rebuilding KDE takes a day or so. That's why I don't run a full KDE ... ;p Only some KDE apps on e17. -- Regards, Mick signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
[gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
One point no one has mentioned and I've wondered from time to time myself is whether one can expect gentoo to continue into the future for a long while, as compared to the likely hood of opensuse or maybe debian that has been around a very long time. It seemed at one time a year or so ago that gentoo's longevity was questionable. (Possibly my own mis-perception) For the OP, a few posters have mentioned that under gentoo, every thing is compiled from scratch, but it was not made clear that it happens again and again at most updates. No one has made clear that there is a very HUGE amount of time sunk into compiling absolutely everything. A single update, if one lets updating slip a bit, can literally take days to compile. And more days to reconfigure so that everything works again.
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On Sun, 04 Dec 2011 07:44:32 -0600, Harry Putnam wrote: It seemed at one time a year or so ago that gentoo's longevity was questionable. (Possibly my own mis-perception) The discussions about Gentoo's imminent demise are an annual tradition. For the OP, a few posters have mentioned that under gentoo, every thing is compiled from scratch, but it was not made clear that it happens again and again at most updates. If the OP had read so little about Gentoo that they haven't gleaned that much, it certainly is not the distro for them. No one has made clear that there is a very HUGE amount of time sunk into compiling absolutely everything. A single update, if one lets updating slip a bit, can literally take days to compile. And more days to reconfigure so that everything works again. Is the time it takes the computer (not you) to compile updates that much of an issue. Unless you desperately need some feature only in the new release, you can carry on using the computer while it compiles the new versions for you. As for reconfiguring, that has nothing to do with whether the packages were compiled on your computer or a distro's build server, but configs rarely change that significantly. -- Neil Bothwick Love is grand. Divorce is a few grand more. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On Sun, Dec 4, 2011 at 8:44 AM, Harry Putnam rea...@newsguy.com wrote: One point no one has mentioned and I've wondered from time to time myself is whether one can expect gentoo to continue into the future for a long while, as compared to the likely hood of opensuse or maybe debian that has been around a very long time. It seemed at one time a year or so ago that gentoo's longevity was questionable. (Possibly my own mis-perception) From my rudimentary gatherings while reading related blogs and historical perspectives, there are just two or three people who have been at the core of Gentoo for a very, very long time. Gentoo has long been the work of many hands, but these guys have been around the block a far more times. I don't know how well Gentoo would fare if one or three of them were to drop off the face of the earth. For the OP, a few posters have mentioned that under gentoo, every thing is compiled from scratch, but it was not made clear that it happens again and again at most updates. No one has made clear that there is a very HUGE amount of time sunk into compiling absolutely everything. I'd say bull, but that depends *greatly* on your hardware. When I talk about Gentoo with my friends, they admit to having tried it, but then say it took them a long, long time to build a system on their 486. You don't want to run Gentoo compiles on a 486. You probably ought not to run Gentoo compiles on any x86 processor older than an Athlon64 or Intel Core chip. For me, an emerge -e @world takes somewhere between four and ten hours, depending if it's the eight-core Xeon box or the quad-core Phenom box. As others noted in the build-speed optimization thread, it's pretty trivial to tune the system so that it doesn't impact many (most?) normal user activities, and can go on in the background. Otherwise, a full system rebuild isn't much more time consuming than something like a dist-upgrade on Debian or Ubuntu. There are factors you can tweak to go one way or the other, too. You might use bindists for chromium, firefox, thunderbird, xulrunner, libreoffice... That'd probably cut my Phenom system's compile time by about a quarter. I know installing a full KDE package set would *increase* build time on my system by about the same. The vast majority of the time, you're not building a full package set, but just ten or eleven packages. (if you let things slip a week or two, like I'm apt to do) A single update, if one lets updating slip a bit, can literally take days to compile. AFAIK, it can't take longer than an emerge -e @world, which I described above. And more days to reconfigure so that everything works again. That seems very unusual, unless by a bit you're talking on the order of six months. -- :wq
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
Harry Putnam wrote: One point no one has mentioned and I've wondered from time to time myself is whether one can expect gentoo to continue into the future for a long while, as compared to the likely hood of opensuse or maybe debian that has been around a very long time. It seemed at one time a year or so ago that gentoo's longevity was questionable. (Possibly my own mis-perception) For the OP, a few posters have mentioned that under gentoo, every thing is compiled from scratch, but it was not made clear that it happens again and again at most updates. No one has made clear that there is a very HUGE amount of time sunk into compiling absolutely everything. A single update, if one lets updating slip a bit, can literally take days to compile. And more days to reconfigure so that everything works again. People have been claiming Gentoo is dying for years. I seriously doubt that is going to happen anytime soon. I did sort of mention the compile times. Thing is, we don't know what sort of rig the OP has. If he has a really old rig, that could result is some long compile times. If it is a recently bought/built rig, then it may be fast enough to not matter. It seems no matter how much info a post has, there is always something missing. :/ I'm just glad I buy my tea loose. I can read the tea leaves easier. O_O Dale :-) :-) -- I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how you interpreted my words!
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On Sun, 4 Dec 2011 13:55:28 + Neil Bothwick n...@digimed.co.uk wrote: For the OP, a few posters have mentioned that under gentoo, every thing is compiled from scratch, but it was not made clear that it happens again and again at most updates. If the OP had read so little about Gentoo that they haven't gleaned that much, it certainly is not the distro for them. I'd go so far as to say that if a user does not already have a reasonable grasp of how Gentoo works, can't give you a one-paragraph description of Gentoo that is reasonably accurate, and can't describe the concepts of how an ebuild would work, then Gentoo is not the distro for that user. Gentoo is like fine Italian vehicles - you can get stunning performance IF you know what you are doing, know what all the bits mean and are prepared to invest the insane amount of time and effort it requires (per the rule of diminishing returns). There's always a few edge cases like James, who simply cannot find any other useful way to build his embedded images. I suspect James looked at the landscape and saw two choices: build his own build machinery, or use Gentoo's which fits most of his needs most of the time. As soon as someone asks a question like which is better, OpenSuSE or Gentoo? you almost always know the answer cannot possibly be Gentoo. That user has to play with OpenSuSE for a while to discover for himself why this is so. I'm going to get flamed for this, and be accused of being elitist. It happens every time. And that's OK: If SuSE/RedHat were likened to good ready-made furniture, Debian would be top-grade DIY kits (they follow a formula but the user has some freedom to tweak what they build) and Gentoo wouldn't be furniture, it would be a cabinet-maker (with a concession that the user doesn't have to grow their own trees anymore, he can at least buy ready cut planks). LFS is the one that requires you to grow your own trees as well. There's a place in this world for amateur and professional cabinet-makers, but do we really want to recommend that the average DIY guy has to become one? I say suggest that the potential tinkerers cut their teeth on Debian first then switch to Gentoo on their own determinism when they understand the cost/benefit ratio themselves and can make an informed decision. -- Alan McKinnnon alan.mckin...@gmail.com
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
Alan McKinnon wrote: On Sun, 4 Dec 2011 13:55:28 + Neil Bothwickn...@digimed.co.uk wrote: For the OP, a few posters have mentioned that under gentoo, every thing is compiled from scratch, but it was not made clear that it happens again and again at most updates. If the OP had read so little about Gentoo that they haven't gleaned that much, it certainly is not the distro for them. I'd go so far as to say that if a user does not already have a reasonable grasp of how Gentoo works, can't give you a one-paragraph description of Gentoo that is reasonably accurate, and can't describe the concepts of how an ebuild would work, then Gentoo is not the distro for that user. Gentoo is like fine Italian vehicles - you can get stunning performance IF you know what you are doing, know what all the bits mean and are prepared to invest the insane amount of time and effort it requires (per the rule of diminishing returns). There's always a few edge cases like James, who simply cannot find any other useful way to build his embedded images. I suspect James looked at the landscape and saw two choices: build his own build machinery, or use Gentoo's which fits most of his needs most of the time. As soon as someone asks a question like which is better, OpenSuSE or Gentoo? you almost always know the answer cannot possibly be Gentoo. That user has to play with OpenSuSE for a while to discover for himself why this is so. I'm going to get flamed for this, and be accused of being elitist. It happens every time. And that's OK: No flames from me. I agree. I wouldn't recommend Gentoo to someone who has no, or even very little, Linux experience. Looking back, I was one heck of a noob when I installed Gentoo. It had to be fools luck that I got it done. Then again, the docs were, and still are, really good. You can dang near copy and paste the commands. If SuSE/RedHat were likened to good ready-made furniture, Debian would be top-grade DIY kits (they follow a formula but the user has some freedom to tweak what they build) and Gentoo wouldn't be furniture, it would be a cabinet-maker (with a concession that the user doesn't have to grow their own trees anymore, he can at least buy ready cut planks). LFS is the one that requires you to grow your own trees as well. There's a place in this world for amateur and professional cabinet-makers, but do we really want to recommend that the average DIY guy has to become one? I say suggest that the potential tinkerers cut their teeth on Debian first then switch to Gentoo on their own determinism when they understand the cost/benefit ratio themselves and can make an informed decision. They can also do the install to a separate drive from within another distro too. That way they can have the docs, forums and other useful tools available. I know, I have heard of Knoppix too. Just saying. Dale :-) :-) -- I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how you interpreted my words! Miss the compile output? Hint: EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS=--quiet-build=n
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
Dale writes: No flames from me. I agree. I wouldn't recommend Gentoo to someone who has no, or even very little, Linux experience. Looking back, I was one heck of a noob when I installed Gentoo. It had to be fools luck that I got it done. Then again, the docs were, and still are, really good. You can dang near copy and paste the commands. I know some people who had very few experience with Linux. But they succeeded in installing Gentoo. And they learnt a lot by doing so. If you installed Gentoo, you know Linux. That's what I like about Gentoo. You know what you are doing, and many integral parts are easier to understand than with another distro, where things are hidden by GUI config tools. But if you just want to have a Linux to play around with, go with a binary distro. You can install Gentoo later if you like, even while using the Linux you already have. If you have some space onthe disk to add other partitions. Did I mention yet that LVM is nice for this? Wonko
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On Sun, 04 Dec 2011 18:16:19 +0100 Alex Schuster wo...@wonkology.org wrote: No flames from me. I agree. I wouldn't recommend Gentoo to someone who has no, or even very little, Linux experience. Looking back, I was one heck of a noob when I installed Gentoo. It had to be fools luck that I got it done. Then again, the docs were, and still are, really good. You can dang near copy and paste the commands. I know some people who had very few experience with Linux. But they succeeded in installing Gentoo. And they learnt a lot by doing so. If you installed Gentoo, you know Linux. I think we all know at least one person like that. Myself, I've trained more than just a few (the training salesperson had a knack for signing up people who had the smarts to cope with Gentoo). But for every one like that, there are at least 10 more that can't, and so often in this game I find that others are just not able to spot those 10. And worse, the 10 often give up and go back to Windows. So the question is not really can the user do it?, it is rather how will *this* person in front of me right now be best served? An equally good question is does this person right now asking me a question have what it takes to dive into Gentoo blindly, and swim? The answers to those questions are what should guide you. That's what I like about Gentoo. You know what you are doing, and many integral parts are easier to understand than with another distro, where things are hidden by GUI config tools. Precisely, which is why RedHat is great for a Windows sysadmin who really does want a plug-n-play distro. Debian is great for people who want to tinker safely - you get the plug-n-play of a binary distro and you also get build tools that don't explode in your face every time you try do something that is not exactly 100% TheTrueRedHatWay. But if you just want to have a Linux to play around with, go with a binary distro. You can install Gentoo later if you like, even while using the Linux you already have. If you have some space onthe disk to add other partitions. Did I mention yet that LVM is nice for this? Don't forget VirtualBox/VMWare/KVM/Xen and everything else like them :-) -- Alan McKinnnon alan.mckin...@gmail.com
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On Sun, 04 Dec 2011 18:16:19 +0100 Alex Schuster wo...@wonkology.org wrote: No flames from me. I agree. I wouldn't recommend Gentoo to someone who has no, or even very little, Linux experience. Looking back, I was one heck of a noob when I installed Gentoo. It had to be fools luck that I got it done. Then again, the docs were, and still are, really good. You can dang near copy and paste the commands. I know some people who had very few experience with Linux. But they succeeded in installing Gentoo. And they learnt a lot by doing so. If you installed Gentoo, you know Linux. That's what I like about Gentoo. You know what you are doing, and many integral parts are easier to understand than with another distro, where things are hidden by GUI config tools. But if you just want to have a Linux to play around with, go with a binary distro. You can install Gentoo later if you like, even while using the Linux you already have. If you have some space onthe disk to add other partitions. Did I mention yet that LVM is nice for this? -- Alan McKinnnon alan.mckin...@gmail.com
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On Sun, 4 Dec 2011 19:37:27 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote: An equally good question is does this person right now asking me a question have what it takes to dive into Gentoo blindly, and swim? The other question is do I have time to keep diving in to rescue this person when they get out of their depth. When you recommend Gentoo, you also volunteer to provide support. -- Neil Bothwick One of the nice things about standards is that there are so many of them. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On Sun, 4 Dec 2011 20:45:26 + Neil Bothwick n...@digimed.co.uk wrote: On Sun, 4 Dec 2011 19:37:27 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote: An equally good question is does this person right now asking me a question have what it takes to dive into Gentoo blindly, and swim? The other question is do I have time to keep diving in to rescue this person when they get out of their depth. When you recommend Gentoo, you also volunteer to provide support. I was going to mention something like that too. But every time I do, I get flamed badly for being an elitist dick. Must have something to do with the way I express myself :-) I reckoned this time I'd try a different tack and attempt to keep the thread on-topic and relevant... -- Alan McKinnnon alan.mckin...@gmail.com
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
On Mon, 5 Dec 2011 00:11:08 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote: The other question is do I have time to keep diving in to rescue this person when they get out of their depth. When you recommend Gentoo, you also volunteer to provide support. I was going to mention something like that too. But every time I do, I get flamed badly for being an elitist dick. Must have something to do with the way I express myself :-) No comment :P I reckoned this time I'd try a different tack and attempt to keep the thread on-topic and relevant... Well, it is relevant, although it is not specific to Gentoo. It's the same when you recommend that a Windows using friend tries Linux (any flavour) - be prepared for plenty of phone calls. -- Neil Bothwick What's the greatest world-wide use of cowhide? To hold cows together. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
[gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
Michael Mol wrote: This. Very much this. My dive into Gentoo came as I was fed up with Debian and Ubuntu having buggy and/or outdated versions of multimedia encoding packages while trying to configure a box specced for live transcoding of h.264 to something my PS3 would like. I came to Gentoo from Linux From Scratch because I wanted something more user friendly when it came to keeping track of package dependencies and compilation procedures.
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: can one tell me: gentoo vs opensuse
Jack Byer wrote: Michael Mol wrote: This. Very much this. My dive into Gentoo came as I was fed up with Debian and Ubuntu having buggy and/or outdated versions of multimedia encoding packages while trying to configure a box specced for live transcoding of h.264 to something my PS3 would like. I came to Gentoo from Linux From Scratch because I wanted something more user friendly when it came to keeping track of package dependencies and compilation procedures. That is how I describe Gentoo, Linux from Scratch with a package manager and other neat tools. I think Gentoo is about as close to that as it gets. We all know portage is getting really good and full of features over the past few years. I may not agree with Zac on some recent default settings but he sure has pushed portage a long long ways forward. If only Gentoo could wash dishes now. File a feature request on b.g.o? LOL Dale :-) :-) -- I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how you interpreted my words!
